A Beginner''s Guide To Spotting Flamingos In Mumbai

Sewri fort

• It is a fort in Mumbai built by Britishers in 1680 at Sewri, Island of Parcel.
• It was served as watch tower, atop a quarried hill overlooking the Mumbai Harbour.
• In 1689, The Siddi general Yadi Sakat invaded Mumbai and they first captured the sewri Fort.The Siddhis were allies of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
• This fort is later also involved in the battle that repelled The Portuguese attack in 1772.
• In 1818, after British-Maratha wars, the strategic importance of the fort declined.
• It was later used as a jail, but today it stands neglected in many parts. Still, parts of the fort have been protected by the state’s department of archaeology and museums.
• It serves as the site of the annual Flamingo Festival.

Election Commission grants national party status to AAP

• The Election Commission has recognised the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a national party and withdrew the national party status of the All India Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).
• The EC has also removed state party status granted to Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh, Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) in Andhra Pradesh, People''s Democratic Alliance in Manipur, Pattali Makkal Katchi in Puducherry, Revolutionary Socialist Party in West Bengal and Mizoram People''s Conference in Mizoram.
• Now the country has five national partiesBahujan Samaj Party, Bhartitya Janta Party (BJP), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

National Party Status:

• According to the Election Commission, any of these three conditions need to be met if a party is to be called a "national party".
  • A party''s candidates in a minimum of four states must get at least 6 per cent of the total votes polled in each of those states in the last national election. In addition to this, it should have won four seats in the Lok Sabha.
  • A party should win a minimum of 2 per cent of the total seats in the Lok Sabha. The party''s candidates should have been elected from not less than three states.
  • A party is recognised as a "state party" in at least four states.

Amit Shah launches vibrant villages program on China border in Arunachal Pradesh

Vibrant Village Programme:

• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme implemented over financial Years 2022-23 to 2025-26.
• The programmme will provide funds for development of essential infrastructure and creation of livelihood opportunities in 19 Districts and 46 Border blocks of 4 states and 1 UT along the northern land border of the country - Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and UT of Ladakh.
• The programmme will help in improving the quality of life of people living in identified border villages and encourage people to stay in their native locations thereby reversing the outmigration from these villages and adding to security of the border.
• Focus Areas: Road connectivity, drinking water, electricity including solar and wind energy, mobile and internet connectivity and healthcare infrastructure and wellness centers etc.
• Vibrant Village Action Plans will be created by the district administration with the help of Gram Panchayats and 100 % saturation of Central and state schemes will be ensured.
• There will not be overlap with Border Area Development Programme.

Indian-American Mathematician CR Rao Awarded ''Nobel Prize'' in Statistics

• The International Prize in Statistics is awarded every two years by a collaboration among five leading international statistics organisations.
• The prize recognises a major achievement by an individual or team in the statistics field.
• The prize is modelled after the Nobel prizes, Abel Prize, Fields Medal and Turing Award and called as Math’s Nobel.

C. R. Rao

• Rao, a prominent Indian-American mathematician and statistician was born to a Telugu family in Hadagali, Karnataka.
• He is currently a professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and Research Professor at the University at Buffalo.
• Rao has received many honours, like-Padma Bhushan (1968) and Padma Vibhushan (2001).
• In his remarkable 1945 paper published in the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, Rao demonstrated three fundamental results that paved the way for the modern field of statistics and provided statistical tools heavily used in science today.
• The first, known as the Cramer-Rao lower bound, 2nd known as the Rao-Blackwell and the third result provided insights that pioneered a new interdisciplinary field that has flourished as “information geometry.”
• Combined, these results help scientists more efficiently extract information from data.

Applications of his theories:

• The Cramer-Rao lower bound is of great importance in such diverse fields as signal processing, spectroscopy, radar systems, multiple image radiography, risk analysis, and quantum physics.
• The Rao-Blackwell process has been applied to stereology, particle filtering, and computational econometrics.
• Information geometry has recently been used to aid the understanding and optimization of Higgs boson measurements at the Large Hadron Collider.
  • It has also found applications in recent research on radars and antennas and contributed significantly to advancements in artificial intelligence, data science, signal processing, shape classification and image segregation.

MEE rating of Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve improves to ‘Very Good’

• Location: It is located in the Nallamala hill ranges (offshoot of the Eastern Ghats) of Andhra Pradesh and spreads across the undivided districts of Guntur, Prakasam and Kurnool.
• It attained the status of a Tiger Reserve in 1983.
• This is the largest tiger reserve in the country spreading over an area of 5937 Sq. Km.
• The Krishna River cuts the basin of this reserve.
• Flora: The forests are mostly Southern tropical dry mixed deciduous forest. A wide variety of grass- bamboo etc. and medicinal plants also grow in this area.
• Fauna: Top faunal species include:- Tiger, Leopard, Wolf, Wild Dog and Jackal and others includes Sambar, Chital, Chowsingha, Chinkara, Mouse Deer etc. It has recorded the presence of 73 of the 75 big cats in the State.

MEE Rating

• According to the Wildlife Institute of India, MEE is defined as the assessment of how well protected areas are being managed. Primarily, whether they are protecting their values and achieving the goals and objectives agreed upon.
• The ratings are assigned in four categories - Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor.
• The criteria or indicators of for assessing India’s Protected Areas has been adopted from IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas framework of MEE.
• The government has been using the MEE to assess tiger reserves across the country since its inception in 2006.
• Out of the 53 tiger reserves notified at present, only 51 tiger reserves covering a total area of 73,765 square kilometers have been assessed in this 5th cycle.
• The Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala gets Top Rank in this cycle.

In New Delhi, George Soros is old, dangerous and on a watchlist — at UN, he isn’t a problem

UN Democracy Fund:

• It was created by the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005 as a United Nations General Trust Fund to support democratization efforts around the world.
• It is used to empower civil society, promote human rights, and encourage the participation of all groups in democratic processes.
• India is a founding member of UNDEF.
• Funding: It subsists entirely on voluntary contributions from Governments
• Advisory Board: It is constituted by the Secretary-General and includes
  • UN Member States who have made the largest cumulative financial contributions to the Fund over the previous three years.
  • International civil society organizations
  • Individuals serving in a personal capacity

In pursuit of a ‘magic number’, physicists discover new uranium isotope

• It has an atomic number of 92 and a mass number of 241.
• The researchers also calculated that uranium-241 likely has a half-life of just 40 minutes.

uranium-241

• The researchers accelerated uranium-238 nuclei into plutonium-198 nuclei at the KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS).
• In a process called multinucleon transfer, the two isotopes exchange protons and neutrons. The resulting nuclear fragments contained different isotopes.

Uranium

• It was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist.
• It is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the periodic table, with atomic number 92.
• It has the highest atomic weight of all naturally occurring elements.
• It occurs naturally in low concentrations in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.
• Uranium ore can be mined from open pits or underground excavations.
• The ore can then be crushed and treated at a mill to separate the valuable uranium from the ore.
• Uranium may also be dissolved directly from the ore deposits in the ground (in-situ leaching) and pumped to the surface.

New low-cost substrates can enhance sensitivity of analytical tools for detecting toxic pollutants

• Scientists have developed a new low-cost substrate that can increase the sensitivity of Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) -- a vital analytical and sensing tool for detecting molecules.
• The substrate is based on the unique sea urchin morphology of molybdenum trioxide for the rapid detection of industrial pollutants.

Raman spectroscopy

• It was discovered by C.V. Raman in 1928 to study the vibrational, rotational, and low-frequency modes of the molecules.
• Principle: The principle behind Raman spectroscopy is that the monochromatic radiation is passed through the sample such that the radiation may get reflected, absorbed, or scattered.
• The scattered photons have a different frequency from the incident photon as the vibration and rotational properties vary.
• Types of Raman Spectroscopy are
  • Resonance Raman Spectroscopy (RRS)
  • Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)
  • Micro-Raman Spectroscopy
  • Non-linear Raman Spectroscopic Techniques

Substrate

• A substrate can be the surface on which an organism (eg: plant, fungus, or animal) lives or the substance on which an enzyme can act.

Union Minister of Power and New & Renewable Energy released the report of the State Energy Efficiency Index (SEEI) 2021-22 in New Delhi.

• It is developed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in association with Alliance for an Energy-Efficient Economy (AEEE).
• SEEI 2021-22 has an updated framework of 50 indicators aligned with national priorities. Programme-specific indicators have been included this year to track outcomes and impacts of state-level energy efficiency initiatives.
• 5 states - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan and Telangana - are in the Front Runner category (>60 points)
• 4 states - Assam, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Punjab - are in the Achiever category (50-60 points).
• Further, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Chandigarh are the top-performing states in their respective state groups.
• Telangana and Andhra Pradesh showed the most improvement since the last index.

Bureau of Energy Efficiency

• It was set up on 1st March 2002 under the provisions of the Energy Conservation Act, 2001.
• Objective: The primary objective of reducing the energy intensity of the Indian economy.
• It coordinates with designated consumers, designated agencies and other organizations and recognises, identifies and utilises the existing resources and infrastructure, in performing the functions assigned to it under the Energy Conservation Act.

UP''s Suhelwa sanctuary records first photographic proof of tigers

Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary:

• It is located in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
• It is one of the important places in the Bhabar-Tarai Eco-System area which is rich in biodiversity.
• The Sohelwa Wild Life Division is situated on the Indo-Nepal International Border.
• Flora: The main tree species are Sal, Asna, Khair, Teak etc. The Sanctuary area is very rich in medicinal plants. Some species of medicinal plants are white Musuli, Black Musuli, Piper longum, and Adhatoda vasica etc found here.
• Fauna: Different types of mammals are found here viz. Leopard, Bear, Wolf, Hyena, Jackal, Wild Boar, Sambhar, Spotted Deer etc.

Bhabar region

• The Bhabar region is a narrow strip of land located in the Northern Plains of India.
• As the rivers originating from the mountains flow down, they deposit pebbles in this region.
• It runs parallel to the slopes of the Shiwaliks and has a width of around 8 to 16 kilometres.

Terai Region

• It is South of the Bhabar region where the streams and rivers re-emerge and create a wet, swampy and marshy region known as terai.