• The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, in Norway, saw its largest number of new contributors in one day and now holds over 1.2 million seed varieties from 111 seed banks in77 countries.
• The vault has been stockpiling most of the world’s crop seeds in below-freezing conditions, in an effort to maintain food diversity and protect plant species from extinction.
• The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is situated in permafrost caverns on an island located within the European mainland and the North Pole.
• The facility was established 16 years ago in 2008, through a partnership between the Nordic Genetic Resource Center, the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Crop Trust.
• It was designed to store over 2 billion seeds and guarantee their availability for future generations.
• The Global Seed Vault houses over 930,000 varieties of food crops.
• Acting as a massive safety deposit box, it contains the world’s largest collection of agricultural biodiversity.
• The chambers are opened only three times a year to minimize the seeds’ exposure to the outside world. Inside, the temperatures are kept around -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

• Prime Minister recently inaugurated the redeveloped Kochrab Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat to mark the 94th anniversary of the Dandi March.
  • On 12th March 1930, Gandhiji started Salt Satyagraha March or Dandi March from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal town of Dandi.
• The Prime Minister also revealed the master plan for the Rs 1,200 crore Gandhi Ashram Memorial and Precinct Development Project.

About the Ashram

• Kochrab Ashram holds significant historical importance as the first ashram established by Mahatma Gandhi upon his return to India from South Africa in 1915.
• On 20 May, 1915, Gandhi took residence in a dwelling located in the Kochrab hamlet, near Paldi, situated on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
• The bungalow, generously provided by Jeevanlal Desai, a fellow lawyer and colleague, later became the Satyagraha Ashram under Gandhi.
• It is still preserved as a memorial and tourist place by deemed university Gujarat Vidyapith.
• Kochrab Ashram, where Gandhi stayed for two years, served as a communal living space promoting self-improvement, self-sufficiency, and community service.
• Gandhi drafted a set of rules and observances for the ashramites, later adopted as ashram observances.
  • About 25 men and women, associates of Gandhi in South Africa, including Maganlal Gandhi, became the initial members of the Ashram Community.
• The ashram also served as the starting point for Gandhi’s advocacy of khadi, equality for the poor, Hindi as the national language, self-reliance, and independence.

• The government officially notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, signalling a significant development in India’s citizenship framework.

ABOUT CITIZENSHIP (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2019

• The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) is a legislative enactment that the Parliament of India passed on December 11, 2019 to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955.
• This amendment allowed for the grant of Indian citizenship to religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians, who fled from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan due to religious persecution or fear thereof before December 2014.
• Under the CAA 2019 amendment, migrants who entered India by December 31, 2014, were eligible for fast-track Indian citizenship.
• The amendment reduced the residence requirement for naturalisation from eleven years to five.

About CAA rules 2024

• The rules, in line with the 2019 amendment to The Citizenship Act, 1955, aim to provide citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian communities who entered India before December 31, 2014, from Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh.
• An online system for application, processing, and grant of citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is being explored by the Home Ministry.
• Eligible applicants include individuals of Indian origin, spouses of Indian citizens, minor children of Indian citizens, individuals with registered Indian citizen parents, and Overseas Citizens of India Cardholders, among others.
• Exemption
  • The amendments introduced by CAA do not apply to areas covered by the Constitution’s sixth schedule.
    • These are the autonomous tribal-dominated regions in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram.
    • This means migrants belonging to the identified communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan based on religion can’t be given Indian citizenship if they are residents in these areas.
  • CAA also does not apply to states with an inner-line permit (ILP) regime — primarily in North-East India.

• Ambar Mahajan, has been appointed the Director of the Board of Directors of Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC).

• Shoolini University researchers claimed to have achieved the landmark of being granted 100 patents by the Indian Patent Office, which looks after the intellectual property under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
• The departments of chemistry and physics secured 23 and 29 patents, respectively.
• The engineering and pharmacy departments have also made significant strides with 15 and 12 patents, respectively.

• INS Tir, the lead ship of First Training Squadron (1TS) of the Indian Navy, participated in Exercise Cutlass Express 2024 in Seychelles.
• As part of Exercise Cutlass Express, the Indian Navy actively engaged with participants from 16 friendly foreign countries.
• About the exercise
  • Cutlass Express is an exercise conducted in East African coastal regions and the West Indian Ocean to counter malign influence, aggression and activity along overlapping command seams and maritime regions.
  • Cutlass Express is a premier multinational maritime exercise sponsored by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and led by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet.

• Nayab Singh Saini has been appointed the new Chief Minister of Haryana, hours after his predecessor, senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar, and the entire cabinet – including three members of Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala’s JJP – stepped down.
• An influential figure within the OBC, or Other Backward Classes, community, Nayab Saini is the BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from Kurukshetra.

• The Tamil Nadu State government launched the Neengal Nalama Scheme with the aim of improving the health index and social well-being of all citizens and making them aware of the Tamil Nadu government schemes.
• This scheme involves government officials reaching out to beneficiaries across the state to inquire about any challenges or difficulties they may have faced while availing themselves of various Tamil Nadu government schemes.
• This scheme will be monitored by the welfare department of Tamil Nadu, which will ensure that it solves the problems of Tamil Nadu citizens regarding various schemes.

• The Karnataka government has banned use of food coloring agents in Gobi Manchurian and cotton candy across the state over health concerns, primarily because eateries use food colouring agents like Rhodamine-B and Carmoisine, which studies have shown to be toxic.
  • Rhodamine B (RhB) is a chemical compound commonly employed in synthetic dyes for colouring silk, jute, leather, cotton, and wool, as well as in the cosmetics and plastics industries. Its low cost, however, also makes it a popular choice for food colouring.
• Of the 171 samples collected from eateries across the state, 107 were prepared using unsafe chemicals like Tartrazine, Sunset Yellow, Rhodamine-B and Carmoisine.
• The permitted synthetic colouring agents, as per FSSAI, are-
  • Red – Ponceau 4R, Carmoisine, Erythrosine
  • Yellow – Tartrazine, Sunset Yellow FCF
  • Blue – Indigo Carmine, Brilliant Blue FCF
  • Green – Fast Green FCF

• Indian writer Amitav Ghosh is the winner of this year’s Erasmus Prize, for his writings on the planetary crisis and climate change.
• Many of Ghosh’s works including The Great Derangement and The Nutmeg’s Curse dwell on the ongoing planetary crisis and are interlinked with the impacts of climate change.

ABOUT THE AWARD

• The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation in the Netherlands awards the prize annually for an organisation or individual’s “exceptional contributions” in the fields of the humanities, social sciences or arts in Europe and the rest of the world.
• Launched in 1958, the Erasmus Prize consists of a cash prize of 150,000 Euros.