• The World Health Organization (WHO) has certified Cabo Verde (also known as Cape Verde) as a malaria-free country, becoming the third country to acquire the status in the global health organisation’s African region.
• The country has now joined Mauritius and Algeria, who were certified in 1973 and 2019, respectively.
• Africa has the highest malaria burden and accounted for roughly 95 per cent of global malaria cases and 96 per cent of related deaths in 2021.

ABOUT CABO VERDE

• Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an archipelago and island country of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean.
• It consists of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about 4,033 square kilometres.

• A consortium of scientists from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Deccan College has found evidence of cultural continuity in Vadnagar even after the Harappan collapse.
  • Vadnagar is the Prime Minister’s native village.
• The team has found evidence of a human settlement that is as old as 800 BCE contemporary to late-Vedic/pre-Buddhist Mahajanapadas or oligarchic republics.
• Vadnagar was a multicultural and multireligious (Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Islamic) settlement.
• Excavation in several deep trenches revealed the presence of seven cultural stages (periods) namely, Mauryan, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian or Shaka-Kshatrapas (AKA ‘Satraps’, descendants of provincial governors of ancient Achaemenid Empires, Hindu-Solankis, Sultanate-Mughal (Islamic) to Gaekwad-British colonial rule.
• Characteristic archaeological artefacts, potteries, copper, gold, silver and iron objects and intricately designed bangles have been found.
• Coin moulds of the Greek king Appollodatus during the Indo-Greek rule have also been found at Vadnagar.

• PM Modi was seen feeding several Punganur cows at his residence in New Delhi.
• The rare breed, native to a village by the same name in Andhra Pradesh, is diminutive – that it can even be bred in an apartment.
• It is among the world’s dwarfest cattle breeds but yields highly nutritional milk.
• It has high resilience to drought and can adapt to low-quality feed.
• Many temples of Andhra Pradesh, including the famous Tirupati Thirumala Temple, use the milk of a Punganur cow for Ksheeraabhishekam (milk offering to the deity).
• It is known for its high-fat content A2 milk, rich in nutrients such as Omega fatty acids, calcium, potassium, and magnesium, which are essential for maintaining good health.
• A Punganur cow can give around 1 to 3 litres a day, and the milk fat content is 8 per cent as compared to 3 to 4 per cent in other native breeds.
• The higher the value of the feed, good genetics, and maintenance, the better the quality of milk produced.

• The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has put on hold grading process for around 30 institutes in the country that saw inexplicable jump in grades between two accreditation cycles, separated by five years.
• In March 2023, NAAC was pulled up by the Comptroller and Auditor General for glaring “discrepancies” in its assessment process, pointing to the poor standards that NAAC follows.

ABOUT NATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION COUNCIL (NAAC)

• National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) was established in 1994 as an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission (UGC)
• Headquarters- Bengaluru.
• It conducts assessment and accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) such as colleges, universities.
• The NAAC functions through its General Council (GC) and Executive Committee (EC) comprising educational administrators, policy makers and senior academicians from a cross-section of Indian higher education system.
  • The Chairperson of the UGC is the President of the GC of the NAAC, the Chairperson of the EC is an eminent academician nominated by the President of GC (NAAC).

• The Union government has granted an extension to the procurement deadline for the initial batch of 3,600 electric buses (e-buses) under the PM-eBus Sewa scheme, setting the new cutoff date to January 31.

ABOUT THE SCHEME

• The ambitious PM-eBus Sewa scheme, which was announced on August 16, seeks to introduce 10,000 e-buses across 169 cities.
• This will be done through a 10-year public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement.
• The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is overseeing this endeavour.
• While the scheme has a total budget of Rs 57,613 crore.
  • Of this, Rs 20,000 crore will be allocated from the central government’s budget.
  • The rest will be secured through contributions from various state governments.
• Distinguishing itself from FAME-II, the PM-eBus Sewa initiative empowers state governments to deploy electric buses in cities with a population of 300,000.
  • But FAME-II focuses on deployment of e-buses in only nine cities with a population of over four million.
• There are two segments of the scheme
  • Augmenting the city bus services and Associated Infrastructure: Under this segment, the scheme will augment city electric bus operations by extending Central Assistance (CA) for 10,000 electric bus operation on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, bus depots and behind-the-meter power infrastructure.
  • Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI): Under this segment, the scheme will support the implementation of GUMI projects for complementing bus services and demonstrating a reduction in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in urban areas.

• The Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) has been marked as India’s first Dark Sky Park and the fifth such park in Asia for protecting the night sky and preventing light pollution, making the facility ideal for astronomy enthusiasts.
• The certification was given by the International Dark-Sky Association, a global dark-sky movement to promote astronomy.

ABOUT PENCH TIGER RESERVE

• Pench Tiger Reserve or Pench National Park is one of the premier tiger reserves of India and the first one to straddle across two states – Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
• The Reserve is located in the southern reaches of the Satpura hills in the Seoni and Chhindwara districts in Madhya Pradesh and in Nagpur district in Maharashtra as a separate Sanctuary.
• It is 25th tiger reserve of India.
• The Pench Tiger reserve (PTR) which derives its name from its lifeline – the River Pench is spread over 41 Sq.km of area.
• The fictional works of Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, are set in the region.
  • Kipling himself never visited the area, instead basing his descriptions on other locations in India.
• Vegetation ranges from moist sheltered valley to an open, dry deciduous forest.
• Flora includes teak, saag, mahua, and various grasses and shrubs.
• Faunal species include tiger, leopard, sloth bear, Indian gaur, wild dog, wolf etc.

A DARK SKY PRESERVE

• A dark-sky preserve is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts artificial light pollution.
• The purpose of the dark-sky movement is generally to promote astronomy.
• The Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO), a high-altitude astronomy station located in Hanle, and operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, is India’s first dark-sky preserve.
  • Situated in the Western Himalayas at an elevation of 4,500 meters (14,764 ft), the IAO is one of the world’s highest located sites for optical, infrared and gamma-ray telescopes.

• Eminent author, J. Akbar, launched his new book named “Gandhi A Life in Three Campaigns” at Prime Minister’s Museum and Library at the Pradhan Mantri Sangrahalaya.
• The Foreword of the book has been written by K. Natwar Singh, former diplomat and External Affairs Minister of India.
• The particularly focuses on three pivotal mass campaigns led by Gandhiji-
  • Non-Cooperation Movement (1920)
  • Salt Satyagraha (1930)
  • Quit India Movement (1942)

• Archaeologists in Saqqara, Egypt have discovered a series of tombs dating from about 1,800 to 4,800 years ago, some of which contain colorful mummy masks.
• The colorful mummy masks, which would have been worn by the dead, probably date to the Roman period (29 B.C. to A.D. 641).
• The archaeologists also found a small statue showing Harpocrates, a Greek god that looks like a child who is associated with silence, riding a goose.
• The goose represents “an evil spirit over which the Divine Child triumphs”.

ABOUT SAQQARA

• Saqqara, also spelled Sakkara or Saccara, is an Egyptian village in the markaz (county) of Badrashin in the Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis.
• Saqqara contains numerous pyramids, including the Pyramid of Djoser, sometimes referred to as the Step Tomb.
  • Pyramid of Djoser is the oldest complete stone building complex known in history.
• Saqqara covers an area of around 7 by 1.5 km (4.3 by 0.9 mi).

• Indian Army Day is celebrated every year on 15^th January.
• On 15 January 1949, Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa became the first Commander-in-chief of the Indian Army and took over the authority from the British Commander-in-Chief General Francis Butcher.
• The theme of the Indian Army Day 2024 is “In Service of the Nation”.
• The capital city of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, hosted a spectacular parade to commemorate the 76th Army Day of the Indian Army.

• West Bengal Chief Minister in a letter to Prime Minister has asked the central government to officially list Bengali as a “classical language”.
• So far, the Government of India has officially recognised six languages as having classical status – Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Telugu, Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014).
• As per the Centre’s guidelines, a language must meet some requirements to be declared “classical”.
• They include-
  • the high antiquity of its early texts;
  • recorded history of over 1500-2000 years;
  • a body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers;
  • a literary tradition that’s original and not borrowed from another speech community; and
  • being distinct from modern, without discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.