Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 29 April 2021

SSC CGL Current Affairs

::NATIONAL::

Prime Minister NarendraModi on Wednesday thanked President Vladimir Putin for Russia’s help and support in India’s fight against COVID-19 as the two leaders agreed to establish a “2+2 ministerial dialogue" between foreign and defence ministers to add further momentum to the bilateral strategic partnership. In a series of tweets after a telephonic conversation with Putin, Modi said they reviewed diverse bilateral cooperation, especially in the area of space exploration and renewable energy sector, including in hydrogen economy.
Our cooperation on the Sputnik-V vaccine will assist humanity in battling the pandemic, he said.
“Had an excellent conversation with my friend President Putin today. We discussed the evolving COVID-19 situation, and I thanked President Putin for Russia’s help and support in India’s fight against the pandemic," Modi tweeted.
Sputnik-V, a coronavirus vaccine, has been approved by the government for use in India.

Russia's foreign ministry has ordered the expulsion of seven diplomats from Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, in retaliation for the expulsion of Russian envoys. The ministry gave the three Slovak and two Lithuanian diplomats, as well as an envoy from Latvia and another from Estonia one week to leave Russia.
Russia accused the four countries of showing 'pseudo-solidarity' with the Czech Republic, which ordered most Russian diplomatic staff in Prague to leave last week after accusing Russian spies of being behind a 2014 blast at an ammunition depot. Russia has dismissed the accusations as absurd.
Moscow and Prague are locked in their biggest row since the end of the Communist era in 1989.
The two suspects named by Prague in connection with the 2014 ammunition depot explosion, known under the aliases RuslanBoshirov and Alexander Petrov, have been reported to be part of the elite Unit 29155 of Russia's GRU military intelligence service.

With so much global help coming in for fighting the COVID-19 crisis, a high level Inter-Ministerial group has established procedures for immediate clearance of these materials. Sources have confirmed to Financial Express Online on Tuesday: “The material would be dispatched promptly to the recipient institutions in various parts of the country in coordination with various government agencies.”
Several countries in the past few days have offered help to fight the surge in the COVID-19 cases in India. Materials including oxygen concentrators, ventilators, respiratory material and more are coming from countries including the UK, France, Russia, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Kuwait and others.

Python-5 is a fifth-generation air-to-air missile (AAM) manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It is the newest member in the range of Python AAMs. The missile can engage enemy aircraft from very short ranges and near beyond visual range. Python-5 is the most accurate and reliable AAM of the Israeli Air Force and one of the most sophisticated guided missiles in the world.
The development on the Python-5 began in the 1990s. The missile was unveiled for the first time during the Paris Air Show in June 2003. The missile demonstrated superior target detection and tracking capabilities during the developmental and operational test programme, involving captive carry evaluation and homing trials.
The first operational kill by Python-5 was in August 2006 during the Lebanon War. The missile was fired from an F-16 Fighting Falcon and destroyed an Iranian-made Ababil-T UAV launched by the Hezbollah. In October 2012, a Python missile launched from an F-16I fighter of the Israeli Air Force successfully intercepted an Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicle intruding into Israeli air space. The Israeli Air Force plans to arm the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighters with Python-5 missiles.