Prelims in Focus, an IAS Abhiyan Initiative to quickly navigate through the important facts, current affairs, static portion to enrich aspirant’s knowledge base along with conceptual clarity. Our Prelims in Focus initiative will surely be an added advantage for UPSC Prelims Examinations. This initiative will help the aspirants to focus to the main points of a topic quickly at the same time. In this initiative, we will cover 10-15 important facts on a daily basis. Click here to Join our Telegram Channel to read these articles.  We will continue our Monthly Pre-Bits Flash Liner along with this initiative. 

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Prelims in Focus-Part-18

1. Nagorno-Karabakh

   ▪️Straddling western Asia and Eastern Europe, Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but most of the region is controlled by Armenian separatists.

   ▪️Part of Azerbaijan territory since the Soviet era.

2. The Mascarene Islands
   _________
   ➖Group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar from where the cross equatorial winds blow to India

   ➖Also called the Indian Ocean subtropical high, which is a high-pressure area located between 20° to 35° South latitude and 40° to 90° East longitude.

3. The Mascarene High (MH)
   __________
   ➖A semi-permanent subtropical high-pressure zone in the South Indian Ocean.

   ➖Apart from its large influence on African and Australian weather patterns, it also helps in driving the inter-hemispheric circulation between the Indian Ocean in the south and subcontinental landmass in the north.

4. Global warming hiatus
   ________
   ➖Referred to a global warming pause, or a global warming slowdown, which is a period of relatively little change in globally averaged surface temperatures.

   ➖Result in an increase in the sea surface temperature (SST)

5. Jenu Kuruba tribe
   _________
   ➖Community listed under the specially privileged tribal groups (SPTG) category

   ➖Along with Koragas, Jenu Kuruba community is the only other tribal community of Karnataka to find a place on the SPTG list of 32.

6. 🔹 Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) is a US agency for International Development initiative aimed at promoting sustainable natural resource management in the Congo Basin.
7. 🔸 ‘Changathi’, a Kerala State Literacy Mission programme aims to end social exclusion of migrant labourers by teaching them Malayalam, orient them to the culture of the state and creating legal and health-related awareness. It was a success making nearly 4000 migrant workers proficient in Malayalam
8. 🔸 In rural India, 35.76 per cent population was getting safe and adequate drinking water within premises through Pipe Water Supply (PWS) in 2015-16 whereas the same has increased up to  42.49 per cent in 2019-20.
9. 🔺 According to the UK-based humanitarian organisation Plan International, the survey, titled “State of the World’s Girls Report”, 58% of the young women accepted having faced online harassment or abuse on different social media platforms.

10. Saura Tribal Painting
    __________
    ➖Style of wall mural paintings associated with the Sauda tribals of the state of Odisha in India.

    ➖Also called ikons (or ekons) are visually similar to Warli paintings and hold religious significance for the Sauras.

    ➖Called Idital and the person who creates it is known as the iditalmar

    ➖Painting has a rectangular frame, and features icons of deities, or those drawn from nature

    ➖Frequently featured motifs include Labasum (the earth god), Jodisum (the village deity), Manduasum (the sun god) and Jananglosum (the wind deity).