Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
The Marine Aids to Navigation Bill has been recently introduced in the upper house of the parliament by the Union Minister of Ports Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal.
The bill seeks to repeal the colonial era legislation of the Lighthouse Act of 1927 and is aimed to strengthen the marine aids for navigation across the country.

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:
Jeff Bezos – the founder of Amazon owns the privately funded space agency Blue Origin. The agency’s spaceship named “New Shepard” has made a successful trip to space and back to earth, with Jeff Bezos and three others on board.
The booster rocket touched down seven minutes after lift-off and the capsule containing the astronauts landed back to earth after 10 minutes after lift-off.

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 Government of India has sought an approval from the Parliament of India, for additional spending of Rs.23,675 crore for the financial year 2021-22. Of this, Rs.17,000 crore would be for additional expenditure to be made by the Union Health Ministry.
The bill for approval of additional expenditure was tabled in the Parliament by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Notes:
NASA and the Canadian space agency are building a telescope named the Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope or SuperBIT. It is said to be the successor to the Hubble telescope.
As per recent media reports, a stadium-sized helium balloon is going to be used to lift up the telescope, which is to be sent to the upper levels of the earth’s atmosphere. It has been designed by the University of Toronto, Princeton University and Durham University in England together, in conjunction with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

Notes:
The Russian Multipurpose Research Module (MLM) named the Nauka has been launched into space, towards the International Space Station.
This module is intended to service the Russian segment of the International Space Station. This is said to be the largest Russian component of the ISS.

Notes:
The Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) is an intergovernmental cooperation among 6 nations namely – India, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. It was established in the year 2000 to boost diplomatic cooperation among these countries.
Recently, the 11th Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) meeting was organized, and India was represented by the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

Notes:
The New Generation Akash Missile (Akash-NG), which is India’s advanced Surface-to-air missile has been recently tested by the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) at its Integrated Test Range (ITR) off the Odisha coast.
This missile system has been designed and developed by the DRDL, Hyderabad.

Notes:
The Assam Cabinet announced that Gaon Buras, village-level functionaries of the district administration, will hereefter be called ‘Gaon Pradhans’.
The British appointed the oldest person in the village as the head, who would oversee matters relating to land and revenue. They were called as ‘Gaon Bura’ in Assam. As several youngsters are becoming the village-level functionaries, Bura (meaning Old in Assamese) has been replaced.