• Multinational military exercise – ‘Shanti Prayas IV’ – kicked off in Nepal at the Army headquarters.
• The multinational military exercise is taking place at the Birendra Peace Operation Training Centre in the Kabhre district near Kathmandu.
• It will see the participation of 1,125 army personnel from 19 countries, including India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
• The exercise has been organised with the assistance of the Global Peace Operation Initiative of the US government and with the joint efforts of the Nepal Army and the US Army.
• The objective of the exercise is to increase interoperability and peacekeeping skills at various levels before deployment to the UN missions and operational level staff training (STE).

• India has pledged $1 million to the Poverty and Hunger Alleviation Fund established by India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA).
• The contribution underscores India’s commitment to fostering cooperation and development among nations of the Global South.
• Established jointly in March 2004 and operational since 2006, the IBSA Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund) aims to identify and implement replicable and scalable projects in developing countries.
• IBSA Fund-supported projects help partner countries in the Global South to achieve their national priorities, as well as all other internationally agreed development goals.

ABOUT IBSA FORUM

• It comprises India, Brazil and South Africa.
• It was formalised and named the IBSA Dialogue Forum in 2003.

• The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister has approved the proposal of Ministry of Home Affairs of continuation of implementation of Umbrella Scheme on ‘Safety of Women’ at a total cost of Rs.1179.72 crore during the period from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• Out of the total project outlay, 885.49 crore will be provided by MHA from its own budget and Rs.294.23 crore will be funded from Nirbhaya Fund.
• In its efforts towards Women Safety, Government of India in collaboration with States and Union Territories has launched several projects.
• The objectives of these projects include-
  • strengthening mechanisms in States/Union Territories for ensuring timely intervention and investigation in case of crime against women and
  • higher efficiency in investigation and crime prevention in such matters.
• The Government of India has proposed to continue the following projects under the Umbrella Scheme for “Safety of Women”-
  • 112 Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) 2.0;
  • Upgradation of Central Forensic Sciences laboratories, including setting up of National Forensic Data Centre;
  • Strengthening of DNA Analysis, Cyber Forensic capacities in State Forensic Science Laboratories (FSLs);
  • Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children;
  • Capacity building and training of investigators and prosecutors in handling sexual assault cases against women and children; and
  • Women Help Desk & Anti-human Trafficking Units.

• Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 28th Meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) in New Delhi

ABOUT FSDC

• It was set up by the Government as the apex-level forum in 2010.
• It is not a statutory body. No funds are separately allocated to it for undertaking its activities.
• Composition of FSDC-
  • It is chaired by the Union Finance Minister of India.
  • Its members include the heads of financial sector Regulators (RBI, SEBI, PFRDA, IRDA & FMC) Finance Secretary and/or Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Secretary, Department of Financial Services, and Chief Economic Adviser.
  • The Council can invite experts to its meeting if required.
• The Council deals, inter-alia, with issues relating to financial stability, financial sector development, and inter–regulatory coordination, etc.

• Commemorating 200th year of the victory of Rani Chennamma over the British in the first Kittur War of 1824, several social groups across the country, including Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD) and the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), organised a national campaign, Naanoo Rani Chennamma(I am Rani Chennamma too) on February 21.
  • The campaign begun from Kittur (Karnataka).
• Rani Chennamma was among the first women to lead a revolt against British rule.

ABOUT RANI CHENNAMMA AND KITTUR REVOLT

• Chenamma was born on October 23, 1778, in Kagati, a small village in present-day Belagavi district in Karnataka.
• At the age of 15, she married Raja Mallasarja of Kittur, who ruled the province until 1816.
• After Mallasarja’s death in 1816, his eldest son, Shivalingarudra Sarja, ascended the throne.
• Before his death in 1824, Shivalingarudra adopted a child, Shivalingappa, as the successor.
• However, the British East India Company under Lord Elphinstone (Lieutenant-Governor of Bombay) refused to recognise Shivalingappa as the successor of the kingdom under the ‘doctrine of lapse’.
  • Under the doctrine, any princely state without a natural heir would collapse and would be annexed by the Company.
  • It was the first instance of imposition Doctrine of Lapse, even before officially articulated by Lord Dalhousie in 1848.
• John Thackery, the British official at Dharwad, launched an attack on Kittur in October 1824.
• The Kittur army, under the leadership of Rani Chennamma, retaliated and opened tremendous fire. Thackeray was killed and Rani Chennamma emerged victorious.
  • However, this victory was short-lived.
• On December 3, 1824, the British army attacked the Kittur Fort and captured it.
• Rani Chennamma and her family were imprisoned and jailed at the fort in Bailhongal, where she died in 1829.

• The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister approved the proposal of Department of Water Resources, RD & GR for continuation of centrally sponsored Scheme, viz., “Flood Management and Border Areas Programme (FMBAP)”
• It has a total outlay of Rs. 4,100 crore and has been continued for a period of 5 years from 2021-22 to 2025-26 (15th Finance Commission period).

THE SCHEME HAS TWO COMPONENTS-

• Under the Flood Management Programme (FMP) component of FMBAP with an outlay of Rs. 2940 crore
  • central assistance will be provided to State Governments for taking up critical works related to flood control, anti-erosion, drainage development and anti-sea erosion, etc.
  • The pattern of funding to be followed is
    • 90% (Centre): 10% (State) for Special Category States (8 North-Easter States and Hilly States of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and UT of Jammu & Kashmir) and
    • 60% (Centre):40% (State) for General/ Non-Special Category States.
  • Under River Management and Border Areas (RMBA) component of FMBAP with an outlay of Rs. 1160 crore,
    • flood control and anti-erosion works on common border rivers with neighbouring countries including hydrological observations and flood forecasting, and investigation & pre-construction activities of joint water resources projects (with neighbouring countries) on common border rivers will be taken up with 100% central assistance.
  • The Primary responsibility of flood management rests with the State Governments.
  • The Scheme has the provision of incentivizing the States which implement flood plain zoning, recognized as an effective non-structural measure for flood management.

• World Whale Day, WWD was created in 1980 by Greg Kaufman founder of the nonprofit organization, Pacific Whale Foundation, and is celebrated the third Sunday of February.
• World Whale Day began in Maui, Hawaii, to honor the humpback whales, which used to swim off the coast of the tropical island.
• This year, falling on February 18, the day sheds light on the significance of protecting these marine giants and their vital role in maintaining ecological balance.

BRIEF ABOUT WHALES

• Whales are classified into baleen (e.g., humpbacks and blue whales) and toothed (e.g., orcas and sperm whales) categories based on their feeding methods.
• The blue whale grows to 98 feet in length and is the largest whale on Earth.
• The smallest whale, the toothed dwarf sperm whale, grows between six feet, seven inches and eight feet, 10 inches.

• The Indian women’s badminton team, led by PV Sindhu and Anmol Kharb, won a historic gold medal at the Badminton Asia Team Championships 2024 with a 3-2 victory against Thailand.
• It was held in Shah Alam, Malaysia
• This was India’s first-ever gold medal at the Badminton Asia Team Championships.
  • India had won two medals in the past with the men’s team claiming bronze medals in the 2016 and 2020 editions respectively.

• India’s first military grade spy satellite manufactured by the domestic private sector player Tata Advanced Systems (TASL), is ready, and has been shipped for launch on a SpaceX rocket.
• Work is also in progress on a ground station that will control the asset and process sub-metre resolution imagery from it.
• The unique aspect of the TASL programme is that the ground control will remain in India, which will enable secrecy of the coordinates that are required to be monitored by the armed forces.
• In the past, exact coordinates and timings for monitoring had to be shared with foreign vendors.
• By the time the satellite is in operational mode, the state-of-the-art ground control centre will be set up in Bengaluru.
• The control centre will direct the satellite’s path and process imagery that can be used by the armed forces to monitor infrastructure and acquire military targets.
• Capable of providing imagery with 0.5-metre spatial resolution, the satellite has been built in partnership with Satellogic — a Latin American company.

With its primary defence role, the satellite imagery can also be exported to friendly countries.

• Eminent jurist and Senior Advocate Fali S Nariman passed away recently at the age of 95.
• His career as a lawyer spanned over 75 years.
• Born in Rangoon January 10, 1929 — then British India — Nariman was enrolled as an advocate of the Bombay high court in November 1950.
• He was designated a senior advocate in 1961.
• In May 1972, Nariman was appointed as additional solicitor general of India.
• He was also a Padma Vibhushan recipient.
• Some of the key cases that Nariman was a part of as a lawyer included
  • the Golak Nath case (even constitutional amendments are amenable to judicial review),
  • the TMA Pai case (right of minorities to establish institutions of their choice) and
  • the SP Gupta and NJAC cases (where he stood for the independence of judiciary in the appointment of judges)etc.