• An astronaut stationed at the International Space Station has shared some breathtaking images of the mesmerising ‘alpenglow’ phenomenon near the Hindu Kush mountain range in India.

ABOUT ALPENGLOW

• Alpenglow refers to the indirect sunlight reflected or diffracted by the atmosphere before sunrise or after sunset, giving a horizontal reddish glow near the horizon opposite the Sun.
• Alpenglow occurs when direct sunlight around sunrise or sunset is reflected off airborne precipitation, ice crystals or particulates in the lower atmosphere, as the sunlight has no direct path to reach a mountain.
  • After sunset, if there are no mountains the aerosols in the eastern sky can be lit up by the remaining red light scattered above the edge of Earth’s shadow.
  • It produces a pinkish band on the opposite side of the Sun’s direction, named the Belt of Venus.
• It typically occurs in the range of colors between red, pink, and orange.

ABOUT HINDU KUSH

• The Hindu Kush mountain range is geographical feature that stretches over 800 kilometres and winds through Afghanistan, reaching into Northern Pakistan and Tajikistan.
• It constitutes the western expanse of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.
• The Hindu Kush Himalayan region spans eight countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Myanmar, and Pakistan.
• It is referred to as “the third pole” of the earth as it has largest concentration of frozen water on Earth after the North Pole and South Pole.

• The Prime Minister inaugurated the Diamond Jubilee celebration of the Supreme Court of India on 28 January at the Supreme Court auditorium.
• He also launched citizen-centric information and technology initiatives that include-
  • The Digital Supreme Court Reports (SCR) will make Supreme Court judgments available to the citizens of the country free of cost and in electronic format. The key features of digital SCR are that all 519 volumes of the Supreme Court reports since 1950, covering 36,308 cases, shall be available in a digital format, bookmarked, user-friendly, and with open access.
  • Digital Courts 2.0 application is a recent initiative under the e-Courts project to make court records available to the Judges of the district courts in electronic form. This is coupled with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for transcribing speech to text on a real-time basis.
  • The Prime Minister also launched the new website of the Supreme Court which will be in bilingual format in English and Hindi and has been redesigned with a user-friendly interface.

ABOUT SUPREME COURT

• The Supreme Court is the apex judicial body under the Constitution of India.
  • Article 124 of the Constitution states that “there shall be a Supreme Court of India”.
• It came into existence on January 26^th, 1950 with coming of Constitution in force.
  • The Supreme Court was inaugurated two days later, on January 28^th, 1950.
• The original Constitution of 1950 envisaged a Supreme Court with a Chief Justice and seven puisne judges, leaving it to the Parliament to increase this number.
  • The Parliament increased the number of judges from eight in 1950 to 11 in 1956, 14 in 1960, 18 in 1978, 26 in 1986, 31 in 2009 and 34 in 2019 (current strength).
• The Supreme Court comprises the Chief Justice and not more than 33 other judges appointed by the President of India.
• The Supreme Court has original, appellate, and advisory jurisdiction and it serves as the final court of appeals and the final interpreter of the Constitution.

• Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have announced they are leaving the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
• The junta-led countries had already been suspended from the bloc, which has been urging them to return to democratic rule.
• Relations between the bloc and the three countries have been tense after military coups took place in Niger in July, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Mali in 2020.
• They were also founding members of the bloc-ECOWAS.
• The three countries, last year, formed a mutual defence pact called The Alliance of Sahel States.

ABOUT ECOWAS

• The Heads of State and Government of fifteen West African Countries established the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) when they signed the ECOWAS Treaty on the 28th of May 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria.
• The ECOWAS region spans an area of 5.2 million square kilometres.
• The Member States are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sénégal and Togo.
• Considered one of the pillars of the African Economic Community, ECOWAS was set up to foster the ideal of collective self-sufficiency for its member states. As a trading union, it is also meant to create a single, large trading bloc through economic cooperation.
• In 2007, ECOWAS Secretariat was transformed into a Commission.
• The Commission is headed by the President, assisted by a Vice President, thirteen Commissioners and the Auditor-General of ECOWAS Institutions, comprising experienced bureaucrats.
• The headquarters of ECOWAS is in Abuja, Nigeria.
• According to the Ecowas treaty, member states wishing to withdraw must give written notice a year in advance, and continue to abide by its provisions during that year.

WINNERS

• Italy’s Jannik Sinner scripted a sensational come-from-behind win, against Daniil Medvedev to claim his maiden Grand Slam trophy at the 2024 Australian Open.
• Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden beat Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori 7-6 (7-0) 7-5 in men’s doubles final.
• Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus secured her second Grand Slam title by defeating Zheng Qinwen(Chian) in the Australian Open final.
• Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei and Belgium’s Elise Mertens claimed the women’s doubles title with a decisive victory over the Latvian-Ukrainian pairing of Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok.

• January 27^th is a global day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust.
• In November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as an “International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust”(Resolution 60/7).
• It reaffirmed that “the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one-third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism, and prejudice.”
• The date marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops on 27 January 1945.
  • Some 1.1 million people were killed in Auschwitz, the vast majority (about 90%) of them Jews.
  • Auschwitz was just one of many sites of persecution and mass murder in Europe established by Nazi Germany.

• Every year, International Customs Day is observed on January 26^th.
• In the year 1953, the Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) confirmed this date to be observed as International Customs Day.
• In 1994, CCC was renamed as World Customs Organisation and it currently consists of 182 member states across the world.
  • WCO headquarters- Brussels, Belgium
• The theme of this year’s International Customs Day is – Customs Engaging Traditional and New Partners with Purpose.

• The Union Cabinet has granted approval for the signing of a protocol establishing a Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) between India and Dominican Republic.
• This committee will bring together the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of India, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic.
• This collaborative effort is expected to facilitate trade and industry interactions between the two countries.
• India predominantly imports gold from the Dominican Republic while exporting pharmaceuticals, marine products, motor vehicles, two and three-wheelers, among other items.

ABOUT DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

• The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Great Antilles archipelago between the Caribbean region and the North Atlantic Ocean.
• It is bordered by Haiti on the east and consists primarily of rugged mountains with fertile valleys.

• NATO recently launched its biggest military exercise since 1988- ‘Exercise Steadfast Defender’
• Some 90,000 troops from the United States and fellow NATO allied nations are due to join the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills that will run through May.
• More than 50 ships from aircraft carriers to destroyers will take part, as well as more than 80 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and at least 1,100 combat vehicles including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles.

ABOUT NATO

• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the Washington treaty, which was signed in 1949.
• Headquarters- Brussels, Belgium
• Members- 31 Countries
• NATO remains the principal security instrument of the transatlantic community and expression of its common democratic values.
  • Article 5 of the Washington Treaty — that an attack against one Ally is an attack against all — is at the core of the Alliance, a promise of collective defense.

Article 4 of the treaty ensures consultations among Allies on security matters of common interest

• India is set to export BrahMos supersonic missile systems to Philippines in next 10 days.
• The venture, valued at USD 375 million, marks DRDO’s largest-ever defence contract with a foreign nation.

ABOUT BRAHMOS MISSILE

• The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is a joint venture between DRDO and Russian Federation’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya, who together have formed BrahMos Aerospace.
• It is named after the rivers Brahmaputra (India) and Moskva (Russia).
• It can be launched from land, sea, and air.
• BRAHMOS is a two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine as its first stage which brings it to supersonic speed and then gets separated.
• The liquid ramjet or the second stage then takes the missile closer to 3 Mach speed in cruise phase.
• Stealth technology and guidance system with advanced embedded software provides the missile with special features.
• It operates on ‘Fire and Forget Principle’.
• Its cruising altitude could be up to 15 km and terminal altitude is as low as 10 meters.
• The missile has flight range of up to 290-km with supersonic speed all through the flight.
  • The extended-range variant of the missile can strike land and sea targets at a maximum range of 400 to 500 kilometers
• It is said to be one of the most successful missile programs in the world.
• The Indian Army has integrated multiple BrahMos regiments into its arsenal since 2007.

• A total of ₹32.44 Crore has been released for Pre-matric Scholarships and ₹387.27 Crore for Post-Matric Scholarships to States/Union Territories (UTs) under the PM YASASVI scheme in 2023.

ABOUT PM YASASVI

• It stands for PM- YOUNG ACHIEVERS SCHOLARSHIP AWARD SCHEME FOR VIBRANT INDIA FOR OBCs AND OTHERS (PM -YASASVI)
• PM YASASVI is a scholarship program designed for students belonging to Other Backward Class (OBC), Economically Backward Class (EBC), and Denotified Nomadic Tribes (DNT).
• It offers pre-matric scholarships for students in grades 9 and 10, as well as post-matric scholarships for higher education.
• Exceptional students also have the opportunity to receive scholarships for top-tier schools and colleges.
• Additionally, hostel facilities are provided for OBC students through a construction scheme.
• Nodal Ministry- Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
• Eligibility
  • The annual income of parents/guardians from all sources should not exceed Rs. 2.5 lakhs.
  • Students studying in Class IX and Class XI identified Schools across India.
• The Exam to select students- Yasasvi Entrance Test is conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA)
• Entitlement

Upto Rs. 75,000 p.a. for Class 9/10, Rs. 1,25,000 p.a. for Class 11/12, covering the school tuition fee/hostel fee.