Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2021

Notes:
Marine mucilage or “sea snot” is reported to have accumulated along the coast of Turkey. The sea snot is a thick jelly-like layer of slime which is formed by the population explosion of microscopic plants called phytoplankton.
Some Researchers believe that the increase in sea surface temperature due to climate change, has led to this effect while few others see over-fishing as the root cause.

Notes:
Microsoft has launched the first Asia Pacific Public Sector Cyber Security Executive Council. It aims to build a strong communications channel for addressing cyber threats.
It also aims to share best practices across the participating countries by accelerating public-private partnerships in cybersecurity. The council has policy makers from many Asian countries, supported by cybersecurity professionals.

Notes:
The Government teachers in Punjab have successfully completed ‘Rabta Muhim’, a week-long campaign, organised by the State School Education Department.
Through the campaign, as many as 12.71 lakh parents of primary students were contacted. The programme was aimed to facilitate the contact between parents and teachers via phone, to discuss about education, health and prevention of children from being infected with Covid.

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 Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has announced that the validity period of the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) qualifying certificate would be extended from the present 7 years to life time.
This decision was made in the National Council for Teacher Education’s (NCTE) 50th general body meeting.

Notes:
INS Sandhayak, the Indian Navy’s oldest Hydrographic Survey Vessel, was decommissioned from the Navy at Visakhapatnam on July 4, 2021.
The vessel is 40 years old and has conducted more than 200 major hydrographic surveys. It has also been a part of important operations like ‘Operation Pawan’ in Sri Lanka (1987), Operation ‘Rainbow for Humanitarian Assistance’ (2004) etc.

Notes:
Every year, 5th of June is observed as the World Environment Day by the United Nations. This day first came into being in the year 1972.
The theme for this year is “Reimagine – Recreate – Restore” and the Global Host for 2021 World Environment Day is Pakistan.

Notes:
Haryana announced the ‘Pran Vayu Devta Pension Scheme’. Under the scheme, the state would provide a “pension amount” of Rs 2,500 for maintenance of trees older than 75 years.
As per the state government announcement, this ‘tree pension’ shall continue to increase every year, in the same lines of the Old Age Samman Pension Scheme, being implemented in the state.