Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 05 August 2021

::NATIONAL::

Key objectives:

It recognising anyone living in the state for 30 years or more as a ‘Bhumiputra (son of the soil)’ and giving such a person the right to own his or her ‘small dwelling unit’ if ownership was undetermined so far.
Once recognised as a Bhumiputra, an individual can stake claim to ownership of their house of not more than 250 sq m, built before April 1, 2019.
The objective was to enable the ‘moolGaonkar (original Goan)’ to live with dignity.
The Bill provides for the constitution of the BhumiputraAdhikarini — a committee consisting of the Deputy Collector as its Chairperson.

Criticism:

This Bill has open the floodgates for the migrant population that has been staying in densely populated areas in Goa and has no legality.
They said that this would recognise encroachments by slum-dwellers that are over 30 years old as Bumiputras.

Union home affairs minister Amit Shah laid the foundation of a forensic sciences institute in Lucknow.
The institute, which would operate under the ministry of home affairs, is proposed to be affiliated to Gujarat-based National Forensics Sciences University (NFSU).
The forensic sciences institute would take in 150 students once it starts operating and provide cutting edge expertise in discourses such as behavioural science, civil and criminal law, police science, criminology and forensics among others, Shah said.
It would come up on a five acre land at the forensic sciences institute’s campus in collaboration with the NFSU.

Talisman Sabre 21 (TS 21) is the largest bilateral combined training activity between Australia Defence Force (ADF) andUnited States (US) military.
It is a biennial exercise incorporating activities on land, sea and air.
After India invited Australia to Malabar exercise in 2020, Australia has extended India invitation for Talisman Sabre, 2023 to further consolidate the interoperability of their navies in Indo-Pacific.
TS21 is the ninth iteration of the exercise and consists of a Field Training Exercise incorporating force preparation (logistic) activities, amphibious landings, ground force manoeuvre, urban operations, air combat and maritime operations.

About 2.4 billion years ago oxygen concentration in the air was negligible but in only about 400million years Earth’s atmosphere went to one-tenth the amount of oxygen we have now.
According to a new theory this happened because
Earth’s rotation slowed down because of complicated physics of tidal friction and interaction with the moon.
This resulted in days getting longer giving more time to cyanobacteria to produce oxygen.
The idea is being considered impressive as it doesn’t require any big biological changes in bacteria or the world’s oceans.

Floating rate funds have seen huge inflows in recent months as investors expect interest rates to rise. This is because floating rate funds benefit from rising interest rates unlike other debt mutual fund categories.

About:

Floating rate funds buy bonds whose interest rates change according to the changing rates in the economy.
This feature is thus supposed to insulate them from losses because of rate hikes and can even increase their returns as rates rise.
According to Securities and Exchange Board of India rules, 65% of the corpus of floating rate funds has to be invested in floating rate instruments.
Floating rate funds have seen huge inflows in recent months as investors expect interest rates to rise.

How do floating rate funds work?

Floating rate funds work in two ways.
First, they buy floating rate bonds. These bonds have interest payments benchmarked to external benchmarks such as the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) repo rate or the three-month treasury bill yield.
Second and more commonly, they sign interest rate swaps with banks.
A third way in which they generate returns is investing in lower quality paper of short duration. Such debt papers tend to have higher yields than their better-rated counterparts.

The launch of Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), which was supposed to lift off from the Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, has been postponed once again.

CST-100 Starliner:

The spacecraft, which is called the Crew Space Transportation-100 (CST-100),is part of an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.Its objective is to make access to space easier in terms of its cost, so that cargo and crew can be easily transported to and from the ISS, enabling greater scientific research.
The Starliner, which is supposed to carry more than 400 pounds of NASA cargo and crew supplies, will take roughly 24 hours to reach the ISS, after which it will dock there.
The spacecraft has been designed to accommodate seven passengers or a mix of crew and cargo for missions to low-Earth orbit.
The Boeing website says that for NASA service missions to the ISS, it will carry up to four NASA-sponsored crew members and time-critical scientific research.
The Starliner has an innovative, weldless structure and is reusable up to 10 times with a six-month turnaround time. It also features wireless internet and tablet technology for crew interfaces

The Indian men’s hockey team rewrote history as it claimed an Olympic medal after 41 years, beating a plucky Germany 5-4 to claim the bronze in an edge-of-the-seat play-off match of the ongoing Games here on Thursday.
The eight-time former gold-winners, who battled a heartbreaking slump in the last four decades, made the resurgence of the last couple of years count in the best way possible with an Olympic medal.
Simranjeet Singh (17th, 34th minutes) scored a brace, while Hardik Singh (27th), Harmanpreet Singh (29th) and Rupinder Pal Singh (31st) were the other goal getters for India.