• PM recently released the first instalment of funds under the PM SHRI Scheme.

ABOUT PRADHAN MANTRI SCHOOLS FOR RISING INDIA (PM-SHRI) SCHEME

• It is a centrally sponsored scheme by Government of India.
• This initiative is intended to develop more than 14500 PM SHRI Schools managed by Central government/State/UT Government/local bodies including KVS and NVS.
• It envisages a school in which every student feels welcomed and cared for, where a safe and stimulating learning environment exists, where a wide range of learning experiences are offered, and where good physical infrastructure and appropriate resources conducive to learning are available to all students.
• More than 20 lakh students are expected to be the direct beneficiaries of the scheme.
• The scheme will also promote understanding of various dimensions of Quality of school education and inform Policy, Practice and Implementation.
• The Scheme is proposed to be implemented over a period of 5 years w.e.f. 2022-23 to 2026-27.
• The learning from these schools will be scaled up to other schools in the country.
• It will nurture students in a way that they become engaged, productive, and contributing citizens for building an equitable, inclusive, and plural society as envisaged by the National Education Policy 2020.

• A microscopic worm survived in the Siberian permafrost for a record-breaking 46,000 years, scientists have discovered — tens of thousands of years longer than previously resurrected worms.
• The ancient roundworm, or nematode, belongs to the newly described species Panagrolaimus kolymaensis.
• Researchers discovered it nestled inside a fossilized squirrel burrow that was extracted from permafrost near the Kolyma River, in the northeastern Arctic, in 2002.

ABOUT CRYPTOBIOSIS

• Many animals like nematodes, and more famously, tardigrades, can survive extreme conditions by entering a dormant state called “cryptobiosis.”
• Cryptobiosis is the state of an organism when it shows no visible signs of life and when its metabolic activity becomes hardly measurable, or comes reversibly to a standstill.
• In this state organisms can survive complete absence of water and oxygen and withstand other extreme conditions.
• Since metabolism is a defining characteristic of life, cryptobiosis can be termed as a temporary death of an organism.

• PM highlighted that the business of ‘bhojpatra calligraphy’ by the women of Mana village near Badrinath, has taken off, helping them improve the economy of the region.
  • Mana Village is regarded as the last village before the India-China border in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand.
• Found at a height of 3,000m or above, bhojpatra (Himalayan Birch) is a tree whose bark acts as paper on which text can be written.
• Since ancient times, our scriptures and books have been preserved on these bhojpatras.
  • Mahabharata was also written on the bhojpatra.

• An alloy of Cobalt and Platinum when doped with Manganese has been found to be an effective catalyst for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) that takes place at the anode of the direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs).
• DMFC is an electrochemical energy conversion device that converts chemical energy of liquid methanol into electrical energy directly.
• They have high energy density, high efficiency and low operating temperature.
• DMFCs are also much safer to operate because they deal with liquid fuel (methanol).
• These are considered an attractive alternate power source for small vehicles such as forklifts and as battery chargers for mobile phones, digital cameras, laptops, and other small electronic gadgets.

• The prolonged cold weather and rains this year have devastated the cherry crop when the harvest period was at its peak in the Kashmir Valley.

ABOUT CHERRY CULTIVATION

• Cherry is considered a vital crop for the farmers in the Valley as it provides additional income to them in May-June
  • All other fruits in Kashmir are harvested in autumn.
• Eight cherry varieties grown in Kashmir include makhmali, siya, mishri, jaddi, Italy, dabal, vishkan and stela.
  • Four among eight varieties, mainly mishri, jaddi, makhmali and dabal, have good demand in the market.
  • Mishri is considered sweeter than all other varieties.
• The annual production of the stone fruit is around 12,000 metric tonnes, making Jammu and Kashmir the largest cherry producer in India, according to official figures.
• The Kashmir Valley contributes to 95% of the total cherry production in India.
• Cherry is being cultivated in the region on around 2,800 hectares, which yields an annual turnover of around Rs 130-150 crore.
• Kashmir annually sends around 3,500-4,000 metric tonnes of cherries to other states of India.
• Cherry is a delicate crop and extremely sensitive to extreme weather conditions, requiring a moderate temperature for optimal growth.
• Having a very low shelf life, cherries cannot sustain heavy rains or high temperatures.

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is venturing through space between stars, faces communication problems due to antenna misalignment.
  • As a result, it cannot receive commands or transmit data back to Earth.
• However, the US space agency is optimistic that the issue will be resolved during the next orientation reset scheduled for October.

ABOUT VOYAGER MISSION

• Voyager 2 is one of the farthest human-made objects in space, behind only its predecessor, Voyager 1.
• Launched on August 20, 1977, Voyager 2 is located more than 19.9 billion kilometres from Earth, in interstellar space – the region between our Sun’s heliosphere and the astrospheres of other stars.
• NASA’s Voyager 2 is the second spacecraft to explore space between stars.
• It accomplished this on December 10, 2018, joining its twin, Voyager 1, as the only human-made object to explore the space between stars.
• Voyager 2 impressive accomplishments include-
  • It is the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system’s giant planets up close.
  • At Jupiter, Voyager 2 discovered a 14^th
  • It was the first human-made object to fly past Uranus, where it discovered 10 new moons and two new rings.
  • Voyager 2 was also the first human-made object to fly by Neptune, uncovering five moons, four rings, and a “Great Dark Spot.”
• Voyager 1, located nearly 24 billion kilometres away from Earth, continues to operate without any issues.
• NASA’s Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but because of a faster route, it exited the asteroid belt earlier than its twin, having overtaken Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977.

• In the human body, most of the DNA in a genome is neatly packed inside cells with the help of specific proteins, protecting it from being degraded.
• However, in a variety of scenarios, some fragments of DNA are ‘released’ from their containers and are present outside the cell, in body fluids.
  • These small fragments of nucleic acids are widely known as cell-free DNA (cfDNA).
• cfDNA can be generated and released from a cell in a number of possible situations, including when a cell is dying and the nucleic acids become degraded.
• Scientists have been aware of such degraded fragments of nucleic acids in body fluids since 1948.
• But only in the last two decades or so, since genome sequencing technologies started to become more accessible, have they really figured out what to do with that knowledge.
• Applications
  • By far, one of the most widely used applications of cfDNA has been in screening foetuses for specific chromosomal abnormalities, an application known as non-invasive prenatal testing.
  • Another emerging application of cfDNA is in the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancers.
  • It is useful in understanding why a body is rejecting a transplanted organ.
  • This could be used as a biomarker for neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, neuronal tumours, stroke, traumatic brain injury.

• Hanging fire for over 11 years, the ambitious Sukharhar medium irrigation project proposed by the then state government in the Jawali area of Kangra district in 2012 has been approved by the State Level Scheme Sanctioning Committee of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yozna (PMKSY).
• The project had earlier been cleared by the State Technical Advisory Committee
• The committee accorded approval to the project to be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 223.49 crore for inclusion under the scheme for the current fiscal year.

• The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) of Papua New Guinea signed a MoU for sharing India Stack.
• India Stack is the moniker for a set of open Application Programming Interface (APIs) and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic primitives of identity, data, and payments at population scale. Although the name of this project bears the word India, the vision of India Stack can be applied to any nation.

ABOUT PAPUA NEW GUINEA

• It is an island country that lies in the south-western Pacific.
• It includes the eastern half of New Guinea (the world’s second largest island after Greenland) and many small offshore islands.
  • Land boundary with Indonesia to the west,
  • Marine neighbors– Australia to the south and Solomon Islands to the south-east.
• Capital: Port Moresby
• Linguistically, it is the world’s most diverse country, with more than 800 languages.

• World Day against Trafficking in Persons is held annually on July 30^th.
• Theme for 2023 is, “Reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind”.