08-12-21 Daily -Goa- GPSC Current Affairs

The had announced early this year that one four-lane section of the newZuaribridge will be ready for use by commuters by mid-December, in time to mark the 60th year celebrations of Goas Liberation. However, officials said that they are struggling to get a visa for the Chinese consultants to travel to India, even after interventions by Union minister for road transport and highways, Nitin Gadkari.

The Chinese consultants are required to oversee the assembly of the cable-stay section of the superstructure of the bridge. Officials said that the contractors for the new Zuari bridge work,DilipBuildcon, are now expected to ready the first section for use only by end of February 2022.

The new eight-lane Zuari bridge has been designed by French bridge specialist Erwan Vicat of Ingerop, Paris, in association with Infinite Civil solutions, India. Dewei Chan of Tongji University, Shanghai, China, is acting as design consultant.

The pandemic brought with it yet more hurdles in 2020, as it hit availability of construction material as well as labour. The government then set an April 2021 deadline for one-lane section of the bridge to be ready, but, having failed to meet that deadline too, had said that the section will be opened for Goas 60th Liberation year celebrations in December 2021.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to inaugurate Delhi Dehradun corridor.

Highlights

The PM will also launch several other projects along with the corridor, which will reduce the distance between the two cities from 248 km to 180 km.

The primary purpose of the corridor is to decongest North East Delhi.

The corridor will improve the Mandola Vihar Yojana of the Government of Uttar Pradesh and also the Growth potential of Tronica city.

PM Modi will set the foundation stone for the Delhi Dehradun corridor, which will be built at Rs 8,300 crores.

The project is to be executed in Engineering, Procurement and Construction mode, where the government pays the private developer for constructing roads. And the toll revenue accrues to the government.

The highway is divided into four sections, and Section 1 is to be developed as 6 lanes.

Also, it is divided into two packages where package 1 falls in the Delhi portion, and Package 2 falls in the Uttar Pradesh portion.

The Exercise Ekuverin is a joint military exercise held between India and Maldives. It is held between the armies of India and Maldives.

Ekuverin means Friends in Dhivehi language. It is an Indo Aryan language. It is spoken in India, Lakshadweep and Maldives.

The Exercise is being conducted between India and Maldives since 2008.

In 2019, the exercise was held in Pune, Maharashtra and in 2018, it was held in Maldives.

The exercise focused on enhancing inter operability between the armed forces of India and Maldives.

It also included counter insurgency and counter terrorism operations.

The joint exercise in 2021, also conducted Sports and cultural activities to enhance the bilateral and DEFENCE relations.

Agro Climatic Zone is suitable land for growing a particular crop type.

Highlights:

It is essential to delineate the land in the country into agro-climatic zones for sustainable agricultural production.

The Agro Climatic Zone has two significant modifications – Climate and growing periods.

The Agro-Ecological Zone has four vital variables – climate, types, Landforms and length of the growing period.

An Agro-Ecological Zone is created from the Agro Climatic Zone. The land unit acts as a conditioner to climate and length of the growing period. There are 20 agro-ecological zones in India.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research began the National Agricultural Research Project to set up zonal research centres in each agro-climatic zone.

These centres will analyse agro-ecological requirements and Cropping patterns in the regions.

There are 15 agro-climatic zones in India. They are,

Western Himalayas

Eastern Himalayas

Lower Gangetic plains

Middle Gangetic plains

Upper Gangetic plains

Trans Gangetic plains

Eastern plateau and hills

Central plateau and hills

Western plateau and hills

Southern plateau and hills

East coast plains and hills

West coast plains and hills

Gujarat Plains and Hills

Western dry region and islands.

The COVID 19 Vaccine Booster Shots are recommended by the INSACOG (Indian SARS CoV 2 Genomics Consortium) for people above 40.

Highlights:

The advice arises to counterbalance the Omicron risks in the country. The Omicron is a COVID-19 variant that was later identified in South Africa.

The World Health Organisation declared it a “Variant of Concern”. According to INSACOG, it isn’t easy to identify the presence of the variant in the more initial stages of its entry into the country.

Booster shots

The booster shots are the supplementary use of the vaccine, given after the protection afforded by the original shots begin to decline.

The booster shots help keep the immunity levels in people, and all Vaccines have booster shots.

The booster shots are given after a person has completed his vaccine series to increase the protection against the virus.

This is because the protection against the virus decreases over some time.

The Davis Cup 2021 was won by the Russian Tennis Federation.

Highlights:

The Davis Cup finals happened between Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev of Russia.

And Daniit Medvedev won the match, taking victory to the Russian Tennis Federation.

The Davis Cup is also named the World Cup of Tennis as it is an international team competition in men’s tennis.

The Billie Jean King Cup is the Women‘s equivalent of the Davis Cup. The International Tennis Federation conducts it on hard courts.

It first happened in 1900 as a trial between the US and Britain, and by 2016, 135 countries were participating in the tournament.

The most victorious countries of the Davis cup are the USA, Australia, New Zealand, where the USA has won the Davis Title 32 times, Australia has won 28 times.

It is a single-elimination tournament, as each match’s loser is immediately eliminated from the tournament.