Important Current Affairs 6th July 2021

INTERNATIONAL

Sirisha Bandla the Indian-American woman set to fly into space

•India-origin woman Sirisha Bandla will travel to the edge of the space aboard ‘VSS Unity’ of Virgin Galactic, which is scheduled to fly off on July 11 from New Mexico. This is significant as she will be the third woman of Indian origin to go to space after Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.

•Bandla, the vice-president of government affairs at Virgin Galactic in Washington DC, will travel alongside his boss and the group’s founder, billionaire Richard Branson and four others in the company’s spaceflight.

•Bandla will take care of the researcher experience of the Unity22 mission. The 34-year-old hails from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh in India.

NATIONAL

PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the CoWin Global Conclave

•The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi inaugurated and addressed the CoWin Global Conclave, virtually. The global meet was participated by representatives from 142 countries. The Conclave was jointly organized by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and National Health Authority (NHA) with an objective to extend the Co-WIN platform as a digital public good to the world.

•India has offered its indigenously developed cloud-based CoWIN platform to be made open-source so that it is available to any and all countries.

•The CoWin Global Conclave served as a platform to share India’s learnings and experiences with regards to planning, strategizing and executing the world’s largest vaccination drive through Co-WIN.

52nd  International Film Festival of India to be held in November 2021 in Goa

•The 52nd edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will be held in Goa from 20th -28th November 2021. The regulations and poster for the 52nd IFFI were released by Hon’ble Minister of Information and Broadcasting Shri Prakash Javadekar.

•On the occasion of the birth centenary of the maestro of Indian cinema Shri Satyajit Ray, the “Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema” has been instituted from this year to be given at the IFFI every year starting from this year.

SPORTS

Red Bull’s M. Verstappen wins Formula 1’s Austrian Grand Prix 2021

•Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, the ninth race of the 2021 Formula 1 World Championship season.

•Verstappen won the race ahead of Mercedes-AMG’s Valtteri Bottas and McLaren’s Lando Norris. Lewis Hamilton – Bottas’ teammate and Verstappen’s challenger for the 2021 Drivers’ championship – came home in fourth place.

IMPORTANT DAYS

World Zoonoses Day 2021: 6 July

•World Zoonoses Day is held every year on July 6 to raise awareness of the risk of zoonotic diseases. Zoonoses are infectious diseases (virus, bacteria and parasites) that can spread from animals to humans, and vice versa, either with direct contact with animals or indirectly, vector-borne or food-borne. It was on July 6, 1885, when Louis Pasteur successfully administered the first vaccine against Rabies virus, which is a zoonotic disease.

•World Zoonoses day observed after Louis Pasteur, a French biologist successfully administered the first vaccine against Rabies virus, which is a zoonotic disease. We remembered this day every day to raise awareness against Zoonotic disease.

SUMMITS AND MOU’S

Flipkart partners with PhonePe to digitise cash-on-delivery payment

•Digital payments platform PhonePe has partnered with Flipkart to launch a contactless ‘Scan and Pay’ feature for Flipkart’s pay-on-delivery orders. Using PhonePe’s QR code solution, the Flipkart customers who earlier opted for cash on delivery can pay digitally through any UPI app at the time of delivery.

•While on one hand, the new feature will help in reducing personal contact as well as ensure safety, on the other hand, it will drive contactless payments for customers who are traditionally more comfortable with cash on delivery.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Book “Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India’s First Women in Medicine” authored by Kavitha Rao

•A book titled “Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India’s First Women in Medicine” has authored by Kavitha Rao. This book recovers the stories of India’s first women doctors, often ignored by history. In this excerpt from Kavitha Rao’s ‘Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India’s First Women in Medicine, the story of Rukhmabai Raut.

•Rukhmabai was an Indian physician and feminist. She is best known for being one of the first practising women doctors in colonial India as well as being involved in a landmark legal case involving her marriage as a child bride between 1884 and 1888.

BANKING AND ECONOMY

RBI announced change in Government securities auction methodology

•The Reserve Bank of India has announced a change in Government securities auction methodology for benchmark securities. They noted in the latest update that on a review of market conditions and market borrowing program of the government, it has been decided that benchmark securities of tenor 2-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, 14-year tenor and Floating Rate Bonds (FRBs) will be, henceforth, issued using the uniform price auction method.

•For other benchmark securities i.e. 30-year and 40-year, the auction will continue to be multiple price-based auctions, as hitherto. The above arrangement will continue till further review, note the bank.

•In a Uniform Price auction, all the successful bidders are required to pay for the allotted quantity of securities at the same rate, i.e., at the auction cut-off rate, irrespective of the rate quoted by them.

•In a Multiple Price auction, the successful bidders are required to pay for the allotted quantity of securities at the respective price/yield at which they have bid.