Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2021

Notes:
Manas Bihari Verma – a reputed aeronautical scientist and Padma Shri Awardee died recently of suffering a massive heart attack. He was 78 years old.
He has been the man behind the country’s first Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ and has closely worked with former president Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam.

Notes:
India’s GDP forecast for the FY 2021-22 has been revised to 9.8% by S&P Global Ratings recently. The rating has been downgraded from its earlier projections of 11%.
This downgrade comes in the wake of the second COVID wave in India. The agency stated that the second wave could weaken the economic recovery.

Notes:
The Ministry of Labour & Employment, has notified Section 142 of the Social Security Code, 2020, which covers the applicability of Aadhar.
It has been mandated to seek the 12-digit unique identification number from people like employees and unorganised sector workers who seek registration, avail services or receive payment under various schemes under the Social Security Code 2020.

Notes:
The Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018 was enacted to grant reservation to people of Maratha community in Maharashtra in jobs and admissions.
Recently, the Supreme Court passed an interim order staying the implementation of a law passed by the Maharashtra government in 2018. It also clarified that those who had already availed will not be affected while no further admissions will be allowed till the final decision is made.

Notes:
Billionaire Jeff Bezos owned Aerospace company named Blue Origin, has targeted the month of July for the first suborbital sightseeing trip on its specially designed aircraft named “New Shepard”.
The company has also initiated an online auction for 5 weeks, the winner of which would be offered a seat in the space craft.

Notes:
The Government of Zimbabwe, has proposed for mass killing of elephants, which is known as culling. This is aimed to reduce the population of elephants in the country, which has crossed more than a lakh.
The country is of the opinion that the large number of elephants is leading to destruction of other species habitat and is leading to increased human – animal conflict.

Notes:
The Government of India has signed a finance contract with the European Investment Bank (EIB), for a second tranche of Euro 150 million towards implementation of the Pune Metro Rail project.
The bank has approved an overall outlay of Euro 600 million for the Pune Metro project. The signing ceremony was held in a virtual manner.

Notes:
India has recently participated in the 3rd Arctic Science Ministerial (ASM3), the international platform for discussing research and cooperation in the Arctic region.
The first two meetings—ASM1 and ASM2, were held in the USA in 2016 and Germany in 2018, respectively. ASM3, jointly organised by Iceland and Japan, is the first Ministerial meeting being held in Asia. India enjoys ‘Observer’ status in the Arctic Council with twelve other countries.

Notes:
The Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. Recently, the locations where the seafloor bottoms out in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Southern oceans were mapped by the Five Deeps Expedition.
It found the deepest trench in the Indian Ocean was found at a depth of 7,187m. It is 387km from where previous data had suggested the deepest point could be.

Notes:
Conservationist, Broadcaster and historian Sir David Attenborough has been named as the People’s Advocate for the COP 26 of UN climate change summit to be held under the U.K. Presidency, in partnership with Italy. The summit is to be held this year in Glasgow.
He has been assigned the task to highlight the actions decision makers will need to take ahead of and at COP26 and to integrate all the climate related agendas of the participating nations.