Chirstchurch Call for Action

• Christchurch Call for Action outlines collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers intended to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online.
• The signatories promised to implement laws related to regulating terrorist content online and curbing the spread of extremism while maintaining international human rights laws.
• India recently signed the Christchurch Call for Action.
• The US refused to sign the document saying it was “not in a position to join” because it needs to assure freedom of speech, adding that it supports the general idea of the agreement.

Ultima Thule

• NASA has found evidence for a unique mixture of methanol, water ice, and organic molecules on Ultima Thule’s surface, the farthest world ever explored by mankind.
• Ultima Thule is a frozen relic of the early solar system, which is the most distant planetary object ever studied.
• It is an icy world a billion kilometres past Pluto and more than 6.5 billion km from Earth.
• The New Horizons probe encountered the Kuiper Belt object in 2019, referred to as 2014 MU69.
• New Horizons Probe flew past Pluto in 2015.

BASEL Convention

• The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was created to protect people and the environment from the negative effects of the inappropriate management of hazardous wastes worldwide.
• It is the most comprehensive global treaty dealing with hazardous waste materials throughout their lifecycles, from production and transport to final use and disposal.

ROTTERDAM Convention

• The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for certain hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in international trade provides Parties with a first line of defence against hazardous chemicals.
• It promotes international efforts to protect human health and the environment as well as enabling countries to decide if they want to import hazardous chemicals and pesticides listed in the Convention.

STOCKHOLM Convention

• The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from highly dangerous, long-lasting chemicals by restricting and ultimately eliminating their production, use, trade, release and storage.
• It aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
• It was signed in 2001 and effective from May 2004.

Misa Army Base

• Misa army base is originally a medieval army post of the Tai-Ahom located in Nagon district of Assam.
• Tai-Ahom King Pratapsimha established this western most post of his kingdom to counter advancing Mughals.
• This camp was very much active against the Mughals till A.D. 1661.
• The present Misa Army base is of recent origin and established post-independence period.

Man Booker International Prize

• Jokha Alharthi became the first Arabic author to win the Man Booker International prize for her novel “Celestial Bodies” which reveals her Omani homeland’s post-colonial transformation.
• The Man Booker International Prize is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom.
• The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize was announced in June 2004.
• It is sponsored by the Man Group, the same organisation that gives the Man Booker Prize for fiction.
• It is annually given for a single work of fiction in any language that has been translated into English and published in the United Kingdom in the last year.
• From 2005 until 2015 the award was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation.
• Since 2016, the award has been given annually to a single book in English translation, with a £50,000 prize for the winning title, shared equally between author and translator.

‘Golden Card’ scheme

• UAE launches ‘Golden Card’ scheme to woo wealthy investors, exceptional talents.
• It is a permanent residency scheme launched by the United Arab Emirates to favour wealthy individuals and exceptional talents.
• It is a move that could attract more Indian professionals and businessmen to the Gulf nation.
• It is open to investors and “exceptional talents” such as doctors, engineers, scientists, students and artists.
• The Golden Card offers unprecedented benefits to the cardholders and their families while creating an attractive environment for business and growth.
• The benefits of the permanent residency also include the spouse and children of the cardholder to ensure cohesive social ties.
• The “Golden Card” visa categories include

1. Investors
2. Entrepreneurs
3. Specialized talents
4. Researchers
5. Outstanding students

• The Indian expatriate community is reportedly the largest ethnic community in the UAE, constituting roughly about 30 per cent of the country’s population of around nine million.

Shaheen-II

• Shaheen-II is a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of the Pakistan Armed Forces.
• It is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads up to a range of 1,500 kilometers.

Ourasphira Giraldae

• It is the microscopic fossils dated to the Proterozoic era (2500 mya to 541 mya (million years ago)), before the advent of complex life forms, considered the oldest fungus ever discovered.
• It is contained in shale rock from the Northwest Territories of Canada.

Bhawana Kanth

• Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth has become first woman fighter pilot to qualify to undertake combat missions.

Wearable Supercapacitor

• Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have fabricated a wearable supercapacitor that can store and deliver large amount of electrical energy, exceeding other similar devices.
• The wearable energy storage device can be stitched on to any fabric and can deliver power ranging from microwatt to milliwatt.
• The energy stored in the device can power GPS location-based transmitters.
• The electrode of the supercapacitor was fabricated by uniformly coating cotton yarn with carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
• The coating converts the electrical insulating yarn into a metallic conductor thereby behaving like an electrode.

Kibble Balance

• CSIR is in the process of making its own ‘Kibble Balance’, a device that was used to measure the Planck Constant and thereby reboot the kilogram.
• Currently, Kilogram is defined by the weight of a platinum-based ingot called “Le Grand K” which is locked away in a safe in Paris.
• Le Grand K has been at the forefront of the international system of measuring weights since 1889.
• But the master kilogram and its copies were seen to change ever so slightly as they deteriorated.
• In a world where accurate measurement is now critical in many areas, such as in drug development, nanotechnology and precision engineering those responsible for maintaining the international system had no option but to move beyond Le Grand K to a more robust definition.
• In principle, scientists can define a kilogram, or any other weight, in terms of the amount of electricity needed to counteract the weight (gravitational force acting on a mass).
• The Kibble balance has an electromagnet that pulls down on one side of the scales and a weight say, a kilogram on the other.
• The electrical current going through the electromagnet is increased until the two sides are perfectly balanced.
• By measuring the current running through the electromagnet to incredible precision, the researchers are able to calculate h to an accuracy of 0.000001%.

Amaranthus

• New species of Amaranthus saradhiana has been discovered in Kerala.
• It is the first time that an Amaranthus species has been reported from Kerala.
• The species is endowed with high nutritional value, contributed by the rich presence of anthocyanin, a pigment which imparts the purple colour.
• The stem is hairy and purple in colour, the plant flowers and fruits during the period from June to December.

Bio-Jet Fuel

• Indian Air force’s AN-32 aircraft was formally fleet certified to fly on blended aviation fuel containing up to 10% of indigenous bio-jet fuel.
• The indigenous bio-jet fuel was first produced by the CSIR-IIP lab at Dehradun in 2013.
• This bio-fuel would be produced from Tree Borne Oils (TBOs) sourced from tribal areas and farmers, augmenting their income substantially.

EQUIP

• Ministry of Human Resource Development plans to launch an ambitious ₹1.5 lakh crore EQUIP project to improve the quality and accessibility of higher education over the next five years.
• EQUIP stands for the Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme and was crafted by ten committees led by experts within the government.
• It aims to improve access to higher education, especially for underserved communities and to improve the gross enrolment ration.
• It also improves teaching and learning processes by building educational infrastructure, improve the quality of research and innovation.