Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 July 2021

::NATIONAL::

According to an order issued by the government, all jobs in the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh have been reserved for the residents of the region.
No person shall be qualified for appointment to the service unless the person is a resident of the UT of Ladakh.
The move has met a long-pending demand of the people of Ladakh, after it was carved out as a Union Territory (UT) on August 5, 2019.

About:

The population of Ladakh, which comprises the districts of Leh and Kargil, is around 2.8 lakh as per the last census.
Last year, J&K introduced the domicile certificate as eligibility criteria for appointment to government services.

Under Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Biotech-Krishi Innovation Science Application Network (Biotech-KISAN) is a scientist-farmer partnership scheme launched in 2017.
Under the scheme, so far 146 Biotech-KISAN Hubs have been established covering all 15 agroclimatic zones and 110 Aspirational Districts.

Significance of extension in NER:

NER is predominantly agrarian with 70% of workforce engaged in agriculture and allied sector for livelihood.
Region produces merely 1.5 % of country’s food grain and continues to be net importer of food grains even for domestic consumption.

Chinese encroachments in Bhutan involves construction of three villages, 66 miles of linking roads, and at least five military or police outposts on land understood for centuries to be within Bhutan.
Encroachment by China on this scale – the area involved represents 1.5% of Bhutan’s territory – is unprecedented on China’s land borders and it has not finished.
Bhutan shares an over 400-km-long border with China and the two countries have held 24 rounds of boundary talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
The latest, the 10th Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on Bhutan-China Boundary was held in China’s southwest Kunming city from April 6-9.

China launched two units of a massive hydropower station in the country’s southwest, said to be the world’s largest, which is under construction and costs about USD 34 billion.

About:

The two units of the Baihetan hydropower station were launched ahead of the July 1 centenary celebrations of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).
The hydropower station is located on the Jinsha River, the upper section of the Yangtze River, and straddles the southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan.
China has already built the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River and approved plans to build another massive dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to Arunachal Pradesh.

Union Minister of Law launches the itat e-dwar portal.
It is an e-filing portal of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT).
It is larger narrative of transformation that the country is undergoing through digital medium.
Enhance the accessibility, accountability and transparency in the day to day working of the ITAT.

Researchers from China have claimed to have found an ancient human skull that could belong to an altogether new species of humans.
The researchers note that the cranium (the portion that encloses the brain) could be over 146,000 years old. The skull was found in the Songhua river in north-east China’s Harbin city.

About:

The cranium found in China has been dubbed the “Dragon Man” or Homo longi, a name that has been derived from the Long Jiang or Dragon river in the Heilongjiang province of China where the city of Harbin is located.
Because of the distinctive shape of the skull, which was found almost complete, some members of the team have suggested that it be declared a part of a new species of the genus Homo.

Nesher Ramla Homo:

Researchers in Israel, also identified a previously unknown kind of ancient human called “Nesher Ramla Homo” that coexisted with Homo sapiens nearly 100,000 years ago when several species of humans co-existed in Asia, Europe and Africa.
These include Homo sapiens, the Neanderthals, and the Denisovans.