Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• Kaundinya Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary and an elephant reserve situated in Andhra Pradesh.
• It is the only sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh with a population of Asian elephants, which migrated after 200 years from neighbouring regions.
• Located near the city of Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, the sanctuary has dry deciduous forests with thorny scrubs interspersed with trees.
• The sanctuary is situated in region where the Kolar Plateau ends and slopes down into the plains of Tamil Nadu creating many valleys and ghats.
• Important flora consists of Albizia amara, Acacia, Lagerstroemia, Ficus, bamboo, and a species which is a regeneration of Santalum album.
• Apart from Indian elephant, other animals found in the sanctuary are: sloth bear, panther, cheetal, chowsingha, sambar, porcupine, wild boar, jungle cat, jackal, jungle fowl, starred tortoise and slender loris.
• Kalyana Revu Waterfalls (also called Kalyan Drive Falls) and Kaigal Waterfalls are situated within the sanctuary.

Explanation :

• Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, involved in India's external cultural relations, through cultural exchange with other countries and their peoples.
• It was founded in 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India’s first Education Minister.

Objectives

• To actively participate in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes pertaining to India’s external cultural relations
• To foster and strengthen cultural relations and mutual understanding between India and other countries
• To promote cultural exchanges with other countries and people, and to develop relations with nations.

ICCR Awards

• Distinguished Indologist Award
• World Sanskrit Award
• Distinguished Alumni Award
• Gisela Bonn Award

Explanation :

• The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force on 29 April 1997.
• Headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, OPCW, with its 193 Member States, oversees the global endeavour to permanently and verifiably eliminate chemical weapons.
• The Convention aims to eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass destruction by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by States Parties.
• States Parties, in turn, must take the steps necessary to enforce that prohibition in respect of persons (natural or legal) within their jurisdiction.
• A unique feature of the Convention is its incorporation of the ‘challenge inspection’, whereby any State Party in doubt about another State Party’s compliance can request a surprise inspection.
• Under the Convention’s ‘challenge inspection’ procedure, States Parties have committed themselves to the principle of ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections with no right of refusal.
• The organisation was awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize "for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.

Explanation :

• The National Board for Wild Life (NBWL) is a “Statutory Organization” constituted under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
• The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 was subsequently amended during 1991 and last during 2002.
• As per the amendment of the Act in 2002, a provision was incorporated for the constitution of NBWL, replacing the Indian Board for Wildlife.
• It came into existence with the Gazette Notification dated 22^nd September 2003.
• The board is “advisory” in nature and advises the Central Government on framing policies and measures for conservation of wildlife in the country.
• It has 47 members with the Prime Minister in the Chair. The Minister in charge of the Ministry of Environment & Forests in the Central Government is the Vice-Chairperson.

Functions

• It is the apex body to review all wildlife-related matters and approve projects in and around national parks and sanctuaries i.e. Protected Areas.
• No alternation of boundaries in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries can be done without approval of the NBWL.

Explanation :

• The Innovation Cell of the Ministry of Human Resources Development and All India Council for Technical Education in collaboration with Forge and InnovatioCuris launched a mega online challenge - Samadhan - to test the ability of students to innovate.
• Under this, the students and faculty will be motivated for doing new experiments and new discoveries and provide them with a strong base leading to a spirit of experimentation and discovery.
• Here, the students will search and develop such measures that can be made available to the government agencies, health services, hospitals and other services for quick solutions to the Coronavirus epidemic and other such calamities.

Explanation :

• Article 142 provides for the enforcement of decrees and orders of Supreme Court.
• Article 142(1): It states that Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it and the orders shall be enforceable throughout the territory of India.
• Article 142(2): It states that Supreme Court shall have the power to make any order for the purpose of (a) securing the attendance of any person, (b) the discovery or production of any documents or (c) the investigation or punishment of any contempt of itself.

Article 142 Used Earlier

• In November, 2019, it was also used during the Ayodhya judgment, making the first such case where it was invoked for a civil dispute over an immovable property that involved private parties.
• To cancel allocation of coal blocks granted from 1993 onwards without any specific finding.
• For restoring the white marble of the Taj Mahal
• To probe the 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal
• To provide relief to the thousands of people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy.

Explanation :

• Mahavir Swami was born to King Siddhartha of Kundagrama and Queen Trishala, a Lichchhavi princess in the year 540 BC in the Vajji kingdom, identical with modern day Vaishali in Bihar.
• He belonged to the Ikshvaku dynasty.
• Also known as Vardhamana, he was the 24th tirthankara of Jainism. He was the spiritual successor of 23rd tirthankara Parshvanatha.
• Mahavira practiced intense meditation and severe austerities for 12 years, after which he is believed to have attained Kevala Jnana (omniscience).
• He taught that observance of the vows of ahimsa (non-violence), satya (truth), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (chastity), and aparigraha (non-attachment) are necessary for spiritual liberation.
• He taught the principles of Anekantavada (many-sided reality): syadvada and nayavada.
• Mahavira's teachings were compiled by Indrabhuti Gautama (his chief disciple) as the Jain Agamas.

Explanation :

• The Artemis (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun) program is an ongoing crewed spaceflight program carried out predominantly by NASA, with the goal of landing "the first woman and the next man" on the Moon, specifically at the lunar south pole region by 2024.
• Other partners in the mission include European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Australian Space Agency (ASA).

Mission Objectives

• Find and use water and other critical resources needed for long-term exploration
• Investigate the Moon’s mysteries and learn more about our home planet and the universe
• Learn how to live and operate on the surface of another celestial body where astronauts are just three days from home
• Prove the technologies we need before sending astronauts on missions to Mars, which can take up to three years roundtrip

Key Details

• NASA sees Artemis as the next step towards the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, laying the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy, and eventually sending humans to Mars
• NASA’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft nearly a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit.
• The agency will fly two missions around the Moon to test its deep space exploration systems. NASA is working toward launching Artemis I, an uncrewed flight to test the SLS and Orion spacecraft together, followed by the Artemis II mission, the first SLS and Orion test flight with crew.
• NASA will land astronauts on the Moon by 2024 on the Artemis III mission and about once a year thereafter.

Explanation :

• The Patriot (MIM-104) is a long-range, all-altitude, all-weather air defence system to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft.
• The Patriot System replaced the Nike Hercules system as the U.S. Army's primary High to Medium Air Defense (HIMAD) system, and replaced the MIM-23 Hawk system as the U.S. Army's medium tactical air defense system.
• The missile has a range of 70km and a maximum altitude greater than 24km.
• It is equipped with a track-via-missile (TVM) guidance system.
• Midcourse correction commands are transmitted to the guidance system from the mobile engagement control centre.

Explanation :

• The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on (GRACE-FO) mission is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
• Launched on 22 May 2018, GRACE-FO is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which began orbiting Earth on March 17, 2002
• The primary objective of the GRACE-FO Mission is to obtain precise global and high-resolution models for both the static and the time variable components of the Earth's gravity field.
• The GRACE missions measure variations in gravity over Earth's surface, producing a new map of the gravity field every 30 days.
• Thus, GRACE shows how the planet's gravity differs not only from one location to another, but also from one period of time to another.

Significance

• It will continue the work of tracking Earth's water movement to monitor changes in underground water storage, the amount of water in large lakes and rivers, soil moisture, ice sheets and glaciers, and sea level caused by the addition of water to the ocean.
• These discoveries provide a unique view of Earth's climate and have far-reaching benefits to society and the world's population.