Himachal Pradesh considering legalising cannabis cultivation, says CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu

• Cannabis refers to a group of three plants with psychoactive properties, known as Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis.
• Cannabis is made up of more than 120 components, which are known as cannabinoids but experts have a pretty good understanding of two of them, known as cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
• The Mexican term ''marijuana'' is frequently used in referring to cannabis leaves or other crude plant material in many countries.
• The unpollinated female plants are called hashish. Cannabis oil (hashish oil) is a concentrate of cannabinoids obtained by solvent extraction of the crude plant material or of the resin.
• In India farming of cannabis has been legalised in Uttarakhand, and controlled cultivation of cannabis is also being done in some districts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Legal Provisions in India

• The central law that deals with cannabis (weed or marijuana) in India is the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, of 1985.
• The NDPS Act prohibits the sale and production of cannabis resin and flowers, but the use of leaves and seeds of the cannabis plant is permitted
• The states have the power to regulate and form the state rules for it.

Mission to map rural India’s cultural assets covers over one lakh villages

National Mission for Cultural Mapping:

• It was launched in 2017 by the Union Ministry of Culture
• Aim: To develop a comprehensive database of art forms, artists and other resources across the country.
• The government has identified and documented distinctive features of more than one lakh villages across the country.
• In this cultural asset mapping, villages have been broadly divided into seven-eight categories based on mythological ecological, developmental and scholastic importance.
• The Culture Ministry had approved a budget of ₹469 crores for the mission in 2017 for a period of three years.
• Detailed field surveys were carried out by joint teams of the Culture Ministry and the Common Services Centres (CSC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

10000 Indian genomes to be sequenced by year-end

Genome India project:

• It is a Pan India initiative focused on the Whole Genome Sequencing of representative populations across India.
• Goal: The goal is to start with and executes whole genome sequencing and subsequent data analysis of 10,000 individuals representing the country’s diverse population.
• This is a mission-mode, multi-institution consortium project, the first of its kind in India supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.

Genome

• A genome is the complete set of genetic information in an organism.
• In living organisms, the genome is stored in long molecules of DNA called
• In humans, the genome consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes located in the cell’s nucleus, as well as a small chromosome in the cell’s mitochondria.
• A genome contains all the information needed for an individual to develop and function.

Muthuvan tribal community coexisting with wild animals

• The Muthuvan people live on the border hill forests of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• They speak slightly two different dialects and call each other Malayalam Muthuvan and Pandi Muthuvan.
• Muthuvan are animists and spirit worshippers and also worship the forest gods,
• They believe that the spirits of their ancestors are to be the first migrants to the hill forests.
• The Muthuvan tribe has a unique system of governance called the ''Kani System''.
• Under this system, each village is headed by a ''Kani'', who is responsible for the administration of the village.
• They have expertise in traditional medicines which are very effective and these medicines and the medicine men are confidentially preserved and passed on to the generations.
• Occupation: Agriculture is the main occupation of these Muthuvan tribes, producing quite a number of products like ragi, cardamom and lemon grass.

Tick-borne encephalitis detection in England

• This infection is caused by a virus which is a member of the family
• The virus can spread to people through eating or drinking raw milk or cheese from infected goats, sheep, or cows.
• It causes a range of diseases from mild flu-like illness, to severe infection in the central nervous system such as meningitis or encephalitis.
• Symptoms: High fever with a headache, neck stiffness, confusion or reduced consciousness.
• Geographical Distribution: Most of the cases were reported from eastern, central, northern and increasingly western European countries, northern China, Mongolia, and the Russian Federation.
• While many people infected with tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus do not develop any signs, severe diseases can affect the brain."
• For people with symptoms, the time from tick bite to feeling sick (incubation period) is usually about 7 to 14 days but can range from about 4 to 28 days.
• Treatment: There are 4 widely used vaccines of assured quality available namely
  • FSME-Immun and Encepur: Manufactured in Austria and Germany respectively, and based on European strains of the virus
  • TBE-Moscow and EnceVir: Manufactured in the Russian Federation and based on Far-Eastern strains.
• As per the World Health Organisation, approximately 10,000–12,000 clinical cases of tick-borne encephalitis are reported each year.

Joint Military Exercise ‘Ex KAVACH’ concludes at Andaman and Nicobar Command

• It was conducted under the aegis of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), the only Joint Forces Command in the country.
• It was a tri-service exercise and involved assets of the Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and Indian Coast Guard.
• Naval warships, amphibious troops of the Army and different types of aircraft of the Indian Air Force were employed during the military drill.
• Aim: To enhance operational synergy and joint warfighting capabilities among the three services.
• The exercise involved the synergised application of maritime surveillance assets, coordinated air and maritime strikes, air defence, submarine and landing operations

Europe to launch Juice mission to explore Jupiter and its icy moons on April 13

• It is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to explore Jupiter and three of its icy moons: Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.
• Objective: The probe aims to explore the possibilities of life in space and the origins of Jupiter.
• The probe will take nearly eight years to reach Jupiter.
• It will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation, and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons.
• Approximately four years after its arrival at the Jupiter system, JUICE will move into orbit around the gas giant''s largest moon, Ganymede, to conduct the most extensive exploration of this body, which is larger than the solar system''s smallest planet, Mercury.
• It will become the first probe to orbit a planetary moon other than Earth''s.
• Features of the spacecraft:
  • It has been fuelled with mono-methyl hydrazine (MMH) fuel and mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON) oxidizer, which ignites when the two come in contact. Juice will use this propellant to make critical course manoeuvres on its journey.
  • It will be packed with 10 instruments and will characterize Jupiter’s ocean-bearing icy moons.
  • It will be launched onboard the Ariane-5 rocket, a workhorse for the European Space Agency.

Proposed Dibang Tiger Reserve and Idu Mishmi people

• Who are they? The Idu Mishmi is a sub-tribe of the larger Mishmi group (the other two Mishmi groups are Digaru and Miju) in Arunachal Pradesh and neighbouring Tibet.
• They primarily live in Mishmi Hills, bordering Tibet in Arunachal Pradesh.
• Their ancestral homelands are spread over the districts of Dibang Valley and Lower Dibang Valley, as well as parts of Upper Siang and Lohit.
• They are known for their weaving and craftsmanship skills.
• They can be distinctively identified by their typical hairstyle, distinctive customs and artistic pattern embedded on their clothes.
• Population: The tribe is estimated to comprise around 12,000 people (as per the census 2011).
• Language: Their language, called ‘Idu Mishmi’, is considered endangered by UNESCO.
• Relation with nature:
  • Traditionally animists, the tribe has strong ties with the region’s rich flora and fauna.
  • Tigers are especially important to the Idu Mishmis — according to Idu mythology, they were born to the same mother, and thus, tigers are their “elder brothers”.
  • While hunting has traditionally been a way of life, the Idu Mishmis also follow a strict belief system of myths and taboos — ‘iyu-ena’ — that restrict them from hunting many animals, including a complete prohibition on killing tigers.

Indian Navy conducts exercise ''Prasthan'' off Mumbai coast

• The exercise is held every six months under the aegis of the Indian Navy and involves the participation of all stakeholders in the maritime domain.
• This exercise is an important element of ensuring offshore security and aims to integrate the efforts of all maritime stakeholders involved in offshore defence.
• The recent exercise aims to validate measures and procedures to address contingencies that may occur in oil production platforms.
• It was conducted on the Greatdrill Chaaya platform, about 30 nm South West of Mumbai Harbour.
• The exercise saw actions to counter contingencies such as a fire in the oil platform, a man overboard, an oil spill in the area, helicopter emergencies, a hazardous gas leak, assisting a disabled vessel in the offshore area and medical evacuation of the platform crew.
• A number of ships and helicopters from the Indian Navy, Indian Air Force, Indian Coast Guard, ONGC and Directorate General of Shipping were deployed for the exercise.
• Personnel from Maharashtra Police, Customs, Fisheries Department, Mumbai Port Authority, JN Port Authority and other concerned state and central civilian agencies also participated in it.

On the road ahead for the LIGO-India project

• Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)
  • LIGO is the world''s most powerful observatory that exploits the physical properties of light and of space itself to detect and understand the origins of gravitational waves.
  • At the moment, there are two such observatories in the US that are separated by a distance of 3000 kilometres that work in tandem to pick up these gravitational waves.
  • Each LIGO detector consists of two arms, each 4 kilometres long, comprising 2-meter-wide steel vacuum tubes arranged in an "L" shape and covered by a 10-foot wide, 12-foot tall concrete shelter that protects the tubes from the environment.
• LIGO-India Project
  • LIGO-India will be an advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in Maharashtra, India, as part of a worldwide network.
  • It is envisaged as a collaborative project between a consortium of Indian research institutions and the LIGO Laboratory in the USA, along with its international partners.
  • It will be built by the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology, with a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Science Foundation, the US, along with several national and international research and academic institutions.
  • LIGO-India is a collaboration between the LIGO Laboratory (operated by Caltech and MIT in the US) and three Institutes in India: the Raja Ramanna Center for Advanced Technology (RRCAT, in Indore), the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR in Ahmedabad), and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA, in Pune).
  • Significance: The information gathered by LIGO India could be used in the field of gravitation, relativity, astrophysics, cosmology, particle physics, and nuclear physics.

Gravitational Wave

• It is an invisible (yet incredibly fast) ripple in space.
• They travel at the speed of light.
• These waves squeeze and stretch anything in their path as they pass by.
• Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity.
• Einstein''s mathematics showed that massive accelerating objects (such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other) would disrupt space-time in such a way that ''waves'' of undulating space-time would propagate in all directions away from the source.