Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
Microblogging platform Twitter announced to shut down its Fleets feature from August 3. The reason for discontinuing is its failure to attract more users.
Twitter introduced the disappearing stories feature in November last year, similar to Instagram. Unlike normal Tweets, Fleets disappear after 24 hours and do not get Retweets, Likes, or public replies, and people can only react to the Fleets with Direct Messages.

Notes:
The Labour Ministers of five BRICS nations -Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa took part in the BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Declaration.
India’s Union Minister for Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav chaired the 7th BRICS meeting. The five countries resolved to recover with stronger national economies, inclusive labour markets and social protection systems. Russia organized the 6th meeting of Labour and Employment Ministers in Moscow on October 9, 2020.

Notes:
The long and cumbersome nomenclature ‘Common High Court of UT of Jammu and Kashmir and UT of Ladakh’ has been changed to ‘High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh’. The order was notified by the Department of Justice in the Law Ministry.
President Ram Nath Kovind has signed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2021, which spelled out the original name.

Notes:
The Government of India has hiked the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in pension fund management under the national pension system (NPS) from 49% to 74%. This move is expected to make more players available in this sector.
Presently the 4 out pension fund managers of NPS – HDFC Pension Management, ICICI Prudential Pension Funds, Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund and Aditya Birla Sun Life have significant foreign investments in them.

Notes:
The Union Government has decided to set up the Indian Institute of Heritage in Noida, as an umbrella body under which all heritage institutes in the country will operate.
The institute will offer masters and PhD courses in history of arts, archaeology, manuscriptology among others. It will be a “deemed to be university” institute formed by integrating the Institute of Archaeology, National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property, National Museum Institute of History of Conservation and Museology (NMICHM) and the academic wing of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

Notes:
The Oxfam International recently released a report titled ‘Inequality Report 2021: India’s Unequal Healthcare Story’.
As per the report, the states attempting to reduce existing inequalities between the general category and SC and ST populations had lower confirmed cases of Covid-19, such as Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Also, states that have had higher GDP expenditure on health, such as Assam, Bihar and Goa, have higher recovery rates of Covid cases.

Notes:
Russian aircraft makers unveiled a prototype of the stealth fighter dubbed “Checkmate”, as per the statement from Rostec, the state-owned military giant which is responsible for exporting Russian technology.
The sneak peek of the new fifth-generation lightweight single-engine fighter jet, was unveiled to the Russian President Vladimir Putin. With a combat radius of 1,500 kilometers and seven tons of combat load, this unique fighter prototype has not been developed before in Russia.

Notes:
The International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has announced that the Australian city of Brisbane has been selected to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.
The Games of the 35th Olympiad are awarded to Brisbane, Australia. With this, Australia has become the second country after the United States to host the Olympic Games in three different cities. Before this, Melbourne had hosted Olympics in 1956 and Sydney in 2000.

Notes:
A pair of rare Chrysilla volupe spiders was recently spotted at Puttenahalli lake in Kerala. The Chrysilla volupe was believed to be extinct for 150 years, until it was discovered at the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) in 2018.
The spider belongs to the family of jumping spiders (Salticidae). Male spiders are 5.44 mm long including stretched legs and 1.76 mm wide. They have a upper skin in reddish orange colour with two shining blue stripes. Females measure 2.61 mm long and 0.88 mm wide, and have a greyish upper skin with grey eyebrows with yellow legs.

Notes:
A Parliamentary Standing Committee has approved the The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2021, without any changes.
The Bill amends the term ‘major airport’ to include group of airports. It also increased the threshold of annual passenger traffic in a major airport to 35 lakh. Previously, an airport with annual traffic more than 15 lakh were called as major airports. AERA will regulate tariff and other charges for aeronautical services for major airports and also a group of airports.