Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY)

·        Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana: Launched in 2018 as the world’s largest publicly funded health assurance scheme, it initially targeted vulnerable populations covering 55 crore individuals from 12.34 crore families.

·        The scheme is being implemented in 33 states and Union territories currently except for Delhi, Odisha, and West Bengal.

·        The scheme, thus far, has facilitated 7.37 crore hospital admissions and benefited recipients by more than ₹1 lakh crore.

·        Continuous Expansion: In January 2022, the beneficiary base was increased to 12 crore families due to population growth

·         Recently, the Union Cabinet has decided to extend Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) coverage to all senior citizens aged 70 and above, regardless of income.

·        Implications: This initiative reflects a shift toward universal health coverage for India’s elderly, aiming to address healthcare needs as the population ages.

·        By prioritising senior citizens, the government is addressing a demographic often vulnerable to high medical costs and limited insurance access, with the hope of promoting affordable, quality healthcare for all.

Hasdeo Arand Forest and Ongoing Protests

·        The Hasdeo forest in Chhattisgarh, often referred to as the "lungs of Chhattisgarh," has recently become a flashpoint for conflict between local villagers, environmental activists, and government authorities. The resumption of tree-felling for coal mining in this ecologically rich region has sparked protests, leading to clashes with police and raising significant concerns about biodiversity, tribal rights, and environmental degradation.

What is the Hasdeo Arand Forest?

·        The Hasdeo Arand forest is one of the largest un-fragmented forest ecosystems in Central India, spanning approximately 1,879.6 square kilometers across the districts of Sarguja, Korba, and Surajpur. It is characterized by its diverse flora and fauna, including:

·        Biodiversity: The forest is home to numerous species, including nine that are specially protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, such as elephants, leopards, and sloth bears. It also hosts 640 floral species, 128 medicinal plants, and various timber-yielding species.

·        Ecological Importance: The Hasdeo Arand serves as a crucial habitat and migration corridor for wildlife, particularly elephants and tigers.

Significance of Mining in Hasdeo

·        The Hasdeo-Arand Coalfield (HAC) is significant for coal mining, with 23 coal blocks identified, covering about 437.72 square kilometers. Notably, several blocks, such as Parsa and Kente Extension, have been auctioned to companies, including Adani Enterprises.

·        Mining activities are considered essential for meeting energy demands; however, they pose a substantial threat to the forest ecosystem and local communities, whose livelihoods depend on agriculture and forest resources.

Reasons for Opposition to Mining

·        Environmental Concerns: Villagers argue that mining will devastate their villages, destroy forest cover, and impact their livelihoods, leading to long-term ecological damage.

·        Compensation and Resettlement Issues: Many locals are dissatisfied with government compensation and resettlement offers, claiming they are being moved to smaller houses and losing their land.

·        Allegations of Improper Procedures: Activists allege that fake gram sabha resolutions were used to secure environmental clearances for mining projects, undermining local governance and consent.

·        Demand for Protection: Activists are calling for the cancellation of specific coal blocks and for the protection of the Lemru Reserve Forest, emphasizing the need to respect legislative resolutions aimed at preserving the environment.

India’s heavy reliance on imports for critical minerals. 

• Definition of Critical Minerals: These minerals are essential for national security and economic stability and are used across industries like electronics, defense, energy, and healthcare, supporting India’s industrial growth and technological advancements.
• China’s Dominance: China is the leading global supplier for six of the twelve minerals identified as crucial for India by 2030.
• Recently , The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) report reveals India’s heavy reliance on imports for critical minerals.

Highlights of the report

• Import Dependency: India remains highly reliant on imports for critical minerals, especially lithium, cobalt, and nickel, with a full (100%) dependency on foreign supplies for these key resources.
• Import Strategy & Trade Risks: The report emphasizes that India needs a strategic import plan to mitigate trade risks and maintain international partnerships for essential mineral security.
• Key Minerals Assessed: IEEFA examined India’s status in importing and securing five critical minerals—cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, and nickel—highlighting the country’s 100% reliance on imports for several of these, primarily from limited global sources 

Critical Mineral Mission

• The Union Finance Minister of India, announced the creation of Critical Mineral Mission for sourcing mineral resources beneficial to the nation’s economy.
• Mission Objectives: Emphasise the development of the new capacities, the recycling of critical minerals and incentivising the acquisition of overseas assets.
• Legal Framework: The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act of 1957 was amended in 2023 to remove six minerals from the atomic list and open it for exploration for private sectors  

 Measures to be taken:

• Diversification of sources:  The report advocates for identifying new resources globally, expediting domestic production, and forging partnerships with mineral-rich countries like Australia, Chile, Ghana, and South Africa to diversify supply.
• Graphite Imports: India heavily relies on China for synthetic and natural graphite and could consider partnerships with top-producing nations like Mozambique, Madagascar, Brazil, and Tanzania, particularly under Global South cooperation.
• Copper and Nickel Sourcing: With India’s imports of copper cathodes and nickel sulfates concentrated from Japan and Belgium, diversifying suppliers, such as considering the U.S. (a major copper producer), may enhance supply stability.
• Lithium & Nickel Oxides: Current imports are less concentrated but largely sourced from Russia and China, posing potential trade risks.
• Domestic Refining & Processing: Increasing domestic refining capacity, especially for lithium, could enable India’s integration into the global supply chain. 
• This includes government-backed initiatives like auctions for critical mineral mining blocks and support for refining technology.

Passenger Terminal & a Cargo Gate at Petrapole Land Port

• Union Home Minister has inaugurated the newly constructed passenger terminal building and a cargo gate named ‘Maitri Dwar’ at the Land Port in Petrapole, on the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.

 Petrapole Land Port

• Location: Petrapole, Uttar 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, on the India-Bangladesh border.
• Largest Land Port in South Asia: Serves as a vital gateway for trade and commerce between India and Bangladesh.
• Passenger Terminal Features:
• It facilitate international trade and crossings for citizens of both countries.
• Capacity to handle 20,000 passengers per day.
• Houses immigration, customs, and security services under one roof.

Maitri Dwar Cargo Gate: 

• The ‘Maitri Dwar’ cargo gate is a joint facility agreed upon by both India and Bangladesh 

Land Port Authority of India (LPAI)

• Constitution: Established under the Land Ports Authority Act, 2010.
• Purpose: Development and management of facilities for cross-border movement of passengers and goods at designated points along international borders.
• Responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining, and managing border infrastructure.
• Manages several Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) across India’s borders.

Composition:

• Chairperson and Members are appointed by the Central Government.
• Tenure: Five years or until the age of 60, whichever comes first.
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Home Affairs.

Sohrai Painting:

• The Prime Minister of India presented gifts to the leaders of Russia, Iran, and Uzbekistan during the 2024 BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia.
• Sohrai Painting is an indigenous art of wall painting technique, mainly practiced in the Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand.
• It is related to the Sohrai festival, which is celebrated after Diwali.
• The root of this art form goes to the Paleolithic period (7000 and 400 BC).
• The art form derived its name from the Mundari verb "Soroi", which means ''to whip with a stick''.
• It is a matriarchal form of art; which is passed from mother to daughter.
• The main theme includes; animals, birds, and nature, which highlights the indigenous tribal communities'' relation with wildlife.

Painting Process

• The process starts with the coating of the wall surface with a mixture of soil and manure, which is followed by a layer of white clay.
• Natural colors, brushes created from leaves, rice straw, or even fingers are used to draw the pattern.
• The patterns are designed on the partially dry clay using brushes created from leaves, rice straw, sticks, also drawn by fingers.
• In the painting, the red lines signifies ancestors or fertility, followed by a black line representing Shiva, and finally by white lines representing food.

SPACE SECTOR NEW PROJECTS.

• The Indian government is working on new projects such as a new moon and Venus missions and India is also preparing to launch the SBS and Proba-3 satellites .

Space-Based Surveillance (SBS) mission

• It is a mission for better land and maritime domain awareness for civilian and military applications.
• The SBS mission is managed by the National Security Council Secretariat and Defence Space Agency under the Ministry of Defence.
• It aims to enhance land and maritime domain awareness for both civilian and military applications.
• It also aims to enable real-time surveillance for better national security and monitoring

Strategically it aims to:

• Develop capabilities to detect enemy submarines in the Indo-Pacific.
•  Monitor adversary infrastructure along India''s land and sea borders.
• Under the mission, 52 satellites are to be launched over the next decade in low earth orbit (LEO) and geostationary orbit.
• Out of these, 21 satellites will be built by ISRO and the remaining 31 will be constructed by private companies.
• Under this Separate satellites will be allocated to the Army, Navy, and Air Force for land, sea, and air-specific missions.

Budget

• The project cost is estimated at 26,968 crore rupees.
• Previous Phases:
• SBS 1: It was launched in 2001 under the Vajpayee government. It launched 4 satellites including Cartosat 2A, Cartosat 2B, Eros B, and Risat 2 in space.
• SBS 2: It was launched in 2013. It launched 6 satellites including Cartosat 2C and Risat 2A in orbit.

PROBA -3

• Proba-3 is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) and the world’s first precision formation flying mission.
• It demonstrates the formation flying and rendezvous technologies using two satellites flying in a fixed configuration as a ''large rigid structure'' in space.
• Its primary mission goal is to enable large-scale formation flying for future scientific and observational missions.

Scientific Objective

• It aims to create a 144-meter-long solar coronagraph by the precise alignment of two satellites, Coronagraph spacecraft and Occulter spacecraft to study the corona of the sun.
• It will study the corona more closely to the solar corona than ever before.
• It will observe the solar corona in visible, ultraviolet, and polarised light by blocking out the blinding light of the solar disk.

Mass and Configuration

• The Coronagraph spacecraft weighs 340 kg.
•  Occulter spacecraft on the other hand weighs 200 kg.
• Both satellites will have a separation distance of approximately 144 meters.

Technological Innovations

• It demonstrates a precise formation flying technology to achieve a millimeter precision without ground guidance.
• Autonomous Collision Avoidance Maneuver will also be demonstrated to prevent satellite collisions during formation flying
• It utilizes relative GPS navigation, guidance, and control algorithms.

Future Applications

• Formation flying validated by Proba-3 will aid Earth observation, satellite servicing, and Mars Sample Return missions in future.
• The Testing of sensors and algorithms for rendezvous operations will be applicable in de-orbiting satellites from low-Earth orbit.

STATUS OF THE WORLD''S TREES REPORT

•  A new Global Tree Assessment “Status of the World’s Trees Report” has revealed that over one-third of the tree species in the world are threatened with extinction.

World’s Trees Report/The Global Tree Assessment (GTA)

• GTA is a collaborative global initiative led by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) Species Survival Commission''s Global Tree Specialist Group.
• It evaluates the conservation status of all global tree species to guide biodiversity conservation efforts across the world.
• GTA is the largest global assessment project and encompasses the conservation status assessments for nearly 50,000 tree species in the world, which is more than a quarter of all assessments on the updated IUCN Red List.

Findings from the Global Tree Assessment

• Extinction Threat: 
• Nearly 38% or 16,425 trees)of the world''s tree species are now at the risk of extinction.
• This number of threatened tree species far exceeds the combined count of threatened birds, 
• mammals, reptiles, and amphibians across the world.

Islands at Higher Risk: 

• Islands have the highest proportion of endangered trees and this is due to rapid urban and agricultural development, invasive species, pests, and diseases.

South America: 

• South America, the region with the richest tree diversity, has 3,356 out of 13,668 tree species facing the threat, which is largely attributed to deforestation for agricultural expansion.
• Tropical regions such as South America face additional risks from rising sea levels, severe storms, and other climate-related challenges such as sea level rise and ocean acidification, which impact tree survival.

Human Utility of Forests: 

• Over 5,000 tree species of the assessed trees are used for timber, and more than 2,000 of them are essential for food, medicine, and fuel.
• Trees play a vital role in ecosystems by supporting biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water and nutrient cycles, soil formation, etc., among others. For these reasons, there is a need to conserve trees to utilise their values.

Government initiatives to protect forests

• Indian Forest Policy, 1952 aImed to cover one-third of total land area by forests.
• Forest Conservation Act of 1980 targeted to check deforestation, conserve biodiversity, save wildlife, etc.
• The forest policy of 1988 made a shift from a commercial focus to the ecological role of the forests and Joint Forest management.
• National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 is mandated to ensure environmental protection and conservation of forests.
• Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 seeks to provide an institutional mechanism, to ensure utilisation of trees efficiently and transparently.

Measures to taken:

• The policy recommendations by the report include habitat protection, restoration, ex-situ conservation through seed banks and botanical gardens, and community-driven actions( Such as Chipko and Appiko movements) to conserve the trees globally.
• Afforestation to create resources without depleting existing natural forests provides wildlife habitat, recreational areas, and economic benefits. Such initiatives can be promoted by initiatives like Van Mahotsava, which was launched in 1950.
• Tree reforestation should be focused on diversification of the species and prioritisation of the threatened trees, rather than solely focusing on tree planting as a climate solution.
• Selective Logging removes specific trees based on size and allows for regeneration. It is a sustainable method that balances forest conservation and resource needs.

Tuberculosis replaces COVID-19 as top infectious disease killer

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) published the Global Tuberculosis Report 2024. 
•  (NHM)  The World Health Organisation (WHO) published the Global Tuberculosis Report 2024. 
• It revealed that approximately 8.2 million people were newly diagnosed with TB in 2023 — the highest number recorded since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995.
• This represents a notable increase from 7.5 million reported in 2022, placing TB again as the leading infectious disease killer in 2023, surpassing COVID-19.

Key points of the report:

• The report highlights mixed progress in the global fight against TB, with persistent challenges such as significant underfunding. 
• While the number of TB-related deaths decreased from 1.32 million in 2022 to 1.25 million in 2023, the total number of people falling ill with TB rose slightly to an estimated 10.8 million in 2023.
• With the disease disproportionately affecting people in 30 high-burden countries, India (26 per cent), Indonesia (10 per cent), China (6.8 per cent), the Philippines (6.8 per cent) and Pakistan (6.3 per cent) together accounted for 56 per cent of the global TB burden. 
• About 55 per cent of people who developed TB were men, 33 per cent were women and 12 per cent were children and young adolescents.
• In 2023, the gap between the estimated number of new TB cases and those reported narrowed to about 2.7 million, down from COVID-19 pandemic levels of around 4 million in 2020 and 2021. This follows substantial national and global efforts to recover from COVID-related disruptions to TB services. 
• The coverage of TB preventive treatment has been sustained for people living with HIV and continues to improve for household contacts of people diagnosed with TB.
• However, multidrug-resistant TB remains a public health crisis. Treatment success rates for multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant TB (MDR/RR-TB) have now reached 68 per cent. But, of the 400,000 people estimated to have developed MDR/RR-TB, only 44 per cent were diagnosed and treated in 2023.
• • Global funding for TB prevention and care decreased further in 2023 and remains far below target. Low and middle-income countries, which bear 98 per cent of the TB burden, faced significant funding shortages. Only $5.7 billion of the $22 billion annual funding target was available in 2023, equivalent to only 26 per cent of the global target.
• The United States government remains the largest bilateral donor for TB.
• A significant number of new TB cases are driven by five major risk factors: undernutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, smoking (especially among men), and diabetes. 
• Tackling these issues, along with critical determinants like poverty and GDP per capita, requires coordinated multisectoral action.
• Global milestones and targets for reducing the TB disease burden are off-track, and considerable progress is needed to reach other targets set for 2027 ahead of the second UN High-Level Meeting. 

Tuberculosis

• Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. It can spread when people who are sick with TB expel bacteria into the air – for example, by coughing.
• Every year, 10 million people fall ill with TB. Despite being a preventable and curable disease, 1.5 million people die from TB each year.
• TB is the leading cause of death of people with HIV and also a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance.
• Most people who develop the disease are adults.
• TB is preventable and curable. About 85 per cent of people who develop TB disease can be successfully treated with a 4/6-month drug regimen. Treatment has the added benefit of curtailing onward transmission of infection.
• Economic and financial barriers can affect access to health care for TB diagnosis and completion of TB treatment; about half of TB patients and their households face catastrophic total costs due to TB disease. 
• Progress towards universal health coverage (UHC), better levels of social protection and multisectoral action on broader TB determinants are all essential to reduce the burden of TB disease.

Indian govt’s initiatives to combat TB

• The government implements the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) under the aegis of the National Health Mission (NHM). 
• The National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination (2017-25) was approved on May 8, 2017 and is being implemented in the entire country. It is a multi-pronged approach that aims to detect all TB patients with an emphasis on reaching TB patients seeking care from private providers and undiagnosed TB in high-risk populations.
• The National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP), previously known as Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), aims to strategically reduce TB burden in India by 2025, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals.
• In September 2022, President Droupadi Murmu launched Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, to provide additional nutritional support to those on TB treatment, through contributions from community and organisations.
• Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan (PMTBMBA) was launched on September 9, 2022 for community support to TB patients with the objective to provide people with TB with additional nutritional, diagnostic and vocational support. Under the scheme, more than one lakh Ni-kshay Mitras (donors) are supporting over 11 lakh TB patients all over the country presently.  
• In March 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched various initiatives, including the TB-Mukt Panchayat initiative to leverage the support of over 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats to raise awareness about TB.

United Nations Relief And Works Agency For Palestine Refugees In The Near East

What is the UNRWA, and what role does it play?

·        UNRWA is mandated by the UN General Assembly to serve ‘Palestine refugees’. This term was defined in 1952 as any person whose “normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict. Palestine refugees are persons who fulfil the above definition and descendants of fathers fulfilling the definition.

·        In addition, the UN Assembly has also mandated UNRWA to offer services to certain other persons who require humanitarian assistance, on an emergency basis as and when required, in UNRWA fields of operations.

·        Notably, the Assembly has mandated the Agency to provide services to persons in the region who are currently displaced and in serious need of continued assistance as a result of the 1967 and subsequent hostilities. These persons are not registered as Palestine refugees.

·        Only the UN General Assembly can change the mandate of UNRWA, the definition of a Palestine refugee and whom the Agency is mandated to serve.

·        UNRWA began operations on May 1, 1950. It operates in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan — where Palestinian refugees took shelter after their expulsion.

·        An estimated 5.9 million Palestinian refugees — most of whom are descendants of the original refugees — currently access the UNRWA’s services.

·        The UN agency is funded mostly by voluntary contributions from donor states such as the United States, Germany, the European Union, etc. It also gets a limited subsidy from the UN, which is used only for administrative costs.

·        UNRWA employs some 30,000 Palestinians. More than 200 of its staff members have been killed in Israeli attacks over the past year

·          Recently , Israel’s parliament passed two Bills to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees In The Near East (UNRWA) from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The Knesset also voted to designate UNRWA a terrorist organisation, cutting all ties with the agency.

So why has Israel acted against the UNRWA?

·        Israel has also accused some of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas.

·        Although UNRWA fired nine employees after an investigation, it has denied that it aids armed groups on purpose — the agency has been sharing the list of its employees with Israel for a long time.

What are the two Bills that Israel has passed?

·        One of the Bills bars UNRWA from operating any representative office, providing any service, or conducting any activity, directly or indirectly, in Israel’s sovereign territory.

·        The second Bill cuts all ties between government employees and UNRWA, and takes away the legal immunities of the agency’s staff.

·        Together, the Bills are likely to stop UNRWA from operating in Gaza and the West Bank as Israel controls access to both these Palestinian territories. They could also force the agency to relocate its headquarters from East Jerusalem.

What can be the impact of these measures?

·        Since the beginning of the war, almost all of Gaza’s 2 million people have been reliant on UNRWA for basic necessities, including food, water, and hygiene supplies.

·        Along with the Palestinian Red Crescent, UNRWA handles almost all UN aid distribution in the territory.

·        In the West Bank, UNRWA currently provides services for 19 refugee camps, more than 90 schools, and several health services, including prenatal care.

Valeriana 

·        A significant Maya city named Valeriana has been uncovered in the dense jungles of Campeche, Mexico, using LiDAR technology. 

·        LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology is a cutting-edge remote sensing method that uses laser light to create high-resolution 3D models of objects and environments. 

·        By emitting pulses of laser light and measuring the time-of-flight and wavelength of the returned reflections, LiDAR sensors can accurately capture detailed spatial information, including distance, shape, and texture.

This technology has numerous applications across various industries, such as:

·        Autonomous vehicles: navigation, obstacle detection, and mapping

·        Surveying and mapping: terrain modeling, land management, and urban planning

·        Architecture and construction: building information modeling, structural analysis

·        Environmental monitoring: forest canopy analysis, crop monitoring, flood mapping

·        Archaeology: site mapping, artifact detection

Warli Painting

• The Prime Minister of India gifted Warli Painting to the President of Uzbekistan.
• It is an art form from the Warli tribe, mainly practiced in the North Sahyadri Range of Maharashtra. Its origin dates back to around the 10th century CE.
• It uses shapes in the painting as a symbolic sign
• Circles to represent the sun and moon.
• Triangles to symbolize mountains and conical trees.
• Squares to indicate human-made spaces or sacred enclosures.
• The central element is called "chauk" or "chaukat" featuring the mother goddess, represents unity and family.
• It depicts scenes of hunting, farming, and festivals. Tarpa Dance around a tarpa player, symbolizing the cycle of life.

Materials Used

• Painted on the walls of clay huts made from branches, earth, and red brick, creating a natural ochre background.
• White pigment made from rice flour mixed with water and gum.
• A bamboo stick, chewed at one end, used as a paintbrush.
• Since the 1970s, artists like Jivya Soma Mashe and Balu Mashe popularized Warli painting on paper and canvas.