• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has three classes of launch vehicles:
  1. Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV),
  2. Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), and
  3. new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV).
• Of these, ISRO has launched the PSLV the most. It has a famous reputation as a “workhorse”, with a very low failure rate.
  1. The PSLV can lift up to 3.8 tonnes to low-earth orbit.
• ISRO developed and uses the GSLV to launch heavier payloads, and if required into higher orbits.
• Like the PSLV, the GSLV also has multiple configurations.
• The most powerful configuration is LVM-3, short for Launch Vehicle Mark 3‘; it can lift up to 10 tonnes to low-earth orbit.
• ISRO will launch its Chandrayaan 3 mission on July 14 onboard an LVM-3.
• The LVM-3 has three stages.
  1. The first stage is in the form of two S200 boosters strapped to the sides of the rocket body. They combust a solid fuel’ called hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene.
  2. The second stage is powered by two Vikas engines, which combust a liquid fuel – either nitrogen tetroxide or unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine.
  3. The uppermost final stage is powered by a cryogenic engine. It combusts liquefied hydrogen with liquefied oxygen.
• Hydrogen has a very high specific impulse as rocket fuels go, but using it in an engine requires it to be liquefied first, which in turn means it must be stored at very low temperature, and with special pumping and transport systems.

• Performance Grading Index 2.0, for the year 2021-22, was recently released by Ministry of Education for States/UTs.
• Performance Grading Index (PGI) is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education in States and UTs including key levers that drive their performance and critical areas for improvement.
• The first PGI was released in 2017-18.
• Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) has designed the PGI to catalyse transformational change in the field of school education.
• The PGI evaluation classifies States and UTs into grade/ levels, as opposed to ranking.
• The PGI 2.0 structure comprises of 1000 points across 73 indicators grouped into 2 categories, Outcomes, Governance Management (GM).
• These categories are further divided into 6 domains, viz.,
  • Learning Outcomes (LO),
  • Access (A),
  • Infrastructure & Facilities (IF),
  • Equity (E),
  • Governance Process (GP) &
  • Teachers Education and Training (TE&T).
• PGI 2.0 aims to propel States & UTs towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions to achieve optimal education outcomes in terms of improving quality.
• PGI 2.0 is aligned with new initiatives of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, to monitor indicators relating to Goal 4 of Sustainable Development Goals.
• PGI 2.0 classified states/UTs into 10 grades, where highest achievable grade is ‘Daksh’ and lowest grade is ‘Akanshi-3’.
• Grades have been aligned with the PGI – District to have uniformity and better comparability.
• In PGI 2.0, the data source for many of the indicators has been the data from UDISE+ and the grades have been aligned with the PGI – District to have uniformity and better comparability.
• Chandigarh and Punjab have been adjudged the best performers.
  • Both fall in the 6^th grade – Prachesta 2 (score 641-700)
• The 3 poorest performing States/UTs Akanshi – 3 in PGI 2.0 are Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

• Peru recently announced a state of emergency in the Moquegua region due to the ongoing activity of the Ubinas volcano.
• It is a stratovolcano located in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes.

• Scientists have discovered why Taylor Glacier in Antarctica bleeds ‘crimson red’ drool from its tongue.
• Also known as Blood Falls, it was first discovered in 1911 by a British geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor.
• The reason for the iconic red hue was the presence of little ‘iron-rich nanospheres’.
  • Nanospheres are tiny round objects—100th the size of the average human red blood cell—with unique physical and chemical characteristics.)

• The first IIT campus outside the country will be set up in Tanzania following the signing of an agreement between the both sides of education authorities.
• The IIT campus will be set up in Zanzibar under the name IIT Madras at Zanzibar (Tanzania).

• The 7^THedition of the Indian Navy – US Navy ,Salvage and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) exercise, SALVEX was conducted recently in Kochi.
• Indian Navy – US Navy have been participating in joint Salvage and EOD exercises since 2005.
• The exercise saw participation from both the navies which included the ships – INS Nireekshak and USNS Salvor in addition to Specialist Diving and EOD teams.

• The Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DAPRG) has recently launched the third edition of the NeSDA portal.
• The 2023 framework also proposes to evaluate the e-Governance at the City level by assessing City Portal.

About National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) Portal

• NeSDA framework was launched in August
• Objective– To measure the depth and effectiveness of existing e-Governance service delivery mechanisms.
• This framework is based on the Online Service Index (OSI) of UN eGovernment Survey.
• The framework covers six sectors, Finance, Labour & Employment, Education, Local Government & Utilities, Social Welfare (including Agriculture & Health) and Environment (including Fire) sectors.
• The Department has successfully released 2 editions of NeSDA study, viz., NeSDA 2019 and NeSDA 2021.
• Improvement in the country’s e-Governance landscape due to last 2 editions of NESDA study may be summarized in the following key take aways:
  • Increase in e-Service Delivery
  • Rise in use of Integrated / Centralized Portals for delivery of e-Services
  • Improvement across assessment parameter scores
• DARPG undertakes NeSDA study biennially.
• This study assesses States, Union Territories (UTs), and focus Central Ministries on the effectiveness of e-Governance service delivery.
• NeSDA helps the respective governments improve their delivery of citizen centric services and shares best practices across the country for all States, UTs and Central Ministries to emulate.

• The world has become a little less safe than last year, as reported by Institute of Economics and Peace in its flagship Global Peace Index 2023 report.
• The 17th edition of the GPI ranked 163 independent states and territories, comprising 7% of the world’s population, according to their level of peacefulness.
• It measures the state of peace across three domains:
  • Societal safety and security;
  • Ongoing domestic and international conflict;

MAJOR FINDINGS

• The average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.42%.
• Top 5- Iceland is the most peaceful country in the world – a title it has held since 2008.
  • It is accompanied at the top by Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, and Austria.
• Bottom 5– Afghanistan is the least peaceful country in the world for the eighth consecutive year.
  • It is followed by Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• India has occupied the 126^th spot in the rankings, two higher than its previous position.
• The report stated that India experienced an improvement of 3.5 per cent in overall peacefulness over the past year, owing to improvements in violent crime, neighbouring countries’ relations, and political instability.
• Among other countries, Nepal, China, Sri Lanka, United States of America, and Pakistan, and have been ranked 79, 80, 107, 131, 146, respectively.

• Recently X-class solar flares led to radio blackouts in parts of the US, Pacific Ocean.

ABOUT SOLAR FLARES

• Solar flares are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light, and high-speed particles into space.
• These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
• It happens when energy stored in ‘twisted’ magnetic fields (usually above sunspots) is suddenly released.
• They can affect radio communications, power grids and navigation signals and endanger astronauts and spacecraft.
• Solar flares can be divided into various categories based on their brightness in X-ray wavelengths.
• The smallest are A-class, followed by B, C, M, and X, the largest.
• Each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output.
• Within each letter class, there is a finer scale from 1 to 9.

• A demonstration of the Automated Multi-Commodity Grain Dispensing Machine – ‘Annapurti’ developed by the UN World Food Programme (UN-WFP) and Automatic Grain Analyzers developed for automated quality checking of grains was conducted recently.

ABOUT ANNAPURTI

• GrainATM, Annapurti, is an automated multi-commodity dispensing solution that provides fast, clean, and precise access to commodities (rice, wheat, grains) to beneficiaries, post biometric authentication.
• It has been developed by World Food Programme (WFP) India.
• GrainATM ensures 24×7 access to full entitlements for people entitled to monthly subsidized grains through India’s Public Distribution System.
• Annapurti, which dispenses the type and quantity of the selected grain (wheat, rice or millet) commodity to each beneficiary after biometric authentication, does away with the possibility of spillage, waste and short-weighing.
• It leads to a reduction in waiting time of up to 70%.
• It can dispense one or two grain commodities, up to 50 kgs in five minutes, with an error rate of 0.01%.
• It is easily assembled and designed to consume only 0.6 Watt per hour.
• It can also be attached to solar panels, inverter batteries and elevators for automatic refilling.