• 30^th October 2023 marks the 114th birth anniversary of Homi Jehangir Bhabha.

ABOUT H J BHABHA

• Homi Jehangir Bhabha, born on October 30, 1909, was a renowned nuclear physicist and a key figure in shaping India’s scientific future.
• He is popularly known as the father of India’s nuclear programme.
• As a student, Dr Bhabha worked with a Nobel Prize winner, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen and played a crucial role in the development of The Quantum Theory.
• While pursuing his PhD, Dr Bhabha contributed to major inventions in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge.
• He explained relativistic exchange scattering, which is known as ‘Bhabha Scattering’.
• He made the theory of the production of electron and positron showers in cosmic rays, known as the ‘Bhabha-Heitler theory’.
• Additionally, he also predicted and forecasted the relativistic time dilation effects in the decaying of meson.
• After returning to India, Dr Bhabha established the Cosmic Ray Research Unit and also played a major role in the establishment of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai.
• Following the same, in 1944 he started to research nuclear weapons and set up the Atomic Energy Commission.
• International
  • He served as president of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1955 and also as the president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics from 1960 to 1963.
• Awards
  • Dr Bhabha was honoured with the Adams Prize by the University of Cambridge in 1942.
  • He received the third highest civilian award Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1954 and also the Fellow of the Royal Society by the Royal Society, London.

• According to a new brief from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a study covering 82 countries has found that one US dollar invested in closing this childcare policy gap could result in an average increase of US$3.76 in global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2035.
• Such investments could also lead to reductions in gender and other inequalities, generation of decent jobs, improvements in health and wellbeing, and help create a path to social justice.
  • The childcare policy gap refers to the period between the end of statutory childcare-related leave and the starting age for free, universal early childhood care and education or primary education.
  • Currently, this averages approximately 4.2 years globally.

About ILO

• International Labour Organization (ILO) is the only tripartite U.N. agency.
  • It brings together governments, employers and workers.
• ILO was established in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles as an affiliated agency of the League of Nations.
• ILO became the first affiliated specialized agency of the United Nations in 1946.
• HQ- Geneva, Switzerland
• ILO has 187 member states.
  • India is a founder member of the International Labour Organization (since 1919).
• The ILO has four strategic objectives-
  • Promote and realize standards and fundamental principles and rights at work
  • Create greater opportunities for women and men to decent employment and income
  • Enhance the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all, and
  • Strengthen tripartism and social dialogue
• ILO received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969.

• After decades of seemingly irreversible decline in global river dolphin numbers, 11 Asian and South American countries today signed a landmark deal in Bogotá to save the world’s six surviving species of river dolphins from extinction.
• Adopted by Asian and South American range states from Colombia to India, the Global Declaration for River Dolphins aims to halt the decline of all river dolphin species and increase the most vulnerable populations.
• It will scale up collective efforts to safeguard the remaining river dolphin species, by developing and funding measures to eradicate gillnets, reduce pollution, expand research, and increase protected areas.
• River dolphins live in some of the world’s most important rivers, including the Amazon and Orinoco in South America, and the Ayeyarwady, Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Mahakam and Yangtze in Asia.
  • These rivers support hundreds of millions of people, from Indigenous Peoples and local communities in remote areas to the residents of megacities.
  • These rivers water vast amounts of agricultural land, fuel industry and business, and sustain a wealth of wildlife.

RIVER DOLPHINS

• Scientists now have established why the red supergiant star Betelgeuse turned dim between 2018 and 2020, dismissing theories that suggested that the star might be entering the last stage of its evolution—Supernova or the ultimate explosion.

• According to a team of scientists from France’s Université Côte d’Azur, the dimming was caused by a burst of dust, in form of silicon monoxide, on the star’s surface.
• The team used MATISSE (Multi Aperture mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Experiment) instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer in northern Chile to snap high-resolution pictures of the star from 2018 to 2020.

ABOUT BETELGEUSE STAR (ALPHA ORIONIS)

• Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star that forms the left shoulder of the constellation of Orion.
• It is second brightest star in Orion constellation.
• It is one of the brightest star(s) in sky (7,500 to 14,000 times brighter than Sun) and one of the largest stars ever discovered.
  • It measures more than 700 million miles (1.2 billion kilometres) in diameter, 764 times as large as the Sun.
• It is also known as ‘Thiruvathirai’ or ‘Ardra’ in Indian astronomy.
• It is located at an approximate distance of 643 light years from Earth.
• It is known for its periodic dimming and brightening up.

• The timely setting in of North-East monsoon in high-ranges has brought smiles on the face of cardamom growers in realising better productivity and price for the crop.

ABOUT CARDAMOM CULTIVATION

• Cardamom, popularly known as Queen of Spices is native to the evergreen rainy forests of Western Ghats in South India.
• It is cultivated in about 1, 00,000 ha mainly confined to the Southern States viz; Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
• It contains vitamin C, niacin, magnesium, and potassium
• Cardamom is used for flavouring various preparations of food, confectionary, beverages and liquors.
• Soil and climate-
  • Thick shady areas with loamy soil are ideal for cultivating cardamom.
  • This crop can be grown at an elevation from 600 to 1500 m.
  • Annual rainfall range- 150 to 400 cm
  • Temperature- 10^o to 35^o C
  • Areas exposed to heavy winds are unsuitable.
  • Adequate drainage must be provided.
  • It is grown in forest loamy soils which are usually acidic in nature with a pH range of 5.0 – 6.5
• Challenges-
  • Cardamom is a highly climate sensitive and location specific crop.
  • Pest and disease incidence is also very high in Cardamom.

Cardamom is grown mainly in high altitude areas and hence the scope for area expansion is limited

• To augment the training infrastructure of special forces and combat free-fallers, the Army’s Special Forces Training School (SFTS) at Bakloh, Chamba, got the Army’s first Vertical Wind Tunnel (VWT).
• Functioning as a freefall simulator, the VWT creates a column of air at specific velocities, orchestrating different CFF conditions.
• The system simulates varied freefall scenarios which is crucial in assessing individual reactions to numerous situations in an airborne operating environment.

• PM recently inaugurated the 37^th edition of the National Games in Panaji, Goa.
• The National Games are being held in Goa for the very first time.
• The Games will be held from October 26 to November 9.
• More than 10,000 athletes from across the country will compete in over 43 sports disciplines across 28 venues.

• A new report ‘Interconnected Disaster Risks Report 2023’ was recently published by United Nations University — Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS).
  • Environmental tipping points are critical thresholds in the Earth’s systems beyond which abrupt and often irreversible changes occur, leading to profound and sometimes catastrophic shifts in ecosystems, climate patterns and the overall environment.
• The report looks at six environmental tipping points —
  • accelerating extinctions,
  • groundwater depletion,
  • mountain glacier melting,
  • sp nace debris,
  • unbearable heat and
  • an uninsurable future.
• It has also found that 27 of the world’s 31 major aquifers are depleting faster than they can be replenished.
• India is close to reaching its groundwater depletion tipping point.
• India is the world’s largest user of groundwater, exceeding the use of the United States and China combined.
• The north-western region of India serves as the breadbasket for the nation’s growing 1.4 billion people, with the states of Punjab and Haryana producing 50% of the country’s rice supply and 85% of its wheat stocks.
  • However, 78% of wells in Punjab are considered overexploited, and the north-western region as a whole is predicted to experience critically low groundwater availability by 2025.
• The report offers a new framework that categorizes risk mitigation solutions into four types based on their approach-
  • Avoid (preventing risk),
  • Adapt (dealing with risk),
  • Delay (slowing risk progression), and
  • Transform (system overhaul).

ABOUT UNU-EHS

• The United Nations University (UNU) is the academic arm of the United Nations and acts as a global think tank.
• The mission of the Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) is to carry out cutting edge research on risks and adaptation related to environmental hazards and global change.
• The institute is based in Bonn, Germany.

• India will likely miss reaching targets set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to reduce premature deaths from four major Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD), according to an analysis by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
• The premature mortality rate for four major non-communicable diseases (NCD) namely
  • cancer,
  • cardiovascular disease (CVD),
  • chronic respiratory diseases (CRD), and
  • diabetes, is projected to decrease by 13.9 per cent from 2010 to 2025 in India.
• Therefore, the country’s progress toward the WHO target of a 25 per cent reduction in premature mortality for the four NCDs by 2025, compared to 2010, will likely be missed by a considerable margin.

The “25 by 25 target” was outlined when the WHO adopted a global NCD monitoring framework in 2013

• Competition Commission of India (CCI) has become a member of the steering group of the International Competition Network (ICN) at the ICN Annual Conference 2023 at Barcelona, Spain.
• The ICN comprises 140 competition agencies from 130 countries.
• ICN is guided by its apex body – a Steering Group of 18 members
• This is the first time that the CCI has become a member of the ICN’s steering group and the membership is for two years.
• The ICN provides competition authorities with a specialised yet informal venue for maintaining regular contacts and addressing practical competition concerns.
• The ICN’s mission is to advocate the adoption of superior standards and procedures in competition policy around the world.