• Legendary American pop songwriter Burt Bacharach, whose prodigious work created a chart-topping soundtrack for the 1960s and 1970s, passed away at the age of 94.
• In 1957,he met songwriter Hal David, with whom they formed one of the most successful duos in music history.
• His compositions included rock classics such as ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose’ and ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’. He worked with many stars during his long career, from Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin to Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones.
• He has won three Oscars (including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”), an Emmy, eight Grammy Awards and two Golden Globes.

• Recently, Mass Drug Administration (MDA) was launched by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare against Lymphatic Filariasis.
• The country is aiming at eliminating the disease by 2027 through a door-to-door mass drug administration program. The government will focus on high-burden districts of the 10 affected states – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh.
• LF or elephantiasis, is a neglected tropical disease. Infection is usually acquired in childhood causing hidden damage to the lymphatic system.
• Symptoms: Abnormal enlargement of body parts.
• It is a parasitic disease caused by filarial worms Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi, and Brugia timori i.e. Nematodes (roundworms) of family Filariodidea.
• Transmitted by: Mosquitoes including Culex, Anopheles and Aedes.
• Lymphatic filariasis is a major public health problem in many tropical and subtropical countries, particularly in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific.
• Lymphatic filariasis affects over 120 million people in 72 countries, with India accounting for 40 percent of the global case burden.
• Global initiative: Global Programme to Elimina e Lymphatic Filariasis by the WHO.

• Inaugural meeting of IFCMA was held recently. India also participated.
• IFCMA is a new forum by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
• IFCMA aims to help improve global impact of emissions reduction efforts through better data and information sharing, evidence-based mutual learning etc.
• Objective of IFCMA is to take stock of mitigation policy instruments that countries use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and estimate emissions that these instruments relate to.
• It will also develop a methodology to assess effects of mitigation policies on emission reductions at the country level.

• The recent claims made by investigative journalists regarding the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines (September 2022) have ignited intense discussions and controversies.
  • There were a series of underwater explosions in the Baltic Sea that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022.

About Nord Stream Pipeline:

• The Nord Stream pipeline is a natural gas pipeline that runs under the Baltic Sea, connecting Russia and Germany.
  • Nord Stream 1 is a 1,224 km underwater gas pipeline running from Vyborg in northwest Russia to Lubmin in northeastern Germany via the Baltic Sea.
  • Nord Stream 2 is 1200 km long and runs from Ust-Luga in Leningrad (Russia) to Greifswald in Germany, will have the capacity to handle 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year once it becomes fully operational.
• The pipeline was built with the aim of transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe, bypassing traditional transit countries such as Ukraine.
• The first line of the Nord Stream pipeline was completed in 2011 and the second in 2012, and it has since become a major source of natural gas for Europe.
• The Nord Stream pipeline has significant economic and political implications for both Europe and Russia.

• Recently, 145 different bird species were sighted during the first Sundarban Bird Festival.
• The first-ever festival was organised by the Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) division of the West Bengal Forest Department, where several teams visited different areas inside the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve.
• The Bird Festival provides baseline data on Sundarbans’ bird species diversity.
• The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) in 2021, had recorded 428 bird species in the Sundarbans which is one-third of all the avian species (derived from birds) found in the country.
• The species recorded during the Bird Festival included 78 forest birds and 42 species of waders, raptors etc. The two-day exercise which ended on Friday also recorded 12 species of raptors, six species of waterfowl and seven other bird species.
• Among the threatened species of the Sundarbans, Eurasian Curlew was spotted.
• The Sundarbans are part of the migratory routes of the Central Asian Flyway.

• Tamil Nadu’s first ‘Palam’ project launched in Karur aims to provide jobs for youth.
• The Palam Project or the City Livelihood Centre in Tamil Nadu’s Karur district is successfully placing educated unemployed youth in good jobs. And unlike most government employment exchanges, this one focuses mostly on private jobs.
• Initiated by the Tamil Nadu Rural Livelihood Movement and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), it aims at bridging the gap between unemployed youth and companies looking to hire people.
• The aim of the Palam Project was to act as a bridge between job seekers and employers.
• Karur, located near the textile hub of Tirupur in western Tamil Nadu, is known for its industries, but it is more popular for its domestic textile products. The project began in 2022.

• In a new study, scientists discovered that the dwarf planet Quaoar near Pluto has with rings at unusual distance.
• The rings of Quaoar (named after a god of creation in Native American mythology) are positioned at a distance of over seven planetary radii (distance between a planet’s centre and its surface) which is much further away from other planets that possess rings.
• Planetary rings possess small chunks of ice and other materials that orbit a larger object.
• Only Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, including two other minor planets, Chariklo and Haumea, are known to possess rings.

About Quaoar

• Discovered in 2002, Quaoar is currently defined as a minor planet and is proposed as a dwarf planet.
• Its diameter of about 700 miles (1,110 km) is about a third that of Earth’s moon and half that of the dwarf planet Pluto. It has a small moon called Weywot, Quaoar’s son in mythology, with a diameter of 105 miles (170 km) orbiting beyond the ring.
• Inhabiting a distant region called the Kuiper belt populated by various icy bodies, Quaoar orbits about 43 times further than Earth’s distance to the sun. In comparison, Neptune, the outermost planet, orbits about 30 times further than Earth’s distance from the sun, and Pluto about 39 times further.

• The inaugural meeting City Sherpa meeting of the sixth Urban20 (U20) cycle was organised in Ahmedabad on recently.
• Priority areas for the Urban 20 event
  • Encouraging environmentally responsible behaviours,
  • Ensuring water security,
  • Accelerating climate finance,
  • Championing ‘local’ identity,
  • Reinventing frameworks for urban governance and planning, and
  • Catalysing digital urban futures.

About U20

• U20 is a group of cities from the G20 countries and was first convened in Buenos Aires in 2018.
• The U20 brings together mayors from G20 cities under a common framework and coordinates a joint position to inform the discussions of national leaders.
• Contributions from the U20 are shared with the G20 Presidency and Heads of State, enhancing the role of cities as global economic and political leaders.

Participants

• The U20 brings together a group of Participating Cities.
• These cities are important economic or population hubs, made up of majorC40 and UCLG member cities from G20 countries
  • C40 Cities: C40 connects 96 of the world’s largest and most influential cities, representing 700+ million citizens and one-quarter of the global economy.
  • United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG): UCLG is the world organization of local and regional governments and their associations, representing and defending their interests on the world stage.
    • UCLG’s network represents 70% of the world’s total population and is present in all world regions.

Objectives 

• Build a platform on behalf of urban centers and in close collaboration with global networks of local governments, to be shared collectively with G20 leaders.
• Enrich the G20 agenda by exploring synergies and contributing unique perspectives and good practices from cities.
• Propose joint solutions to enhance climate action and sustainable economic development by presenting a communique that leverages existing G20 policy recommendations and international frameworks as well as recommendations from cities.
• Invite G20 members to include in each annual discussion strategic or urgent urban subjects that require synergistic solutions with national governments from the short to the long term.

• Recently, PM flagged off two Vande Bharat trains set to ply between Mumbai and the pilgrim towns of Shirdi and Solapur. For the first time, two Vande Bharat trains were inaugurated at one go.
• The two trains are Mumbai-Solapur Vande Bharat Train and Mumbai-Sainagar Shirdi Vande Bharat Train.
  • The Mumbai-Solapur Vande Bharat train is the 9th Vande Bharat train in the country, facilitating travel to important pilgrimage centres such as Siddheshwar in Solapur, Akkalkot, Tuljapur, Pandharpur near Solapur and Alandi near Pune.
  • Mumbai-Sainagar Shirdi Vande Bharat Train will be the 10th Vande Bharat train in the country.

About Vande Bharat Express – Indigenously built semi-high-speed train

• Vande Bharat is India’s first indigenous Semi High-Speed Train.
• The first ‘Vande Bharat Express’ train was flagged off by Shri Narendra Modi on the New Delhi – Kanpur – Allahabad – Varanasi- route in February 2019.
• The Vande Bharat Express, earlier known as Train 18, is an electric multiple-unit train designed and manufactured by the government-owned Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai.
• It can achieve high speeds due to faster acceleration and deceleration and also reduce journey time by 25% to 45%.

• Second developmental flight of SSW— SSLV-D2 — placed three satellites in its precise orbit. Earlier, First test flight of SSLV had marginally missed to place the satellites.
• SSLV-D2 carried:
  1. EOS-07, an Earth Observation Satellite by ISRO.
  2. Janus-1, a technology demonstrator satellite built by United States-based Antaris and its Indian partners.
  3. AzaadiSAT-2 satellite, a combined effort of about 750 girl students across India guided by Space Kidz India.
• The satellite carried the G20 logo to space and the NCC song to celebrate 75 years of the organisation.

About SSLV

• It is a 3 stage Launch Vehicle configured with three Solid Propulsion Stages and liquid propulsion based Velocity Trimming Module as a terminal stage.
• It is 2 m in diameter and 34m in length with a lift off weight of 120 tonnes.
• It is capable of launching Mini, Micro, or Nanosatellites (10 to 500 kg mass) to a 500 km orbit
• Like Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch vehicle (GSLV), SSLV can accommodate multiple satellites, albeit smaller ones.
• Unlike PSLV and GSLV, SSLV can be assembled both vertically and horizontally.
• Other features: Low cost, low turn-around time, launch on demand feasibility, minimal launch infrastructure requirements etc.
• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), under Department of Space and commercial arm of ISRO, is the sole nodal agency responsible for providing end-to-end SSLV Launch services for customer satellites.