Current Affairs in Short: 5 July 2022

India extends deadline for duty free cotton imports 

• India has extended the deadline for duty free cotton imports from earlier announced September 30 till October 31.
• The government has extended the deadline as the sowing of the fibre crop delayed in some regions due to patchy monsoon rainfall.
• India, which is the world’s biggest cotton producer, had allowed duty free imports in April after local prices went up to a record high due to drop in production and rally in global prices. 
• India mainly imports cotton from the United States, Egypt and Brazil. 

New Zealand men, women cricketers to receive same pay 

• New Zealand’s professional men’s and women’s cricketers will be paid the same amount of pay in a ground-breaking new five-year deal. This would include all players playing in top-tier domestic matches.
• The five-year deal will see the domestic women’s players receive the same match fees as men across all formats including ODIs, T20Is, Ford Trophy and Dream11 Super Smash level.
• The new deal also increases the number of contracts offered to women cricketers in New Zealand. It would also boost the amount of competitive matches available to emerging players. 

Indian boxer Alfiya Pathan beats former world champion Kungeibayeva to win gold 

• The reigning Indian Youth World champions Alfiya Pathan and Gitika won gold medals after sensational performances in the Elorda Cup in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan on July 4, 2022. 
• Alfiya Pathan beat 2016 world champion and a strong title contender Lazzat Kungeibayeva by a 5-0 margin in the women’s +81kg final.
• Gitika pulled a thrilling 4-1 win over Indian boxer Kalaivani in the all-Indian women’s 48kg final.
• India’s other two female boxers Kalaivani Srinivasan and Jamuna Boro settled for silver after losing their respective finals. 

NASA satellite on its way to the Moon

• A NASA satellite, the size of a microwave oven, successfully broke free from its orbit around Earth on July 4, 2022 and is headed towards the moon.
• The Capstone satellite is a part of NASA’s plan to experiment with a new orbit around the Moon to pave way to land astronauts on the lunar surface once again. 
• The satellite was launched aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the Mahia peninsula in New Zealand on June 28, 2022.
• The satellite will take another four months to reach the moon, as it cruises along using minimal energy.

World half-marathon championships canceled over COVID-19

• World half-marathon championships have been canceled this year as China is not able to host the races due to the coronavirus pandemic. This was informed by World Athletics on July 5, 2022. China has imposed tight restrictions on arrivals from foreign countries during the pandemic.
• This year’s World half-marathon championship was supposed to be the last before the championships will be renamed as the world road running championships with the addition of 5-kilometer races and mass-participation events. 
• World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said that it was “no fault” of local organizers in China that the event can’t be held in Yangzhou in November. 
• The city will instead be given the right to host the rebranded world road running championships in 2027. China though had hosted the Winter Olympics in a bubble environment in February 2022. 

NATO members sign accession protocols for Sweden, Finland

• The 30 NATO member countries formally signed accession protocols for Sweden and Finland on July 5, 2022, sending the membership bids of the two nations to the alliance capitals for legislative approvals. 
• The parliamentary approval in NATO member state Turkey could still pose a problem for the final inclusion of the two countries as NATO members.
• Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan had warned last week that the country could still block the process if the two countries fail to fully meet Turkey’s demand to extradite terror suspects with links to Kurdish groups. 

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