Art and Culture

Kharchi Puja 2023

India’s north-eastern state Tripura recently celebrated Kharchi Puja, dedicated to the deity of the royal dynasty.

About:

• The word ‘Kharchi’ is derived from two Tripuri words–‘khar’ or kharta meaning sin and ‘chi’ or is meaning cleaning.
• Also called the ‘Festival of 14 Gods’, Kharchi Puja is observed on the eighth day of the new moon in July or August every year.
• During the festival, the people of Tripura also worship the earth along with their 14 deities.
• Although the festival has tribal origins, it is celebrated by both tribal and non-tribal people of Tripura.
• Kharchi Puja is primarily dedicated to the deity of the royal dynasty, Tripura Sundari, also known as Kharchi or Kharcha Baba. 
• Deity: The festival is centred on the worship of Chaturdasa Devata, the ancestral deity of the Tripuri people.

International Relations (GS-II)

Colombo Security Conclave (CSC)

In a landmark event concerning maritime collaboration under the framework of Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) between the nations of Indian Ocean Region, scientists from Bangladesh and Mauritius embarked onboard India’s research vessel ‘Sagar Nidhi’ to participate in the joint ocean expedition.

About

• Formed in: 2011
• The Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) is a grouping of India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Mauritius (newest member).
• Bangladesh and Seychelles are observers.
• The Conclave underlines regional cooperation and shared security objectives concerning all littoral nations in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). 
• It aims to make maritime security, marine pollution response and maritime search & rescue priorities for the region.

International Relations

UN chief appoints Indian-origin satellite expert

The Indian-origin satellite industry expert Aarti Holla-Maini recently got appointed as ‘Director’ of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in Vienna.

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA):

• The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is the United Nations office responsible for promoting international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space.
• UNOOSA serves as the secretariat for the General Assembly's only committee dealing exclusively with international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space: the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

Polity & Governance (GS-II)

 SC sets up Bench to hear pleas against Article 370 abrogation

The Supreme Court set up a fresh five-judge bench to hear from July 11 a batch of petitions, questioning validity of the decision of August 5, 2019 to scrap the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.

Key-highlights

• The Bench will take up a batch of over two dozen petitions that seek to challenge the legal validity of
• The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019- divided J&K into two Union territories.
• The 5 August 2019 presidential order- nullified Article 370 of the Constitution (which gave special status to the erstwhile state).

Polity & Governance (GS-II)

Tushar Mehta reappointed as Solicitor General of India

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved re-appointment of the Tushar Mehta as Solicitor General of India.

About

• Solicitor General is the second most senior law officer after Attorney General.
• He is sub-ordinate to the Attorney General of India.
• Constitutional Backing: However, unlike to Attorney General (Constitutional post under Article 76 of the Constitution), the post of Solicitor General is statutory.
• Appointment: Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) recommends the appointment and officially appoints the Solicitor General.

Economy (GS-III)

Capex push sees India Inc's debt rise

Indian corporates hit a record debt level of Rs 36.63 trillion in FY23, up 12.6% from the previous year, driven by increased capex in anticipation of an economic recovery and growing demand.

What Are Capital Expenditures (CapEx)?

• Capital expenditures (CapEx) are funds used by a company to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, plants, buildings, technology, or equipment.
• CapEx is often used to undertake new projects or investments by a company.
• Difference from revenue expenditure: Unlike capital expenditure, which creates assets for the future, revenue expenditure is one that neither creates assets nor reduces any liability of the government. 

Science & Technology (GS-III)

Zombie drug epidemic in US

USA’s zombie drug epidemic has claimed nine lives and led to 150 cases of overdose in a Florida county in the last 18 months alone.

 About

• Zombie drug xylazine is an animal tranquilizer, also known as “tranq”. 
• Laced with fentanyl and sold on the streets, it is known for leaving addicts hunched over like zombies, besides rotting flesh at the site of injection.
• Besides rotting the flesh, this zombie drug causes low blood pressure, slow heart rate and difficulty breathing.
• Since xylazine is not an opioid, it also does not respond to the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, which is commonly sold under the brand name Narcan.

Science (GS-III)

India tops global charts for childhood diabetes

India saw the highest number of childhood diabetes cases and deaths in 2019 in the world, according to a new study. The country also has the highest disability-adjusted life-years (DALY).

What is diabetes?

• Diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which leads over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves.
• Forms of diabetes
  • Type 1 diabetes: It occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough of a hormone called insulin. This stops the body from being able to use sugar, which then build up in the bloodstream. These sugars (also called glucose) that cannot be used by the body pass out of the body in the urine and take water with it
  • Type 2 diabetes: Type 2 diabetes was once called “adult onset" diabetes, because children hardly ever got it. With rising rates of childhood obesity, however, a growing number of children are being diagnosed with this form of the disease.

Economy (GS-III)

Small Finance Banks (SFBs)

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rejected applications received to start small finance banks in the private sector under the guidelines for on-tap licensing of small finance banks.

What are SFBs?

• Small Finance Banks are government authorized entities aimed at offering basic banking facilities to unserved & underserved areas.
• Regulated by: RBI under Banking Regulations Act, 1949; RBI Act, 1934 and others
• Credit creation: SFBs offer Credit facilities
• Demand deposits: Demand deposits are acceptable by SFBs

Science & Technology (GS-III)

Google allows data scraping

Google has updated its privacy policy to allow ‘data scraping’ for artificial intelligence (AI) training purposes.

What is data scraping?

• Data scraping involves pulling information out of a website and into a spreadsheet.
• It is also known as web scraping.
• These data include specific information from web pages, such as text, images, prices, or contact details, and storing it for further analysis or use.
• Ethical considerations in data scraping: The unethical data scraping are acts like copyright infringement, terms of service violations, and data privacy breach.
  • Potentially violate the terms of service or the policies of a website, leading to legal implications.
  • Concerns regarding the accuracy and reliability on the data collected through scraping.

Economy

Wage-price spirals

The wage-price spiral describes a perpetual cycle whereby rising wages create rising prices and vice versa.

• Central banks use monetary policy, the interest rate, reserve requirements, and open market operations to curb the wage-price spiral.

About:

• The wage-price spiral is a macroeconomic theory used to explain the cause-and-effect relationship between rising wages and rising prices, or inflation. 
• The wage-price spiral suggests that rising wages increase disposable income raising the demand for goods and causing prices to rise. 
• Rising prices increase demand for higher wages, which leads to higher production costs and further upward pressure on prices creating a conceptual spiral.

Science and Technology

India’s largest radio telescope

Recently, an international team of astronomers from India, Japan and Europe has published the results from monitoring pulsars, called ‘nature’s best clocks’, by using six of the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes, including India’s largest telescope, the Pune-based ‘uGMRT’.

About:

• India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) is among the world’s six large telescopes that played a vital role in providing evidence confirming the presence of gravitational waves using pulsar observations.
• Pulsars are a type of rapidly rotating neutron stars that are essentially embers of dead stars which are present in our galaxy.
• A pulsar is like a cosmic lighthouse as it emits radio beams that flash by the Earth regularly akin to a harbour lighthouse.
• As these signals are accurately timed, there is a great interest in studying these pulsars and to unravel the mysteries of the Universe.
• In order to detect gravitational wave signals, scientists explore several ultra-stable pulsar clocks randomly distributed across our Milky Way galaxy and create an ‘imaginary’ galactic-scale gravitational wave detector.

Miscellaneous

Asian Kabaddi Championship 2023

India has been the most successful men’s team in the Asian Kabaddi Championship, winning seven titles in eight editions.

About Asian Kabaddi Championship 2023:

• It featured 6 nations: India, Iran, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei, and Hong Kong.
• The continental kabaddi championship was conducted in two phases - a single-headed round robin league phase and a final.

Facts about Kabaddi:

• With a 4000-year-long history, the traditional Indian sport of kabaddi is one of the oldest in the world.
• The four outer lines of the kabaddi mat are called boundaries or end lines. The play needs to be restricted within the four boundary lines at any time.
• The rectangular court is divided into two equal identical halves by a mid-line, drawn parallelly to the shorter end lines of the mat.
• After appearing as a demonstration sport at the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982, kabaddi finally became a medal event at the continental showpiece from 1990 and has been a permanent fixture since then.

History (GS-I)

Alluri Sitarama Raju (1897-1924)

Celebration of the 125th birth anniversary of the freedom fighter Alluri Sitarama Raju in Hyderabad.

About

• Born on July 4, 1897, Alluri Sitarama Raju is remembered for his fight against the British, in order to safeguard the interests of the tribal communities in the Eastern Ghats region (in Andhra Pradesh).
• He had led the Rampa rebellion, which was launched in 1922.
• He is referred to as "Manyam Veerudu" (Hero of the Jungles) by the locals.
• Every year, the Government of Andhra Pradesh commemorates his birth date, the 4th of July, as a state festival. 

History

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917)

June 30 is the observed as death anniversary of Dadabhai Naoroji.

About:

• Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) was born in Mumbai in a Gujarati-speaking Parsi family.
• In 1855 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Elphinstone College in Mumbai.
• The first Indian to be given an academic appointment, he was called ‘The Promise of India’ by another professor at the institution.
• He opened his own cotton trading company, Dadabhai Naoroji & Co.
• Known as the ‘Grand Old Man of India’, Naoroji became a well-known public figure.

Contributions in Indian freedom struggle:

• He took an active part in the political mobilization against the British rule.
• He was instrumental in the formation of the ‘London Indian Society’ in 1865. The aim of the Society was to deliberate on Indian social, political and other scholarly subjects.
• He helped establish the ‘East India Association’ in 1867, which aimed to expose the British people to the Indian perspective.
• Dadabhai Naoroji also formed the Bombay Presidency Association, which became the predecessor of the Indian National Congress as well as the Indian National Congress.
• He also founded the Gyan Prasar Mandali for Women’s Education.
• Through his publications such as ‘Rasta Goftar’, he shaped the various reforms (such as simultaneous examinations, reorganization of legislative councils, and the election of Indian parliamentarians to the British Parliament) proposed by the Congress towards a broader sound political goal of self-government.

Environment (GS-III)

White-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis)

Even with protective measures in place, the future of the critically endangered white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) in the Sigur plateau of the Nilgiris remains highly precarious.

About

• The white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) is an Old World vulture native to South and Southeast Asia. 
• It is the smallest of the Gyps vultures, but is still a very large bird.
• A medium-sized vulture with a silvery bill, a dark body, a grayish shine on the wings, a white back, and a distinctive white collar on the neck.
• It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2000.
• It is closely related to the European griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus).

Environment (GS-III)

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

The population of American bald eagle, removed from the United States’ list of endangered species in 2007, has quadrupled since 2009.

About:

•  The bald eagle is a sea eagle (Haliaeetus species). 

•  It is the national bird of USA and a classic icon, standing for strength, courage, and freedom. 
•  Bald eagles are large, predatory raptors that are recognizable for their brown body and wings, white head and tail, and hooked yellow beak. 
• Their feet, which are also yellow, are equipped with sharp black talons.
• Bald eagles grow to about 2.5 to 3 feet (0.7 to 0.9 meters) in height, and they have an impressive wingspan of 6.5 feet (two meters).
• Female bald eagles are larger than the males, but share the same coloration.
• IUCN Status: Least Concern

Geography

West Bank city

Israeli forces launched its largest military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in more than 20 years, killing at least nine people and injuring about 100 others.

About

• The West Bank is a chunk of land east of Israel.
• The West Bank stretches across the eastern border of Israel along the west banks of the Jordan River and most of the Dead Sea, thus how it received its name.
• The holy city of Jerusalem is considered by international law as part of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem being claimed as the capital by both Israelis and Palestinians.
• It is home to nearly three million Palestinians, and would make up the heart of any Palestinian state.
• Israel took control of it in 1967 and has allowed Jewish settlers to move in, but Palestinians (and most of the international community) consider it illegally occupied Palestinian land.

Geography

Cauvery

Tamil Nadu government has objected to the inadequate water received from Karnataka and requesting the release of Tamil Nadu's rightful share for July as per the agreed schedule.

About

• Cauvery is an easterly flowing river of the Peninsular India.
• It runs across three of the southern Indian states i.e. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and a Union Territory of Puducherry.
• It originates in Talakaveri (Brahmagiri ranges of the Western Ghats) and merges with the Bay of Bengal.
• Geologically, the basin forms a part of the South Indian Shield.
• Principal soil types found in the basin are red soils, black soils, laterite, alluvial soils, forest soils and mixed soils.

Location in News

Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary

Debrigarh, a wildlife sanctuary in Odisha’s Bargarh district, has been made completely free from any human settlement.

About

• Located in the western part of Odisha, it is nestled between the Hirakud Dam and Reservoir.
• It is a dry forest.
• Historical connection: It finds a special place in the national map because of its historic association with the freedom fighter, Surendra Sai.
  • He took shelter here while planning his rebellion against the British. 
• Major species: Tigers, leopards, bison, hyena, spotted deer, Indian hare, monitor lizard and chameleons, among other animals.