cVIGIL App

• “cVIGIL” is an Android application which will be operational only where elections are announced.
•  “cVIGIL” will allow anyone in the election-bound state to report violations of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) that comes into effect from the date of announcement of elections and goes on till a day after the polls.
• By using this app, citizens can immediately report on incidents of misconduct within minutes of having witnessed them and without having to rush to the office of the returning officer to lodge a complaint.
• The identity of the complainant will be kept confidential.
• The app will receive complaints only about the Model Code of Conduct violations.
• The user will get 5 minutes to report an incident after having clicked a picture or a video.
• To prevent any misuse, the app will not allow uploading of the pre-recorded or old images and videos.
• The app will not facilitate saving of the photos or videos recorded using the ‘cVIGIL’ app into the phone gallery either.

BCIM Economic Corridor

• The Bangladesh China India Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor aims to connect Kolkata with Kunming, capital of the Yunnan province of China.
• It envisages the formation of a thriving economic belt, focusing on cross-border transport, energy and telecommunication networks.
• India will benefit in terms of the development of the Kolkata port and the opening up of the economic potential of the northeast states.
• Earlier BCIM was part of China’s BRI initiative, recently the project has been delisted from the BRI umbrella.

Beluga Whale

• The beluga whale is the Arctic and sub-Arctic aquatic mammal.
• It is also known as the white whale, as it is the only marine mammal of this colour.
• It possesses a distinctive protuberance at the front of its head which houses an echolocation organ called the melon, which in this species is large and deformable.
• Its sense of hearing is highly developed and its echolocation allows it to move about and find breathing holes under sheet ice.
• Recently it is believed that Russia has been using the whales for military intelligence by mounting spying devices on the whale.

Cryptozoology

• Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that aims to prove the existence of entities from the folklore record.
• Cryptozoology does not follow the scientific method, thus it is neither a branch of zoology nor folkloristics.
• Recently Indian Army during its Himalayan expedition identified Giant footprints which are 32 inches long and 15 inches wide.
• Indian Army suspects that the footprints they have observed must be of the Yeti, a mythical snowman that is said to inhabit the high Himalayas.
• There is no scientific evidence thus far that a creature like a snowman exists, but the Yeti remains a part of Himalayan folklore.

NATRIP Project

• National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP), is the most significant initiatives in the automotive sector of India.
• Government of India, a number of State Governments and Indian Automotive Industry collaborate to create a state of the art Testing, Validation and R&D infrastructure in the country through the project.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Initiative

• WASH is a partnership for the goals initiative of United Nation Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG).
• The core activity of WASH emphasizes the teaching of basic sanitation and hygiene to communities and school children with a particular focus on girls’ education and gender equality, as a necessary complement to the success of water and sanitation infrastructure projects.
• The WASH Partnership supports coalition-building among multi-stakeholders at the national and grassroots level.

Denisovans

• The Denisovans are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo.
• This human species is genetically distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans but shared a common origin with Neanderthals.
• Denisovans lived among and interbred with the ancestors of some modern humans.
• Contrary to popular belief that high altitude regions were inhabited only by modern humans dating back to less than 40,000 years, recent findings prove that Denisovans lived in the Tibetan Plateau at an altitude of 3,280 meters much earlier 1,60,000 years ago.
• Previous genetic studies have found that modern humans living in the Tibetan Plateau carried a special gene variant EPAS1 that allowed them to cope with low oxygen (hypoxia) environments typical of high altitude.
• Recent researches have found this gene variant in Denisovans.

PM-STIAC

• Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) is an overarching body for assessment, creation and implementation of major scientific, technology and innovation interventions for India.
• Principal Scientific Advisor’s Office will oversee the implementation of such interventions by concerned S&T Departments and Agencies and other government Ministries.

• Recently PM-STIAC has approved to set up Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies in New Delhi.
• The centre will implement sustainable, scientific and technological solutions for waste management, through validation and deployment of available technologies for transformation of waste to wealth.

Sri Vaishnava philosophy

• Sri Vaishnava philosophy was initially propounded by that Saint Ramanuja and got a much wider audience with Vedanta Desikann’s writings and preaching.
• One of the essential features of this philosophy was the aspect of inclusion.
• Anyone, irrespective of caste and creed could join the Sri Vaishnava fold.
• This is a truly democratizing movement that obliterated caste distinctions.

Kashmiri Stag

• Kashmir stag or Hangul is the state animal of Jammu & Kashmir.
• It is restricted to the Dachigam National Park some 15 km north-west of Jammu & Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar.
• It is placed under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and the J&K Wildlife Protection Act, 1978.
• The Hangul was once widely distributed in the mountains of Kashmir and parts of Chamba district in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh.
• The IUCN’s Red List has classified it as Critically Endangered and is similarly listed under the Species Recovery Programme of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Environmental Information System (ENVIS) of the MoEFCC.

Bodhisattva

• A bodhisattva is a Buddhist deity who has attained the highest level of enlightenment, but who delays their entry into Paradise in order to help the earthbound.
• The bodhisattva, known in Sanskrit as Avalokiteśvara, takes both male and female form and is associated with the qualities of mercy and compassion
• The Archaeological department has recently excavated a Bodhisattva sculpture from Telangana.

Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

• The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is a robust, recurring pattern of ocean-atmosphere climate variability centred over the mid-latitude Pacific basin.
• The PDO is detected as warm or cool surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, north of 20°N.
• During a “warm”, or “positive”, phase, the west Pacific becomes cooler and part of the eastern ocean warms; during a “cool” or “negative” phase, the opposite pattern occurs.
• Over the past century, the amplitude of this climate pattern has varied irregularly at inter annual-to-inter decadal time scales.

• Northeast India, one of the wettest places on the Earth has been experiencing rapid drying due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
• Just like El Nino/La Nina in the tropical Pacific, PDO has a signature for a longer time (on the decadal scale) in the subtropical Pacific Ocean temperatures and its interaction with the atmosphere, which in turn affects the northeast Indian summer monsoon.
• This climate pattern also affects the coastal sea and continental surface air temperatures from Alaska to California.

Bio-Printing

• Bioprinting originated in early 2000s, when it was discovered that living cells could be sprayed through the nozzles of inkjet printers without being damaged.
• Today, using multiple print heads to squirt out different cell types, along with polymers that help the structure keep its shape, it is possible to deposit layer upon layer of cells that will bind together and grow into living, functional tissue.
• Researchers are using bioprinting technology to produce kidney, liver tissues, skin, bones, cartilage and even human heart, as well as the networks of blood vessels needed to keep body parts alive.

Lagrangian points

• Lagrangian points are the locations in space where the combined gravitational pull of two large masses roughly balances each other.
• Any small mass placed at that location will remain at constant distances relative to the large masses.
• There are five such points in the Sun-Earth system and they are denoted as L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5.
• A halo orbit is a periodic three-dimensional orbit near the L1, L2 or L3.