• Six Palm cockatoos or black cockatoos– Australian exotic birds– were rescued from Assam’s Cachar district.

ABOUT PALM COCKATOOS

• Scientific name– Probosciger aterrimus
• It is a large smoky-grey or black parrot of the cockatoo family native to the rainforests and woodlands of New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia as well as found near Sorong, West Papua, Indonesia where it is sometimes seen in trees along the roads.
• It has a very large black beak and prominent red cheek patches.
• The palm cockatoo is a member of the white cockatoo subfamily Cacatuinae.
• The vocalisations of palm cockatoos are similar to those of most wild parrots, but they have also been shown to produce a variety of additional syllables.
• These additional syllables are mainly produced by males and are often combined to form long, complex sequences.
• It can mimic human voice and can communicate in words if trained.
• Anecdotal evidence indicates a palm cockatoo reaching 80 or 90 years of age in an Australian zoo, although the oldest confirmed individual was aged 56 at the London Zoo in the year 2000.
• Protection status
  • IUCN red list : Least Concern

• The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a stunning image of a galaxy that defies classification.
• ESO 300-16 is an irregular galaxy, a type of galaxy that lacks a clear shape and structure.
• It located at a distance of 28.7 million lightyears.

• The galaxy is located in the constellation of Eridanus, contains a bubble of blue gas at its core and has a backdrop of many distant galaxies.
• ESO 300-16 was captured as part of an imaging campaign known as Every Known Nearby Galaxy, which aims to create a complete inventory of Hubble images of all galaxies within 10 megaparsecs of the Earth, or 6 million lightyears.
  • Almost 75% of such galaxies have been imaged already.

• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved ABRYSVO, the first vaccine that protects newborns from Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
• The new vaccine is made by Pfizers and is given to mothers late in their pregnancies (32-36 weeks).
• It provides protection to infants through their first six months of life.
• During the trial of the vaccine on more than 7,000 pregnant people and their infants, it was found that it cut the risk that infants needed to see a doctor.
• It also reduced the cases of hospitalisation among infants.

ABOUT RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS

• People suffering from this illness are affected with infections of the lungs and respiratory tract.
• It is highly common among children and elderly.
• It can also lead to large number of hospitalisations.
• It typically hits hardest during the winter months.
• RSV spreads from person to person through the air by coughing and sneezing; direct contact; touching an object or surface with the virus on it.
• Symptoms include- congestion, runny nose, fever, cough, sore throat etc.
• Vaccines
  • There are many vaccines to protect people from RSV.
  • The recently approved antibody shot can protect infants after birth from the illness.
  • Abrysvo also became the first RSV vaccine to gain approval in two different groups. Earlier, the FDA approved the shot to protect people 60 and older.

• The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has reconstituted the advisory board on Banking and Financial Frauds (ABBFF).
• The reconstituted APBFF will be chaired by Suresh N Patel, former Central Vigilance Commissioner. Besides the Chairman, there are four Members and the tenure of the Chairman/ Members would be for two years with effect from August 21.
• The ABBFF conducts the first level examination of bank frauds before recommendations or references are made to investigative by agencies such as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
• The Advisory Board for Banking and Financial Frauds (ABBFF) will examine the role of all levels of officials and whole-time directors (including ex-officials and ex-whole-time directors) in public sector banks, public sector insurance companies and public sector financial institutions in case of frauds amounting to Rs 3 crore and above.
• The CVC or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can also refer any case or technical matter to the board for its advice.
• The board can also give inputs for policy formulation related to frauds to the Reserve Bank of India and the CVC.
• The ABBFF — which will be headquartered in New Delhi — will have to ordinarily, within a month of receipt of the initial reference, tender the advice as may be requisitioned by the Ministry/Department/CVC or the investigation agency.

• The ninth Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) India region conference was organized in Udaipur, Rajasthan.
• The theme of the two-day regional conference of the CPA is “Strengthening Democracy and good governance in digital age”.
• The CPA India Region comprises of a total of 31 Legislatures, from Assam in the East to the Gujarat in the West.
  • After the Africa Region, India has the largest number of member Branches of the CPA.

ABOUT COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION

• It is an association to serve the Parliamentarians of the Commonwealth Countries by providing machinery for regular consultation and exchange of ideas and information among members of Commonwealth Parliaments.
• The CPA was founded in 1911 as the Empire Parliamentary Association (EPA) and the United Kingdom Branch administered its affairs.
• Evolving with the Commonwealth the CPA in 1948 adopted its present name and changed its rules to enable all member Branches to participate in the Association’s management and established a separate Secretariat, the Commonwealth Secretariat to manage and perform its affairs.
• HQ- London.
• The CPA is the only Commonwealth organisation to represent national, state, provincial and territorial Parliaments and Legislatures.
• The Association is made up of over 180 Legislatures (or Branches) divided up between nine geographic regions of the Commonwealth. These regions are –Africa; Asia; Australia; British Islands and Mediterranean; Canada; Caribbean, Americas and Atlantic; India; Pacific; South-East Asia.
  • India is a member.

• Population of Hangul (Kashmir stag) has registered a 10% increase.
• The latest census revealed that the population of the animal has increased to 289 from 261 in 2021, a 10% increase.
  • From 197 animals in 2004, the population dwindled to 127 in 2008 before stabilising and marginally increasing to 289 now.
• The last viable population of Hangul (Cervus hanglu hanglu) in the Indian sub-continent exists only in the protected Dachigam National Park.
  • Lately, there were sightings in south Kashmir in Tral Wildlife Sanctuary.
• There were 3 major factors in the past two decades which led to stabilisation of the population of the animal.
  • Protection of its habitat in the form of Dachigam
  • Restricting of human movement inside the core area of the park to almost zero
  • Removal of a sheep breeding farm from inside the park.
• It is the only survivor of the red deer group in the Indian sub-continent.
• Threats– habitat fragmentation and poaching, livestock grazing, predation, ecological threats and disturbed corridors, and landscapes.
• A population census is conducted every two years.
• Protection status
  • IUCN Red List- critically endangered
  • WPA 1972- Schedule 1

• World Senior Citizen Day is celebrated annually on August 21^st to raise awareness of the contributions of older adults to society.
• In 1988, Ronald Reagan, the then President of the United States declared August 21 as World Senior Citizen Day.

• Guwahati’s Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LBBI) has become the first airport in the north east to introduce the innovative ‘Digi Yatra‘ facility.
• The Digi Yatra initiative has been introduced in collaboration with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, with the goal of modernizing air travel and streamlining airport processes.

ABOUT DIGIYATRA

• It is a paperless entry at airports using facial recognition software.
• It envisages that travellers pass through various checkpoints at the airport through paperless and contactless processing, using facial features to establish their identity, which would be linked to the boarding pass.
• It is being implemented by the DigiYatra Foundation
  • Digi Yatra Foundation (DYF), is a not- for- profit company under section 8 of Companies Act 2013 incorporated on 20 February 2019.
  • Digi Yatra Foundation was set up with initial shareholding of Airport Authority of India (AAI), Cochin International Airport (CIAL), Bangalore International Airport (BIAL), Delhi International Airport Ltd. (DIAL), Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (HIAL) & Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL).

• A large number of megalithic hat stones were found from a single site during a recent archaeological salvage excavation conducted by the Kerala State Archaeology Department at Nagaparamba in Kuttippuram village, near Tirunavaya.
  • Tirunavaya is located on the banks of river Bharathapuzha.
• Hat stones, popularly called Thoppikkallu in Malayalam, are hemispherical laterite stones used as lid on burial urns during the megalithic period.
• Archaeologists say it could arguably be the largest number of hat stones in an unprotected site in the State.
• A large number of earthen urns and iron implements with unique features were discovered during the excavation, which could ostensibly throw light on the life and culture of people who lived in those parts more than 2,000 years ago.

SIDE CHANNEL ATTACKS (SCAS)

• SCAs are a method of hacking a cryptographic algorithm based on the analysis of auxiliary systems used in the encryption method.
• These can be performed using a collection of signals emitted by devices, including electromagnetic waves, power consumption, mobile sensors, sound from keyboards and printers to target devices.
• Once collected, these signals are used to interpret signals that can be then used to compromise the security of a device.

ABOUT ACOUSTIC SIDE CHANNEL ATTACKS

• In an ASCA, the sound of clicks generated by a keyboard is used to analyse keystrokes and interpret what is being typed to leak sensitive information.
• These attacks are particularly dangerous as the acoustic sounds from a keyboard are readily available and because their misuse is underestimated by users.
• While most users hide their screens when typing sensitive information, no precautionary steps are taken to hide the sound of the keystrokes.
• Additionally, the use of laptops has increased the scope of ASCAs as laptop models have the same keyboard making it easier for AI-enabled deep learning models to pick up and interpret the acoustics.
• They have an accuracy beyond 90%.