Current Affairs in Short: 5 October 2021

Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla to visit Rome from October 7 to 9 to attend G20 Parliamentary Speakers Summit

•Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla and an Indian Parliamentary delegation led by him will be visiting Rome, Italy from October 7 to 9 to attend the G20 Parliamentary Speakers Summit. Birla will also hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts.

•The Indian Parliamentary delegation will comprise Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, and Rajya Sabha Secretary-General Dr PPK Ramacharyulu.

•The overall theme of the G20 Parliamentary Speakers Summit is Parliaments for People, Planet, and Prosperity. LS speaker Om Birla will participate in Session 1 on the theme ‘Response to the Social and Employment Crisis caused by the Pandemic.

Bacteria capable of wiping out disease-carrying mosquitoes: Australian study

•In an Australian study, researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have found that the Wolbachia bacteria can successfully sterilize the disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito.

•Over the course of 20 weeks in 2018, researchers had released 3 million male mosquitoes that had been sterilized with the Wolbachia bacteria into three Queensland trial sites. A drop in mosquito population in the trial sites by 80 to 97 per cent was reported within 12 months.

•The disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito is the carrier of yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika, and other viruses.

ADB, Bangladesh govt sign agreement for constructing Dhaka-Sylhet highway

•The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Bangladesh signed the agreement worth USD 400 million in loan for the construction of the Dhaka-Sylhet highway to improve road safety, mobility, and regional trade in the northeast economic corridor in Bangladesh.

•The USD 400 million is the first tranche of the USD 1.78 billion financing facility approved by ADB for the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Dhaka-Sylhet Road investment project. The funds will be used to widen upto 210 kms of Dhaka-Sylhet road from two-lanes to the four-lanes highway.

•The South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Dhaka-Sylhet Road investment project will create opportunities for the northeast region of Bangladesh and serve as a strategic corridor for sub-regional, regional, and international trade.

SBI, Indian Navy launch NAV-eCash card

•State Bank of India and Indian Navy on October 4, 2021, launched SBI’s NAV e-Cash card on the naval aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya which is India’s largest naval aircraft carrier.

•The NAV-eCash card by SBI on the naval aircraft will help in removing problems faced by the personnel onboard while handling physical cash during deployment at high seas where there is no connectivity for traditional payment solutions.

•NAV-eCash card will aid both online and offline transactions. The Card comes with dual-chip technology. The technology will be introduced on other naval ships for convenient and sustainable payment solutions.

Asian Table Tennis Championships: India men’s doubles teams win two more bronze medals

•The two pairs of Indian table tennis players Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar & Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan won bronze medals in the men’s doubles at the Asian Table Tennis Championships 2021 on October 4, 2021, in Doha.

•In the semi-finals, Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar faced and lost to the WR 26 South Korean pair of Woojin Jang and Jonghoon Lim while Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan lost to WR 14 Japanese pair of Yukiya Uda and Shunsuke Togami.

•The Indian men’s team had won the first bronze medal on October 1, 2021.