• PM Modi was recently conferred the Lokmanya Tilak National Award in Pune, Maharashtra.
• He was the 41^st recipient of the award.
• The Award was constituted by Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust in 1983 to honour the legacy of Lokmanya Tilak.
• This award is given every year on 1^st August, the death anniversary of Lokmanya Tilak, to persons who have made remarkable and extraordinary contributions, working for the progress and development of the nation.

• India’s first captive breeding success story of the Himalayan vultures inside the Assam State Zoo in Guwahati.
• With only France breeding Himalayan vultures in captivity, the achievement makes India the second country to do so.
• The captive breeding was a joint project undertaken by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and the Assam forest department.
• India has nine species of vultures, six of which are found in Assam
  • Vultures of the genus ‘Gyps’
    • Oriental white-backed (Assam, critically endangered)
    • Long-billed (critically endangered)
    • Slender-billed (Assam, critically endangered)
    • Himalayan griffon (Assam, winter visitor from Himalayas)
    • Eurasian griffon (Assam, winter visitor from Himalayas)
  • Single representative species
    • Egyptian
    • Bearded
    • Cinereous (Assam)
    • King (Assam, critically endangered)

About Himalayan Vulture (Gyps himalayensis)

• Also known as Himalayan griffon vulture, it is one of two largest Old World vultures.
• With striking bald white heads and broad hefty wings, it is the largest member of the Gyps species.
• It is native to the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan Plateau and also found in the Central Asian mountains.
• These are diurnal and mostly solitary species.
• IUCN Red list status : Near Threatened

• The Centre is working on a proposal to launch a fresh InvIT for national highways, where domestic retail investors can hold units of the trust.

ABOUT INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT TRUST (INVIT)

• INVITS are market traded investments regulated by Securities and Exchange Board of India.
• It is Collective Investment Scheme similar to a mutual fund, which enables direct investment of money from individual and institutional investors in infrastructure projects.
• InvITs are recognized as borrowers under (SARFAESI) ‘Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002’
• Any dividend or interest income that one can get from an InvIT is completely taxable as per their Income Tax Slab rate.
• An InvIT has 4 parties namely; Trustee, Sponsor(s) and Investment Manager and Project Manager.
• While the trustee (certified by SEBI) has the responsibility of inspecting the performance of an InvIT, sponsor(s) are promoters of the company that set up the InvIT.

• Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has released a proposal aimed at improving the safeguards within the account aggregator (AA) framework in securities markets to counter scams and mis-selling.

ABOUT ACCOUNT AGGREGATOR

• An AA is a framework that simply facilitates sharing of financial information in a real-time and data-blind manner (Data flow through AA are encrypted) between regulated entities (Banks and NBFCs).
• The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) in 2016 approved AA as a new class of NBFC (Non Banking Financial Companies), whose primary responsibility is to facilitate the transfer of user’s financial data with their explicit consent.
• AAs enable flow of data between Financial Information Providers (FIPs) and Financial Information Users (FIUs).
• The Draft Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) framework released by NITI Aayog serves as the foundation for AA’s architecture.
  • DEPA is an architecture that lets users securely access their data and share the same with third parties.
• In AA, data cannot be shared without the consent of individual.
• AA system can make lending and wealth management a lot faster and cheaper.
• Registering with an AA is fully voluntary for consumers.

• The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has set a new target for its loan scheme for street vendors — 63 lakh new loans in less than six months till December
• New Target has been segregated into-
  • 60,99,000 first-term loans (up to Rs 10,000 each) to beneficiaries in big states,
  • 34,990 such loans in small states and UTs, and
  • 1,66,200 loans in hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the Northeast.
• Ministry has also set the target of 63 lakh beneficiaries for second-term loans, which are up to Rs 20,000 each and will be given to those who have paid off the first loans, and 2.93 lakh for third-term loans — up to Rs 50,000 given to those who have paid the second.

ABOUT PM SVANIDHI

• The Pradhan Mantri Street Vendors Atmanirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) was launched during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown.
• It is a micro credit scheme, facilitating a working capital collateral free loan of ₹10,000, with subsequent loans of ₹20,000 and ₹50,000 with 7% interest subsidy.
• The government has already disbursed 50 lakh loans to 39 lakh beneficiaries in the three years since the scheme’s launch in 2020.
• The Scheme is available for beneficiaries belonging to only those States/UTs which have notified Rules and Scheme under Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.
• The scheme incentivizes digital transactions by vendors through cash back facility.
• Recently the lending period was extended till December 2024.

• A UNESCO heritage committee recently stopped short of listing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as a site that is “in danger” but warned the world’s biggest coral reef ecosystem remained under “serious threat” from pollution and the warming of oceans.

ABOUT GREAT BARRIER REEF

• The GBR, extends for over 2,300 kilometers along the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia.
• It is composed of over 2,500 individual reefs of varying sizes and shapes and over 900 islands.
• It is the longest and largest coral reef system in the world.
• It is home to over 9,000 known species.
• It was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.
• Economic significance – It contributes about A$6 billion ($4 billion) to the economy and supports almost 64,000 jobs.

• A team of researchers from Center for Data Driven Discovery, California Institute of Technology, has developed an app that allows anyone with a smartphone to ‘hunt’ for transients.
  • Students from the Indian Institutes of Technology at Mandi and Gandhinagar were also involved in developing ZARTH.

• The new app, called ZARTH, short for ‘ZTF Augmented Reality Transient Hunter’, is built along the lines of the augmented reality mobile game Pokemon Go.
• It allows the user to do serious science while playing a game.
• The app uses the open-source Sky Map and adds data daily from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)’s robotic telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California.
• The ZTF scans the entire northern sky every two days and uses the data to make large area sky maps that have important applications in tracking near-earth asteroids and studying supernovae.
• Tracking down transients on ZARTH is easy: the app is loaded daily with 200 transients detected in real-time by the ZTF, an incredible 100,000 every night.
  • These include supernovae, flaring stars (variable stars that flare up for a short while), white dwarf binaries (burnt remains of dead stars that orbit one another and often merge and explode in supernovae), active galactic nuclei, and several other types.
• ZARTH ranks transients by their rarity and importance, and players can compete with each other to score points and earn daily credits.

• Himachal Pradesh’s State bird – Western Tragopan (Tragopan-melanocephalus) – has been facing habitat loss in parts of the country.
• But because of authorities’ efforts, there has been a gradual increase in the population of this rare species at the State’s Sarahan pheasantry, the conservation breeding centre, bringing a glimmer of hope for its survival and growth.
• Distribution– In the northwest Himalayas from north Pakistan (Indus-Kohistan district) to India, including Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, and the western parts of Uttarakhand.
• The Sarahan pheasantry in Shimla has over the years seen successful captive breeding of western tragopan.
  • According to Himachal Pradesh Wildlife Wing’s latest report, “Western Tragopan Biannual Report 2020-2022”, the population of the bird, which was two in 2002, reached 45 individuals in 2022. Currently, it is 47.
  • Birdlife International (2020) projects the global population to be around 3,000 individuals.
• Western Tragopan, being a habitat specialist, is threatened by habitat loss and anthropogenic disturbances, which includes livestock grazing, minor forest produce collection like medicinal herbs etc, besides the change in land-use practices.
• Protection status
  • IUCN Red list status- Vulnerable
  • CITES- Appendix I.
  • Schedule – I of wildlife (Protection) act, 1972.

• Max Verstappen from Red Bull won the Belgian Grand Prix
• His teammate Sergio Perez came in second.
• Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc finished in third spot.

• Every year World Lung Cancer Day is observed on August 1^st to raise awareness about the severe condition of lung cancer and foster further research, aiming to dispel any misconceptions associated with the disease.
• The two major classifications of lung cancer are small-cell lung cancer and non-small-cell lung cancer, with small-cell lung cancer being more aggressive in its spread.
• People must look out for symptoms like persistent cough, breathlessness, and chest pain for timely diagnosis.
• Certain individuals are more prone to developing lung cancer, including smokers, those with a family history, and individuals exposed to occupational hazards.