• Presenting a visual feast to tourists, balsams (genus Impatiens) are in full bloom in Munnar.

ABOUT BALSAMS

• Called Kasithumba and Onappovu locally, its small, pink flowers are a major attraction.
• Balsams are also known as ‘touch-me-not’ because of the bursting of mature seeds and seed distribution.
• Of the 220 balsam species in India, 135 are found in the southern Western Ghats.
• Anamudi, the highest mountain in the Western Ghats, and the surrounding high ranges are known for the of diversity of wild balsams.
• 46 species of balsams have been discovered in the altittude of Munnar.
  • No other place in the world has such diversity.
• The normal lifecycle of balsams is from June to December.
• The plant mainly grows inside pockets of forest areas.
• With the loss of specific habitats, many species have become rare, threatened, or even extinct.
• This fleshy orophytic herb usually prefers humid habitats and completes the lifecycle in the rainy season.
• Balsams are a major indicator species of climate change.

• The government has extended export benefits under the RoDTEP scheme for one more year till June 2024, according to an official release.

ABOUT THE SCHEME FOR REMISSION OF DUTIES AND TAXES ON EXPORTED PRODUCTS (RODTEP)

• The RoDTEP Scheme was introduced by the Government as a duty remission scheme on exports and is being implemented from 1st January 2021.
• The Scheme provides a mechanism for reimbursement of taxes, duties and levies, which are currently not being refunded under any other mechanism, at the central, state and local level, but which are incurred by the export entities in the process of manufacture and distribution of exported products.
• The incentive is paid in the form of transferable duty credit scrip which can be used to pay import duties or sold in the market by exporters.
• It has been extended till 30th June 2024.
• This scheme is a replacement for the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme which ended last year.
• It is a WTO-compliant scheme and follows the global principle that taxes/duties should not be exported.
• At present, over 10,342 export items get the RoDTEP benefits.

• Legendary actress Ms Waheeda Rehman will be honoured with Dadasaheb Phalke Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2021.
• The award will be presented during the 69th National Film awards ceremony.
• The following members were part of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award Selection Committee: Ms Asha Parekh, Mr Chiranjeevi, Mr Paresh Rawal, Mr Prosenjit Chatterjee and Mr Shekhar Kapur.

ABOUT THE AWARD

• The Government of India introduced the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1969.
• It is India’s highest award in the field of cinema presented annually at the National Film Awards ceremony by the Directorate of Film Festivals.
• It is presented by the President of India.
• Actress Devika Rani was the first recipient.
• The award comprises a Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus) medallion, a shawl, and a cash prize of ₹10,00,000.

ABOUT THE ACTRESS

• Waheeda Rehman has worked in more than 90 films, in a career spanning over five decades and has received significant critical acclaim.
• She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her roles in Guide (1965) and Neel Kamal (1968).
• She won National Film Award for her role as a clanswoman in the film Reshma and Shera.
• She was honoured with the Padma Shri by Government of India in 1972, later receiving the Padma Bhushan in 2011.

• World Tourism Day 2023 is observed annually on 27^th September globally.
• World Tourism Day was established by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in 1980.
• The theme for World Tourism Day 2023 is “Tourism and green investment”.
  • This theme emphasises the importance of making tourism more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

• Faced with myriad complaints and grievances from petitioners in the Manipur ethnic violence case, the Supreme Court said it could not run the State administration, and petitioners had to trust the Justice Gita Mittal Committee to do its job.
• The issues raised by various petitioners, and to begin with, the committee itself, included distribution of Aadhaar cards and disability certificates to the displaced people of the State, to distribution of compensation to the families of the dead, reconstruction of religious buildings and homes destroyed in the clashes, disposal of bodies to functioning of courts in the State.
• The Justice Mittal Committee was constituted by the apex court to intervene and monitor relief and rehabilitation, restoration of homesteads, religious places of worship, etc, in Manipur.
  • CJI had said the committee, through its work, would endeavour to re-instill the Manipur people’s belief in the rule of law.

• Kole wetlands, an internationally important Ramsar site of high value biodiversity, has been facing the threat of alien invasive species.
• Cabomba furcuta, popularly called as Pink Bloom due its massive flowering, has been a new threat to the kole fields, in addition to water hyacinth and Salvinia molesta.

ABOUT CABOMBA FURCUTA

• A native of central and south America, Cabomba furcuta was brought to Kerala as an aquarium plant and has escaped to the wild.
• The submerged perennial aquatic plant grows in stagnant to slow-flowing freshwater.
• The fast growing Cabomba is a visual treat but becomes a potential outspread in water bodies by active stem propagation, hindering penetration of light into the water.
• Cabomba, which requires a large quantity of oxygen for its growth will choke water bodies and drainage canals.
• It causes decline in diversity of native aquatic plants and causes economic losses by affecting yield of freshwater fishes.
• The key to controlling the species is to mechanically remove them from the waterbody and dry them in terrestrial spaces, the team notes.

• IndianOil has unveiled India’s first green hydrogen-run bus that emits just water.
• IOCL will produce close to 75 kg of hydrogen by splitting water using electricity from renewable sources.
• This hydrogen will be used to power two buses which will ply across the national capital region for trial runs.
• IOC’s R&D Centre at Faridabad is producing green hydrogen for the pilot run.
• Four cylinders with a capacity of 30 kg can run the buses for 350 km.
• It takes 10-12 minutes for the four tanks to fill.

HYDROGEN AS FUEL

• Hydrogen when burnt emits only water vapour as a by-product.
• With three times the energy density and the absence of harmful emissions, hydrogen shines as a cleaner, more efficient choice to meet the energy requirement.
• As much as 50 units of renewable electricity and 9 kg of deionized water are needed for the production of one kilo of green hydrogen.
• Hydrogen can be used as a fuel for fuel cells.
• The global demand for hydrogen is expected to increase by four to seven times to 500-800 tonne by 2050.

• International Coffee Organization (ICO), in collaboration with the Coffee Board of India, Government of India, Government of Karnataka, and the Coffee industry, is hosting the 5^th World Coffee Conference (WCC) at
• It is for the first time that a global coffee event is being held in India and Asia.
• The central theme of the event will be ‘Sustainability Through Circular Economy and Regenerative Agriculture’.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL COFFEE ORGANIZATION

• It is the main intergovernmental organization for coffee, bringing together exporting and importing Governments to tackle the challenges facing the world coffee sector through international cooperation.
• The International Coffee Organization was established in 1963 when the first International Coffee Agreement (ICA) entered into force in 1962 for a period of five years, and it has continued to operate under successive Agreements negotiated since then.
• Membership: 43 exporting members (including India) and 6 importing members.
  • Its Member Governments represent 98% of world coffee production and 67% of world consumption.
• Mission– To strengthen the global coffee sector and promote its sustainable expansion in a market-based environment for the betterment of all participants in the coffee sector.
• It administers the International Coffee Agreement (ICA), an important instrument for development cooperation.
  • The latest Agreement, the ICA 2007, entered into force on 2 February 2011.

• ISRO successfully completed the CE20 E13 engine hot test for the Gaganyaan qualification and 22-tonne thrust qualification.

• The engine developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Valiamala was tested at ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC), Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu.
• The CE20 engine is a vital component, serving as the powerhouse of the Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS) responsible for propelling the upper stage (C25) of the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 or LVM3 vehicle.
• It has demonstrated its capability by successfully operating at a thrust level of 19 tonnes in six successive LVM3 missions, including the Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3, and two commercial OneWeb missions.
• The CE20 engine hardware referred to as E13 was selected for both Gaganyaan qualification and 22-tonne thrust level operations.

• The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, is likely to conduct a study on the biodiversity of the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in Delhi and prepare a management plan.
• One of the objectives of the study is to evaluate “potential socio-economic changes” on the life of nearby villages “by maintaining the ecological integrity of the ecosystem to ensure the wise use of common ecological goods and services”.
• It will also look at delineation of the mined-out pits and their attributes, including the plant and animal components and habitats associated with them, and promoting “sustainable eco-tourism”.

ABOUT THE SANCTUARY

• It covers an area of 32.71 sq km and is part of the Ridge in South Delhi.
• It is the only protected area representing the northeastern, rolling outliers as a landform of the country’s oldest hill ranges, the Aravallis.
  • Thus it geographically represents a landform not earlier represented in the national protected area network.
• The vegetation in the Wildlife Sanctuary is predominantly an open canopied thorny scrub.
  • Flora- total 237 species of plants, which includes 85 species of trees, 130 species of shrubs and herbs, 18 species of grasses and 4 species of sedges.
  • Dhau, Palash, Kanthari, Jharber are some of the native species of Aravalli range.
• Fauna includes Hog deer, Nilgai, Black Buck, Sambar, Spotted deer, Indian Boar, leopards, Striped hyenas, rhesus macaques etc.
• The area was earlier used for mining quartzite and sand, leaving deep mining pits behind, one of which, the Neeli Jheel, has now become a man-made lake and is among the main attractions the government wants to promote.