• Union Minister recently said that Blue Economy will be a major contributor to India’s overall economy in the years to come and the Deep Ocean Mission will be the core component of it.
• He chairing the first-ever high-level Steering Committee Meeting of Deep Ocean Mission in New Delhi.
• The Committee consisted of Union Ministers of State for Environment, External Affairs, Defence, and Finance in addition to Vice Chairman NITI Aayog.

About Deep Ocean Mission:

• Deep Ocean Mission was first proposed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences in 2017.
• Aim– To explore deep ocean for resources and develop deep sea technologies for sustainable use of ocean resources.
• The estimated cost of the Mission will be Rs. 4077 crore for a period of 5 years to be implemented in a phase-wise manner.
• Ministry of Earth Sciences is the nodal Ministry implementing this multi-institutional ambitious mission.
• Six major components:
  • Development of technologies for manned submersible and integrated mining system
  • Development of ocean climate change advisory services
  • Technological innovations for exploration and conservation of deep-sea flora and fauna
  • Deep ocean survey and exploration for hydrothermal minerals
  • Energy and freshwater from the ocean- OTEC powered Desalinisation plants
  • Advanced marine station for ocean biology

• The ongoing fighting in Sudan is forcing thousands to flee. The humanitarian emergency is spreading, creating a dangerous security situation in the Sahel region.

About:

• The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south.
• Having a semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea.
• The name is derived from the Arabic term for “coast, shore”; this is explained as being used in a figurative sense in reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara.
• The Sahel part includes from west to east parts of northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger, the extreme north of Nigeria, the extreme north of Cameroon and the Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and the extreme north of Ethiopia.

• An international team of researchers, including from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, has reported a new kind of molecular motor.

About Molecular Motor

• Molecular motors are a class of proteins that drive intracellular movement by converting chemical energy to mechanical work along cytoskeletal filaments.
  • The cytoskeleton of a cell is made up of microtubules, actin filaments, and intermediate filaments.
  • These structures give the cell its shape and help organize the cell’s parts.
• They are very important as cells need to move things, such as pull two organelles together, move cargo towards and away from the nucleus, and power the movement of molecules inside cells.
• Disruption or deregulation in these processes can lead to different diseases.

• Human rights group accused Myanmar’s military of using thermobaric bomb.
• Thermobaric weapons — also known as aerosol bombs, fuel air explosives, or vaccum bombs — use oxygen from the air for a large, high-temperature blast.
  • A thermobaric weapon causes significantly greater devastation than a conventional bomb of comparable size.
• A thermobaric bomb consists of a fuel container with two separate explosive charges.
• When it hits its target, first explosive charge opens the container and widely scatters fuel mixture as a cloud.
• A second charge then detonates the cloud, resulting in a huge fireball, a massive blast wave and a vacuum which sucks up all surrounding oxygen.
• These can be fired as rockets from tank-mounted launchers or dropped from aircraft.
• There are no international laws specifically banning their use.

• PM laid the foundation stone and dedicated to the nation, multiple scientific projects worth over 5800 crore rupees on the occasion of National Technology Day in New Delhi.
• The projects for which the foundation stone would be laid include
  • Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory-India (LIGO-India), Hingoli Maharashtra;
  • Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Jatni, Odisha; and
  • Platinum Jubilee Block of Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

About the day

• The Technology Development Board (TDB) a statutory body of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) celebrates May 11 every year as National Technology Day to commemorate achievements of innovations and technological excellence in the country.
• Triple historical perspective:
  • On May 11, 1998, India successfully carried out nuclear tests at Pokhran.
  • The first indigenous aircraft “Hansa-3” was test flown at Bangalore on this day; and
  • India also performed successful test firing of the Trishul missile on the same day.
• Since 1999, the day is being celebrated as National Technology Day.
• This year’s theme is ‘School to Startups- Igniting Young Minds to Innovate’.
• The program and celebrations marking the National Technology Day 2023 has a special focus on Atal Innovation Mission (AIM).

Prime Minister recently paid tributes to Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on his birth anniversary.

About Rabindranath Tagore

• He was a world-renowned poet, litterateur, philosopher and Asia’s first Nobel laureate.
• He was born in Kolkata on May 7^th, 1861 and was also referred to as ‘Kabiguru’, and ‘Biswakabi’.
• He was popularly known as Bard of Bengal, and people used to call him Gurudev.
• In 1913 he became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• He was also an influential artist and musician.
  • He wrote around 2230 songs and painted 3000 paintings. His songs are known as Rabindra Sangeet.
• Rabindranath Tagore wrote India’s national anthem, Jana Gana Mana.
  • He also wrote Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem for Bangladesh
  • Even, the Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
• He was awarded a knighthood in 1915, but he returned it in 1919 as a protest against the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre.
• Viswa Bharti University, or Shantiniketan was founded by Rabindranath Tagore.
• He was a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi and is said to have given him the title of Mahatma.
• Major Works:
  • Tagore’s most notable work of poetry is Gitanjali: Song Offerings, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
    • Sonar Tari and Manasi; plays- Chitra and The Post Office are other major works.
  • He is credited with pioneering the short story form in Bengali literature, with some of his best work collected in The Hungry Stones and Other Stories and The Glimpses of Bengal Life.

• The CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR-IHBT), Palampur, is collaborating with the Space Application Centre (SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to study the impact of climate change on pine forests in the state.
• The PhenoMet Station consists of a time-lapse camera and an automated weather station, which will record pictures of the surrounding pine forests every 30 minutes and record various weather parameters such as air temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, active photosynthetic radiations, etc throughout the year.

• National e-governance division under CSB, organised recently 36^th Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) Deep-Dive training programme.
• Cyber Surakshit Bharat is an initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
• It aims to spread awareness about cyber-crime and build capacities of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and frontline IT officials, across all government departments.

• New Android malware known as ‘FluHorse’ has been discovered, which targeted users in Eastern Asia with malicious apps that look like legitimate versions.
• It is being deployed using targeted phishing techniques through emails.
• It is designed to extract sensitive information, including user credentials and Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) codes.
• It can remain undetected for long periods of time, making it a persistent and dangerous threat

• India’s Defence Minister recently inaugurated the nation’s first Indian Air Force Heritage Centre in Chandigarh.
• The centre, spread across 17,000 sqft at the Government Press Building, houses five vintage aircraft, including the first IAF-made patent aircraft, the Air Force ‘Kanpur-1 Vintage Prototype Aircraft’.
• The heritage centre also provides visitors with cockpit exposure and experience with flight simulators.
• The centre will also showcase various rescue operations being undertaken by the IAF all over the country.