Current Context : Shah Rukh Khan becomes first Indian actor to be honoured with special gold coins by Paris’ Grevin Museum.

• Recently, the global icon was honored with customised gold coins by Paris’ Grevin Museum.
• Grevin Glasse of Paris issued the coins featuring the actor’s picture and his name to celebrate the Jawan star.
• The Grevin Museum, located on the Grands Boulevards in Paris, is renowned for its wax statues of celebrities.

IN ADDITION :

• He is also set to receive the prestigious Pardo alla Carriera award at the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival on Piazza Grande on August 10.

Current Context : Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh is conferred the prestigious “Lifetime Achievement Award” For Research In Diabetes.

ABOUT:

• Jitendra Singh is an Indian physician and politician who is serving as the 18th Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Earth Sciences since 2024.
• He is also an author of eight books and three Monograms on various aspects of Diabetes.
• His books titled “Diabetes Made Easy” was included in the Best-seller section of the World Book Fair held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
• Achievements : ‘Gold Medal for Oration’ from Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) Puducherry and the coveted ‘Jamna Devi Gian Devi Award’ for journalism.

Singh’s achievements also include his role as the Lifetime Patron of the Research Society for the Study of Diabetes in India (RSSDI), the country’s largest academic association for diabetologists.

Current Context : Sri Lanka secured  their first Women’s Asia Cup title by beating India.

• Sri Lanka won by 8 wickets in the final by beating India.
• Final was held at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium in Dambulla.

ABOUT WOMEN’S ASIA CUP:

• The Women’s Asia Cup (Asian Women’s Cricket Championships) is a women’s One Day International and Twenty20 International cricket tournament.
• Established in 2004 and is a biennial tournament.
• The tournament is contested by cricket teams from Asia.
• The first Women’s Asia Cup was held in 2004 on Colombo and Kandy in the Sri Lanka.

Current Context : Manu Bhaker wins India’s first medal of Paris Olympics.

• She became the first Indian woman to win a medal in shooting at the Olympics in 20 years to reach a shooting final in an individual event of the Olympics since Suma Shirur in 2004.
• She won a bronze medal with a score of 7 in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol event.

Current Context : Scientists find evidence of an additional source of oxygen at 13,000 feet under the sea where the Sun don’t shine.

ABOUT DARK OXYGEN

• Oxygen produced in the absence of sunlight is called dark oxygen.
• It is produced in complete darkness thousands of feet below the ocean surface.
• On the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), which spans 4.5 million square kilometres (1.7 million square miles) in the Pacific Ocean, there are coal-like mineral rocks, called polymetallic nodules, which typically contain manganese and iron. Scientists have found that these nodules produce oxygen without the process of photosynthesis.

Oceanic plankton, drifting plants, algae, and some other bacteria are the primary elements contributed to the production of oxygen in the ocean.

The GROWTH-India telescope at the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Ladakh has captured a building-sized asteroid’s closest approach to Earth.

About GROWTH-India telescope

• GROWTH-India is India’s first fully robotic optical research telescope.
• It is a 7m wide-field telescope set up in Ladakh has tracked the rapid motion of the asteroid as it zipped across the sky at 10x lunar distance.
• This was constructed as a joint partnership between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, with support from DST-SERB and IUSSTF.
• Current operations benefit from the generous support of the IIT Bombay alumni batch of 1994.

Current Context : The Moidams in eastern Assam, a 700-year-old mound-burial system of the Ahom dynasty added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

• It became the first cultural site from the Northeast to the list and the third World Heritage Property from Assam, following Kaziranga National Park and Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, both inscribed under the Natural category in 1985.
• This makes 43rd property from India to added in UNESCO World Heritage list.
• India stands at the 6th position globally for the most number of World Heritage Properties

ABOUT MOIDAMS

• A moidam is a tumulus, a mound of earth raised over a grave of Ahom royalty and aristocracy.
• Ahom kings and queens were buried inside these
• Unlike Hindus who cremate their dead, the predominant funerary method of the Ahoms, originating from the Tai people, was the burial.
• The height of a moidam is typically indicative of the power and stature of the person buried

Current Context : India assumes the Chair of Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC)

ABOUT ASIAN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS CENTRE (ADPC)

• ADPC is an autonomous International Organization for cooperation in and implementation of disaster risk reduction and building climate resilience in Asia and the Pacific region.
• Founding members : India and eight neighbouring countries viz. Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
• Headquarter in Bangkok, Thailand

The Government has approved setting up of 7 (Seven) PM Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA) Parks in Greenfield/Brownfield sites (including a Greenfield project in Virudhanagar Tamil Nadu).

• It provides world class infrastructure including plug and play facility with an outlay of Rs. 4,445 cr for a period of seven years upto 2027-28.

ABOUT PM MITRA PARK

• Developed by a Special Purpose Vehicle which will be owned by the Central and State Government and in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) Mode.
• These parks will be set up at key locations, as ready to move, ready to start (through plug and play facilities), with common industrial infrastructure and facilities, allowing integration of supply and value chains in a contiguous area.
• Each MITRA Park will have an incubation centre, common processing house and a common effluent treatment plant and other textile related facilities such as design centres and testing centres.
• Significance: It will reduce logistics costs and strengthen the value chain of the Textile Sector to make it globally competitive.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee added five new sites on the World Heritage List and extend one existing World Heritage site.

• The announcement came during the 46th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in New Delhi, India.
• The sites added to the list are:
  • The Flow Country, United Kingdom
  • Te Henua Enata – The Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
  • Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil
  • Badain Jaran desert – Towers of Sand and Lakes, China
  • Migratory Bird Sanctuaries along the Coast of Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf of China
  • Vjetrenica Cave, Ravno, Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABOUT UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

• A World Heritage site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
• World Heritage sites are designated by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, scientific or other forms of significance.

The sites contain “cultural and natural heritage around the world considered being of outstanding value to humanity.”