Stree Swabhiman:

• Stree Swabhiman is an initiative under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for women’s health and hygiene.
• It aims to create a sustainable model for providing adolescent girls and women an access to affordable sanitary products by leveraging Common Service Centres (CSCs) established under digital India.
• The initiative is driven by awareness and personalised outreach by women entrepreneurs who produce and market sanitary napkins themselves.

Project Sunrise:

• Project Sunrise was launched in 2015, by union government to tackle the increasing HIV prevalence in the North-Eastern states.
• It aims to provide treatment and care facilities free of cost for people living with HIV/AIDS and create more awareness about the disease in these N-E states.
• The project is a five-year programme (2015-2020) aimed at complementing the ongoing National AIDS Control Programme (NACP).
• The project has been sponsored by US based Centre for Disease Control.

Intellectual property Index

• The index is published by US Chamber of Commerce.
• It evaluates the intellectual property (IP) environment and grades countries on patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, enforcement, and international treaties.
• The Index is released for 50 countries with 40 indicators, primarily focusing intellectual property.

Maitreyi Yatra

• It is an exclusive student exchange programme for J&K organized by Ministry of Human Resource development.
• It provides a good opportunity for the youth of J&K to be acquainted with culture, language and development story of different parts of the country.

Delhi declaration:

• It was adopted at the recently concluded ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit.
• ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of sectoral dialogue between two sides.
• The declaration urges countries to strengthen cooperation and collaboration in combating transnational crimes, including people smuggling, trafficking in persons, illicit drug trafficking, cybercrime.
• The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand, with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the Founding Fathers of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
• At present there are 10 members namely, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.
• The motto of ASEAN is “One Vision, One Identity, One Community”.

Zojila pass tunnel:

It is a 14.2-km long tunnel project in Jammu and Kashmir to provide all-weather connectivity between Srinagar, Kargil and Leh, which remains cut-off from the rest of India during winters due to heavy snowfall. “Zojila tunnel will be the longest bi-directional tunnel in Asia.The project will be implemented by the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRT&H) through the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL).

Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk:

• GOLD is essentially an imaging spectrograph. Spectrographs are scientific instruments that have been designed to break light down into its constituent wavelengths and to measure their intensity.
• By examining the data from such an instrument, scientists can determine a wide variety of characteristics, including a target’s composition and temperature.
• GOLD will be tasked with collecting far ultraviolet light data on Earth’s atmosphere.
• To shed light on how the uppermost layers of Earth’s atmosphere can be affected by powerful space and Earth-based weather events.
• GOLD will focus its attention on a relatively poorly-understood region of the upper atmosphere, where the charged particles of the ionosphere mingle with the diffuse neutral gasses that make up the thermosphere.

Rotavac:

• For the first time, the Rotavac, a vaccine conceived and developed from scratch in India, has been “pre-qualified” by the World Health Organisation.
• To be “pre-qualified” means that the vaccine can be sold internationally to several countries in Africa and South America.
• The Rotavac vaccine is developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech Limited.
• It has been included in India’s national immunisation programme.
• The Rotavac vaccine protects against childhood diarrhoea caused by the rotavirus.

Mount Mayon

• It is an active stratovolcano in the Philippines region
• Stratocvolcano , also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash
• The volcano is the centre piece of the ALBAY biosphere reserve and Natural Park on its own.
• Mount Mayon lies in Pacific ring of fire region, major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

Mission Innovation

• The initiative was launched in the Cop21 UNFCCC in 2015
• India is member nation of the global initiative
• The objectives of initiative are,

                     1. To accelerate public and private clean energy innovation

                     2. To address climate change,

                     3. Make clean energy affordable to consumers, and

                     4. Create green jobs and commercial opportunities

• It will help in achieving India’s INDC of increasing the share of clean and renewable energy in the energy basket

Res extra Commercium:

• Res extra commercium means things beyond commerce, i.e., which cannot be brought or sold, such as public roads, rivers, titles of owners etc. it is a doctrine originating in roman law.
• In some contexts, it can refer to areas beyond national borders, such as space and the seabed.
• To curb the $11 billion tobacco industry’s legal right to trade, the government, for the first time, has asked the top court to classify tobacco as “res extra commercium”, which is a Latin phrase for “outside commerce”.
• The move is part of the government’s effort to tame the tobacco companies looking to challenge tough regulations pertaining to the industry.

Funaria hygrometrica

• Scientists have identified a type of moss that can efficiently absorb a large amount of lead, providing a green alternative for decontaminating polluted water and soil.
• Funaria hygrometrica is the moss whichuses phytoremediation,it is known to grow well in sites contaminated with metals like copper, zinc, and lead.
• Phytoremediation is a method that uses photosynthesising organisms to clean up soil or water contamination.
• The Moss cells can absorbed lead up to 74 per cent of their dry weight.

Jain Maha Kumbh

• It is a ritual celebrated once in 12 years for Lord Bahubali in Shravanabelagola, Karnataka, (will be celebrated from Feb 17^th to 26^th 2018).
• ‘Mahamastakabhisheka'(head atonement) will take place for the 57 ft-high statue of Lord Bahubali.
• During this celebration devotees bathe the magnificent statue atop the Vindhyagiri hillock in accordance with Jaina tradition.  
• Lord Bahubali is the son of the first Jain tirthankara.
• The statue was carved under the order of Chamundaraya, who was the Ganga Dynasty’s minister and commander in 981 AD.

SECURE

• The Ministry of rural development has adopted the Software for Estimate Calculation Using Rural Rates for Employment (SECURE).
• It aims to improve quality of works through detailing of technical specifications, tasks and workflows.
• All estimates under MGNREGS will be generated with the use of SECURE (software) from the Programme’s Management Information System with effect from 1st April, 2018.