Gaia mission

• The latest data produced by the Gaia mission was released, which is the second of its kind.
• The Gaia mission’s goal is to chart a three-dimensional map of the home galaxy, revealing in the process its composition, formation and evolution.
• The first data release was published in 2016, containing distances and motions of only two million stars.
• It is a European Space Agency’s mission.
• Gaia will provide unprecedented positional measurements for about one billion stars – about 1 per cent of the Galactic stellar population – in our Galaxy and Local Group.
• Gaia originally stood for Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics.
• The mission name remained even though it no longer reflects the methods used to perform the science operations.

Swell Waves

• National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) issued a high energy swell wave alert along the Indian Coastline.
• High energy swell waves, with heights between 2 m and 3 m and periods between 17-22 seconds are likely to be experienced in the seas around India.
• Swell waves are massive ripples that form on the sea due to winds.
• In a way it is the collections of waves produced by storm winds raging hundreds of miles out to sea, rather than the product of local winds along beaches.
• The low-lying coasts of Kerala and West Bengal are particularly vulnerable.

Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP)

• Endorsed by 194 Member States of the World Health Assembly in May 2012 – aims to prevent millions of deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases by 2020 through universal access to immunization.
• Despite improvements in individual countries and a strong global rate of new vaccine introduction, all of the GVAP targets for disease elimination—including measles, rubella, and maternal and neonatal tetanus—are behind schedule.

Press Freedom Index 2018

• In this year’s index, Norway is first for the second year running, followed — as it was last year — by Sweden.
• India has dropped from rank 136 last year to rank 138 this year. India fared poorly on indicators such as hate speeches, attacks on journalists on social media, trolling them and targeting their reputation.
• SAARC nations: Afghanistan (118), Bhutan (94), Nepal (106), the Maldives (120), and Sri Lanka (131), all performed better than India; with Pakistan (139) and Bangladesh (146) performing worse.
• North Korea continues to rank last.

Bureau of Indian Standards:

• The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the National Standards Body of India is a statutory organization under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986. The organisation was formerly the Indian Standards Institution (ISI), set up under a Resolution.
• It works under the aegis of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Government of India.
• The Minister in charge of the Ministry or Department having administrative control of the BIS is the ex-officio President of the BIS.
• As a corporate body, it has 25 members drawn from Central or State Governments, industry, scientific and research institutions, and consumer organisations.

GPS-enabled GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN)

• In Kerala, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is planning to provide real-time information on the market price of fishes and allied news through the GPS-enabled GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN).
• GAGAN was develped by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
• GAGAN will provide augmentation service for the GPS over the country, the Bay of Bengal, South East Asia and Middle East and up to Africa.
• Some of its benefits are improved efficiency, direct routes, increased fuel savings, approach with vertical guidance at runways, significant cost savings because of the withdrawal of ground aids and reduced workload of flight crew and air traffic controllers.
• Gagan works by augmenting and relaying data from GPS satellites with the help of two augmentation satellites and 15 earth-based reference stations.
• The system utilises the satellite-based wide area augmentation system (SBAS) technology which has been developed by Raytheon.

INCOIS

• Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is an autonomous organization of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• INCOIS is mandated to provide the best possible ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvements through systematic and focussed research.

NAG missile

• The NAG missile is a third generation anti-tank guided missile, which has top attack capabilities that can effectively engage and destroy all known enemy tanks during day and night.
• The system includes a third generation Anti-Tank Guided Missile, the NAG, along with the Missile Carrier Vehicle (NAMICA).

National Safety Council

• National Safety Council is a premier, non-profit, self-financing and tripartite apex body at the national level in India.
• It is an autonomous body, which was set up by the Government of India, Ministry of Labour and Employment in 1966 to generate, develop and sustain a voluntary movement on Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) at the national level.
• It was registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and subsequently, as a Public Trust under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950.
• To fulfil its objective NSC carries out various activities. These include organising and conducting specialised training courses, conferences, seminars & workshops; conducting consultancy studies such as safety audits, hazard evaluation & risk assessment; designing and developing HSE promotional materials & publications.

United Nations to Combat Desertification

• Established in 1994, the United Nations to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management.
• It is the only convention stemming from a direct recommendation of the Rio Conference’s Agenda 21.
• To help publicise the Convention, 2006 was declared “International Year of Deserts and Desertification”.
• The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found.
• Its 197 Parties aim, through partnerships, to implement the Convention and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The end goal is to protect land from over-use and drought, so it can continue to provide food, water and energy.
• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal Ministry for this Convention.