• Saurauia Punduana plant has been recorded for the first time in Manipur’s Tamenglong district.

ABOUT SAURAUIA PUNDUANA

• Flowers of Saurauia Punduana turn white to pink on maturity.
• Petals are pink, ovate to obovate curled at the tip.
• Its fruits are spherical shining white, and are used in veterinary medicine.
• The native range of this species is from Bhutan to Southeastern Tibet.
• It is a critically endangered species as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

• Assam state government intends to “simply rules” to allow water sports and tourism-related activities in ‘Deepor Beel’

ABOUT DEEPOR BEEL

• It is a perennial freshwater lake located 10 km south-west of Guwahati city.
• The lake expands up to 30 sq. km in summer and reduces to about 10 sq. km in the winter.
• It is the only major storm-water storage basin for Guwahati city.
• It has been designated as a site of importance for “conservation and sustainable use” under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
• It is the only Ramsar site in Assam.
• It sustains over 200 species of birds, including about 70 species of migratory birds. For e.g- Spot-billed Pelican, Lesser Greater Adjutant Stork and Baer’s Pochard etc.
• It was notified as Eco-Sensitive Zone in 2021.

• Recently, for the first time, scientists were able to visualise plants sensing compounds released by other plants in danger.
• These are called green leaf volatiles (GLVs).
• Mechanical damage or herbivory by fungal or bacterial infection can trigger GLVs release.
• Plants have two major defence mechanisms, involving a chain of molecular reactions.
• The reactions are triggered when a plant is damaged and GLVs are released as by-products.
• By mounting a defence response, plants can make themselves less palatable or even indigestible to the insect attackers.
• The molecular cascade is mediated by calcium, a common mediator of chemical and electrical signals found throughout biology.
• Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) are short chain (six carbon atoms) group of alcohols, acetates, and aldehydes, that can enhance or interrupt the behavioral responses of insects to their pheromones depending on the species and the context in which they are encountered.
• Further research can pave the way to protect crops without pesticides.

• Union Information Technology Minister stated that the government will form regulations to control the spread of deepfakes on social media platforms, terming them a “new threat to democracy”.
• The plan will have four key pillars: detection of deepfakes, their prevention by removing or reducing their virality, strengthening reporting mechanisms, and spreading awareness about the technology.
• The government will also work with other countries and geographies to ensure that there is a global collaborative effort to combat such content.

ABOUT DEEPFAKES

• A deepfake is a video of a person in which the face or body has been digitally altered so that he or she appears to be someone else.
• This is typically used to spread false information.
• These are synthetic media that use AI to manipulate or generate visual and audio content.
• Deepfakes are a part of Deep Synthesis, which uses technologies, including deep learning and augmented reality, to generate text, images, audio and video to create virtual scenes.
• It can create people who do not exist and it can fake real people saying and doing things they did not say or do.

• ​The President has favoured the creation of an All-India Judicial Service (AIJS) to pick judges from varied backgrounds through a process, which should be merit-based, competitive and transparent.
• Presently, selection to the district and subordinate judiciary is done by state governments in consultation with the respective high courts with jurisdiction in that state.(Article 233)
• Article 312 of the Constitution provides for the establishment of All India Judicial Service (AIJS), which shall not include any post inferior to that of a District Judge.
• Backdrop
  • In 1958, the 14^th report of the Law Commission of India had recommended the creation of the AIJS.
  • The recommendation for the creation of AIJS was once again given by the Law Commission in its 77th report which was submitted in 1978 and in its 116th report which was submitted in 1986.
  • In 1992, the Supreme Court also endorsed the concept of the AIJS, asking the Union government to assess its feasibility.
• However, some high courts and state governments have opposed the proposal.
  • Their key concerns were the dilution of the federal structure, and no address to structural issues plaguing the lower judiciary, including low pay and fewer chances of being promoted to the higher judiciary.
• Need of AIJS-
  • Over 5000 posts of Judges are currently vacant in the lower judiciary.
  • Nearly 85% of the pending cases are at the level of the District Judiciary amounting to more than 2.5 crore pending cases.
  • Favors better representation from all sections of society.

• The Gujarat forest department on recently presented its proposal to make Barda Wildlife Sanctuary (BWLS), the second home to the lions before the national steering committee meeting held as part of “Project Lion @ 2047”.
• The Asiatic lions at present are restricted to Gir National Park and Sanctuary.

• The population of lions increased from 523 in 2015 to 674 in 2020.

ABOUT BWLS

• Barda is about 15 km from Porbandar town coast and about 100 km from Gir forest.
• The sanctuary is spread in about 192 sq km.
• It was declared as sanctuary in 1979.
• It has an abundance of floral diversity.
  • This is the only ecological unit in the State, where more than 650 flowering plants have been recorded.
• Flora includes Gorad, Babul, Dhav, Rayan, Ber, Jamun, Amli, Dhudhlo, Bamboo etc.
• Important fauna are blue bull, chinkara, blackbuck Leopard, Hyena, Wild boar, , Jackal, and wolf.
• To develop Barda as the second home for the Asiatic lion the State Government implemented the ‘Gir-Barda Project’ in 1979.
• There are breeding centres of spotted deers in the sanctuary which will help in augmenting the prey base of lions.

• In a major boost to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, the Credit Guarantee Scheme for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) has approved a credit guarantee of Rs. 1 lakh crore in just 7 months of the current financial year 2023-24.

ABOUT CGTMSE

• CGTMSE has been playing a pivotal role in facilitating credit flow to MSMEs, especially those in the informal sector.
• It was launched in 2000 to make available collateral-free credit to the micro and small enterprise sector.
• Both the existing and the new enterprises are eligible to be covered under the scheme.
• The corpus of CGTMSE is contributed by the GoI and SIDBI in the ratio of 4:1 respectively.
• The Ministry of MSMEs, and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) established a trust named Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) to implement the CGTMSE Scheme.
• The revamped version of the CGTMSE Scheme has been provided with an additional corpus support of ₹9,000 crore in the Union Budget for FY 2023-24to provide a guarantee for an additional ₹2 lakh crore to MSEs.

ABOUT SIDBI

• A statutory body established in 1990.
• It is the Principal Financial Institution engaged in the promotion, financing & development of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector and the coordination of the functions of the various institutions engaged in similar activities.
• SIDBI helps MSMEs in acquiring the funds they require to grow, market, develop and commercialize their technologies and innovative products.
• It was made responsible for administering the Small Industries Development Fund and National Equity Fund.

• Asper a new study, Earthquake processes, even relatively smaller ones, have their reflection in the ionosphere, as they influence the amplitudes and periods of coseismic ionospheric perturbations (CIP) along with factors such as geomagnetism and line-of-sights geometry.
• The finding can help observing earthquake source processes from the space which may pave the way for deciphering earthquake precursors using space-based observations.
• Phenomenon-
  • In general, the Earth crust uplift (vertical crustal movements) during any earthquake produces compressional (i.e. pressure) waves in the overlying atmosphere.
  • The waves propagate upward, reach the ionosphere, causing disturbances in numbers of electrons along the line-of-sights connecting ground Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers and satellites.

These disturbances are called as coseismic ionospheric perturbations (CIP).

• Paul Lynch, an Irish author won the 2023 Booker prize for his fifth novel ‘Prophet Song.’
  • The story is set in an imagined Ireland that is descending into tyranny.
  • It was described as a “soul-shattering and true” novel that “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment”.
• Lynch is the fifth Irish author to win the prize while the last Irish writer Anna Burns won the award in 2018.
• Booker Prize is awarded to the best novel of fiction written in English and published in UK and Ireland.

• 26^th November 2023, marks the first United Nations World Sustainable Transport Day, a day created in response to the impact that transport has on climate change, as well as the disparity between transport options around the world.
• World Sustainable Transport Day 2023 focuses on the theme “Sustainable transport, sustainable development”.
• The transport sector is responsible for approximately one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. Ninety-one percent of the energy used in motorized transport on land, sea and air is derived from fossil fuels.