Why in news?

• Al-Ghais has been named as the secretary general of OPEC

About Al-Ghais

• Al-Ghais, who was Kuwait’s OPEC governor from 2017 to June 2021, serves as a deputy managing director of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC).
• His decades of experience in the industry includes stints in Beijing and London for the state oil corporation.

Why in news?

• India’s home-grown testing kit OmiSure, developed by the Tata Medical and Diagnostics (Tata MD) to identify the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in samples taken from the nose and throat, was approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently.

About OmiSure

• Apart from identifying the B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variant, the kit can also detect any other circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants.
• The company said the unique test design developed by scientists at Tata MD is a single tube, fully multiplexed test (provisional patent application filed). Therefore, it has two checks in place for Omicron detection without compromising the ability to detect other SARS-CoV-2 variants.
• The kit evaluated in partnership with the ICMR reported 100 per cent sensitivity and 99.25 per cent specificity for detection of variants of SARS-CoV-2, including Omicron.
• OmiSure is the first test to use a combination of two S-gene viral targets to identify Omicron. The first target is based on S-gene dropout or S-gene target failure (SGTF) and the second target is based on S-gene mutation amplification (SGMA).
• The kit developed by a team headed by Bengaluru-based Dr V Ravi, former head of neurovirology, NIMHANS, and currently head of R&D, Tata MD, is listed on the ICMR website as the only kit approved specifically for Omicron detection.

Why in news?

• A group of Indian and international scientists have spotted a peculiar binary star that shows heartbeat but no pulsations contrary to the norm of binary stars of sporting both heartbeats as well as pulsations. This star is called HD73619 in Praesepe (M44), located in the Cancer constellation, one of the closest open star clusters to the Earth.

About star with a heartbeat and without a magnetic field

• A total of about 180 heartbeat stars are known to date. The name ‘Heartbeat’ stems from the resemblance of the path of the star to an electrocardiogram of the human heart. These are the binary star systems where each star travels in a highly elliptical orbit around the common centre of mass, and the distance between the two stars varies drastically as they orbit each other. When the stars are at closest passage of binary systems, a sudden increase in integrated brightness with amplitude of the order of several parts-per-thousand (ppt) is observed. As the components move apart, the light variation falls and finally becomes flat, indicating that combined flux is reduced, resulting in alternating peaks and troughs in their light curves. The pulsational activity of such stars is due to the oscillations in the component stars when they are at their closest approach.
• A team of 33 scientists, led by Dr. Santosh Joshi from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), an autonomous institution under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt of India, carried out analysis of photometric and high-resolution spectroscopic observations of HD73619 obtained using 8 ground-based telescopes located in different parts of the globe. They have found that HD73619 is the first member of heartbeat systems in binary chemically peculiar stars that does not show any pulsational/vibrational activity at their closest approach.

Why in news?

• Iran displayed three ballistic missiles at an outdoor prayer esplanade in central Tehran recently as talks in Vienna aimed at reviving Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers flounder.

About the missiles

• The missiles – known as Dezful, Qiam and Zolfaghar – have official ranges of up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and are already-known models.
• Diplomats from countries that remain in the 2015 nuclear deal – Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – are working with Tehran to revive the accord, which had sought to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions.

Why in news?

• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi on the auspicious occasion of the Parkash Purab of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, has announced that starting this year, 26th December shall be observed as ‘Veer Baal Diwas’ to mark the martyrdom of Sahibzada Zorawar Singh Ji and Sahibzada Fateh Singh Ji.

About the announcement made by PM Modi

• This is a fitting tribute to the courage of the Sahibzades and their quest for justice. ‘Veer Baal Diwas’ will be on the same day Sahibzada Zorawar Singh Ji and Sahibzada Fateh Singh Ji attained martyrdom after being sealed alive in a wall. These two greats preferred death instead of deviating from the noble principles of Dharma.
• The bravery and ideals of Mata Gujri, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji and the 4 Sahibzades give strength to millions of people. They never bowed to injustice. They envisioned a world that is inclusive and harmonious. It is the need of the hour for more people to know about them.

Why in news?

• To protect highly endangered species, ranging from the elusive endangered pheasant western tragopan to the musk deer and the Himalayan tahr in the Great Himalayan National Park, a Unesco World Heritage site in the north-west Himalayas, is a Herculean task for a forest official
• Park authorities fear for their vulnerability to poaching from human settlements in the buffer zone known as an eco-zone.
• The Great Himalayan National Park is spread over 90,540 hectares. It comprises the upper mountain glacial and snow melt water sources of several rivers, and the catchments of water supplies that are vital to millions of downstream users.

Why in news?

• The Third Eye, an evidence-based policing with CCTV surveillance matrix in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial hub, had helped reduce crime by 30 per cent, said DGP Sanjay Kundu.
• Former Baddi SP Rohit Malpani (now SP, cyber crime), under whose supervision the project was implemented, received the National e-Governance Silver Award from Dr Jitender Singh, Minister of State, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, at Hyderabad today, during the 24th national conference on e-Governance.
• The project was implemented under the public-private partnership, in coordination with the industries in BBN area, without seeking any financial assistance from the government, he said.
• As many as 2,038 CCTV cameras were installed in Baddi district. “Besides initiatives such as geotagging of CCTVs on Google Maps, and surveillance through vehicle-mounted cameras, a cyber lab facilitating CCTV footage analysis was also renovated,”

Why in news?

• Union Minister of Jal Shakti Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat announced 3rd National Water Awards-2020.

About the awards

• In the Best State category, Uttar Pradesh has been awarded first prize, followed by Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
• The first National Water Award was launched by the Jal Shakti Ministry in 2018. National Water Awards have provided a good opportunity to start-ups as well as leading organizations to engage and deliberate with senior policymakers on how to adopt the best water resources management practices in India.

Why in news?

• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry is set to organize the Startup India Innovation Week from January 10th to 16th 2022.

About Startup India Innovation Week

• This week-long virtual innovation celebration aims to commemorate the 75th year of India’s independence ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ and is designed to showcase the spread and depth of entrepreneurship across India.
• Startup India Innovation Week will have sessions ranging from topics such as Enhancing Market Access Opportunities, Discussions with Industry leaders, Best Practices by States, Capacity Building of Enablers, Reverse Pitching by Incubators, Technology Exhibitions, Corporate Connects and more.
• The programme is expected to bring together top policy makers, industry, academia, investors, startups, and all ecosystem enablers from across the globe.

Why in news?

• Union Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh, inaugurated India’s first Open Rock Museum recently.

About the open rock museum

• The museum displays around 35 different varieties of rocks from different parts of India with ages ranging from 3.3 billion years to around 55 million years. These rocks also represent the deepest part of the Earth, up to 175 km of distance from the surface of the earth.
• ‘Big Earth data’ occupies the strategic high ground in the era of knowledge economies and India is fully exploiting this new frontier, contributing to the advancement of earth science.