• KMGBF has completed one year since adoption.

• Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) was adopted at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) 15th Conference of Parties (CoP15) in Montreal.
• The Framework furthers the overall agenda of the CBD that strives to ensure that biodiversity is protected, used sustainably and that the benefits accrued from its use are shared equitably with the communities that have protected it for centuries.
• Four overarching goals to be achieved by 2050 focus on ecosystem and species health including
  • to halt human-induced species extinction,
  • the sustainable use of biodiversity,
  • equitable sharing of benefits, and
  • on implementation and finance to include closing the biodiversity finance gap of $700 billion per year.
• Among the twenty-three targets to be achieved by 2030 include
  • 30 per cent conservation of land, sea and inland waters,
  • 30 per cent restoration of degraded ecosystems,
  • halving the introduction of invasive species,
  • $500 billion/year reduction in harmful subsidies,
  • Reduce risk from pesticides by at least 50% by 2030,
  • Reduce nutrients lost to the environment by at least 50% by 2030 etc.

About CBD

• CBD is a legally binding treaty to conserve biodiversity that has been ratified by 196 nations, including India.
• Adopted in 1992 at Rio Earth Summit (enforced in 1993).
• It aims at achieving a historic deal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss on par with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
• CBD Secretariat – Montreal, Canada.
• The Parties (Countries) under CBD, meet at regular intervals and these meetings are called Conference of Parties (COP).
• Main Protocols
  • Nagoya Protocol on Access to Generic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization.
  • Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

• India’s largest airline IndiGo made history by “becoming the first Indian airline to carry 100 million passengers in a single calendar year.”
• This remarkable milestone solidifies IndiGo’s position in the aviation industry and underscores its significant contribution to air travel in the country.
• With this development IndiGo has joined a select group of carriers globally.

• International Human Solidarity Day is a significant observance held annually on December 20^th.
• The roots of this day trace back to December 22, 2005, when the UN General Assembly acknowledged solidarity as a fundamental value of the twenty-first century through Resolution 60/209.
  • This recognition led to the establishment of the World Solidarity Fund to combat poverty.

• TEMPO is NASA’s first Earth-observation satellite in geostationary orbit and has developed further from previous polar-orbiting satellites provided daily observations to provide 10 to 12 daily scans.
• It stands for -Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution or widely known as TEMPO.
• It aims to measure atmospheric pollution from Canada’s oil sands to the Yucatán Peninsula.
• It also gets data from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
• The TEMPO instrument is a UV-visible spectrometer, and the first ever space-based instrument to monitor air pollutants hourly across the North American continent during daytime.
• It collects high-resolution measurements of ozone, nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants, data which will revolutionize air quality forecasts.
• The data gathered by TEMPO will be shared with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enhance air quality forecasting.
• NASA and Intelsat are nurturing hopes for TEMPO’s functionality extending up to 10-15 years.

• The Yogmaya Temple in Mehrauli is a historically important monument believed to be standing at the site of an ancient temple that is said to have come up during the period of the Mahabharata but of which no trace exists anymore.
• Also called Jogmaya temple.
• A noble in the court of Mughal Emperor Akbar II by the name of Lala Sidhu Mal built the temple between 1806 and 1837.
• The area was known as Yoginipura in ancient Jain texts and Prithviraj Chauhan himself was said to have patronised a Yogini temple here shortly before his city’s destruction.
• Lala Sidhu Mal, also known as Sed Mal, built his temple on the site where an ancient Yogini Temple is believed to have existed.
• The Emperor ordered an offering to be given at Yogmaya temple on his son’s release from British prison in Allahabad.
  • Placing flowers at both holy sites (other being Qutubuddin Dargah) became a yearly tradition known as Phool Walon ki Sair, and it continues to this day as the capital’s most prominent display of Hindu-Muslim unity.

• The United Nations has declared 2024 the International Year Of Camelids to highlight the significant importance of camelids in the lives of people across the world.
• According to the Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO), camelids influence the lives of millions of households in more than 90 countries.
• As a group Camelids include alpacas, Bactrian camels, dromedaries, guanacos, llamas, vicuñas which together help in ensuring food security, nutrition and economic growth especially for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
• Camelids are a source of milk and meat which helps people fight hunger.
• They also provide fibre which can be used for clothing and shelter.
• Camelids are also used by people as a means of transportation.
• Camelids are known to survive in harsh conditions.

• The World Bank released its latest Migration and Development Brief.

 MAJOR FINDINGS

• It reveals a continuing growth in remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in 2023, albeit at a slower pace compared to previous years.
• Remittances to LMICs grew by an estimated 3.8 per cent in 2023, reaching a total of USD669 billion.
• Resilient labour markets in advanced economies and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries played a pivotal role in supporting migrants’ ability to send money home.
• India saw the highest amount of remittance inflows in the world in 2023 at USD 125 billion.
  • India was followed by Mexico, China, the Philippines, and Egypt.
• USA continued to be the largest source of remittances.
• Economies where remittance inflows represent substantial shares of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — highlighting the importance of remittances for funding current account and fiscal shortfalls — are Tajikistan, Tonga, Samoa, Lebanon, and Nicaragua.
• The report suggests a potential risk of a decline in real income for migrants in 2024 due to global inflation and low growth prospects.

• Centre government has set up secure e-mail for 10,000 users in critical ministries.
• In the wake of cyberattacks, the Centre has set up a secure e-mail set-up for 10,000 users in critical ministries and departments.
• The e-mail system that works on Zero Trust Authentication (ZTA) has been designed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
  • NIC works under the purview of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
• The 10,000 emails span across 17 union ministries and departments.

ABOUT ZTA

• ZTA is a security concept and framework that operates on the principle of “never trust, always verify.”
• This approach to cybersecurity is a significant shift from traditional security models that operated under the assumption that everything inside an organization’s network should be trusted.
• In contrast, Zero Trust assumes that trust is never granted implicitly but must be continually evaluated and authenticated, regardless of the user’s location or the network’s perimeter.
• Implementation of Zero Trust requires technologies like identity and access management (IAM), data encryption, endpoint security, and network segmentation tools.

• In a full-blown attack by the late blight disease attack on potato crop, more than 50% crop in the fields has suffered extensive damage leading to heavy losses for the farmers in Punjab who had opted for diversification instead of growing wheat after paddy.

ABOUT LATE BLIGHT DISEASES

• It is a fungal disease caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans that can damage the entire crop.
• Air borne infection is caused by the sporangia.
• The primary host is potato, but P. infestans also can infect other solanaceous plants, including tomatoes, petunias
• These infected species can act as source of inoculum to potato.
• Late blight is considered a community disease since sporangia from one field may spread to adjacent fields left untreated posing a threat to neighboring growers.
• It affects leaves, stems and tubers of crop.
• Symptoms
  • The first symptoms of late blight appear as small, light to dark green, circular to irregular-shaped water-soaked spots.
  • During cool, moist weather, these lesions expand rapidly into large, dark brown or black lesions, often appearing greasy.
  • A pale green to yellow border often surrounds the lesions.

• The birth anniversary of Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar was observed recently on December 17^th.

ABOUT SAKHARAM GANESH DEVASKAR (1869–1912)

• Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar was born on 17 December 1869 in a village near Deoghar, Jharkhand.
• A revolutionary journalist and a close associate of Sri Aurobindo, he was one of the major architects of the Indian Renaissance.
• Though being of Marathi origin, he was brought up in a Bengali set-up and acted as a bridge between Maharashtra and Bengal’s renaissance.
• A prolific writer, he contributed to most of the revolutionary magazines of Bengali.
• The most influential one among them was the work ‘Desher Katha’ which was later translated in Hindi as ‘Desh Ki Baat’.
• The book was based on the exploitation of the Indian economy by colonial British rule.
• It also summarized the work of M. G. Ranade and D. Naoroji in a popular idiom and warned in its concluding chapter against the colonial state’s “hypnotic conquest of the mind.”
• It helped in mobilizing the masses for the Indian National Movement.
• He considered Bal Gangadhar Tilak as his political guru.
• Deuskar breathed his last on 23 November 1912.