Artistes breathe a new life into Seethakali folk art

Seethakali

• It is a unique centuries-old folk art form that is believed to have originated at Perinad in the Kollam district of Kerala.
• This art form was first performed some 150 years back by the people of Vedar and Pulayar communities.
• Themes
  • It is based on certain episodes taken from the Indian epic Ramayana.
  • Mythic characters such as Rama, Seetha, Ravana and Hanuman come alive in Seethakali performances that portray the tale of Seetha’s journey, from the time she accompanied Rama to the woods till her ascent to the heavens.
• In the early times, Seethakali was performed as part of the harvest festival Onam.
• From Atham star till the 28th day after Onam, the performers who belong to the subaltern communities go from one house to another performing this art.
• The props and instruments used during performances are all made of natural materials like bamboo and palm leaves.
• The costumes and the make-up are loud and eye-catching.
• The characters of Rama and Laxmana appear in green since the colour is used to represent gods and goddesses in Kathakali.
• Currently, in Kerala, there is only one registered Seethakali performing group – Perinad Seethakali Sangham.

India and Iran drop foreign arbitration clause in Chabahar port issue

• India and Iran have agreed to pursue arbitration under rules framed by the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and will not go for commercial arbitration in foreign courts.

UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

• It is a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, established in 1966.
• Mandate: To further the progressive harmonisation and unification of the law of international trade.
• Membership:
• The Commission is composed of 60 member States elected by the General Assembly.
• The 60 member States include 14 African States, 14 Asian States, 8 Eastern European States, 10 Latin American and Caribbean States and 14 Western European and other States.
• The General Assembly elects members for terms of six years; every three years, the terms of half of the members expire.
• India is a founding member of this organisation.

Chabahar Port

• It is a seaport in the Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran, on the Gulf of Oman, at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.
• It is a deep-water port with direct access to the Indian Ocean that is outside the Hormuz Strait.
• Its geographic proximity to countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, as well as its status as a key transit centre on the burgeoning International North-South Transport Corridor.

To combat Delhi pollution, CSIR-NEERI plans grid-based mitigation strategy

National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI)

• It is a premier research institute created and funded by the Government of India dedicated to environmental science and engineering.
• The institute''s primary mission is to conduct research and development activities related to various aspects of environmental management, pollution control, and sustainable development.
• NEERI falls under the Ministry of Science and Technology of the central government.
• It was established in Nagpur in 1958 with a focus on water supply, sewage disposal, and communicable diseases, and to some extent on industrial pollution and occupational diseases found common in post-independent India.
• Headquarters: Nagpur
• NEERI has five zonal laboratories at Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.
• Organizational Expertise: Climate/Environment, Health, Lab or Field Testing, Monitoring and Evaluation, Policy Development, Research, Standards, Technology and Fuel R&D.

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

• It is one of India''s premier scientific and industrial research organisations.
• It was established as an autonomous body by the government of India in 1942 to promote scientific knowledge and boost industrialisation and economic growth.
• It is now one of the largest publicly funded R&D organisations in the world.
• Headquarters: New Delhi
• CSIR maintains a large network of national laboratories and field stations and employs thousands of scientists, researchers, and support staff.
• Prominent laboratories: Cellular and Molecular Biology (Hyderabad), the Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (Pilani), the Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (Dhanbad), the National Aerospace Laboratories (Bengaluru), the National Institute of Oceanography (Goa), and the National Botanical Research Institute (Lucknow).

Central government imposes 20 per cent duty on export of parboiled rice

Parboiled Rice

• Parboiled rice, also called converted rice, is partially precooked in its inedible husk before being processed for eating.
• It happens before rice is milled, that is, before the inedible outer husk is removed to yield brown rice but before brown rice is refined to make white rice.
• In some Asian and African countries, people have been parboiling rice since ancient times as it makes the husks easier to remove by hand.
• The main steps of parboiling are
  • Soaking: Raw, unhusked rice, also called paddy rice, is soaked in warm water to increase the moisture content**.**
  • Steaming: The rice is steamed until the starch converts into a gel. The heat of this process also helps kill bacteria and other microbes.
  • Drying: The rice is slowly dried to reduce the moisture content so that it can be milled.
  • Husking: The dried, partially cooked rice is then milled to remove the outer husk. The result is parboiled rice.
• Parboiling changes the colour of rice to a light yellow or amber, which differs from the pale, white colour of regular rice.
• During parboiling, some water-soluble nutrients move from the bran of the rice kernel into the starchy endosperm. This minimises some of the nutrient loss that normally happens during refining when making white rice.
• Benefits:
  • Parboiling rice improves its texture, increases its shelf life, and provides health benefits.
  • Parboiled rice is higher in fibre and protein than white rice.
  • Parboiling reduces the stickiness of rice, so it yields fluffy and separate kernels once cooked.
  • Additionally, parboiling inactivates the enzymes that break down the fat in rice. This helps prevent rancidity and off-flavors, increasing shelf-life
  • Notably, parboiled rice has significantly more thiamine and niacin than white rice. These nutrients are important for energy production.
• Potential downsides:
• It’s less nutritious than brown rice.
• It takes a little longer to cook.

Novel method to compute emission from accreting neutron stars can help understanding them

• Neutron stars can harbour extreme magnetic fields, and this work, for the first time, found a methodology to obtain unique solutions for accretion onto a neutron star.
• It could help in understanding of underlying physical processes around Neutron stars (NS).
• Because of the extreme compactness (mass-to-radius ratio) of NS, they have large surface gravitational potentials, which make them an efficient accretor of surrounding matter.
• It may be noted accretion is the process of inflow of matter onto a compact star.
• The accretion dynamics, however, are strongly dictated by the magnetic fields.
• The strong magnetic field of the star restricts the infalling matter from flowing along these field lines until they reach the poles of the star.
• It is near the poles where the matter emits most of its kinetic energy in the form of radiation. This enables the flow to slow down, finally settling down onto the NS surface.
• Accretion flow around NS is composed of ionised plasma, which is a soup of protons and electrons.
• Because electrons are almost two thousand times lighter than the protons, they are prone to different radiative emission processes, and hence, these species are expected to exhibit a different temperature distribution than that of the protons.
• Working in this two-temperature regime is not trivial since they suffer from a very basic problem of degeneracy, which arises because of the presence of more variables than the number of equations of motions available.
• Degeneracy implies that the equations of motions, when solved, produces multiple accretion solutions and hence different observable spectrum even for a given set of constants of motion.

Neutron stars

• These are the remains of the cores of massive stars that have reached the end of their lives.

Chinese navy is testing the most powerful coil gun ever built

Coil Guns

• It is a type of electromagnetic weapon capable of launching projectiles with extremely high speed in the blink of an eye.
• They are also known as Gauss guns or magnetic accelerators.
• It operates on the principle of electromagnetic induction, applying the principles of electromagnetism to propel a projectile.
• Coil guns feature a series of coils arranged along the barrel of the gun, each one constituting a stage.
• Each coil is energised one after another to create a magnetic field that can levitate and propel a projectile forward.
• The projectile typically stays suspended in the centre of the coil during launch.
• The larger a coil gun, the better its ability to fire projectiles similar to those fired by traditional artillery.

Projectile:

• The projectile used in a coil gun is typically a ferrous or magnetic object, such as a steel ball or a specially designed ferromagnetic projectile.
• This projectile needs to have magnetic properties to interact with the electromagnetic fields generated by the coils.

Advantages over traditional artillery:

• Higher launch speeds and a shorter preparation time.
• Coil guns do not use gunpowder or other chemical propellants, which means they produce no combustion byproducts.
• High Precision: They can be highly accurate due to the precise control over the electromagnetic coils.
• Low Recoil: They have much lower recoil compared to firearms.

5th edition of ausindex-23 at sydney

• It is a major biennial maritime exercise, being conducted since 2015.
• The exercise will provide an opportunity for both Navies to further bolster inter-operability, gain from best practices and develop a common understanding of procedures for Maritime Security Operations.
• This year’s edition was held in Australia.
• INS Sahyadri and INS Kolkata participated in the exercise along with HMAS Choules and HMAS Brisbane from RAN.
• Besides ships and their integral helicopters, the exercise also witnessed the participation of fighter aircraft and maritime patrol aircraft.

Other Exercises between Australia and India

• Ex AUSTRA HIND (Bilateral Exercise with Army)
• EX PITCH BLACK(Australia’s multilateral air combat training exercise)
• Malabar Naval Exercise
• Quad (Multilateral Naval Exercise)

Tele-Law 2.0 launched: Leap in citizen-centric legal services

Tele-Law 2.0

• This version entails the fusion of Tele-Law Services with Nyaya Bandhu pro bono legal services, a merger to further enhance citizen accessibility to legal aid.
• The integration of legal guidance, support, and representation through a single registration process stands as a testament to the commitment to nurture a digitally literate and empowered populace.

Tele-Law programme

• This was launched by the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice in 2017.
• This is operating under the DISHA Scheme.
• The programme connects needy and marginalised people in need of legal aid with the Panel Lawyers via video conferencing/telephonic facilities available at Common Service Centres (CSCs) situated at the panchayat level.
• In addition, the service can also be accessed through the Tele-Law Mobile App.
• Eligibility: Legal advice is made available to everyone under the Tele-Law service. Advice is free of Cost to those who are eligible for free legal aid under Section 12 of the LSA Act, 1987.
• Legal matters in which advice can be taken through Tele-Law service include:
  • Dowry, family dispute, divorce, protection from domestic violence
  • Sexual harassment, sexual abuse, eve teasing at the workplace
  • Maintenance of women, children and senior citizens
  • Rights regarding property and land
  • Equal wages for males and females
  • Maternity benefits and prevention of foeticide

NTCA gives in-principle nod to Kumbhalgarh Tiger Reserve

Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary

• Location: It is situated in the Rajsamand district of Rajasthan.
• Covering a total surface area of 578 sq km and stretching across the Aravalli ranges, it encircles parts of Udaipur, Rajsamand, and Pali districts.
• Once the hunting grounds of royals, this area was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1971.
• The wildlife sanctuary encompasses the historic Kumbhalgarh Fortand is also named after the fort.
• It acts as a dividing line between Mewar and Marwar, two different parts of Rajasthan.
• Rivers:
  • River Banas also graces the sanctuary and is the primary source of water.
  • The rainwater on the western slopes flows as small rivers such as Sukdi, Mithdi, Sumer and Kot, all of which are the tributaries of River Luni that ultimately merge into the Arabian Sea.
• Flora:
  • Many types of flora are found here, mainly a variety of herbal flora like Dhok, Salar and Khair.
  • Many trees and plants and medicinal plants with herbal properties are also included in it.
• Fauna:
  • It provides a suitable habitat for endangered and rare wild animals, including four-horned antelope, sambar, wild boar, nilgai, sloth bear, leopard and caracal.
  • There are a large number of birds to be sighted here, the most common one spotted here is the grey jungle fowl.