• The police recently seized 3 JCBs and 7 tippers engaged allegedly in illegal mining in Khanni, Maira and Batrah villages.
• Chakki river is a tributary of river Beas River.
• It flows through Indian states Himachal Pradesh and Punjab and joins Beas near Pathankot.
• It is fed by snow and rain in the Dhauladhar mountains.

• Maximum ration cards having double enrolment of the beneficiaries concerned (in Himachal as well as in some other state) have been detected in Nalagarh subdivision, comprising the industrial belt of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN), in Solan district.

• Pagalkhana, a 2018 satirical novel by renowned Hindi author Gyan Chaturvedi, has been chosen for the 32nd Vyas Samman.
• The KK Birla Foundation founded the annual Vyas Samman in 1991, which is awarded to a superb piece of Hindi literature authored by an Indian citizen and published within the previous ten years.
  • It carries a cash reward of 4 lakh rupees.
• The KK Birla Foundation also awards the Saraswati Samman and the Bihari Puraskar in addition to these awards.

• The 95th Academy Awards (Oscars 2023) have announced that RRR‘s “Naatu Naatu” won Best Original Song.
• The song’s words were written by Chandrabose, with music by MM Keeravaani, and it was performed by Kala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj.
• “Naatu Naatu” also received the Golden Globe for best song.

• Scientists from Germany and the US have built the world’s fastest single-shot laser camera – 1,000x faster than its predecessors at capturing extremely short-lived events.
• They used the camera to provide the most precise view yet of how a hydrocarbon flame produces soot.
• The device’s technique is called laser-sheet compressed ultrafast photography (LS-CUP) combining laser sheet imaging with compressed sensing on a standard streak camera system.
• It “can resolve a plane of a three-dimensional object like a flame or spray or any turbid media and can “resolve physical or chemical processes” in space and time.
• It can capture images at 5 billion frames per second (fps).
• The device can also be used to photograph shockwaves in nuclear reactors, combustion of fine sprays, and an enigmatic process called sonoluminescence (sometimes, when excited by sound, bubbles in a liquid implode and release light at a temperature of ~10,000 K), all of which involve processes that happen in a few nanoseconds.
  • However, the technology can be cost intensive.

• Indian Navy’s indigenously built guided missile frigate, INS Sahyadri participated in a Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX) with French Navy ships in the Arabian Sea in March 2023.
  • INS Sahyadri is fitted with state-of-the-art weapons and sensors, which makes it capable of detecting and neutralising air, surface and sub-surface threats. The ship is a part of Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet based at Visakhapatnam.
• The exercise witnessed a wide spectrum of evolutions at sea which included cross deck landings, boarding exercises and seamanship evolutions.
• The seamless conduct of the exercise reaffirmed the interoperability and high level of cooperation between the two navies.

• Government of Maharashtra has decided to launch the second phase of Jalyukt Shivar project.

About the scheme

• It is a scheme that targets drought-prone areas by undertaking water conservation measures.
• The scheme attempts to arrest maximum run-off water during the monsoon months, in village areas known to receive less rainfall.
• Under the scheme, decentralised water bodies are installed at various locations within villages to enhance the groundwater recharge.
• In the first phase, planned during 2015 – 2019, Jalyukta Shivar envisaged making 5,000 villages drought-free, every year.

Other GoI initiatives :

• Jal Jeevan Mission: The mission was announced by the Prime Minister to provide potable tap water to every rural household in the country by 2024.
• Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana: This scheme was launched with an aim to enhance water-use efficiency by better on-farm management practices.
• Jal Shakti Abhiyan: The scheme is aimed at water conservation in 256 water-stressed districts across the territory of India, in a time-bound manner.

• USA scientists have devised ‘Glowscope’ microscope, to make fluorescent microscopy affordable for schools.
• Fluorescence microscope studies an object by analysing how it re-emits light that it has absorbed.
• Object is illuminated with light of a specific wavelength. Particles in object absorb this light and reemit it at a higher wavelength (i.e., different colour).
  • These particles are called fluorophores.
  • Different fluorophores are used to identify and study different microscopic entities.

Applications

• A fluorescent microscope can track fluorophores as they move inside the object, revealing the object’s internal shape and other characteristics.
• Through this, scientists have developed different fluorophores to identify and study different entities, from specific parts of DNA to protein complexes.
• With this setup, the researchers were able to image the creatures’ brain, spinal cord, heart, and head and jaw bones.
• They were able to zoom in and out using the smartphone camera and the clip-on lens.

• Indian Air Force has implemented “Vayulink” along northern and eastern boundaries.
• It is an in-house system to identify friendly forces during combat.
• Vayulink is effectively a data link system which connects all entities, combat and non-combat, through a single link.
• It uses the indigenous Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), also called NAVIC.
• It’ll enhance battlefield transparency through identification of friendly forces in a combat situation whether airborne or on ground through secure , jammer-proof communication.
• It’ll arm pilots with accurate weather data before they fly.
• System integrates inputs available from multiple sources in a joint battlefield and provides near real-time data to operators.
• It helps in improving situational awareness and consequently aiding in effective decision making.

• Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has extradited 33 fugitives involved in various criminal activities under its ‘Operation Trishul’ since 2022.
• Under ‘Trishul’, CBI geolocates criminals with help of Interpol channels and seeks their deportation or extradition through formal route.
• It utilises Interpol’s Star Global Focal Point Network, analysis of financial crime files and using Interpol’s channels to identify dispersal of proceeds of crime.
• Operation Trishul also aims at dismantling support networks and generate criminal intelligence on shell companies, fraudulent transactions, money mules and co-accused located globally.
• The CBI also works in close coordination with the police of other countries to undertake this operation.
• It includes tracing suspects, alongwith proceeds of financial crimes.