Scientists report spotting of fossil of Madtsoiidae snake

• Madtsoiidae is an extinct group of medium-sized to gigantic snakes, firstly appeared during the late Cretaceous and mostly distributed in the Gondwanan landmasses, although, their Cenozoic record is extremely scarce.
• From the fossil record, the whole group disappeared in the mid-Paleogene across most Gondwanan continents except for Australia where it survived with its last known taxon Wonambi till late Pleistocene.
• Now, scientists have reported for the first time a Madtsoiidae snake from the late Oligocene ( part of the Tertiary Period in the Cenozoic Era, and lasted from about 33.7 to 23.8 million years ago) of India or the molasse deposits of Ladakh Himalaya.
• The occurrence of Madtsoiidae from the Oligocene of Ladakh indicates their continuity at least to the end of the Paleogene (geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago).

India’s first Amrit Sarovar opened to public in Uttar Pradesh

• With a view to conserve water for the future, the Prime Minister has launched a new initiative named Mission Amrit Sarovar on 24th April 2022.
• The Mission is aimed at developing and rejuvenating 75 water bodies in each district of the country as a part of celebration of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
• Modi had namechecked Patwai during his monthly Mann Ki Baat programme in April.

Centre reviews progress of Ujh Multipurpose Project

• The expected timeline of completion of the project is about 6 years and once completed, the project will store around 781 Million Cubic meter of waters of river Ujh (a tributary of river Ravi).
• After completion of the project, utilization of waters of Eastern Rivers allotted to India as per the Indus Water Treaty would be enhanced by utilizing of the flow that presently goes across border to Pakistan.
• Read More on Indus Water Treaty - https://iasgoogle.com/editorial_detail/what-is-a-circular-economy 

Ministry Of Culture To Organise A Week-Long Celebration For ‘International Museum Day’ Across Its Museums

• The following Museums are undertaking special initiatives throughout the designated week:
  • National Museum (New Delhi),
  • National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru),
  • Allahabad Museum (Prayagraj),
  • Indian Museum (Kolkata),
  • Victoria Memorial Hall (Kolkata),
  • Salar Jung Museum (Hyderabad) and
  • Science cities and centers under National Council of Science Museums (in 24 locations across India).
• Earlier, Ministry of Culture’s renewed mandate of ‘Reimagining Museums in India’ a Global Summit was held in February this year.
• Ministry of Culture is also set to announce the launch of ‘Museum’ - a hackathon with museum-centric problem statements; and a ‘Museums in India’ mobile app containing a digital repository of their collections.

ISRO successfully tests solid rocket booster for Gaganyaan programme

• The test was held at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
• Designed and developed by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram for over two years, the HS200 booster is the ‘human-rated’ version of the S200 rocket boosters used on the geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle Mk-III (GSLV Mk-III), also called the LVM3.
• The GSLV Mk-III rocket, which will be used for the Gaganyaan mission, will have two HS200 boosters that will supply the thrust for lift-off.
• The HS200 is a 20-metre-long booster with a diameter of 3.2 metres and is the world’s second largest operational booster using solid propellants.
• Since Gaganyaan is a manned mission, the GSLV Mk-III will have improvements to increase reliability and safety to meet the requirements of ‘human rating.’ Of the three propulsion stages of the GSLV Mk-III, the second stage uses liquid propellant while the third is a cryogenic stage.

China, Russia, Pakistan to attend SCO anti-terror meet in Delhi

• While both India and Pakistan have no bilateral engagement at present and have not attended other regional meets such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meet, they both attended the Russia and China-led SCO meet.
• Last year, an Indian team also travelled to Pakistan to attend the SCO-RATS exercises in Pabbi.
• India is expected to host the SCO summit in 2023, which would see leaders of the eight-member grouping (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) travelling to New Delhi.
• In October, joint anti-terrorist exercises titled “Manesar-Antiterror-2022” will be held on the NSG training campus in Manesar, and will be followed by another joint border operation of the SCO member states called “Friendship Border-2022” in Kazakhstan later this year.
• Both exercises were decided at a meeting of SCO-RATS in Tashkent on March 25 this year, which was chaired by India.
• The Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is the permanent body of the SCO RATS based in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Iron in Tamil Nadu 4,200 years ago

• Before this, the earliest evidence of iron use was from 1900-2000 BCE for the country, and from 1500 BCE for Tamil Nadu. The latest evidence dates the findings from Tamil Nadu to 2172 BCE.
• Chief Minister M K Stalin said in the Assembly that it has been established that Tamils who lived 4,200 years ago were aware of iron.
• Dense forests were converted into fertile lands only after humankind began realising the use of iron. This finding has answered questions relating to the start of agricultural activity in Tamil Nadu.
• The excavations are from Mayiladumparai near Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu. Mayiladumparai is an important site with cultural material dating back between the Microlithic (30,000 BCE) and Early Historic (600 BCE) ages.
• The site is situated in the midst of several archaeological sites such as Togarapalli, Gangavaram, Sandur, Vedarthattakkal, Guttur, Gidlur, Sappamutlu and Kappalavadi. All these important archaeological sites lie within 10 km.

PM Modi to virtually launch Madhya Pradesh Startup Policy and address Startup community

• He also launched the Madhya Pradesh Startup portal, which will facilitate and help promote the startup ecosystem. He also interacted with the startup entrepreneurs.
• He recalled that in 2014 when his Government was formed, the number of startups in the country was about 300-400. Today there are about 70000 recognized startups.
• He said about 50% of startups are from Tier II & Tier III cities and they cover many states and cities. They are associated with more than 50 industries.

NITI Aayog launched the National Data & Analytics Platform (NDAP) for open public use.

• The platform aims to democratize access to public government data by making data accessible, interoperable, interactive, and available on a user-friendly platform.
• It hosts foundational datasets from various government agencies, presents them coherently, and provides tools for analytics and visualization.
• This public launch follows a beta release of the platform in August 2021 that had provided access to a limited number of users for testing and feedback.