• The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) has achieved a remarkable milestone by providing tap water connections to 13 crore rural households.
• As of the latest data, several states and union territories, including Goa, Telangana, Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, have achieved 100% coverage.

ABOUT JAL JEEVAN MISSION

• It was launched on India’s 73rd Independence Day, August 15, 2019.
• The mission is driven by the principles of speed and scale.
• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme by the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• The ratio of funds shared between the Center and the State–
  • for Himalayan (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh) and the North-Eastern States is 90:10;
  • for UTs– it is 100:0; and
  • for the rest of the states, it is 50:50.
• It aims to provide 55 liters of water per person per day through a functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) to every rural householde., Har Ghar Nal Se Jal (HGNSJ) by 2024.
• The Jal Jeevan Mission operates in collaboration with states and union territories, leveraging the combined efforts of various stakeholders, including development partners.
• The Paani Samitis plan, implement, manage, operate and maintain village water supply systems.
  • These samitis consist of 10-15 members, with at least 50% women members and other members from Self-Help Groups, Accredited Social and Health Workers, Anganwadi teachers, etc.

• River ranching of the state fish of Uttar Pradesh Chitala will be carried out to increase its population in natural water sources like the Ganga.
• This initiative aims to balance the aquatic ecosystem, increase the income of fish farmers, and provide a protein-rich diet to the public.
• The river ranching event in Varanasi released over 1 lakh Chitala fish into the Ganga as part of the Chitala Conservation and Promotion Project.

WHAT IS RIVER RANCHING?

• It is a form of aquaculture in which a population of a fish species is held in captivity for the first stage of their lives.
• They are then released, and later harvested as adults when they return from the sea to their freshwater birthplace to spawn.

ABOUT CHITALA FISH

• Chitala is a species of fish known for its nocturnal predatory behavior, primarily preying on smaller fish.
• Aslso know as –Indian featherback or Indian knifefish
• It is mostly known from major river channels (Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra and Mahanadi river basins) and freshwater lakes but has also been observed in swamps.
• Distribution -It is native to the Indian subcontinent, including regions of Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
• IUCN red list status ‘Near Threatened’

• United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and India’s G20 Presidency, through India’s Ministry of Tourism, have joined hands to launch a new tool that will advance the contribution of tourism policies and initiatives towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• The G20 Tourism and SDGs Dashboard showcases the pillars of the Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a Vehicle for Achieving the SDGs around the five priority areas set for the Tourism Working Group, which are: Green Tourism; Digitalisation; Skills; Tourism MSMEs; and Destination Management.

ABOUT UNWTO

• The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.
• UNWTO has 159 Member States, 6 Associate Members, 2 Observers and over 500 Affiliate Members.
• Organizational structure:
  • The General Assembly is the supreme organ of the Organization.
  • The Executive Council takes all measures, in consultation with the Secretary-General, for the implementation of the decisions and recommendations of the General Assembly and reports to the Assembly.
• UNWTO headquarters – Madrid, Spain.
• Priorities include-
  • Mainstreaming tourism in the global agenda
  • Promoting sustainable tourism development
  • Fostering knowledge, education and capacity building
  • Improving tourism competitiveness
  • Advancing tourism’s contribution to poverty reduction and development
  • Building partnerships

• Iran and Afghanistan have again locked horns against the sharing of river waters of River Helmand.
• The Helmand River is the longest river in Afghanistan.
• Iran and Afghanistan signed a treaty on sharing Helmand’s water resources in 1973.
• It flows southwest form Hindu Kush mountains in east-central Afghanistan and across more than half the length of the country.
• Iran depends heavily on this water for farmland irrigation and has recently alleged that Afghanistan was limiting the supply.

• Danielle McGahey, 29, is set to become the first transgender woman player to play in international cricket.
• She has fulfilled the eligibility criteria for male-to-female (MTF) transition, per ICC.
• She was named in Canada’s squad for the Women’s T20 Americas Qualifier, the pathway tournament to the T20 World Cup 2024.
  • Originally she is from Australia.

• Vanuatu’s parliament has elected Sato Kilman as the nation’s new prime minister.
• This follows as a court upheld a vote of no-confidence in his predecessor, who had sought closer ties with US allies amid China-US rivalry in the Pacific Islands.

• Researchers have investigated a nearly 520 million year old fossil of Kylinxia zhangi with a CT scanner and redescribed the animal.
• The fossil, which was uncovered near the town of Chengjiang in the Yunan Province of southern China, has the entire animal preserved.
• Kylinxia is among the 250 or so extremely well preserved fossil animals described from the region, which are together known as Cambrian Chengjiang biota.
• Kylinxia is related to the arthropods, whose bodies are divided into segments each bearing a pair of jointed limbs, including crabs, lobsters, insects and spiders.
• New findings revealed that Kylinxia sported three eyes on its head, along with a pair of claws that was possibly used to catch prey.

• The French government announced that the practice of wearing abaya would be banned in state-run schools as it violated the principle of Laïcité, which is the French idea of secularism.

THE MEANING OF LAÏCITÉ

• Coined in the 19th century, Laïcité is a complicated and politically charged term.
• It is understood as a formal separation of the State and Church.
• It involves the complete removal of religious values from the public sphere and their replacement with secular values such as liberty, equality, and fraternity.
• The underlying goal of Laïcité is to implant tolerance and assimilate people.
• As per the principle, religion is to be confined to the private sphere.

• According to one of the confidential quarterly reports to member states, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% of weapons grade, continued to increase albeit at a slower pace, despite some of it having been diluted.
• Natural uranium consists of two different isotopes – nearly 99% U-238 and only around 0.7% of U-235.
  • U-235 is a fissile material that can sustain a chain reaction in a nuclear reactor.
• Enrichment process increases the proportion of U-235 through the process of isotope separation (U-238 is separated from U-235).

USE OF ENRICHED URANIUM

• For nuclear reactors, enrichment is required upto 3-4% which is known as Low Enriched Uranium/reactor-grade uranium.
• Highly enriched uranium has a purity of 20% or more and is used in research reactors.
• For nuclear weapons, enrichment is required upto 90% or more which is known as weapons-grade uranium.

• The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) recently launched a revamped version of the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ programme apart from an Indian Heritage app and an e-permission portal.
• ‘Adopt a Heritage 2.0’, is the upgraded version of ‘Adopt a Heritage’ programme.
  • Initially launched in 2017 under the Ministry of Tourism, in collaboration with the ASI it invited corporate stakeholders to adopt from over 3,000 protected monuments spread across the country.
• The programme encourages corporate stakeholders to utilise their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds to enhance facilities at historically-important monuments.
• The Adopt a Heritage 2.0 has incorporated a host of changes to the programme after a leaner management and supervision structure for the partner agencies, clear guidelines for semi-commercial activities and detailed scope of work and amenities required for monuments was proposed in the earlier version. 1,000 additional monuments have also been added to the list for adoption.
• In the updated programme, more freedom has been given to companies such as the option to either adopt a monument in whole and develop its tourism infrastructure, or provide a particular amenity such as drinking water facility or cleaning services for one or several sites.

ABOUT THE APP AND PORTAL

• The app, on the other hand, provides a comprehensive guide to monuments under ASI’s ambit.
• It lists historical structures along with pictures, public facilities available on site and geo-tagged locations.
• The e-permission portal has been designed to simplify and speed up the process for acquiring approvals for photography, filming, and developmental initiatives concerning heritage monuments, with the goal of expediting the permission-granting process.