WHY IN THE NEWS?

Odisha government has allocated Rs 445.75 crore to the distribution companies in order to increase the ground clearance of electrical networks with the objective of preventing Elephant electrocution.

About:

• With the help of allocated funds, distribution companies would also replace bare conductors across elephant corridors and movement areas.
• This initiative is aimed at preventing elephant deaths because of electrocution.
• As per Energy department, 79000 interposing poles have been erected and about 2,300 circuit bare conductors have been replaced by covered ones.
• In the recent development, companies and Forest Department have been asked to interact on regular basis in a bid to achieve zero casualties of elephants.
• Officials have also been directed to involve with the local community in elephant protection and bring in scheme for rewarding the villagers, who would provide information regarding illegal hooking for poaching wild animals.

Elephant conservation in state

As per the Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO), an environment pressure group working on elephant conservation, about 862 elephants have lost their lives in between April 2010 August 2021. Out of this, about 16 % accounting for 135 elephants died due to electrocution.

Concerns associated with elephant conservation

Elephant conservation in the state of Odisha is a challenging task because of inadequate patrolling and breakdown of supervision & monitoring by officers. This has made it easy for poachers to wipe out elephants from the state.

Electrocution cases

Lack of action against electricity distribution companies has resulted into multiple electrocution cases because of overhead sagging naked wires, wild boar poaching wires and electrified fences. These elephants would have been saved if companies had installed safety devices. Most recent case “killing of seven elephants in Dhenkanal district” in the year 2018 at Kamalanga because of a low height 11 KV wire.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

Former Cabinet Minister and former chairman of rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog launched the “Kamdhenu Deepawali 2021 campaign”.

About:

• This campaign was launched for manufacturing and marketing about 100 Crore Deepak lamps & Laxmi-Ganesh Idols made up of cow-dung.
• Under the campaign, Cows will be economically used by economically utilising Cow Dung and Cow Urine along with its Milks, Curd & Ghee.
• Using the Panchgavya from cow, 300 items are getting made now, including Deepak, Candles, Lamps, Havansamagri, Sambrani cup, Hard Board, Dhoopbatti, incense sticks, Wall piece, Laxmi-Ganesh idols etc.

Gomaya lamps

The Gomaya lamps were made by Cow Entrepreneurs and Cow owners. This lamp will save the environment by providing eco-friendly alternative for chemical based Chinese lights.

Who trains the start-ups?

Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog have been providing training in association with the volunteer organizations across India, giving rise to huge number of Cow dung based Start Ups.

Significance of the campaign

This campaign would benefit the Cow Entrepreneurs across India. It is an Eco friendly campaign which will also help Gaushalas in becoming Self Sustainable. Campaign would also empower the ‘Start-up India’ and ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

About Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog

It is an agency working under the “Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying” of “Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying”. It was established to protect cows.  The agency organises animal husbandry on scientific & modern lines. It also takes steps to preserve & improve breeds as well as prohibit slaughter of cows & calves. Agency also functions as an integral part of Rashtriya Gokul Mission.

Rashtriya Gokul Mission

This mission was started in December 2014 by government with the aim of developing & conserving indigenous bovine breeds and genetic upgradation of bovine population.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• The first pink-ball day and night Test match between India and Australian women team at the Carrara Oval in Queensland, Australia on 30th September.
• The BCCI and Cricket Australia wish to slot in a Test in the full series they play going forward. The Indian team lead by Mithali Raj.
• Australia played the first pink-ball Test against England in 2017 in Sydney during the women’s Ashes.  The two teams last played a Test in Adelaide in 2006 when Australia won convincingly. Jhulan Goswami is one of two survivors from that Test along with Mithali Raj

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• After 26 years and 72 professional bouts, Former world champion Manny Pacquiao announced his retirement from professional boxing. He made his professional debut in 1995 at age 16.
• He became the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five different weight classes and is the only boxer to hold world championships across four different decades. He held the welterweight title as recently as 2019 at age 40.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• The Olympic bronze medal-winning Indian hockey player, Rupinder Pal Singh has announced his retirement from international hockey to make way for young and talented players.
• The 30-year-old Rupinder represented the Indian hockey team in 223 matches in his 13 years hockey career. Rupinder was part of the Indian hockey team that won the bronze medal in the 2020 Summer Tokyo Olympics, held in July – August 2021.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• E-commerce major Amazon India has announced the launch of Amazon Future Engineer, its global computer science education programme in India.
• The programme will enable access to quality computer science education and career opportunities for students from underrepresented and underserved communities.
• In the first year of its launch, Amazon aims to enable and deliver learning opportunities to more than 1 lakh students from 900 government and aided schools across seven states in India.
• Amazon Future Engineer programme in India will focus on the students of 6-12 class and it will also provide training to teachers for teaching computer science in a more engaging way.
• Amazon is running this kind of programme in the US, the UK, Canada, and France.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) has constituted an Expert Committee to recommend an approach towards the development of the Sustainable Finance Hub at IFSC. The expert committee will be chaired by C.K. Mishra, Former Secretary to Government of India, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change.
• The committee consists of a total of 10 members including the chairperson and the member secretary. The committee shall study the current regulatory practices in Sustainable Finance across major International financial jurisdictions and recommend a robust framework to develop a world-class sustainable finance hub at IFSC, along with a road map for the same.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• Padmaja Chunduru has been appointed as the managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of National Securities Depositories (NSDL). She has replaced GV Nageswara Rao as the MD & CEO of NSDL.
• In India, there are two depositories namely National Securities Depositories Ltd (NSDL) and Central Securities Depositories Ltd (CDSL). Both the depositories hold our financial securities. Padmaja Chunduru is a Post Graduate in Commerce from Andhra University. She has around 37 years of experience in the banking domain.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

• A humanitarian organization from Yemen has been declared as the winner of the 2021 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award.
• The organisation named “Jeel Albena Association for Humanitarian Development”, founded in 2017 by Ameen Jubran has won the prestigious honour to support and provide a lifeline to tens of thousands of Yemenis people displaced by the country’s conflict.
• The UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award honours individuals, groups or organizations for going above and beyond the call of duty to protect refugees, other displaced and stateless people.

WHY IN THE NEWS?

American Space Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently decided to stop sending active commands to its missions on the MARS for the next few weeks till the time “Mars solar conjunction” remains in effect.

What is Solar Conjunction?

• As per NASA, during the Mars solar conjunction period, Earth and the MARS will be on opposite sides of the Sun.
• This position of both the planets will affect any communication attempt made by NASA for connecting with its Mars missions because Sun radiates hot & ionized gas from its corona.

How Solar Conjunction affects the missions on MARS?

• These gases can interfere with radio signals if the agency tries to communicate with spacecraft on Mars.
• These radiations will stand in the middle of both the planets and corrupt commands. It could also result in unexpected behaviour from NASA’s deep space explorers.
• Thus, NASA has decided to stop sending signals.

Will it completely halt the work?

No, this period would not halt the work on the red Planet completely because engineers have already sent the list of simple commands to spacecraft to carry works a few weeks.

NASA’s mission on MARS

Presently, NASA has its Perseverance rover, Curiosity Rover, Ingenuity helicopter, stationary InSight lander stationed on the MARS apart from three orbiters. During the Mars solar conjunction period, these missions will work on different commands, sent to them beforehand. Perseverance rover will take weather measurements with the help of its Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) sensors. Rover will look for dust devils with its cameras and capture new sounds with the help of microphones.