• United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has recently released a report titled “The impact of disasters on agriculture and food security”.
• It shows the first-ever global estimation of the impact on agricultural production with a focus on crops and livestock due to disasters and aims to put into context the scale of the cost of such events.

MAJOR FINDINGS

• Natural and man-made disasters have led to $3.8 trillion in crop and livestock losses over the last three decades.
• The world has also lost over $120 billion per year which amounts to five per cent of the annual global agricultural GDP.
• Disasters have increased in frequency from 100 per year in the 1970s to a whopping 400 events per year in the past 20 years.
• According to FAO
  • the average annual grain losses amounted to 69 million tonnes in the last three decades
  • the world lost some 40 million tonnes of fruit and vegetable production and 16 million tonnes of meat, dairy and eggs to disasters.
• Lower and lower middle-income countries witnessed “highest relative” losses of up to 15 per cent of their total agricultural GDP whereas Small Island Developing States (SIDS) reportedly lost seven per cent of their agricultural GDP.
• Women were also hit harder than men due to these disasters due to resource and structural constraints which women face to access “information, financial instruments, resources that they need to prepare to respond to or recover from disaster events.”

ABOUT UN FAO

• Food and Agriculture Organization is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger.
• Headquarters- Rome,Italy.
• Membership- 194 countries (including India) and the European Union.
• Its sister bodies are the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

• The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) has issued market authorisation to CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T) cell therapy paving the way for its commercial launch of indigenous NexCAR19 in the country.
• ImmunoACT – an IIT Bombay incubated company and Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) collaborated to invent indigenous CAR-T Cell Therapy.
• It can prove to be a breakthrough treatment for treating relapsed/refractory (r/r) B-cell lymphomas and leukaemia.
• The NexCAR19 will be ₹30-40 lakh per patient, which is 1/10th of the cost abroad.
• The therapy would be available in around 20 government and private hospitals across most major cities.
• It has an approximate 70% overall response rate (ORR).
• This therapy is intended for patients with the CD19 marker in B cells, a protein used to diagnose cancers stemming from B cells, such as B cell lymphomas, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

About CAR-T Cell Therapy

• It is a type of cancer immunotherapy treatment that uses a patient’s own immune cells called T cells that are genetically altered in a laboratory to enable them to locate and destroy cancer cells more effectively.
• Currently, this therapy is offered as a second-line treatment for late-stage leukaemia and lymphoma when patients do not respond to conventional treatments like chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants or experience relapsed cancer.
• While it has demonstrated substantial effectiveness, particularly in blood cancers and lymphomas, ongoing research seeks to determine its role in treating solid tumours and autoimmune diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis.

• Every year, World Food Day is observed on October 16^th.
• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation was founded back in 1945.
• Thirty-four years after that, in 1979, at the FAO Conference, World Food Day was officially accepted as a world holiday.
• The theme of World Food Day is – Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind.

• World Students Day is celebrated annually on October 15^th.
• The theme for this year- “FAIL: stands for First Attempt in Learning.”
  • It is introduced by the Ministry of Education and the Government of India, aims to motivate students to embrace failure as a learning experience and continue their educational journey.
• The United Nations officially designated October 15 as World Students Day in 2010.
• It is celebrated on the birth anniversary of APJ Abdul Kalam.

• A group of scientists from India and the United Kingdom have discovered a new species of toads Bufoides bhupathyi.
• It has been found in the Dampa tiger reserve of Mizoram.
• It is the third of a genus found only in a very narrow area in northeast India.
• The two earlier known species from the genus ‘bufoides’ – Bufoides meghalayanus and Bufoides kempi – were found in Meghalaya.
• The new species from Mizoram is different from the co-generic (similar) species in interdigital webbing, colouration, skin tuberculation, and the presence of ovoid, tuberculated and depressed parotid glands.
• The new species has been named after S Bhupathy, a noted herpetologist who served as principal scientist at the Coimbatore-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History.

AABOUT DAMPA TIGER RESERVE

• It is located in the western flank (Lushai Hills) of Mizoram.
• It was declared as a tiger reserve under the Project Tiger in 1994.
• On the West, it is bound by the Chittagong hill tracts (Sazek hill range) of Bangladesh.
• Area- 500 sq km approx.
• The habitat is drained by the River Khawthlangtuipui in the West and the Teirei River to the East.
• Flora: ranges from tropical evergreen to semi-evergreen forests.
• Fauna: Hoolock Gibbon, Rhesus Macaque, Tiger, Leopard, Clouded Leopard, Golden Cat, Himalayan Black Bear etc.

• The Ninth P20 Summit was recently hosted by the Parliament of India in cooperation with IPU in New Delhi.
  • P20 Summit is an annual gathering of G20 Parliament Speakers discussing global issues.
• Also the first ever G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit (P20 Summit) was hosted by the world’s largest democracy concluded at India International Convention Centre, Yashobhoomi, Dwarka, Delhi

ABOUT IPU

• The IPU is the global organization of national parliaments.
• It has 179 Members(including India) and 14 Associate Members.
• The IPU facilitates parliamentary diplomacy and empowers parliaments and parliamentarians to promote peace, democracy and sustainable development around the world.
• Slogan- For democracy. For everyone.
• It promotes democratic governance, institutions and values, working with parliaments and parliamentarians to articulate and respond to the needs and aspirations of the people.
• It works for peace, democracy, human rights, gender equality, youth empowerment, climate action and sustainable development through political dialogue, cooperation and parliamentary action.
• Financed primarily by Members out of public funds.
• Headquarters – Geneva, Switzerland with offices in New York, USA and Vienna, Austria.

• NASA’s Psyche spacecraft was launched recently is on its voyage to an asteroid of the same name.
• Psyche asteroid is a metal-rich world that could tell us more about the formation of rocky planets.
• By August 2029, the spacecraft will begin to orbit the 173-mile-wide (279-kilometer-wide) asteroid – the only metal-class asteroid ever to be explored.
• Because of Psyche’s high iron-nickel metal content, scientists think it may be the partial core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet.
• The goal is a 26-month science investigation.
• For its six-year, 2-billion-mile (3.6-billion-kilometer) trip to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Psyche relies on solar electric propulsion.
• The efficient propulsion system works by expelling charged atoms, or ions, of the neutral gas xenon to create a thrust that gently propels the spacecraft.
• Along the way, the spacecraft will use Mars’ gravity as a slingshot to speed it along on its journey.
• Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission.
• Psyche is the 14^th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

• Central Information Commission (CIC) recently commemorated the 18^th anniversary of enactment of the RTI Act.
• Over these years, CIC has facilitated and disposed of more than 3.5 lakh second appeals/complaints.

About Right to Information Act

• Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.
• Objective– to empower the citizens, promote transparency and accountability in the working of the Government, contain corruption, and make our democracy work for the people in a real sense.

• The right to information is a fundamental right under Article 19 (1) of the Indian Constitution.
  • In 1976, in the Raj Narain vs the State of Uttar Pradesh case, the Supreme Court ruled that Right to information will be treated as a fundamental right under article 19.
• Any person who is citizen of India or Non-Residents of India can file RTI.
• Right to Information (Amendment) Act, 2019-
  • It provided that the Chief Information Commissioner and an Information Commissioner (of Centre as well as States) shall hold office for such term as prescribed by the Central Government. Earlier, their term was fixed for 5 years.
  • It provided that the salary, allowances and other service conditions of the Chief Information Commissioner and an Information Commissioner (of Centre as well as States) shall be such as prescribed by the Central Government.
• Challenges- As of June 30, 2023, there were 3.21 lakh pending appeals and complaints within the 27 information commissions, which serve as the final appellate authorities under this legislation.

• The Executive Committee of National Mission for Clean Ganga recently approved 7 projects worth Rs 285 crore.

ABOUT NMCG

• NMCG was registered as a society in 2011 under Societies Registration Act 1860.
• It acted as the implementation arm of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) which was constituted under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA),1986.
• NGRBA was dissolved in 2016 and replaced by the National Council for Rejuvenation, Protection, and Management of River Ganga.
• Nodal Ministry- Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• Objectives–
  • The objective of the NMCG is to reduce pollution and ensure the rejuvenation of the Ganga River by adopting a river basin approach.
    • Namami Gange is one of the Coveted Programmes of NMCG to clean Ganga. It was launched in 2014 with a total budgetary outlay of Rs.20,000 crore.
  • This can be achieved by promoting intersectoral coordination for comprehensive planning & management and maintaining minimum ecological flow in the river, with the aim of ensuring water quality and environmentally sustainable development.
• Organization Structure– The Act envisages a five-tier structure at the national, state, and district levels to take measures for prevention, control, and abatement of environmental pollution in river Ganga as below–
  • National Ganga Council under the chairmanship of the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India.
  • Empowered Task Force (ETF) on river Ganga under the chairmanship of Hon’ble Union Minister of Jal Shakti (Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation).
  • National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG).
  • State Ganga Committees
  • District Ganga Committees in every specified district abutting river Ganga and its tributaries in the states.
• NMCG has a two-tier management structure and comprises of-
  • Governing Council
  • Executive Committee
  • Both are headed by Director General, NMCG.

• Tamil Nadu government recently launched the ‘Project Nilgiri Tahr’ in Chennai.
• The project with an outlay of ₹25 crore, aims to develop a better understanding of Nilgiri Tahr population, distribution and ecology, re-introduction of Nilgiri Tahr to their historic habitats, addressing proximate threat to Nilgiri Tahr, increasing awareness among the public about the Nilgiri Tahr species, developing eco-tourism activities at selected sites, among others.

ABOUT NILGIRI TAHR

• Known as Varai Aadu locally, Nilgiri Tahr is an endangered species endemic to the Western Ghats known for their gravity-defying skills in climbing steep cliffs, getting them the nickname Mountain Monarch.
• It is classified as a critically endangered species in the IUCN red list of threatened species and is protected under schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, 1972.
• It is Tamil Nadu’s State Animal.
• It is the only mountain ungulate (animal with hooves) in southern India amongst the 12 species present in India.
• Population- According to the World Wide Fund for Nature Report 2015, it is estimated that there are 3,122 Nilgiri Tahr in the wild and the population is divided into five metapopulation blocks based on habitat connectivity.
• There are multiple references to Nilgiri Tahr in the Sangam Tamil literature.
  • Two epics — Silappathikaram and Sivakasindamani — mention descriptions of the Nilgiri Tahr and its habitat.