CURRENT AFFAIRS 03 AUGUST 2024

Current Affairs 2024 – Daily, Weekly, Monthly And Yearly PDF

National Sunflower Day is a relatively new event, first celebrated in 2023. The day was founded through a partnership between the National Sunflower Association along with the North Dakota Tourism Division, with the purpose of spreading the joy that this amazing flower brings to the world.
Many people don’t realize that North Dakota is consistently one of the top-producing sunflower states in the country, often ranking at number one.

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a former top court judge to probe the allegations of “quid pro quo” among political parties, public servants, companies and even officers of law enforcement agencies revealed through data made public on electoral bonds.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud termed these allegations sheer “assumptions” at this stage and refused to embark on what it called a “roving and general inquiry”.
The Bench summarised that the petitions, including one by NGOs Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigation, were based on primarily two assumptions.

The death toll in separate incidents of cloudbursts and flash floods across Himachal Pradesh rose to six on Friday, even as rescue and search operations continued on a war footing.
As many as 47 people are still missing in Shimla, Mandi and Kullu districts, after heavy rain left rivers in spate. Fifty-five people have been evacuated so far, while 27 are stranded at different places.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who visited Samej in Shimla district to review the ongoing relief and rehabilitation efforts, said, “Each affected family will receive ₹50,000 as immediate assistance and ₹5,000 per month, for three months, for hiring rented accommodation.”

In the aftermath of the devastating landslide in Wayanad in Kerala, the Union government has reissued — for the sixth time in a decade — a draft notification classifying parts of the Western Ghats in six States as ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs).
This will impose restrictions on economic activities such as quarrying, mining, and large infrastructure development in these areas. A senior official told The Hindu that the timing of the sixth draft was “coincidental”, and not related to the Wayanad disaster.
The last time the draft was issued was in July 2022. Among other areas, it had proposed to declare 13 villages in Wayanad, spanning the three taluks of Mananthavady, Sulthan Bathery, and Vythiri, as part of an ESA.

Indian astronaut-designates Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair have been shortlisted to go to the U.S. to train for the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The National Mission Assignment Board has recommended them as prime and back-up mission pilots for the mission. Group Captain Shukla will be the prime mission pilot and Group Captain Nair will be the back-up.
The Axiom-4 mission is the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.