Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
Department of Land Resources (DoLR), functioning under the Ministry of Rural Development, is the nodal department responsible for registering property index.
As it has fared low in the Land Administration Index part of World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) Index, the Government is planning to link e-court with land records and registration base. The pilot project has been completed in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana

Notes:
A research initiative named ‘Fund for Industrial Research Engagement (FIRE)’ has been initiated by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) in association with DST and Intel. This is aimed to increase research opportunities in fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) etc.
SERB is a statutory body established by the SERB Act 2008, under the Dept. of Science and Technology.

Notes:
Poland’s lower house of parliament passed a draft ‘Holocaust property bill’, which introduced several limitations on claims for the recovery of property lost in World War 2.
The legislation could affect up to 90 percent of property compensation requests from Holocaust survivors and their descendants. Israel has summoned Poland’s ambassador to express its disappointment over the bill.

Notes:
The Government of Jammu & Kashmir recently ended 149-year-old practice of ‘darbar move’. Darbar Move is the name given to the bi-annual shift of the secretariat and all other government offices of Jammu and Kashmir from one capital city to another.

Notes:
Nihal Sarin won the Silver Lake Open chess tournament in Serbia on June 29, 2021. The third-seeded Indian emerged on top of the field with eight points from nine rounds. The second and third places were also taken by Indians Raunak Sadhwani and Abhimanyu Puranik who scored seven points each.

Notes:
Indian Navy’s Hydrographic Survey Ship INS Sarvekshak successfully completed survey action around the site of ill-fated MV X-Press Pearl on July 2 and handed over the survey data to the Sri Lankan authorities. The X-Press Pearl reported an onboard acid leak and caught fire just as it was due to enter the Colombo harbour on May 20. The fire was put out only after 13 days.

Notes:
The Project BOLD (Bamboo Oasis on Lands in Drought) is a project of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) that seeks to create bamboo-based green patches in arid and semi-arid land zones. It was launched on July 4, 2021 from tribal village Nichla Mandwa in Udaipur, Rajasthan. It is unique and first of its kind scientific exercise serving the combined national objectives of reducing desertification and providing livelihood and multi-disciplinary rural industry support. It has been launched as part of KVIC’s “Khadi Bamboo Festival” to celebrate 75 years of independence “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”. KVIC is set to replicate the Project at Village Dholera in Ahmedabad district in Gujarat and Leh-Ladakh region by August this year. Total 15,000 bamboo saplings will be planted before August, 2021.

Notes:
The Tunguska event occurred on June 30, 1908, involving a massive explosion caused by the airburst of a very large stony meteoroid near Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. It resulted in the destruction of over 80 million trees spanning across an area of 2,150 square kilometre of forest. It is estimated that at least 3 people may have lost their lives to this event.

The impact crater that has caused this incident was not found. It may have disintegrated before it reached the surface of the Earth. This event is the largest impact event in the recorded history. Much bigger impacts may have occurred during the prehistoric era.

Notes:
Nagaland is known as the Falcon Capital of the World. It became India’s 16th state on Dec. 1, 1963. The Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party’s Neiphiu Rio is its current chief minister. Recently, declaring the state as a “disturbed area”, the Centre extended the operation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the state for six more months, till December 31.

Notes:
Microsoft has collaborated with Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management (AJNIFM) to build a centre of excellence enabled with AI and emerging technologies. AJNIFM was set up in 1993 as a registered society under Ministry of Finance.
The main aim of this collaboration is to transform the public finance management, Expenditure management in India and prevent risks like money laundering, use of machine learning models for decision making etc..