Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2021

Notes:
Dal is a lake in Srinagar city, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. It is also called as the “Jewel in the crown of Kashmir”.
Recently, illegal constructions have been reported in the lake. The Lakes and Water Ways Development Authority (LAWDA), has demolished more than 170 illegal structures around the lake, in the last three months.

Notes:
The Chandra X-ray Observatory, previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, was launched by NASA, aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Recently, an image from this observatory was released by NASA. It shows threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields weaving around each other, at the center of our Mily Way Galaxy. These new observations stretch above and below our galaxy’s plane, where most of the stars are found.

Notes:
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting urged the private TV news channels to display four new national helpline numbers to help the citizens during the COVID-19 awareness initiative.
In a letter to all private TV news channels, the said these national helpline numbers should be displayed in appropriate way: The National helpline number of Health Ministry -1075, Child helpline of the Ministry of Women and Child Development-1098, Senior citizens helpline of the Social Justice Ministry – 14567 and helpline of NIMHANS for psychological support – 08046110007.

Notes:
NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the images of the clouds seen above Gale Crater of the Mars. The crater is 154 km in diameter and estimated to be about 3.5-3.8 billion years old.
The image is a combination of 21 individual photographs the rover took recently to study a strange type of cloud over the Gale Crater. The Scientists made the rover watch for the early clouds, as it was observed that the cloud type was forming earlier in the Martian year.

Notes:
NASA has planned to send 128 baby squids and some 5,000 tardigrades, also called as Water Bears to the International Space Station for research purposes.
The water animals will be launched aboard SpaceX’s 22nd cargo resupply mission to the ISS. The experiments will also help to understand how beneficial microbes interact with animals. The experiments would also help design protective measures for astronauts going for long space travel.

Notes:
The rate of global unemployment in the year 2022 is estimated to be 5.7% by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
ILO has estimated that nearly 205 million unemployed people would exist around the world, which is higher than the 2019 level of 187 million. Further the ILO has stated that 108 million more number of workers have been categorized as poor or extremely poor.

Notes:
The Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched the Seed Minikit Programme by distributing kits of higher yielding varieties of seeds to farmers.
It aims to introduce new varieties of seeds to the farmers and helps in increasing the seed replacement rate. The mini kits are being provided by the National Seeds Corporation (NCS), NAFED and Gujarat State Seeds Corporation and wholly funded by the Union through the National Food Security Mission.

Notes:
A bipartisan legislation was re-introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to eliminate the per-country cap on employment-based green card.
This new law is called as the EAGLE Act 2021. Currently, there is a 7% per-country limit on Visa issuance by the United States. If this law is cleared by the Senate, this would benefit a lot of Indian professionals and their family members who wish to immigrate to the country.

Notes:
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities including cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar.
According to the recent index, food prices in May were 4.8% higher than April. This is registered as the biggest monthly rise since October 2010. The prices was also 39.7% higher than this time last year, May 2020.

Notes:
The Consumer Confidence Survey is conducted by the Reserve Bank of India, which provides the respondent’s perceptions on general economic conditions.
Recently, the RBI has released the Consumer Confidence Index, which has recorded an all-time low due to the second wave of COVID 19 disease. The Current Situation Index (CSI) fell to 48.5 and the Future Expectation Index (FEI) fell to 96.4.