Facts in News

Facts in News

Bamboo Market Page on Govt e-Marketplace (GeM) Portal

• Recently, the dedicated window on the GeM portal named  “The Green Gold Collection” for bamboo products was launched by the Union Minister of State for Agriculture.
  • The National Bamboo Mission and the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) have been working together to have a dedicated window on the GeM portal for marketing of Bamboo Goods (Bamboo based products & Quality Planting Materials).
• Aim: To provide bamboo artisans, weavers and entrepreneurs in rural areas with market access to Government buyers. 
  • It seeks to promote the adoption and use of bamboo products among Government buyers and usher in a sustainable rural economy for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
• Significance: This will provide an electronic platform for the small manufacturers and niche sellers thereby vastly increasing their reach to attract buyers and at the same time will provide niche products from trusted sources to the buyers.
  • It showcases a range of exquisitely handcrafted bamboo and bamboo products, handicrafts, disposals and office utility products on the GeM portal.

Place In News: Burkina Faso

• Suspected fundamentalists linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have killed at least 114 civilians in Burkina Faso near the borders with Mali and Niger.
• Burkina Faso is a  landlocked country in western Africa. 
• Location: It is bounded by Mali to the north and west, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, and Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo to the south.
  • It is a low-income Sahelian country with limited natural resources.
• Its economy is largely based on agriculture, which employs 80% of the workforce, although gold exports have increased. 
• The country occupies an extensive plateau, and its geography is characterized by a savanna that is grassy in the north and gradually gives way to sparse forests in the south.

Image Courtesy: Britannica

CSIR Society

• Recently, the Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Society through video conference.
• It is the largest research and development (R&D) organisation in India and has a pan-India presence.
• It has a dynamic network of 37 national laboratories, 39 outreach centres, 3 Innovation Complexes and 5 units.
• It is ranked 37th among 1587 government institutions worldwide and is the only Indian organization among the top 100 global government institutions, according to the Scimago Institutions Ranking World Report 2021.
• CSIR holds the 7th rank in Asia and leads the country at the first position.
• The Prime Minister is the President (Ex-officio) and the Union Minister of Science and Technology is the Vice President (Ex-officio).

Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)

• It is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Science and Technology and the largest research and development (R&D) organization in India.
• CSIR covers a wide spectrum of science and technology from oceanography, geophysics, chemicals, drugs, genomics, biotechnology and nanotechnology to mining.

Raimona National Park

• Recently,Raimona in Kokrajhar district has become Assam’s sixth national park.
  • The five national parks that existed before the 422 sq. km Raimona are Kaziranga, Manas, Nameri, Orang and Dibru-Saikhowa.
• The Raimona National Park is within the Bodoland Territorial Region.
• It is an integral part of the  Manas Biosphere Reserve and the Chirang-Ripu Elephant Reserve.
•  It was bounded on the west by the Sonkosh river along the Assam-West Bengal border running southward from the India-Bhutan border and the Saralbhanga river on the east till it touched the India-Bhutan border on the north and the southern part of the Ripu Reserve Forest.

• The Pekua river defines Raimona’s southern boundary.

• Raimona also shares contiguous forest patches of the Phipsoo Wildlife Sanctuary and the Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park in Bhutan creating a transboundary conservation landscape. 
• It is home to golden langur, Asian elephants, tigers, clouded leopards, Indian gaur, wild buffalo, spotted deer, hornbill, more than 150 species of butterflies, 170 species of birds and 380 varieties of plants and orchids.
• The new national park will open up huge opportunities for ecotourism for the fringe villagers, who currently are partially or dependent on forest resources for their livelihood.

Saltwater Crocodiles

• Scientific Name: Crocodylus porosus.
• Features: Earth’s largest living crocodilian, with average-size males reaching 17 feet and 1,000 pounds.
• Habitat
  • Brackish and freshwater regions of eastern India, Southeast Asia and northern Australia.
  • In and around BNP, the Sundarbans and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in India.
• Threats
  • Illegal hunting for their hides, habitat loss, and antipathy due to its reputation as a man-eater.
• Conservation Efforts
  • In 1975, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) started a crocodile breeding and rearing project.
  • Efforts have increased the number of crocodiles in BNP to 1,768 in January 2021 from just 96 in 1974.
• Protection Status
  • IUCN Red List: Least Concern
  • Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I

(Image Courtesy: Oceana)

I-Familia

• It applied cutting-edge scientific research and used the DNA of relatives to identify missing persons or unidentified human remains around the world.
  • DNA kinship matching is used mostly in cases where a direct sample of the missing person is not available.
  • More than 12,000 active Yellow Notices, which are international police alerts for missing persons, had been issued by the Interpol by late 2020.
• I-Familia is the first global database to automatically control for such differences without requiring knowledge of the missing person’s genetic ancestry and provide standardised guidelines on what constitutes a match.
• It has three components:
  • Dedicated global database to host the DNA profiles provided by relatives, held separately from any criminal data.
  • DNA matching software called Bonaparte, developed by Dutch company Smart Research.
  • Interpretation guidelines developed by Interpol.
• The processing of DNA data was carried out via secure communication channels.
  • Family members must give their consent for their data to be used for international searching.
  • There is no nominal data attached to the profile, which is submitted in the form of an alphanumeric code.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

• It typically refers to the capture of carbon dioxide directly at the source of emission, it may also include techniques such as the use of scrubbing towers and artificial trees to remove carbon dioxide from the surrounding air.
• In CCS processes, carbon dioxide is first separated from other gases and then compressed and transported to a location that is isolated from the atmosphere for long-term storage.
  • Suitable Storage Locations: Geologic formations such as deep saline formations, depleted oil and gas reservoirs or the deep ocean.
• Significance: CCS has been acknowledged as an important research and development priority to achieve 2050 climate objectives in a cost-effective way.
• Associated Challenges 
  • There are many economic and technical challenges to implementing CCS on a large scale. 
  • CCS would increase the cost of electricity generation, depending on the fuel, technology, and location.
  • Leakage of carbon from reservoirs is also a concern.

(Image Courtesy: EU)