Current Affairs

Iran on Tuesday 14 July 2020, dropped India from a vital project construction of a rail line from Chabahar Port to Zahedan along the Iran-Afghan border. The Iranian government has cited a delay in funding from the Indian side to initiate the 628-km-long project as the reason for it dropping India from the multi-million dollar project. Iran and India had signed an agreement in May 2016.

The British government has declared the London residence of scientist Dr. Abdus Salam a national heritage site and installed a blue plaque. The plaque was put outside his house in Putney where he lived from 1957 till his death in 1996. Dr. Salam had founded the theoretical physics department at London`s Imperial College.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan reconverts Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque. President Erdogan announced the decision after a court annulled the site’s museum status. Erdogan made the announcement on Friday 10 July 2020.

Botswana, the landlocked country in South Africa has the largest elephant population in the world, around an estimate of 1,30,000. The country more than 300 elephants have died mysteriously in the famous Okavango Delta of Botswana.

Indonesia said on Wednesday (Jan 29) it has cut ties with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as it accused the global conservation group of overstepping its mandate in the country and unfairly criticising efforts to extinguish out-of-control forest fires last year. The South-east Asian nation said it had sent a letter to the WWF’s domestic office last week terminating a cooperation agreement that stretched back to 1998. The agreement involved joint work in the area of wildlife conservation and forestry, it added. An environment ministry spokesman said the WWF improperly extended its work across the archipelago into areas linked to climate change, waste management and environmental issues.