Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2023

Notes:
The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) under the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas have jointly released a report titled “IEA Oil 2023 – Supply and demand dynamics to 2028”.
According to the report, global oil demand is expected to experience a significant deceleration, nearly reaching a standstill by 2028.

Notes:
Check Point’s ‘Threat Intelligence Report 2023’ reveals that, on average, a single organization in India experienced 2,146 cyber-attacks per week over the past six months. In comparison, global organizations faced an average of 1,239 attacks during the same period.
Based on the report, the healthcare sector faced the highest number of attacks in India with 4,839 incidents, followed by education and research with 3,532 attacks. The government/military sector experienced 3,017 attacks, while the insurance/legal industry encountered 2,523 cyber-attacks.

Notes:
The United States has handed over 105 antiquities to India. The repatriation ceremony was held at the Indian Consulate in New York and the antiquities would soon be transported to India.
The handing over of the artefacts is a follow up of an agreement to the effect during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the U.S. last month. India and the U.S. have also agreed to work for a Cultural Property Agreement that would help prevent illegal trafficking of cultural artefacts in future.

Notes:
The top military leadership of Pakistan and neighboring Iran agreed to step up cooperation and intelligence sharing and take actions to prevent attacks by separatist militants along their porous border.
The agreement was reached during a visit by Pakistan’s powerful army chief General Asim Munir to Tehran following a surge in attacks in the country’s southwestern Baluchistan province, which shares a long border with Afghanistan and Iran.

Notes:
Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) said it recorded a 23% rise in visitor arrivals from India between January-May compared with the same period in 2019.
The increase in overnight visitor numbers compared to 2019 surpassed one million visitors in the first five months of the year. In the January-June period, DET, UAE body promoted economic growth through expanding tourism business.

Notes:
Australia’s state of Victoria not to host 2026 Commonwealth Games due to projected exceeding expenditures.
The state head announced that the prices could blow out to more than A7 billion (4.8 billion) from a budgeted A$2.6 billion if they went ahead.

Notes:
According to a recent study published, a fossil finding indicates that mammals may have hunted dinosaurs much larger than themselves.
The fossil, initially discovered by a farmer in 2012, was found in a location referred to as “China’s Pompeii” in the northeastern region of the country. This site was affected by a volcanic eruption millions of years ago, resulting in the burial of plants and animals.

Notes:
According to a new research report, the construction of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) will cause significant disruptions to various ecosystems, including Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park and the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Ramsar site.
The project, which is considered a major fossil fuel infrastructure linking the Tilenga and Kingfisher oilfields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in eastern Tanzania, is projected to emit around 379 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2E).

Notes:
Facebook parent company Meta has unveiled a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model called “CM3leon”. It possesses the ability to generate both images from text and text from images.
The AI model CM3Leon is also distinguished by being one of the first image generators capable of generating captions for images, laying the groundwork for more capable image-understanding models going forward.

Notes:
Solar Technology Application Resource Centre [STAR C] Initiative aims to cultivate the human capacity and skills among a Member Country’s public to encourage the undertaking of energy transition activities, creating jobs and contributing to the country’s economic growth.
India is contemplating extending its solar STAR-C initiative, operated in collaboration with the International Solar Alliance, to several Pacific Island nations.