• President of India has presented National Florence Nightingale awards for 2022 and 2023 to 30 nurses who provided their exemplary services in each state.
• The National Florence Nightingale Awards are presented in different categories to recognize various aspects of nursing excellence.
  • These categories may include Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife, Lady health visitors and Nurse.
• The award carries a cash prize of Rs 50000/-, a certificate and a medal.
• Indian Nursing Council is a statutory body under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which grants Florence Nightingale Award to recognise the contribution of healthcare workers since 1973.

ABOUT FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

• She was known as “The Lady With the Lamp,”
• She was a British nurse, social reformer and statistician.
• She is best known as founder of modern nursing as she established first scientific nursing school in London (1860).
• She was the first woman elected as a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (1858).
• In her honour, the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday on 12th May.

• A recent research by physicists shows that the chiral bose-liquid state may be an entirely new state of matter.
• Usually matter exists as a solid, liquid or gas.
• But, quantum states of matter, such as plasma, time crystals, and Bose-Einstein condensate also exist at the atomic scale, and at extremely low temperatures approaching absolute zero.
• Chiral Bose-liquid state – It is a new phase discovered by physicists in a frustrated quantum system, where infinite possibilities result from the interaction of particles.
• The research team developed a bilayer semiconductor device or a frustration.
  • The top layer of the device was made electron-rich, and had free movement of electrons.
  • The bottom layer only had holes, which are slots an electron can occupy.
  • The two layers were brought extremely close together.
  • The machine is then triggered to create a local imbalance resulting in electrons not having enough holes to fill (similiar to the game of musical chairs).
  • This kicks off the novel state called the chiral bose-liquid state.
• This new state can be used to understand the quantum world better as in this state the electrons can be frozen into predictable patterns, can be made resilient to changes in spin and can even synchronise their movements.

• PM Modi has gifted an eco-friendly lab-grown 7.5-carat diamond, placed in an exquisite Kashmiri papier-mâché box, to the S. First Lady Jill Biden.

• LGD are developed from a carbon seed placed in a microwave chamber and superheated into a glowing plasma ball.
• The process creates particles that crystallize into diamonds in weeks.
• LGDs are chemically, physically and optically diamond and thus are difficult to identify as “lab-grown.”
• LGDs are produced through 2 technologies–
  • High-Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) and
  • Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD).
  • India is one of the leading producers of these diamonds using CVD technology.
  • As per industry estimates, India’s share in its global trade in the financial year 2021-22 was 25.8%.
• Applications- Besides the jewellery industry, lab-grown diamonds are used in computer chips, satellites, and 5G networks as they can be used in extreme environments due to their potential to operate at higher speeds while using less power than silicon-based chips.
• The lab-grown diamond jewellery market is expected to rapidly rise to $5 billion by 2025 and exceed $15 billion by 2035.

OTHER INFO

• Kashmiri papier-mâché involves meticulous preparation of paper pulp and naqqashi, where skilled artisans paint elaborate designs.
• It has a GI tag.

• PM KISAN App was recently launched with the feature of face Authentication.
• From this app, farmers can complete e-KYC remotely, sitting at home easily by scanning their face without OTP or fingerprint.
• It has become the first scheme of government to do e-KYC through facial authentication mobile app.
• The app was designed and developed by the National Informatics Centre in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
• App also resolves difficulties related to Aadhaar verification and updating bank account details on PM Kisan Portal through effective use of digital public goods.

ABOUT PM KISAN SAMMAN NIDHI (PM-KISAN)

• It is a Central Sector scheme with 100% funding from the Government of India.
• It aims to supplement the financial needs of the farmers in procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields commensurate with the anticipated farm income.
• It is one of the world’s largest Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes.
• Under it, income support of Rs.6000 per year is provided to all land holding farmer families across country, irrespective of land size, in three equal instalments of Rs.2000 every four months.
  • The definition of family for the scheme is husband, wife and minor children.
• State Government and UT administration will identify the farmer families which are eligible for support as per scheme guidelines.
• Excluded categories include–
  • All Institutional Landholders.
  • Farmer families which belong to one or more of the following categories:
    • Former and present holders of constitutional posts.
    • Former and present Ministers/ State Ministers and former/present Members of Lok Sabha/ Rajya Sabha/ State Legislative Assemblies/ State Legislative Councils, former and present Mayors of Municipal Corporations, former and present Chairpersons of District Panchayats.
    • All superannuated/retired pensioners whose monthly pension is Rs.10,000/-or more (Excluding Multi-Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees) of the above category
    • All Persons who paid Income Tax in the last assessment year.

Professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Chartered Accountants, and Architects are registered with Professional bodies and carry out their profession by undertaking practices

• Ambubachi Mela, four day annual fair, begun recently at Kamakhya temple located atop the Nilachal hills in Guwahati, Assam.
• This mela is also known as Ameti or Tantric fertility festival.
• It is celebrated during the monsoon season that happens to fall during the Assamese month Ahaar, around the middle of June.
• It is celebrated to mark the annual menstruation of Goddess Kamakhya (reigning deity).
• It also marks as an occasion to promote awareness about menstrual hygiene.

ABOUT KAMAKHYA TEMPLE

• Kamakhya Temple is one of the 52 Shakti peeths or Seat of Shakti followers.
• It is one of the most revered centres of Tantric practices.
• It had been modelled out of a combination of two different styles- the traditional nagara or North Indian and Saracenic or Mughal style of architecture.
  • This unusual combination has been named the Nilachala Style of Architecture.
• This is the only temple of Assam having a fully developed ground plan.

• It is an archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean.
• It is about 1300 km South of mainland Spain and 115 km West of the African coast (Morocco).
• The Canaries comprise the Spanish provincias (provinces) of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
• These Islands were formed by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago.

• A new scientific report published in the journal Nature shows that significant precipitation changes and increasing extreme climate events affecting the large human populations as well as endemic biodiversity of Lake Victoria Basin.
• Heavy rains, wind storms, and floods threaten the survival and water access of the communities living in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB), East Africa.
• The resultant massive flooding in lake-adjacent areas displaced over 200,000 people in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
  • LVB covers, also including Burundi and Rwanda.

About Lake Victoria

• It is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake by area (after Lake Superior).
• It is located in East Africa, bordered by Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya.
• It is also called Victoria Nyanza in Kenya, Nalubaale in Uganda, and Ukerewe in Tanzania.
• It is a source of the White Nile River which flows northward and eventually joins the Blue Nile in Sudan to form the Nile River.
• Also referred to as “Darwin’s Dreampond”, the lake is known for its high levels of unique biodiversity.
• The lake supports the largest freshwater fishery in the world, producing 1 million tons of fish per year and employing 200,000 people in supporting the livelihoods of 4 million people.

• All-India Consumer Price Index Number for Agricultural Labourers and Rural Labourers (CPI-AL/RL) was released by the Labour Bureau under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
• Base year of CPI-AL/RL is 1986-87.
• It covers data from 600 sample villages selected from 20 States every month, by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

• Russian President recently said that, Russia’s new generation of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads, would soon be deployed for combat duty.
• The RS-28 Sarmat is Russia’s new generation intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• It is capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads.
• It is designed and built by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, Russia.
• Range-18,000 kilometres.
• Maximum speed of 25,500kph.

• The Asia Pacific Plant Protection Commission unanimously elected India as chair of the Standing Committee on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for the biennium 2023-24 during the 32nd Session held in Bangkok.

ABOUT ASIA PACIFIC PLANT PROTECTION COMMISSION

• It is an intergovernmental organization that promotes cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region to enhance plant health and plant protection.
• Established in 1956 as a regional body approved by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
• Members- 25 member countries, including India.
• The Commission administers the Regional Plant Protection Agreement for Asia and the Pacific.
• It reviews the plant protection situation at the national level in member countries, and also at the regional level.
• The Commission consists of representatives of all member countries and elects amongst them a Chairperson who serves for a period of two years.
• The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization appoints and provides the secretariat that coordinates, organizes and follows up the work of the Commission.