Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
Jacob Zuma was the President of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. After being charged for corruption, he became the first South African president since the end of white-minority rule in 1994 to receive a prison sentence.
This arrest has triggered looting and violence in the two most populous provinces of the country, Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu-Natal. A record wave of Covid-19 infections is also grappling the country. The Current President of South Africa is Cyril Ramaphosa. Over 25,000 troops have been deployed to silence the violence.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, along with Mynvax has developed a heat-tolerant COVID-19 vaccine formulation, which has been proven effective against all current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, according to a study in animals.
The formulation also protected hamsters from the virus and remained stable at 37 degrees Celsius up to a month, and at 100 degrees Celsius for up to 90 minutes. Covishield must be kept between 2-8 degrees Celsius while the Pfizer requires specialised cold storage at (-)70 degrees Celsius.

Notes:
IRCON / Indian Railway Construction Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Railways, which is involved in engineering & construction.
The company has built the Jayanagar – Kurtha Railway between India and Nepal under the India – Nepal friendship rail project at a cost of Rs. 619 crores. The project is financed by the Government of India.

Notes:
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, is an immigration policy that grants some extra rights to illegal immigrants who were brought into the United States as minors. As per the program, they can claim a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and can receive work permits.
Recently, a Federal judge in Texas has ruled that the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by former president Barack Obama is illegal because Congress never properly approved it.

Notes:
The Project 75I is the Defence Ministry’s ambitious project to design and construct submarines for Indian Navy, indigenously.
Recently, the Defence Ministry has issued a tender amounting Rs.50,000 crore for building six conventional submarines under the project 75I and the tenders have been issued to Mazagon Dockyards Limited and Larsen and Toubro.

Notes:
Rural teacher-turned-politician Pedro Castillo became the winner of Peru’s presidential election. He is said to be the first peasant to become the President of the country,
He defeated right-wing politician Keiko Fujimori, who was backed by traditional elites, by just 44,000 votes. Peru is the world’s second-largest copper producer and its economy is devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing the poverty level to almost one-third of the population.

Notes:
Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) is the World Chess Federation, headquartered at Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded on July 20, 1924 and has as many as 195 member countries.
To commemorate the formation of FIDE, World Chess Day is celebrated on July 20, every year since 1966. The day encourages more people to play and enjoy the game of chess. Chess originated in India, moved to Persia and spread across the Southern Europe.

Notes:
The official motto of the Olympic games 2021 has bene updated from “Faster, Higher, Stronger” to “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”. This was done to reflect the solidarity towards COVID 19 pandemic. The Latin version of the new motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius, Communiter.”
“Faster, Higher, Stronger” had been the motto of the Olympics since 1894.

Notes:
The United States President’s “nuclear football” or the Presidential Emergency Satchel is said to contain the codes needed for a nuclear strike. One such briefcase nearly came within range of rioters storming the US Capitol on January 6, this year.
The Pentagon’s watchdog said that it would evaluate the safety protocols surrounding the issue and find if it were “lost, stolen or compromised.” Any nuclear strike order would be confirmed and processed only by the Military.

Notes:
Union Government is implementing Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP) as a sub scheme of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) since 2020-21.
It aims to promote traditional indigenous practices. The scheme focusses on exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs and promotes on-farm biomass recycling. Under BPKP, financial assistance of Rs 12200 per hectare for 3 years is provided for cluster formation.