National:

1. The Union Council of Ministers has been expanded .43 Ministers including 15 Cabinet Ministers which include prominent Ministers like Narayan Rane, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal and others took oath with a view to improve governance at a time bound schedule.

2. Chief of Army Staff Gen M M Naravane on 08 Jul met his Italian counterpart Lt Gen Pietro Serino and defence minister Lorenzo Guerini in Rome and held extensive talks focusing on strengthening bilateral defence cooperation, including military-to-military engagement.

3. Delimitation Commission will be redrawing boundaries of Assembly constituencies of J&K in a transparent manner. Population will be the main criteria for delimitation & will also include geography, topography, language & also the communication facilities of the areas. 

Defence:

1. Govt is likely to split the P75I Submarine Contract Between Two Bidders : Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders (MDL) & Larsen & Toubro (L&T). India’s order for six conventional submarines, costing Rs 43,000 crore, could go to two companies. The Request for Proposal (RFP) for the construction of the Project P 75 (I) submarines under the strategic partnership model is expected to be issued in July. 

International:

1. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Georgia on July 9-10 as a rebuff to Russia. The Russian foreign minister after his visit to India had made a stopover at Pakistan & was not taken well by India.

2. PM Modi spoke with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh to promote Indo-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership stability as both nations share a similar vision of an open, inclusive, peaceful and rules-based Indian Ocean region.

3. A group of 28 foreign mercenaries, including retired Colombian soldiers, assassinated Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse in the early morning of 7 July 2021. Moïse was assassinated and his wife Martine was injured during attack. Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, took control of the country following Moïse's assassination.

4. The Taliban claimed on 09 Jul that they now control 85 per cent of Afghanistan's territory amid a surge in wins on the ground and as American troops completed their pullout.

5.Billionaire Richard Branson became the first entrepreneur to touch the imaginary space boundary known as Konar at an altitude of 88 kms from earth, which marked a new era of Space tourism. In his private space rocket called VSS Unity. Sirisha Bandla , the vice president of Government Affairs in Virgin Galectic became the third Indian woman to go to space.

Sports:

1. The Olympics will take place without spectators in the host city Tokyo as a resurgent coronavirus forced Japan to declare the COVID State of Emergency in the capital that will run throughout the event.

2. In football, Argentina defeated Brazil to win the Copa America, while Italy defeated England to win the European championship.