Facts in News

                            Facts in News

Indian Beamline Project

• It is a facility for materials research set up under the India-Japan Scientific and Technological Cooperation Project.
  • The project was initiated between the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in July 2007.
• The Indian beamline has been constructed and maintained by Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, Japanese Photon Factory (PF) of KEK, with support from Nano Mission, DST.
• Phases of the Project
  • First Phase (2009-2015): X-ray beamline (BL18B) was constructed, which has provided a substantial amount of quality beamtime to carry out front-ranking research in advanced materials including nanomaterials.
  • Second Phase (2016-2021): JNCASR and SINP jointly developed the beamline further to cater to the need of various users from India by implementing various modes of operation of the Indian beamline.
  • Third Phase (from March 2021): Special focus on industrial application research and would increase the number of young Indian researchers and also allocate more beamtime to more researchers. At present, only 50 per cent of Indian researchers who apply receive beamtime.

Earth Hour

• It is a global grassroots movement uniting people to take action on environmental issues and protect the planet.
• It is organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
• It was started as a lights out event in Sydney, Australia in 2007.
• The annual Earth Hour lights out event is held worldwide toward the end of March to encourage individuals, households, communities and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour.
  • The second-to-last and last weekend of March is around the time of the Spring and Autumn equinoxes in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, which allows for near coincidental sunset times in both hemispheres, thereby ensuring the greatest visual impact for a global event.
• Aim: To increase awareness and spark global conversations on protecting nature not only to combat the climate crisis but to ensure human health, happiness, prosperity and even survival.

Sabar Tribe (West Bengal)

• It is a tribal group from West Bengal.
• This was one among the tribes which were notified by the British in 1871 as “criminals“.
• Though they were denotified after independence, the stigma remained and they faced trouble whenever crimes were committed in their vicinity.
• They face the major challenge of hunger, malnutrition and liver problems caused by excessive consumption of liquor.
• These are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG).
  • PVTGs are more vulnerable among tribal groups, with a declining or stagnant population, low level of literacy, pre-agricultural level of technology and are economically backward. They generally inhabit remote localities having poor infrastructure and administrative support.
  • In 1973, the Dhebar Commission created Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) as a separate category, which was renamed as PVTGs in 2006.

Indo-Korean Friendship Park

• An Indo-Korean friendship park was jointly inaugurated by Defence Minister of India and Minister of National Defence of South Korea Suh Wook at Delhi cantonment.
• The park has been built to commemorate the contribution of the Indian peacekeeping force during the Korean war of 1950-53.
  • During the war, India had sent its 60th Parachute Field Ambulance Platoon of 627 medics and these medics played a very critical role in taking care of around 220,000 soldiers and civilians.

New Bacterial Strains

• Researchers have discovered three new strains of bacteria on the International Space Station.
• The bacterial strains belong to the family Methylobacteriaceae.
• The rod-shaped bacteria contain genes that can help in nitrogen fixation, plant growth and biocontrol activity against plant pathogens.
• The researchers named the novel species as Methylobacterium ajmalii, in honour of the renowned Indian biodiversity scientist, Dr Ajmal Khan, a former professor at Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu.

Places In News

Eritrea

• Eritrea will withdraw troops from Ethiopia almost five months after a conflict started in the Tigray region.
• The presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia was especially controversial because the two countries had fought a bitter border war, which was only officially ended after Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018 – a move which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
• Eritrea, a country of the Horn of Africa, located on the Red Sea.
  • The country is bounded to the southeast by Djibouti, to the South by Ethiopia, and to the West by Sudan.

                                       Image Source: VOA

Cape of Good Hope

• The government of India has worked out a four-point plan to deal with the situation arising from the blockage of the Suez Canal including advising ships to re-route via Cape of Good Hope.

• The Cape of Good Hope is located at the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula, which is also home to Cape Town, the legislative capital of South Africa.
• The Cape was originally named the Cape of Storms in the 1480s by the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias.
• The government of India has worked out a four-point plan to deal with the situation arising from the blockage of the Suez Canal including advising ships to re-route via Cape of Good Hope.
• The Cape of Good Hope is located at the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula, which is also home to Cape Town, the legislative capital of South Africa.
• The Cape was originally named the Cape of Storms in the 1480s by the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias.
• It was later renamed Good Hope to attract more people to the Cape Sea Route that passed the southern coast of Africa.
• A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa. Contemporary geographic knowledge instead states the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas.
• The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 provided a much shorter route from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean.

                             Image Source :Britannica