• Recently Lebanon saw mass Confusion after its government decided to delay DST by a month.
• Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of turning the clock ahead as warmer weather approaches and back as it becomes colder again.
• The daylight saving time is followed in over 70 countries on various dates.
• India does not follow daylight saving time as countries near the Equator do not experience high variations in daytime hours between seasons.
  • However, people of the North east have demanded a separate time zone to make up for the loss of daylight hours due to the longitudinal breadth of India.

• Researchers have discovered a new species of Moray Eel off the Cuddalore coast in Tamil Nadu.
• Moray eels, or Muraenidae are a family of eels found globally.
• They have small Eyes and they rely mostly on their highly developed sense of smell, lying in wait to ambush prey. Their body is generally patterned.
• Moray Eels occur in all tropical and subtropical seas, they live in shallow water among reefs and rocks.
• Moray eels can be found in both freshwater habitats and saltwater habitats.
• They are known for two types of jaws: one is regular (oral) jaws with big teeth and the second jaw is called the pharyngeal jaw (which drags prey inside the eels stomach).

• A UK-based startup claims to have developed a Biotransformation Technology that could alter the state of plastics and make them biodegradable without leaving behind any microplastics.
• It is a novel approach to ensure plastics that escape refuse streams are processed efficiently and broken down.
• It was co-developed by the Imperial College in London, UK, and a Britain-based startup, Polymateria.
• The technology would digest the plastics packaging waste naturally with the help of microbes and biodegrade the waste without leaving behind any microplastics.
• This biotransformation technology is the world’s first that ensures polyolefins fully biodegrade in an open environment causing no microplastics.

Working

• Plastics made using this technology are given a pre-programmed time during which the manufactured material looks and feels like conventional plastics without compromising on quality.
• Once the product expires and is exposed to the external environment, it self-destructs and biotransforms into bioavailable wax.
• This wax is then consumed by microorganisms, converting waste into water, CO2, and biomass.

Applications

• Food packaging and healthcare industries are the major two sectors that could use this technology to reduce waste.

• Anji Khad bridge in Jammu’s Reasi district is a major step in the Indian Railways’ ambitious plan to seamlessly connect Kashmir to Jammu, and the rest of India.
• Anji Bridge, the first cable-stayed railway bridge in the country and is part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project.
  • Anji River is a tributary of Chenab River between Katra and Reasi district of Jammu.
• The Anji bridge forms an important link in Indian Railways’ aim to connect J&K to the rest of India with all-weather rail connectivity.
• A large number of sensors have been placed on the Anji bridge so that the structural health can be monitored regularly.
• It has been designed to handle heavy storms and wind speed of up to 213 kilometres per hour.

• A highly secured link, developed by Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), under Department of Telecommunications, was established for the first time in India.
  • The communication is link between Sanchar Bhawan and National Informatics Centre.
• A ₹10 lakh prize money for ethical hackers who can break the encryption of the system was also announced.

About Quantum Computing

• Quantum Communication refers to communication channels that leverage laws of quantum physics to protect data and make it more secure than traditional transmission.
• In traditional key-based cryptography, data and keys are sent as classical bits (representing 1 and 0) as a stream of electrical or optical pulses.
• However, in a quantum communication network, data is transmitted via qubits.
• Qubits are particles – usually photons of light – in a superposition state, meaning they can be in multiple states and represent numerous combinations of 0 and 1.
• If a hacker tries to read them in transit, super-fragile quantum state “collapses” to either 1 or 0 and attempt to hack will also be recorded eventually.
• This property has helped to create networks for transmitting highly sensitive data based on a process called quantum key distribution, or QKD.
• QKD involves transmission of encrypted data as classical bits while decryption key is encoded and transmitted in a quantum state using qubits.

• After zero cases of rhinoceros poaching recorded in Assam in 2022, first such case was reported recently in KNP.

About Kaziranga National Park

• It is located on the edge of Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspots- Golaghat and Nagaon district of Assam and covers 42,996 Hectare (ha).
  • Brahmaputra lies on North and Karbi Anglong hills on South of Kaziranga.
• It is the single largest undisturbed and representative area in the Brahmaputra Valley floodplain.
• It was declared as a National Park in 1974 and a tiger reserve since 2007.
• It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 and is also recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International.
• It has the world’s largest-population of one-horned rhinoceros.
• Conservation efforts in Kaziranga are focused on the ‘big four’ species— Rhino, Elephant, Royal Bengal tiger and Asiatic water buffalo.

• Recently, Supreme Court of India ruled that the period of parole granted to convicts during the Covid-19 pandemic to prevent overcrowding in prisons and avoid the risk of spread of infection, cannot be counted as part of their actual sentence period.
• Parole and furlough are considered as reformative processes. Both are covered under the Prisons Act of 1894.

About Parole

• It is a system of releasing a prisoner with suspension of the sentence.
• The release is conditional, usually subject to behavior, and requires periodic reporting to the authorities for a set period of time.
• Parole is not a right, and is given to a prisoner for a specific reason, such as a death in the family or a wedding of a blood relative.
• It may be denied to a prisoner even when he makes out a sufficient case, if the competent authority is satisfied that releasing the convict would not be in the interest of society.

About Furlough

• It is given in cases of long-term imprisonment.
• The period of furlough granted to a prisoner is treated as remission of his sentence.
• Unlike parole, furlough is seen as a matter of right for a prisoner, to be granted periodically irrespective of any reason, and merely to enable the prisoner to retain family and social ties, and to counter the ill-effects of prolonged time spent in prison.

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) recently stated that it would be detrimental to the survival of both species, lions and cheetahs, to introduce lions in the same area as cheetahs due to interspecies competition.
• Supreme Court had in 2013 ordered to translocate Asiatic lions from Gujarat to Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh.
• Reason for relocation of lions– This was recommended because Gir (Gujarat) was becoming crowded, and there was a risk of a disease decimating the entire population.
• Recently, Cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa were introduced in KNP.
• Earlier, Project Lion, prepared by Wildlife Institute of India for Gujarat government, envisaged landscape ecology based conservation in Gujarat by integrating conservation and eco-development. It also identified Barda (Gujarat) as a potential site where Asiatic lions can be introduced and populated.

About Asiatic Lion

• Only found in India
• Population limited to following protected areas in Gujarat – Gir National Park, Gir Sanctuary, Pania Sanctuary, Mitiyala Sanctuary, and Girnar Sanctuary.
• IUCN status: Endangered.
• Threat: Vulnerable to disease, genetic inbreeding, potential poaching, accidental deaths due to human causes etc.

About National Tiger Conservation Authority

• Headquartered at- New Delhi
• It is statutory body constituted under ‘The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972’ under Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
• Chairperson: Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change.

• California has experienced an exceptionally wet winter with 11 atmospheric rivers battering the state since late December 2022.

About Atmospheric Rivers

• Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics.
  • One well-known atmospheric river called the “Pineapple Express” picks up warm, moist air near Hawaii.
  • When the Pineapple Express hits land in the Western United States and Canada, it can cause heavy rain and snow. In California, it can cause up to 5 inches of rain in a day.
• Atmospheric rivers typically occur in the extratropical North Pacific/Atlantic, southeastern Pacific, and South Atlantic oceans often making landfall on the west coasts of North and South America. Other regions that experience atmospheric river landfalls include Greenland, Antarctica, and the south-central United States.
• Formation
  • Atmospheric rivers usually begin over tropical regions.
  • Warm temperatures cause ocean water to evaporate and rise into the atmosphere.
  • Strong winds help to carry the water vapor through the atmosphere.
  • As atmospheric rivers move over land, the water vapor rises up farther into the atmosphere.
  • It then cools into water droplets, which fall as precipitation.
• Most Atmospheric Rivers are weak systems that often provide beneficial rain or snow that is crucial to the water supply.
• However, heavy rainfall associated with ARs can cause flooding, landslides, and mudslides.
• Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of ARs in some regions of the world, particularly in the mid-latitudes which could have significant implications for water resources management, flood control, and other areas of public policy.

• Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3) in its sixth consecutive successful flight placed 36 satellites of OneWeb into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
• With this, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) has successfully executed its contract to launch 72 satellites of OneWeb to LEO, 36 of which were placed in October, 2022.
  • NSIL is under Department of Space and commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

About LVM3 (earlier called Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle Mark III or GSLV-MK3)

• LVM3 is a three-stage rocket with the first stage fired with liquid fuel, the two strap-on motors powered by solid fuel, the second by liquid fuel and the third is the cryogenic engine.
• It has a carrying capacity of 8 tonnes to LEO and 4 tonnes to Geo Transfer Orbit (GTO).
• It is ISRO’s second rocket for global commercial market, after its Polar Satellite Launch vehicle (PSLV).
• Its key missions include- Chandrayaan-2, Gaganyaan (Human Space Flight), Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 (mission to study sun).

About One Web

• One Web is a joint venture between India’s Bharti Enterprises and U.K. government to deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity worldwide.
• OneWeb satellites operate in LEO at an altitude of 1,200 kilometers.