Facts in News

Facts in News

Exercise INDRA NAVY-21

• Recently, The 12th edition of exercise INDRA NAVY was held in the Baltic Sea.
  • This exercise was undertaken as part of the visit of INS Tabar to St Petersburg, Russia to participate in the 325th Navy Day celebrations of the Russian Navy. 
  • The exercise progressed over two days and included various facets of fleet operations such as anti-air firings, underway replenishment drills, helicopter ops, boarding drills and seamanship evolutions. 
• It is a biennial bilateral maritime exercise between the Indian Navy and the Russian Navy.
• It was Initiated in 2003.
• It epitomises the long-term strategic relationship between the two navies.
• Aims
  • To consolidate interoperability built up by the two Navies over the years and also to enhance understanding and procedures for multi-faceted maritime operations. 
  • To strengthen mutual confidence and enable sharing of best practices between both Navies.

Other Military Exercises of India 

• Malabar Exercise: Navies of India, USA, and Japan.
• JIMEX :India-Japan
• Ex-Desert Knight 21 exercise:  It is a bilateral air exercise to be held between Indian Air Force and French air and Space Force.
• Indra Dhanush: It is a joint air force exercise between the Indian Air Force and the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom
• Exercise Pitch Black: India and Australia .
  • The main aim of the exercise is to practice Defensive Counter Air combat and Offensive Counter Air Combat

• AUSINDEX: Bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the Australian Navy.
  • Both countries hold bilateral army exercises named  AUSTRAHIND.

• Dharma Guardian: The joint military exercise named “Dharma Guardian” between India and Japan .
  • The exercise is aimed at developing mutual understanding and respect between militaries of both countries, as also facilitate in tracking worldwide phenomenon of terrorism

• Aviaindra: India and Russia joint air exercise.
• Nomadic Elephant: India and  Mongolia joint exercise.

Raja Mircha

• APEDA in collaboration with the Nagaland State Agricultural Marketing Board (NSAMB), coordinated the first export consignment of fresh Raja Mircha. 

• It is also known as King Chilli and it is considered as the world’s hottest on the basis of Scoville Heat Units (SHUs).
• its highly perishable nature.
• It has already been certified as a Geographical Indications(GI) tag to the state of Nagaland.
  • It got GI certification in 2008.

• The chilli from Nagaland is also referred to as Bhoot Jolokia and Ghost pepper.

• Nagaland King Chilli belongs to the genus Capsicum of the family Solanaceae. 

Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA)

• Founded in: 1986
• Headquarters: New Delhi
• It is an apex-Export Trade Promotion Active body, which works under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• It promotes exports of agricultural & processed food items (including GI products) by providing assistance to the exporters.
• It also supports exports through various schemes like Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES), Market Access Initiative (MAI), etc.
• In 2021, APEDA facilitated exports of Jackfruits from Tripura to London and Germany, Assam Lemon to London, Red rice of Assam to the United States and Leteku ‘Burmese Grape’ to Dubai.

Khagolshala Asteroid Search Campaign

• Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya students have detected Eight Asteroids as part of the Khagolshala Asteroid Search Campaign 2021.

Khagolshala Asteroid Search Campaign(KASC)

• It is an initiative of the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, and SPACE Foundation.
  • SPACE Foundation aims to popularize science and inculcate scientific temperament among the masses, especially students in India.
• The campaign is the India chapter of an international student research program that has got students involved in the search for asteroids.
• Under the campaign, high-quality astronomical data sets are distributed to students through the PANSTARRS telescope for analysis and identification of asteroids.
• The students then analyze the data using software, which then leads to potential discoveries.
• These observations feed into the Near-Earth Object(NEO) data being compiled by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).

Asteroids

• Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets, are rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.
• There are lots of asteroids in our solar system. The main asteroid belt is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
• NEOs are comets and asteroids nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits which allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.

PANSTARRS telescope

• Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is a telescope located in Hawaii, US.
• It is surveying the sky for moving or variable objects on a continual basis. It is also producing accurate astrometry and photometry of already-detected objects.

India’s Chandrayaan Missions

• The Chandrayaan mission was announced by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 15th August 2003.
• Chandrayaan-1
  • It took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in October 2008 and entered Lunar Transfer Trajectory in November 2008.
  • It ejected the Moon Impact Probe near the lunar South Pole and confirmed the presence of water molecules on the Moon’s surface.
  • It officially ended in August, 2009.
• Chandrayaan-2
  • It was launched in July 2019 and was scheduled to be an effort aimed at landing a rover on the Lunar South Pole.
  • It was sent abroad by a geosynchronous launch vehicle, the GSLV-Mk 3.
  • Its lander Vikram carshed and prevented rover Pragyaan from successful travel on the surface of the moon.
    • Had the mission been successful, it would have been the first time a country landed its rover on the moon on its maiden attempt.
• Chandrayaan-3
  • It is the third Moon mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and successor of Chandrayaan-2 mission.
  • It involves various processes, including finalisation of configuration, subsystems realisation, integration, spacecraft level detailed testing and a number of special tests to evaluate the system performance on earth. 
  • Progress was hampered due to Covid-19 pandemic.
  • It is critical for ISRO as it will demonstrate India’s capabilities to make landings for further interplanetary missions.

Amagarh Fort

• According to a few historians, the present form of the Amagarh Fort was given in the 18^th century by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, founder of Jaipur.
  • However, it has always been believed that there was some construction at the place before the construction of the fort.
• Another set of scholars highlight that the fort was built by a Meena Sardar from the Nadla gotra, now known as Badgoti Meenas.
  • Sardars from the Meena community ruled large parts of Rajasthan till around 1100 AD.
  • Prior to Rajput rule by the Kachhwaha dynasty, Jaipur and its nearby regions were ruled and politically controlled by Meenas.
  • There is a need for detailed documentation of the history of the Meena community, which is largely oral as of now.
• It has been also clarified that Amba Mata is different from Ambika Bhawani.
  • Like other tribal groups, Meenas also worship ancestors and Amba Mata was such an ancestor, a living person and not a god.
  • She is not related to Ambika Bhawani or Durga and Hindu organisations have been criticised for trying to appropriate Amba Mata as Ambika Bhawani.
• Current Dispute
  • In June 2021, following reports of idols being vandalised and hoisting of a saffron flag at the fort, Meenas accused Hindu groups of trying to appropriate tribal symbols into the Hindutva fold and of changing the name of Amba Mata to Ambika Bhawani.
    • Meenas used to worship Amba Mata and other deities in the fort.

Earth Overshoot Day

• It marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.
  • Humanity currently uses 74 per cent more than what the planet’s ecosystems can regenerate (or equal to 1.7 Earths).
• From this Day until the end of the year, humanity operates on ecological deficit spending.
  • This spending was currently some of the largest since the world entered into ecological overshoot in the early 1970s.
• This is worryingly the same date that the world reached in 2019.
  • This means that the modest gains accrued from the Covid-19 as far as humanity’s ecological footprint is concerned have been lost.
• Causes
  • The prime driver was the 6.6 per cent increase in the global carbon footprint in 2020.
    • The carbon footprint of transportation and CO2 emissions due to international aviation will be lower than previous years.
    • However, global energy-related CO2 emissions will increase 4.8 per cent from last year as economies try to recover from the impact of Covid-19.
  • There was also a 0.5 per cent decrease in ‘global forest biocapacity’ due to a rise in deforestation of the Amazon’s rainforests.
    • Some 1.1 million hectares of rainforest were lost in Brazil alone, which is home to the largest swathe of Amazonian rainforest.
    • Also, there would be a 43 per cent year-over-year increase in deforestation in 2021.
• Suggestions
  • According to WWF, a business-as-usual scenario will simply not work if the date for World Overshoot Day is to be pushed behind.
  • It suggested measures like cutting down on food wastage, commercial technologies for buildings, industrial processes and electricity production and cutting down on transportation.

(Image Courtesy: DTE)