Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2021

Notes:
Wildlife experts have observed that common cranes have returned to Ireland for shelter and breeding, after a period of 300 years.
This is believed to be a sign that our environment is improving. The breeding location is kept confidential to protect the cranes from unlawful hands.

Notes:
UN Global Road Safety Week (UNGRSW) is a biennial global road safety campaign hosted by WHO in the month of May.
The theme for the 6th UNGRSW, which is to be held 17-23 May 2021, is Streets for Life #Love30. It calls for 30 km/h default speed limits to be imposed wherever people live, walk and play in all parts of the world.

Notes:
Researchers from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new technology called Scalable and Portable Testing- SPOT.
It can be used as a coronavirus test to get accurate results from a saliva sample in less than 30 minutes. It does not require the complicated process of heating and cooling each sample to get results. SPOT also can detect multiple genes per sample and it can detect as little as one viral particle per 1-microliter drop of fluid.

Notes:
French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the Paris summit for African, European and financial leaders. They agreed on a plan to help Africa overcome the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, called the ‘New Deal for Africa and by Africa’.
French president calls for waiving of COVID vaccine patents so that Africa could begin to produce its own vaccines. The leaders have also urged WHO, WTP and Medicines Patent Pool to remove all constraints in terms of intellectual property.

Notes:
China successfully sent a new ocean-monitoring satellite Haiyang-2D (HY-2D) into orbit, on board the Long March-4B rocket.
This satellite will form a constellation with the HY-2B and HY-2C satellites to build an all-weather and round-the-clock dynamic ocean environment monitoring system. China is creating such a system which would provide early warning on marine disasters.

Notes:
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog in partnership with Innovation Center Denmark (ICDK) concluded the AIM-ICDK Water innovation challenge.
ICDK is unit under Embassy of Denmark and Denmark Technical University (DTU). This Next Generation Water Action (NGWA) Water Innovation Challenge was organised as a part of Indo-Danish bilateral Green strategic partnership.

Notes:
By integration of the e-way bill (EWB) system with FASTag and RFID, GST authorities will now be able to track real-time data of commercial vehicle movement on highways.
Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, e-way bill (EWB) is mandatory for inter-state transportation of goods valued over Rs 50,000. This move will help in curbing tax evasion and preventing revenue leakage by real-time identification.

Notes:
Tech Giant Microsoft announced its plans to retire the web browser for certain versions of Windows 10 on June 15, 2022. After that time, it will not provide support for Internet Explorer.
Microsoft announced that Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer. Some versions will continue to receive support for Internet Explorer, such as Windows 8.1 operating system.

Notes:
The Central government has approved setting up 22 new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) so far under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY).
The Union Health Ministry announced that under the 22 institutes so far, six AIIMS at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh are already fully functional and in another seven AIIMS, OPD facility and MBBS classes have started.

Notes:
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed an antibody detection-based kit, named the DIPCOVAN.
It stands for ‘DIPAS-VDx COVID 19 IgG Antibody Microwell ELISA’. The kit can be used for sero-surveillance for detecting the presence of Covid antibodies amongst the people. The kit can detect spike as well as nucleocapsid (S&N) proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.