• Dakar Declaration has been adopted in principle by 21 African countries after the first African sub-regional conference on implementing Global Plan for Road Safety.
• It is a guiding document to support the implementation of Decade of Action for road safety 2021–2030.
• It sets the ambitious target of preventing at least 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030.
• It includes actions to enhance data capture, analysis, sharing and coordination to shape better road safety policies.

Other info

• Dakar is the largest city and capital of Senegal.

• To tackle climate change and pollution, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation ( BMC) recently started creating a Miyawaki forest at Deonar village in Govandi.
• Miyawaki method is named after Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki.
• The technique involves planting two to four types of indigenous trees within every square meter.
• Miyawaki forests grow 10x faster, are 30 x denser and contain 100x more biodiversity.
• These trees become self-sustainable and grow to their full length within three years.
• It helps lower temperatures in concrete heat islands, reduce air and noise pollution, attract local birds and insects, and create carbon sinks.

• The country’s first 3D-printed post office is coming up in Bengaluru.
• It is being implemented by Larsen & Toubro
• It is a 1,100 sqft building which is expected to cost 30-40 per cent less than conventional buildings because of the technological intervention.
• It is being built at a cost of Rs 23 lakh.

About 3D-printing

• 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file.
• In an additive process, an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created.
• Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced cross-section of the object.

• Physicists in Japan discovered a previously unknown isotope of uranium, with atomic number 92 and mass number 241, i.e Uranium-241 and its half-life, according to theoretical calculations, could be 40 minutes.

About Uranium

• Uranium is a naturally occurring chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92.
• It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table.
• Uranium has several isotopes, which are atoms that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons like U-235 and U-238.
• It is a heavy metal that is radioactive and found in small quantities in rocks and soils worldwide.

Static Information

• Atomic number = No. of Protons = No. of Electrons
• of Neutrons = Atomic mass– Atomic No.

Uranium-241 discovery

• The researchers accelerated uranium-238 nuclei into plutonium-198 nuclei at the KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS).
• In a process called multinucleon transfer, the two isotopes exchanged protons and neutrons.
• The resulting nuclear fragments contained different isotopes.
• This is how the researchers identified uranium-241 and measured the mass of its nucleus by using time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

Magic numbers

• In nuclear physics, a magic number is a number of nucleons (either protons or neutrons, separately) such that they are arranged into complete shells within the atomic nucleus.
• As a result, atomic nuclei with a ‘magic’ number of protons or neutrons are much more stable than other nuclei.
• The heaviest known ‘magic’ nucleus is lead (82 protons).

• The world’s first conservation and breeding center for the Asian king vulture is set to open in Uttar Pradesh’s Maharajganj district.
• The center, named Jatayu Conservation and Breeding Centre (JCBC), is spread over 1.5 hectares and is designed to maintain a sustainable population of the species by breeding king vultures in captivity and releasing them into the wild.
• The JCBC, worth approximately Rs 15 crore, features multiple aviaries, including breeding and holding aviaries, nursery aviaries for juveniles, hospital and recovery aviaries, a food processing center, and an incubation center.
• The forest department has partnered with the Bombay Natural History Society for technical guidance.

About Asian King vulture

• It is also called the Red headed vulture or Pondicherry Vulture and was extensively found in India but its numbers drastically reduced after diclofenac poisoning.
• IUCN Status: Critically Endangered
• Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule 1

• Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana recently completed 8 years.

About the scheme

• PMMY was launched by Ministry of Finance in 2015, to facilitate easy collateral-free microcredit of up to 10 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm small, and micro entrepreneurs for income generating activities.
• MUDRA (Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd) Bank is a refinancing institution.
• Loans are provided by Member Lending Institutionse., Banks, Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) and other financial intermediaries.
• They do not require any collateral/ security.
• Rate of interest is decided by lending institutions in terms of RBI guidelines.
• Loans divided into three categories-
  • SHISHU-Loans upto Rs. 50,000 (For Start-ups and First-time Entrepreneurs)
  • KISHOR-Loans from Rs. 50,000 – Rs. 5 lakh (For Entrepreneurs with existing business)
  • TARUN-Loans from Rs. 5 lakh – Rs. 10 lakh (For Businessmen, loan amount to be used for business expansion)
• A success story
  • About ₹23.2 lakh crore has been sanctioned in 40.82 crore loan accounts.
  • About 68% of accounts under the scheme belong to women
  • 51% of accounts belong to entrepreneurs of SC/ST and OBC categories.

• International Big Cat Alliance was launched by PM recently.
• IBCA aims to protect and conserve seven major big cats — tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah – in collaboration with membership of 97 range of countries harbouring these species.
• IBCA will provide assured support over five years with guaranteed funding of over Rs. 800 crores.
• Earlier in 2019, PM called for an Alliance of Global Leaders to curb poaching and illegal wildlife trade in Asia.
• India is the only country in world to have 5 big cats in wild (except pumas and jaguar).
• IUCN Status of cat species in India:
  • Endangered -Royal Bengal Tiger, Asiatic Lions;
  • Vulnerable– Snow Leopards, African Cheetahs;
  • Least Concern- Common Leopard.
• Need of protecting these species
  • Big cats are apex predators whose loss can set off “trophic cascade,” wherein prey populations may explode, resulting in overgrazing and degrading health of landscape.
  • Protecting tiger habitats means protecting forests which facilitates fighting climate change.
  • Ecotourism helps economic growth.

Other related news

• In addition, PM also released 5th cycle of India’s Tiger Census.
• The number of tigers in India has increased by 6.74 percent from 2,967 in 2018 to 3,167 in 2022.
• The tiger population has grown the most in the Shivalik hills and Gangetic flood plains, followed by central India, the north eastern hills, the Brahmaputra flood plains, and the Sundarbans.
• Tiger population declined in Western Ghats, North East Hills & Brahmaputra Plains.
• Periyar Tiger Reserve (TR), Kerala is best-maintained of all TRs followed by Satpura TR (Madhya Pradesh), Bandipur and Nagarhole (Karnataka).

• Indian American Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao won the Nobel Prize equivalent in statistics at the age of 102.
• International Prize in Statistics was established in 2016 by a group of five major statistical organizations,
  • American Statistical Association,
  • Institute of Mathematical Statistics,
  • International Biometric Society,
  • International Statistical Institute, and
  • Royal Statistical Society
• It is awarded once in every two years to an individual or a team.
• Prize is given for major achievements using statistics to advance science, technology and human welfare.

Contribution of C R Rao

• In his 1945 paper published in the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, he demonstrated three fundamental results that paved the way for the modern field of statistics and provided statistical tools heavily used in science.
  • The Cramér-Rao inequality is the first of the three results of the 1945 paper with applications even in quantum physics, signal processing, spectroscopy, radar systems, multiple-image radiography, risk analysis, and probability theory, among other fields.
  • The second outcome was the Rao-Blackwell Theorem, which offers a method to improve an estimate to an optimal estimate.
  • A new interdisciplinary area called ‘information geometry’ was born as a result of the paper’s third finding.

• Himachal Pradesh assembly constituted a committee of legislators to legalise cultivation of cannabis for its medicinal properties.
• The committee will be headed by Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi.
• Under NDPS (Narcotic-Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act, state has been given the right to cultivate cannabis and transport of cannabis.
• Central government has given legal status to cultivation of cannabis in some districts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
• Apart from this, cannabis is also being cultivated in Uttarakhand for industrial use.
• Primary psychoactive constituent in cannabis is Delta9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

• Kerala State Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC) has launched a solar-powered tourist boat called Sooryamshu that can produce 27 KW of energy.
• The boat also comes equipped with generators, which will help power passenger lift systems and air-conditioners.
• The solar panels will provide about 75% of the vessel’s energy needs, while the rest will be met by the generators.
• The boat was built in Sri Lanka for Rs. 3.95 crores.