• The maiden edition of the high level virtual interaction MAHASAGAR was hosted by the Indian Navy recently.
• MAHASAGAR also another word for vast ocean, is the Indian Navy’s outreach initiative for a high level virtual interaction between Maritime Heads for Active Security And Growth for All in the Region.
• Chief of the Naval Staff interacted with Heads of Navies/ Maritime Agencies and Senior Leadership from IOR littorals, viz., Bangladesh, Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
• The interaction’s theme was ‘Collective Maritime Approach towards Countering Common Challenges’, which highlights the present and necessary imperative for harmonising and collaborating capacities and capabilities in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), which is in consonance with the Government of India’s vision of SAGAR ‘Security and Growth for All in the Region’.

ABOUT SAGAR

• India’s SAGAR (announced in 2015), which stands for ‘Security and Growth for All in the Region,’ is a vision and policy framework designed to enhance maritime cooperation and security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
• The initiative emphasizes the importance of promoting collective security and sustainable development for the benefit of all nations in the region.
• For this, India would cooperate on the exchange of information, coastal surveillance, building of infrastructure and strengthening their capabilities.

• Astronomers have identified six sub-Neptune planets orbiting in a rare synchronised dance around a distant star.
• The star, known as HD110067, is located approximately 100 light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices and is about 20% less massive than our Sun.
• The six planets were detected by observing minute dimming of the star’s brightness as each planet transited, or passed in front of, the star from our perspective on Earth.
• The newly discovered sub-Neptunes range from 1.9 to 2.9 times Earth’s diameter and all seem to have substantial atmospheres.
  • None of the six planets lie within the traditional habitable zone—the region around a star where conditions might be right for liquid water and potentially life.

• However they do possess atmospheres that could modify their surface temperatures, expanding the potentially habitable zone for such planets.

• The orbital resonance of these planets is intriguing, meaning their orbits are synchronised in such a way that they have remained stable for about 4 billion years.
  • This suggests that no major disruptions, like colossal impacts, have disturbed their paths since their formation.

ABOUT SUB-NEPTUNES

• Planets with radii between that of Earth and Neptune are called ‘Sub-Neptunes’.
• Sub-Neptunes are the most commonly observed type of planet in our galaxy, yet their fundamental nature remains a puzzle.
• They could be rocky worlds with thick atmospheres of hydrogen and helium gas, or perhaps composed of rock and ice with warm, water-rich atmospheres.

• As tension escalated between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir water release, the Telangana government approached the Centre which has urged both states to revert to the release of Nagarjuna Sagar waters as before.
• Earlier, nearly 700 Andhra cops stormed into the project and opened the right canal to release 500 cusecs of water per hour.
• To avoid further conflict, the dam will be supervised by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) which will also oversee that both sides are getting water as per the deal.
• As per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, the operational control of the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam is with the Telangana government.

ABOUT NAGARJUNA SAGAR DAM

• It straddles the districts of Nalgonda in Telangana and Palnadu in Andhra Pradesh.
• It is located on the river Krishna.
• It is the largest and highest masonry dam of the world.
• It was constructed between 1955 and 1967.
• The dam has a capacity of 11.472 billion cubic meters and provides water to irrigate over 1 million hectares of land in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
• The dam also generates hydroelectric power, with a capacity of 816 MW.

ABOUT KRISHNA RIVER

• The Krishna River is one of the longest rivers in India, flowing through the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.
• It originates in the Western Ghats near Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra and flows for about 1,400 km before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

• ‘A Call for Safer and Healthier Working Environments’ report was recently released by International Labour Organization (ILO).
• It was discussed at 23^rd World Congress on Safety and Health at Work (WCSHW) in Sydney, Australia.

MAJOR FINDINGS

• Nearly 30 lakh workers die every year globally due to work-related accidents and diseases.
• More than 63% of these deaths are reported from the Asia-Pacific region.
• In 2019, work-related deaths rose to 2.93 million, a 12% increase from 2000.
• Majority of work-related deaths are caused by work-related diseases e.g., circulatory and respiratory diseases.
• Exposure to long working hours (55 hours or more per week) was the biggest “killer”, with almost 7.45 lakh people dying of it in 2016, followed by exposure to occupational particulate matter, gases, and fumes (4.5 lakh deaths) and occupational injuries (3.63 lakh deaths).

CHALLENGES INCLUDE

• Changes in worker demographics, such as age, gender, and migration, impact occupational safety.
• Workers in the informal economy lack adequate legal and social protection.
• The report said that so far 79 out of the 187 member countries have ratified the ILO Occupational Safety and Health Convention (No. 155), while 62 countries have ratified the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187).
  1. India has not ratified both the conventions.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• The report has recommended five categories of “Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work” for ensuring safety and health at work.
• These are
  • freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining,
  • elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour,
  • abolition of child labour,
  • elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation, and
  • a safe and healthy working environment.

ABOUT ILO

• The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the only tripartite U.N. agency with government, employer, and worker representatives.
• It was established in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles as an affiliated agency of the League of Nations.
• It became the first affiliated specialized agency of the United Nations in 1946.
• It encourages decent employment opportunities and work-related issues.
• Headquarters- Geneva, Switzerland.
• It also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969.

• Former United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger passed away at the age of 100.
• Kissinger had a significant effect on US foreign policy and external affairs and he served under two presidents — Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford — between 1969 and 1977.
• Kissinger had also won a controversial Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating America’s exit from Vietnam war, which led to the resignations of two Nobel committee members and inquiries into the US’ secret bombing of Cambodia.
• In 1971 war for liberation of Bangladesh, Kissinger supported Pakistan against India.
• He successfully reestablished diplomatic relations between the United States and China.

• The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is observed annually on December 2^nd.
• It marks the date of the adoption, by the General Assembly, of the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others in 1949.
• The focus of this day is on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, the worst forms of child labour, forced marriage, and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.
• The theme for this year’s International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is – Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education.

• A diplomatic row sparked between Greece and the UK after British Prime Minister cancelled a meeting with his Greek counterpart over the status of the Parthenon Sculptures housed at the British Museum.

ABOUT PARTHENON SCULPTURES

• The Parthenon Sculptures at the British Museum are more than 30 ancient stone sculptures from Greece that are more than 2,000 years old.
• Most of them originally adorned the walls and grounds of the Parthenon temple on the rocky Acropolis hill in Athens.
• Completed in 432 BC, the temple is dedicated to the goddess Athena and is seen as the crowning glory of Athens’ Golden Age.
• While one notable sculpture, which is 75 metres long, depicts a procession for the birthday of Athena, others show gods, heroes or mythical creatures.
• They were removed from the Parthenon in the early 19th century by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and then-British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
  • The marbles were taken to Britain and purchased by the British Museum in 1816.
  • While Athens accused Lord Elgin of theft, he insisted he had permission to remove the marbles from the Ottoman Empire, which used to control Athen at the time.
  • The original letter giving him permission, however, has been lost.

Athens has been demanding the return of the sculptures since it became independent in the early 1830s.

• Astronomers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have used the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) in Hanle, Ladakh, to photograph the Comet P12/Pons-Brooks.

• According to IIA, this comet has revealed many outbursts of gas and dust and has been dubbed the Devil Comet or the Millennium Falcon due to its appearance.
  • The comet will become brighter in the coming months and may even become a naked eye comet.
• Comet P12/Pons-Brooks was discovered in 1812 and orbits the Sun with a period of 71 years.
• During its earlier approaches to the Sun, astronomers had observed multiple ejections of gas and dust from its nucleus, which typically gave it an appearance of being horned.
• This comet will pass closest to the Sun on April 21, 2024, and will have its closest approach to Earth on June 2, 2024 (when it will be 1.5 times the Earth-Sun distance away from us).
  • It is expected that this comet will be easily seen with small telescopes or binoculars, or even with the naked eye at that time.

• Rising sea temperatures due to climate change are causing tropical marine species to move from the equator towards the poles, according to a study.
• The research also shows that temperate species are receding as it gets too warm, they face increased competition for habitat, and new predators arrive on the scene.
• This mass movement of marine life, termed tropicalisation, is changing the ecological landscape of oceans and leading to a cascade of consequences for ecosystems, biodiversity, and potentially the global economy.
• The warm-water boundary currents are heating faster than the global seawater average, facilitating the poleward movement of species, and reinforcing the retraction of temperate species.
• The first instance of this process was identified in the Mediterranean Sea, now considered a “tropicalisation hotspot” due to an increase in tropical species present.

• The tiger which had killed a woman at Balluruhundi close to Hediyala range of Bandipur National Park was darted and captured recently.
• A massive combing operation involving more than 200 forest department personnel and tribals from the local villages, was launched soon after the woman was killed.

ABOUT BANDIPUR TIGER RESERVE

• It is situated in two contiguous districts (Mysore and Chamarajanagar) of Karnataka and located at the tri-junction area of the States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
• When Project Tiger was launched in 1973, Bandipur was among the first nine reserves to be brought under the flagship programme ‘Project Tiger’ and it included most areas that were already a protected area as Venugopal Wildlife Park.
• It was upgraded to a national park and renamed as Bandipur and the adjacent reserve forests were included under it to extend its area to 874.20 sq km.
• At present, it has an area of 912.04 sq km while the adjoining Nugu Wildlife Sanctuary too has been incorporated under Bandipur, which is recognised as among the prime tiger habitats in the world.
• Flora comprises of diverse vegetation of dry deciduous to tropical mixed deciduous.
  • Species like rosewood, Indian kino tree, sandalwood, Indian laurel, clumping bamboo are found here etc.
• The Bandipur Tiger Reserve is an important component of the country’s first biosphere reserve – Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and the landscape spanning Bandipur, Nagarahole, Mudumalai, and Wayanad complex is home not only to the highest number of tigers in the country – about 724 – but is also to the largest Asian Elephant population.
  • Fauna also includes gaur, sloth bear, golden jackal, dhole and four-horned antelope etc.