Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 June 2021

::NATIONAL::

Uttarakhand is set to become the first state in the country to assign monetary value to four of its critical natural resources -- air, water, forest and soil.

About:

The quality and quantity of these natural resources would determine the Gross Environment Product (GEP) of the state which would be used in evaluating the state’s Gross Domestic Product GDP).
GEP is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored into a region's conventional GDP.
It monetizes the loss of biodiversity and other environmental factors, apart from accounting for such costs in developmental planning.

African swine fever (ASF) has wreaked havoc in piggeries across 10 of Mizoram’s 1 1 districts, killing almost 7,600 pigs.

About:

ASF is a severe viral disease affecting domestic and wild pigs.
This transboundary animal disease (TAD) can be spread by live or dead pigs, domestic or wild, and pork products.
Furthermore, transmission can also occur via contaminated feed and fomites (non-living objects) due to the high environmental resistance of ASF virus.
There is no approved vaccine against ASF and it does not affect humans.

China, Russia and U.S. are all pursuing hypersonic weapons technologies, setting stage for an arms race.

About:

A hypersonic missile travels at speeds of Mach 5 and higher-five times faster than speed of sound (3836 mph).
They are highly manoeuvrable and do not follow a predictable arc as they travel.
There are two primary categories of hypersonic weapons:

1. Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) are launched from a rocket before gliding to a target.

2. Hypersonic cruise missiles are powered by high-speed, air-breathing engines, or“scramjets,” after acquiring their target.

Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi became Iran’s new president. He succeeded Hassan Rouhani.

About:

He became the 13th President of Iran.
As per rules, the president should be a Shiite Muslim. Over 90 per cent of Iran’s population is comprised of Shiite Muslims.
Ebrahim Raisi is an Iranian conservative Islamist and principlist politician, Muslim jurist, and president-elect of Iran, having been elected to the presidency in the 2021 Iranian presidential election.
Raisi has served in several positions in Iran’s judicial system, such as Deputy Chief Justice (2004–2014), Attorney General (2014–2016), and Chief Justice (2019–present).
He was also Prosecutor and Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran in the 1980s and 1990s, during which he oversaw the execution of thousands of political dissidents and prisoners.

Union government’s debt soared to 58.8% of the GDP in FY 21 from 51.6% a year ago.
This is due to economic contraction (Caused by COVID-19) which forced the government to borrow a record amount to meet a revenue shortfall.

About:

It is the ratio of a country’s public debt toits gross domestic product (GDP).It indicates a country’s ability to payback its debts.
Public debt is total liabilities of central government contracted against Consolidated Fund of India.
Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act mandated debt-to-GDP ratio of the Centre to be brought down to 40% and that of states to 20% by 2024-25.

Stephen Hawking’s most famous theorems has been proven by observing ripples created in space-time by the merger of two black holes.

About:

The theorem, first proposed in 1971, states that it is impossible for a black hole to decrease in size over time.
The theorem has been derived from Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity that defines gravitational waves and black holes.
The black hole area theorem has fascinated physicists the world over as it works on the similar thermodynamic principle that entropy (disorder) cannot decrease over time. It consistently increases.
The new observations further solidify Einstein theory of relativity.