Postal ballot facility for personnel engaged in poll duty

About Postal ballot:

• It is also known as absentee voting, is a method of voting in which electors cast their ballots by mail rather than in person at a polling station.
• Eligibility:
• Service voters: Members of the armed forces, paramilitary forces and other government employees deployed on election duty far from their home constituencies.
• Absentee voters: Individuals who are unable to vote in person due to reasons such as being away from their home constituency for work, illness or disability.
• Electors on election duty: Government officials and polling staff who are assigned duties at polling stations other than their own.
• Electors under preventive detention: Individuals who are detained under preventive custody orders during the election period.
• To apply for a postal ballot, eligible voters must submit an application to the Returning Officer (RO) of their respective constituency.
• The application form typically requires personal details, voter identification information, and the reason for seeking a postal ballot. The RO verifies the eligibility of the applicant and issues the postal ballot if the criteria are met.
• Counting of Postal Ballot :
• Postal ballots are counted separately from votes cast at polling stations.
• The RO and election officials scrutinise the postal ballots to ensure their validity and integrity. Valid postal ballots are then added to the respective candidate''s vote count.

Union Health Ministry launches myCGHS iOS app

About myCGHS app:

• It is designed to enhance access to Electronic Health Records, information and resources for Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) beneficiaries.
• It is developed by the technical teams of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) Himachal Pradesh and NIC Health Team.
• It is a convenient mobile application offering features aimed at enhancing information and accessibility for CGHS beneficiaries.
• It facilitates a wide range of services, including booking and cancellation of online appointments, downloading CGHS card and index card, accessing lab reports from CGHS labs, checking medicine history, checking medical reimbursement claim status, accessing referral details and locating nearby wellness centers etc.
• The app features security features like 2-factor authentication and functionality of mPIN ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of users'' data.

Key facts about Central Government Health Scheme:

• It gives healthcare facilities to registered employees and pensioners of the Central Government of India. 
• The enrolled members are provided reimbursement and cashless facilities under this scheme.
• It covers health care under different systems of medicine, such as Allopathy, Homeopathy, Ayurveda and Unani.
• CGHS beneficiaries can undergo treatment at any empanelled private hospital of their choice.

Massive earthquake hits Taiwan: What is the Ring of Fire?

About Ring of Fire:

• It is a string of hundreds of volcanoes and earthquake-sites which runs along the Pacific Ocean. It is a semicircle or horse shoe in shape and stretches nearly 40,250 kilometres.
• It traces the meeting points of numerous tectonic plates, including the Eurasian, North American, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Caribbean, Nazca, Antarctic, Indian, Australian, Philippine and other smaller plates, which all encircle the large Pacific Plate.
• It runs through 15 more countries including the USA, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Canada, Guatemala, Russia, Chile, Peru and the Philippines.
• Why is it more prone to earthquakes?
• It witnesses so many earthquakes due to constant sliding past, colliding into, or moving above or below each other of the tectonic plates. As the edges of these plates are quite rough, they get stuck with one another while the rest of the plate keeps moving.
• An earthquake occurs when the plate has moved far enough and the edges unstick on one of the faults.
• There are many volcanoes in the Ring of Fire due to the movement of tectonic plates. Many of the volcanoes have been formed through a process known as subduction.
• It takes place when two plates collide with each other and the heavier plate is shoved under another, creating a deep trench.
• Most of the subduction zones on the planet are located in the Ring of Fire and that’s why it hosts a large number of volcanoes.

India plans to make carbon fibre in response to EU carbon tax

About Carbon fibre:

• It is a material consisting of thin, strong crystalline filaments of carbon, essentially carbon atoms bonded together in long chains.
• Properties:
• It has high stiffness and stiffness-to-weight ratio.
• It has high tensile strength and strength-to-weight ratio.
• It has high-temperature tolerance with special resins.
• It consists of low thermal expansion.
• It also has high chemical resistance.
• The fibers are extremely stiff, strong and light, and are used in many processes to create excellent structural materials.
• Currently, India does not produce any carbon fibre, relying entierly on imports from countries such as the US, France, Japan and Germany.
• Applications
• It is essential for various applications such as fighter planes’ noses, civilian airplanes, drone frames, car chassis and fire-resistant building material.
• It is a critical material in technical textiles and is known for its high strength and lightweight properties.

India dismisses allegations of abusive conditions at shrimp farms

About Marine Products Export Development Authority:

• It is a statutory body entrusted with the primary task of promotion of export of marine products.
• History: It was set up by an act of Parliament during 1972. The erstwhile Marine Products Export Promotion Council established by the Government of India in September, 1961 was converged into MPEDA on 24th August, 1972.
• Functions:
• Developing and regulating off-shore and deep-sea fishing and undertaking measures for the conservation and management of off-shore and deep-sea fisheries;
• Registering fishing vessels, processing plants or storage premises for marine products and conveyances used for the transport of marine products; fixing of standards and specifications for marine products for purposes of export;
• Regulating the export of marine products; registering of exporters of marine products on payment of such fees as may be prescribed;
• It has set up five full-fledged Quality Control Laboratories, at Kochi, Nellore & Bhimavaram, Bhubaneshwar and Porbandar. In addition, fifteen ELISA Screening Laboratories set up by MPEDA in the maritime states.
• In order to reach out to the exporters in different parts of the Country, it has set up 18 – Regional / Sub Regional Divisions / Desk offices.
• Headquarter: Kochi, Kerala
• It has Trade Promotion offices at New Delhi, Tokyo and New York.
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Commerce and Industry

Andhra forest officials hack into tree, water gushes out

About Indian laurel tree:

• Scientific name: Terminalia elliptica (syn. T. tomentosa)
• Other names: Asna; saj or saaj; Indian laurel; marutham (Tamil); matti (Kannada); ain (Marathi); taukkyan (Burma); asana (Sri Lanka); and casually crocodile bark because of the characteristic bark pattern.
• Habitat: It is mainly found in both dry and moist deciduous forests in southern India up to 1000 m. 
• Distribution: It is principally native to southern and Southeast Asia in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
• Application:
• The wood of this tree is used for furniture, cabinetwork, joinery, paneling, specialty items, boat-building, railroad cross-ties (treated), decorative veneers and for musical instruments (e.g. for guitar fretboard).
• Its leaves are used as food by Antheraea paphia (silkworms) which produce the tussar silk (Tussah), a form of commercially important wild silk.
• The bark is used medicinally against diarrhoea. Oxalic acid can be extracted from it.
• The bark and especially the fruit yield pyrogallol and catechol to dye and tan leather.

First tidally locked super-Earth exoplanet confirmed

About Tidally locked Planet:

• A tidally-locked planet in its orbit around a star keeps the same face towards the star. This happens when the rotation period of the planet around its own axis becomes equal to its revolution period around the star.
• On a tidally locked planet, one side is always facing a star while the other is cloaked in perpetual darkness. The dark side could be so cold that water and would-be atmospheric components (e.g., carbon dioxide, nitrogen, or methane) are frozen, certainly an inhospitable environment for life.
• Examples of Tidal Locking:
• The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth because it rotates in exactly the same time as it takes to orbit the Earth. That is why we only see one side of the Moon.
• Pluto-Charon system: Here both bodies are of comparable size and are close together, both bodies can be tidally locked to each other
• Tidal locking does influence how a planet moves, because tidal locking slows down its spin.
• This phenomenon of tidal locking can happen with other bodies in space too, as astronomers often say that binary stars or star systems that have two stars at their center, are most likely tidally locked to each other.

Evolution in action? New study finds possibility of nitrogen-fixing organelles

About Nitrogen-fixing bacteria:

• These are prokaryotic microorganisms that are capable of transforming nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into “fixed nitrogen” compounds, such as ammonia, that are usable by plants.
• Types: There are two main types of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
• Symbiotic or mutualistic: These species live in root nodules of certain plants. Plants of the pea family, known as legumes which are some of the most important hosts for nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Examples: Rhizobium, which is associated with plants in the pea family and various Azospirillum species, which are associated with cereal grasses.
• Other nitrogen-fixing bacteria are free-living and do not require a host. They are commonly found in soil or in aquatic environments. Examples: Cyanobacteria Anabaena and Nostoc and genera such as Azotobacter, Beijerinckia and Clostridium.
• Significance:
• Nitrogen is a component of proteins and nucleic acids and is essential to life on Earth. Although nitrogen is abundant in the atmosphere, most organisms cannot use it in that form.
• Nitrogen-fixing bacteria accomplish more than 90 percent of all nitrogen fixation and thus play an important role in the nitrogen cycle.

India’s PRATUSH among telescopes astronomers want to put on, around the moon

About PRATUSH Telescope:

• Probing ReionizATion of the Universe using Signal from Hydrogen (PRATUSH) is a radio telescope to be sited on the moon’s far side.
• It is being built by the Raman Research Institute (RRI) in Bengaluru with active collaboration from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• Initially, ISRO will place PRATUSH into orbit around the earth. After some fine-tuning, the space agency will launch it moonwards.
• Main roles: It will be to detect signals from the first stars and galaxies, reveal the cosmic dawn of the universe, answering the question when the first stars formed, the nature of the first stars and what was the light from the first stars.
• It will carry a wideband frequency-independent antenna, a self-calibrating analog receiver and a digital correlator to catch radio noise in the all-important signal from the Dark Ages.
• The target instrument sensitivity is at the level of a few millikelvin without being limited by any systematic features.

Political affiliation of applicant institution does not influence selection process on new Sainik Schools: Defence Ministry

About Sainik Schools:

• These are residential schools for students, providing Public School Education which are affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), New Delhi.
• Funding: These schools are funded by Central and State governments.
• The scheme to establish Sainik Schools was introduced in 1961 with the primary aim of preparing students academically, physically and mentally for entry into the National Defence Academy.
• These schools are under the overall governance of Sainik Schools Society (registered under Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860) Ministry of Defence. It is established with the primary aim of preparing boys academically, physically and mentally for entry into the National Defence Academy.
• At present, there are 33 Sainik Schools located in various parts of the country. Girls cadets have also been given admission in Sainik School, from the academic session 2021-22.
• Recent initiative:
• Government of India has approved an initiative for setting up of 100 new Sainik Schools under Sainik Schools Society, Ministry of Defence in partnership with NGOs/Private Schools and State Govt.
• It aims to create an academically strong, culturally aware, intellectually adept, confident, highly skilled, multi-dimensional, patriotic self-reliant youth community with leadership qualities focused on providing utmost priority to the nation.