• World Meteorological Organization recently released Greenhouse Green Bulletin 2023.
• It analyses data from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme.

MAJOR FINDINGS

• Heat trapping greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations reached a new record last year and continued to increase in 2023.
• Global averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important greenhouse gas, in 2022 were a full 50% above the pre-industrial era for the first time.
• Methane and Nitrous Oxide concentrations increased by 264% and 124% respectively from pre-industrial levels in 2022.
  • Methane remains in the atmosphere for about a decade.
  • Methane accounts for about 16% of the warming effect of long-lived greenhouse gases while nitrous oxide accounts for about 7% of the radiative forcing.
• The (NOAA) Annual Greenhouse Gas Index shows that from 1990 to 2022, the warming effect on our climate called radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases increased by 49%, with CO2 accounting for about 78% of this increase.
• The climate system may be close to so-called “tipping points”, where a certain level of change leads to self-accelerating and potentially irreversible cascade of changes.

ABOUT WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

• The World Meteorological Organisation is an intergovernmental organisation and specialised agency of the United Nations.
• Its mandate spans issues pertaining to weather, climate, and water resources.
• Established- 1950
• Headquarters- Geneva, Switzerland.
• It has 187 Member States (including India) and 6 Member Territories.

• The Press Council of India observes National Press Day on 16^th November every year.
• This day is celebrated to honour the formation of the Press Council of India in 1966 which acts as a regulatory body for the news media in the country.
• The Press Council of India is a statutory body which was established to ensure the freedom of the press and to maintain and improve the standards of journalism.
• The quasi-judicial body was re-established in the year 1979 under the Press Council Act, 1978.
• The theme for National Press Day 2023 is “Media in the Era of Artificial Intelligence”.

• Prime Minister recently launched two ambitious initiatives to mark the Jan Jatiya Gaurav Diwas, celebrated on November 15 every year on the birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda.
• These include-
  • PM Janman, aimed at social justice to the tribals with a budget allocation of ₹24,000 crore.
    • The PM Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM-Janman) will work towards protection and nurturing of tribes – some of them living in remote jungles – which are on the verge of extinction.
    • Under PM Janman, the government has identified 75 tribal communities and primitive tribes with a population of lakhs who reside in more than 22,000 villages in the country.
    • Mission is based on providing basic amenities like safe housing, clean drinking water, education, health, road and sustainable livelihood etc.
  • Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra– a drive to create awareness and facilitate saturation of welfare schemes that will continue till January 26 across the country.

• The Annapurna Certificate Programme has recognized six Indian restaurants worldwide for promoting Indian culinary traditions.
• These include-
  • Balaji Dosa in Sri Lanka, Indian Street Food and Co. in Sweden, Amber Restaurant in the United States of America, Naans and Curries in Costa Rica, Mumtaz Mahal in Oman and Namaste in Mongolia.
• This annual program acknowledges restaurants contributing to India’s cultural cause through cuisine on a global scale.
• It is an initiative by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).

ABOUT ICCR

• The Indian Council for Cultural Relations is an autonomous organisation, involved in India’s global cultural relations, through cultural exchange with other countries and their people.
• Founded in 1950, by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
• Headquarters- New Delhi
• Registered as a Society under the Societies Act, ICCR operates as an independent body under the administrative control of the Ministry of External Affairs.

• Four out of five organ recipients in India between 1995 and 2021 were men, according to data collated by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) — numbers which indicate the prevailing gender disparity among those seeking healthcare.

 ABOUT NOTTO

• NOTTO is set up under Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, located in New Delhi.
• National Network division of NOTTO functions as apex centre for all India activities for procurement, distribution and registry of organs and tissues donation and transplantation in the country.
• Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act 2011 has established two divisions-
  • National Human Organ and Tissue Removal and Storage Network
  • National Biomaterial Centre (National Tissue Bank)

• A team of scientists and researchers have discovered a new species of gecko endemic to Mizoram, taking the number of geckos native to the state to 6, and 22 across northeast India.

• The new species has been named ‘Cyrtodactylus vairengtensis’ after the town in Mizoram where it was found, while the common name suggested for the new species is ‘Vairengte bent-toed gecko’.
• The distinct feature of this new species is the number of femoral pores which distinguishes it from other members of the Cyrtodactylus
  • 9-11 precloacal (also called femoral) pores were found in males and 5-9 precloacal pits were found in females.
  • Femoral pores are located on the underside of the hind legs in lizards that secrete a mixture of lipids and proteins and are thought to be used to attract mates and mark territories.

• Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve’s (TATR) dominant tiger Bajrang, who got its sobriquet given its shape and
• size, is said to have sired at least 50 cubs during his lifetime in an around Tadoba, died in a territorial fight with another powerful tiger Chhota Matka.
• Dominant male tiger protects his cubs around his territory and kills other male tigers intruding the area.

ABOUT TADOBA-ANDHARI TIGER RESERVE

• It is located in the Chandrapur district in Maharshtra.
• The reserve falls in the Central Plateau province of the Deccan peninsula.
• It is the largest and oldest Tiger Reserve of Maharashtra.
• Total area – 4 sq. km.
• Its landscape connects the tiger population of Maharashtra with that of Indravati in Chhattisgarh.
• Vegetation is tropical dry deciduous forests  with species like Teak, Ain, Bamboo, Bija, Dhaoda, Haldu, Salai, Semal and Tendu. Bamboo is spread over 40% of the habitat.
• Fauna -include the tiger, leopard, sloth bear, wild dog, gaur, chital, and sambar.
• Also about 280 species of birds are found, apart from reptiles (54 species), amphibians (11 species), and fishes (84 species).
• The Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) has seen an increase in its tiger population from 87 in 2022 to 93 in 2023.
  • The survey conducted by TATR recorded 44 male and 47 female tigers, with the gender of two individuals unidentified.

• The Indian armed forces will be inducting the long-range attack cruise missile Nirbhay into their inventory to strike targets at ranges over 1,000 Km.

ABOUT NIRBHAY MISSILE               

• Nirbhay is India’s first indigenous cruise missile.
• With its cylindrical fuselage, it is similar in appearance to the US Tomahawk and Russian Club SS-N-27 missiles.
• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) describes Nirbhay as a long-range subsonic cruise missile capable of deep penetration into adversary territory to strike high-value targets with precision.
• Nirbhay is presently launched from a mobile-articulated launcher.
• The missile is being adopted for launch from sea and air platforms.
• The Nirbhay measures 6 m in length, 0.5 m in diameter and weighs 1,500-1,600 kg at launch.
• It has a range of 800-1,000 km while carrying a 450 kg payload.
• It equips a land-based mobile launcher and carries high-explosives or submunitions, although a small nuclear warhead with a 12 KT yield is also possible.

• Scientists and engineers involved in the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission have completed key tests including the thermal vacuum testing ahead of its launch which is scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2024.

ABOUT NISAR

• NISAR is a Low Earth Orbit observatory jointly developed by NASA and ISRO which is expected to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota onboard ISRO’s GSLV Mark-II launch vehicle.
• The $1.5-billion NISAR’s mission life is for three years.
• The satellite will survey all of earth’s land and ice-covered surfaces every 12 days and this starts after a 90 day satellite commissioning period.
• NISAR carries L and S dual-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which operates with the Sweep SAR technique to achieve large swaths with high-resolution data.
  • The SAR payloads mounted on Integrated Radar Instrument Structure (IRIS) and the spacecraft bus are together called an observatory.
• Collaboration
  • NASA’s JPL is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem.
  • ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band SAR electronics, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.
• NISAR data will help researchers monitor a wide range of changes in unprecedented detail which includes spotting warning signs of imminent volcanic eruptions, helping monitor the effects of groundwater use such as land subsidence, tracking the melt rate of ice sheets tied to sea level rise and observing shifts in the distribution of vegetation around the earth.

• The Climate Changed Child report was recently released by UNICEF.
• It provides an analysis of the impacts of three tiers of water security globally – water scarcity, water vulnerability, and water stress.
• The report is a supplement to the UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk (2021).

MAJOR FINDINGS

• About half of the world’s children (953 million) were exposed to high or extremely high water stress in 2022.
• 1 in 3 children – or 739 million worldwide – already live in areas exposed to high or very high water scarcity, with climate change threatening to make this worse
• Further, the double burden of dwindling water availability and inadequate drinking water and sanitation services is compounding the challenge, putting children at even greater risk.
• India, Niger, Eritrea, Yemen, and Burkina Faso had the highest overall child exposure to high or extremely high-water vulnerability.

ABOUT UNICEF

• United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established in 1946 to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that were devastated by World War II.
• UNICEF became a permanent part of the United Nations in 1953.
• UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories, providing assistance to children and their families in areas such as health and nutrition, education, child protection, water, sanitation, and hygiene.
• Headquarters- New York, USA.
• It is governed by an Executive Board consisting of 36 members that are elected to terms of three years by the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council.