Gk Snapshots on 3 June 2021
 

International Sex Workers Day 2021 – June 2

International Sex Workers Day is annually observed across the globe on 2nd June to ensure the protection of rights of the Sex workers and to tackle the abuse and trafficking problems faced by the sex workers. Every year on 2nd June, International Sex Workers Day, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) focuses on the theme of Access to Justice International Sex Workers Day is also known as International Whores Day.

Jagjit Pavadia Becomes President Of International Narcotics Control Board

The former Narcotics Commissioner of India and a retired officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Customs), Jagjit Pavadia has been elected as the President of Vienna based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in its 131st session for a period of five years.

• She succeeds Cornelis P. De Joncheere.
• She is the first Indian to be appointed as the Chief of the INCB and the second woman to hold this office.
• Cornelis P.De Joncheere served as the President of INCB for the past 2 years (From 2019 to Mid -2021).

Emilia-Romagna Open Tennis 2021- Sebastian Korda & Coco Gauff Won Men’s & Women’s Singles Title

In May 2021, Emilia-Romagna Open tennis tournament 2021 was conducted at Parma, Italy. The Tournament witnessed the victory of Sebastian Korda, the 1st American to win a Male Championship in the European Clay Court, which was previously won 11-years ago by Sam Querrey.

• It was the 1st edition of the event for male and female professional tennis players, respectively.
• It was part of the 2021 Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour and the 2021 Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour & will be organized by ATP and WTA.

i.Sebastian Korda, the 20-year old player, defeated Italy’s Marco Cecchinato in the finals of Emilia-Romagna Open.
ii.He is Currently ranked 64th in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) players ranking,

Coco Gauff wins Women’s Singles & Doubles Title at Emilia-Romagna Open 2021

Coco Gauff, a 17-year old American Tennis player, created history by becoming the youngest player to win both the Women’s Singles and Doubles Title at the Emilia-Romagna Open. The record was previously held by Maria Sharapova since her 2004 victory in England.

i.Coco Gauff defeated Wang Qiang in the Women’s Singles finals.

Women’s Doubles:

Coco Gauff (America) & Caty McNally (America) won the Women’s Doubles Titles by defeating Darija Jurak (Croatia) & Andreja Klepač (Slovenia).

Men’s Doubles:

Simone Bolelli of Italy & Argentina’s Máximo González won the Men’s Doubles Title by defeating the Oliver Marach(Austria) & Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (Pakistan).

Note – Their win comes ahead of the French Open Tournament, which is scheduled to be held in June 2021 at Paris, France.

Football: Chelsea Won the UEFA Champions League 2020/2021

Chelsea won the UEFA Champions League 2020/2021 title defeating Manchester City with 1-0 in the final. The finals of the UEFA Champions League 2020/2021 was held in Estádio do Dragão in Porto, Portugal.This marks Chelsea’s 2nd Champions League title.

• This is Europe’s premier club football tournament organised by Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).

Football: Atletico Madrid Won 2020-21 La Liga Title

Atletico Madrid has won the 2020-21 La Liga Title or officially known as LaLiga Santander and were crowned as champions of Spain by defeating Real Valladolid in the last match that was held at the Jose Zorilla stadium in Valladolid,Spain. It is administered by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional.

• Atletico Madrid finished top of the standings on 86 points.

• Real Madrid came second with 84 points.

• Atlético Madrid clinched their eleventh La Liga title.

Amish Raj Mulmi Authored A Book Titled All Roads Lead North: Nepal’s Turn To China

A Book Titled “All Roads Lead North: Nepal’s Turn To China” authored by Nepali writer Amish Raj Mulmi was released.

About the book:
i.The book is a blend of history, travel and elegant imagination.
ii.It offers a long view of Nepal’s foreign relations, today underpinned by China’s world-power status.
iii.It also examines the histories binding mountain communities together across the Sino-Nepali border.

IAMAI To Set Up Digital Publishers Content Grievances Council;IBF Forms DMCRC; Justice Vikramjit Sen to be Chairman

Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) announced that, it is setting up the Digital Publishers Content Grievances Council (DPCGC).It will help to address the unresolved consumer grievances.

Objective – It will help ensure compliance with the latest guidelines for Over-The-Top (OTT) players.

Key Points:

i.DPCGC will be established as the level-II self-regulatory body for publishers of Online Curated Content (OCC) as required under Rule 12, with the intent to empower consumers to make informed viewing choices.
ii.It will have an Online Curated Content Publishers (OCCP) Council composed of publishers of OCC as members and an independent Grievance Redressal Board (GRB) — consisting of a chairperson and six members.
iii.Under the new rules, OTT platforms have to self-classify the content into five age-based categories – U (Universal), U/A 7+ (years), U/A 13+, U/A 16+, and A (Adult). In the past, many of these platforms have drawn flak for content that contains obscenity, and have at times hurt religious sentiments.
iv.These platforms are required to implement parental locks for content classified as U/A 13+ or higher, and reliable age-verification mechanisms for content classified as ‘A’.
v.Alt Balaji, Amazon Prime Video, Arha Media, Firework, Hoichoi, Hungama, Lionsgate Play, MX Player, Netflix, and Shemaroo confirmed that, they will become the members of the DPCGC once formed.

IBF Forms DMCRC; Justice Vikramjit Sen to be Chairman

Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has newly formed, 7 member self-regulatory body Digital Media Content Regulatory Council (DMCRC).The Council is Chaired by the former Supreme Court judge Justice Vikramjit Sen.

• DMCRC for digital OTT platforms is a second-tier mechanism at the appellate level, similar to broadcast content complaint council (BCCC)

Facts:

i.According to a The PwC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2020-2024, the Indian Media & Industry sector is expected to grow at a 10.1 per cent compound annual growth rate to reach USD 55 billion by 2024.
ii.In terms of individual segment market size as a percentage of total industry revenue, OTT video is expected to see the largest gain and reach 5.2 per cent by 2024.

India Hosted 2021 BRICS Foreign Affairs Minister Meeting Virtually

On June 1, 2021, India hosted the 2021 BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Foreign Affairs Minister Meeting virtually. External Affairs Minister (EAM) of India, S Jaishankar Chaired the meeting, since India is the Chair of BRICS for the year 2021.

Participants:

Brazil Minister of Foreign Affairs -Carlos Alberto Franco Franca, Russian Foreign Minister -Sergey Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister- Wang Yi, and South African Foreign Minister- Naledi Pandor.

Key Highlights:

This was the first time the BRICS’ foreign ministers agreed on a stand-alone joint statement on strengthening and reforming the multilateral system especially the United Nations and its principal organs like,

• UN Security Council and General Assembly,
• International Monetary Fund (IMF),
• World Bank,
• World Trade Organisation (WTO) and
• World Health Organisation (WHO).

UN Calls for Coordinated Action to Achieve Global Net Zero Emission: Climate Breakthroughs Summit

The Climate Breakthroughs Summit was virtually held on 27th May 2021, the United Nations(UN) has called for a coordinated action to secure the global net zero-emission and to reach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5-degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels by 2050.

Note: According to the World Meteorological Organization report, there is a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius in at least one of the next 5 years.
 

Climate Breakthroughs Summit: Climate Breakthroughs Summit was hosted in collaboration between the World Economic Forum, Mission Possible Partnership, the UN Climate Champions, and the United Kingdom Climate Change Conference (COP26) Presidency was held virtually on 27th May 2021.

WHO Named COVID-19 Variants 1st Found in India as ‘Kappa’ & ‘Delta’

The World Health Organisation(WHO) has named the B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 variants of COVID-19 that were first identified in India as ‘Kappa’ and ‘Delta’ respectively.

• This is aimed to help the people discussion of Variants of Concern (VOCs) and Variants of Interest (VOIs).
• This naming will not replace the existing scientific names.

Background: The government of India has objected to terming the B.1.617 mutant of the novel coronavirus as “Indian Variant” and issued an advisory to the social media platforms to remove all the contents referring to the B.1.617.2 strain as the ‘Indian variant’.

Note: Similarly the authorities of Singapore have issued an advisory on the reference of the “Singapore variant” of the virus on social media.

Other Variants of Covid-19: The B.1.1.7 strain first detected in the UK will be known as “Alpha”, while the B.1.351 variant detected in South Africa is now ‘Beta’, P.1 variant first found in Brazil is “Gamma” and the P.2 variant is “Zeta”. The strains found in the US are “Epsilon” and “Iota”.

CGA Reported Centre’s Fiscal Deficit for FY21 at 9.3%

The Controller General of Accounts’ (CGA) revenue-expenditure data of the Union government for FY21 reported India’s fiscal deficit for FY21 at 9.3 percent / Rs 18.21 lakh crore of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is about Rs 27,194 crore lower than the Finance Ministry’s revised estimation(RE) of 9.5 percent.

Revised Fiscal deficit target:

In the February 2020, the government set the fiscal deficit at Rs 7.96 lakh crore or 3.5 percent of the GDP but later due to COVID-19, in February 2021, it revised the fiscal deficit target to 9.5 percent of GDP/ Rs 18,48,655 crore for FY21.

Key points over the CGA Report:

i.CGA reported the revenue deficit for FY21 at 7.42 percent/Rs 16.32 trillion.
ii.Receipts: The government’s revenue receipts at FY21 stood at Rs 16.32 trillion, about 5 percent higher than RE (Rs 15.55 trillion). Net tax receipts was reported as Rs 14.24 lakh crore and the Revenue from excise duty was Rs 3.89 trillion (63 per cent year on year growth).
ii.Expenditure: The total expenditure for FY21 was Rs 35.11 trillion, 1.8 percent higher than the RE of Rs 34.50 trillion. The capital expenditure was reduced by Rs 13,568 crore to Rs 4.24 trillion. The Revenue expenditure was about Rs 30.86 trillion, 2.5 percent higher than RE.
iii.April 2021: As per CGA data for the month of April 2021, the total expenditure was Rs 2.26 trillion as against Rs 3.07 trillion in April 2020, the capital expenditure was Rs 47,126 crore and total receipts were at Rs 1.48 trillion.

ICICI Lombard Ties Up With Microsoft To Automate Audits Of Service Calls

India’s largest private sector general insurer ICICI Lombard has partnered with Microsoft to strengthen and automate the quality control processes.

• Everyday service calls made by customer support reps will be screened by ICICI Lombard with the help of Microsoft’s Azure Speech Providers and Pure Language Processing (NLP).

Key points: The deployment of Azure’s synthetic instruments has various advantages.It helps to,
i.Enhance the accuracy of high quality audits
ii.Automate high quality checks
iii.Clear up for the multiplicity of language, with clients typically switching between English and Hindi throughout calls
iv.Provides a variety of speech recognition and technology capabilities together with speech transcription, text-to-speech, speech translation, and speaker recognition.

Note: ICICI Lombard will also access to all the research and development that is happening at Microsoft in developing its voice agent Cortona

India’s Largest Crypto Exchange WazirX Launched Country’s First NFT Marketplace

India’s largest crypto exchange, WazirX has announced its own Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace, a first of its kind for India and South Asia.

About NFT:
i.NFTs are digital tokens that exist on a blockchain and represent ownership of digital items, like artwork, music, etc.
ii.It will have no listing price and “minimal gas fees” of $1 for transactions.
iii.The WazirX marketplace will run on the Binance Smart Chain and will use the company’s own WRX token.
iv.WazirX has committed 50,000 tokens as giveaways initially.

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