current affairs 19 August 2021 (In English)

J&K LG Manoj Sinha launched "Proof" app to monitor timely completion of projects.

• Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha launched the App Photographic Record of On-Site Facility.
• To bring more transparency and accountability in the governance system,
• It will help in uploading geo-tagged photographs prioritizing the bills in the respective treasuries against the allocated budget through BEAMS application.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US have developed a new COVID test using pencil lead.

• Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in the US have developed a new cheaper, faster and more accurate COVID diagnostic test
• That uses electrodes made of graphite to test for the SARS CoV-2 virus.
• This is a substance found in pencil lead.
• The researchers noted that, current tests were limited by the trade-off between accuracy and the time it took to analyze the sample.
• He highlighted that, the use of graphite electrodes reduces the cost of testing by $1.50 per test.

The Dream of Revolution: A Biography of Jayaprakash Narayan Book by Bimal Prasad and Sujata Prasad.

• The book titled The Dream of Revolution: A Biography of Jayaprakash Narayan is going to release on 23 August 2021.
• This book has been written by historian Bimal Prasad and author Sujata Prasad.
• The book marks the biography of revolutionary leader and independence activist Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly known as JP or Lok Nayak.
• The book will be published by Penguin Random House India.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited test-fires civil aircraft Hindustan-228.

• Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a public sector undertaking of the Ministry of Defence, has successfully ground-tested a civilian aircraft named Hindustan-228.
• Ground run and Low Speed Taxi Trial (LSTT) of Hindustan-228 aircraft were carried out at HAL facility in Kanpur.
• It is a 19 seater multirole utility aircraft.
• It is built on the basis of the existing frame of the military aircraft Dornier 228.
• This civilian version will be used for various applications such as air ambulance, VIP transport, passenger transport, cloud seeding, flight inspection roles and recreational activities such as para jumping, photography.

Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel announced 4 new districts, 18 tehsils.

• The new districts are Mohla Manpur, Sarangarh-Bilaigarh, Shakti, Manendragarh.
• The four new districts will take the total number of administrative districts in the state to 32.
• A park exclusively for women will be developed in each district headquarter and municipal corporation, which will be known as Minimata Udyan.