News in Short

• Launch of a Kuaizhou-1A satellite carrying a remote sensing satellite ended in failure following liftoff from Jiuquan.
• The Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket lifted off from a transporter erector launcher at Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert at 01:02 a.m.
• Chinese launches to low-Earth and Sun-synchronous orbits are usually confirmed successful within an hour of liftoff.
• The launcher was carrying the Jilin-1 Gaofen (‘high resolution’) 02C optical Earth observation satellite.
• Saturday’s mission was the fourth Chinese failure of 2020 from 26 launches. Inaugural launches of the Long March 7A and the Expace Kuaizhou-11 failed.

• Naomi Osaka defeated Victoria Azarenka to win US open title for 2020. This is Osaka's third Grand Slam title and second US open title.
• Azarenka, a former World No. 1, continued her winning streak into the US Open. The 31-year-old was playing for her first Grand Slam title in more than seven years, and seemed on track to fulfill that destiny after an hour.
• That comeback made Osaka the first woman to win a US Open final after losing the first set since 1994, when Arantxa Sánchez Vicario topped Steffi Graf.

• The government plans to make the law banning manual scavenging more stringent by introducing a bill in the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
• The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020, also proposes to completely mechanise sewer cleaning and provide better protection at work and compensation in case of accidents.
• Currently, engaging any person for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks by any person or agency is punishable with imprisonment of up to five years or a fine up of to ?5 lakh or both.

• Toots Hibbert, the charismatic reggae singer and bandleader who helped transform the sound of 1960s Jamaica into an international musical movement, has died. He was 77.
• He was admitted in intensive care after complaints of having breathing difficulties, according to his publicist. It was revealed in local media that the singer was awaiting results from a COVID-19 test after showing symptoms.
• One of the titans of Jamaican ska and reggae music, Hibbert and his vocal trio the Maytals helped set the template for the genres starting in the early 1960s with hits including “Bam Bam,” “54-46 That’s My Number” and “Monkey Man.” His 1968 song “Do the Reggay” helped popularized the term “reggae.”

• Former Union minister and veteran socialist leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (74), who played a pioneer role in implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) during the UPA government, breathed his last at AIIMS-Delhi.
• Singh was admitted at AIIMS-Delhi for the last two weeks after developing some post-COVID-19 complications. Earlier, he was treated for Covid-19 at AIIMS-Patna.
• Singh, who was the national vice-president of the Lalu Prasad-led RJD, was in news recently after he wrote a letter to his party chief from the hospital, expressing desire to end his relations with the party supremo Lalu Yadav.