1) International Tiger Day: 29 July
•Global Tiger Day or International Tiger Day is observed on 29th July every year to raise awareness about the declining population of wild cats and making efforts to conserve them. The goal of the day is to promote a global system for protecting the natural habitats of tigers and to raise public awareness and support for tiger conservation issues. This year marks the 11th International Tiger Day.
•The theme/Slogan for the 2021 International Tiger Day celebration is “Their Survival is in our hands”.
2) Indore becomes only Indian city to make it to Int’l Clean Air Catalyst Programme
•The Indore city of Madhya Pradesh, or the cleanest city of India, has become the only city from the country to be selected for International Clean Air Catalyst Programme. The project will be operated for a period of five years to purify the air in the city with the cooperation of Indore Municipal Corporation and Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board. Under the project, USAID and partners will work with local communities to better understand local pollution sources and identify, test, accelerate, and scale solutions for cleaner, healthier air.
3) Karnataka becomes the 1st state to reserve jobs for transgender persons
•Karnataka has become the first state in the country to provide one per cent reservation for the ‘transgender community in all the government services. The government submitted a report to the High Court in this regard informing that a notification had already been issued after amending the Karnataka Civil Service (General Recruitment) Rule, 1977.
•The specifies one per cent reservation in all general as well as reserve categories for the third gender. Whenever a notification is published inviting applications for government jobs, the ‘others’ column must be added along with male and female columns. The notification also underlines that there should not be any discrimination against transgenders in the process of selection. In case of non-availability of transgender candidates, the job could be given to male or female from the same category, the notification notes.
4) GoI to set up Garima Grihas for transgender persons to provide safe shelter
•The Centre is setting up the Garima Grihas for transgender persons are with the help of community-based organizations. Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment A. Narayanaswamy informed Lok Sabha, 12 pilot shelter homes have been initiated with the aim of providing safe and secure shelter to transgender persons.
•The Garima Grihas for transgender persons is being set up with the help of community-based organizations. Such shelter homes have been set up in the states of Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.
5) Brazil landscape garden Sitio Burle Marx receives UNESCO World Heritage status
•The Sitio Burle Marx site, a landscape garden in Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro has been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites. The garden features more than 3,500 species of plants native to Rio and is considered a laboratory for botanical and landscape experimentation.
•The site has been named after Burle Marx, a Brazilian landscape architect whose designs of parks and gardens made him world-famous. The Sitio Burle Marx site was his home until 1985.
6) Najib Mikati picked as new Lebanon’s prime minister
•Billionaire businessman Najib Mikati was appointed as Lebanon’s new prime minister-designate following binding parliamentary consultations with President Michel Aoun. He ran virtually unopposed, receiving 72 votes, with former ambassador Nawaf Salam receiving just one vote. Forty-two MPs voted blank, and three MPs did not vote at all.
•His appointment comes just 11 days after Saad Hariri resigned as prime minister-designate, following nine months of political deadlock and dispute with President Aoun and his son-in-law MP Gebran Bassil.
•Lebanon’s economy continues to crumble with half the population living below the poverty line and a spiralling local currency that lost more than 90 per cent of its value. The country has been without a full-fledged government for almost one year and is struggling to reform its economy to unlock international aid.
7) Alphabet to launch a new Robotics Company called Intrinsic
•Google-parent Alphabet will launch a new robotics company, Intrinsic which will focus on building software for industrial robots. The segment comes out of X, Alphabet’s Moonshot factory that houses futuristic firms such as Waymo, Wing and Verily.
8) Hubble Finds First Evidence of Water Vapor at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede
•For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapour in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. This water vapour forms when ice from the moon’s surface sublimates that turns from solid to gas. Scientists used new and archival datasets from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to make the discovery, published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
•In 1998, Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph took the first ultraviolet (UV) images of Ganymede, which revealed colourful ribbons of electrified gas called auroral bands, and provided further evidence that Ganymede has a weak magnetic field. The similarities in these UV observations were explained by the presence of molecular oxygen (O2). But some observed features did not match the expected emissions from a pure O2 atmosphere. At the same time, scientists concluded this discrepancy was likely related to higher concentrations of atomic oxygen (O).
9) Sunjeev Sahota among 13 contenders for fiction’s Booker Prize
•Indian-origin British author, Sunjeev Sahota is among the 13 authors longlisted for the prestigious 2021 Booker Prize for fiction for his novel ‘China Room’, alongside Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers. The 2021 longlist or “The Booker Dozen” of 13 novels was unveiled after judges evaluated 158 novels published in the UK or Ireland between October 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021. A six-book shortlist will be announced on September 14, and the winner will be crowned on November 3 during a ceremony in London.
10) Paytm Payments Bank crosses 1 crore FASTags mark
•Paytm Payments Bank has become the first bank in the country to achieve the milestone of issuing 1 crore FASTags. According to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), over 3.47 crore FASTags were issued by all banks together till the end of June 2021. Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL) now has close to 28 per cent share as FASTag issuer bank. In the last 6 months alone, PPBL has equipped over 40 lakh commercial & private vehicles with FASTags.
•Besides this, Paytm Payments Bank is also India’s largest acquirer of toll plazas for the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) program offering an interoperable nationwide toll payment solution. According to PPBL, 280 out of the total 851 toll plazas across the national and state highways are now using its payment gateway to collect toll charges digitally.
