ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Shavuot in Hebrew means Weeks. It took seven weeks of trekking through the desert to reach Mount Sinai. It is called the “Feast of Weeks”. It is a Jewish holiday that occurs in the Hebrew month of Sivan, that is, between May 15 and June 14.

About Shavuot

• According to Bible, Shavuot marks the wheat harvest in the Land of Israel.
• Also, it commemorates the anniversary of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.
• It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals of Judaism.
• It is celebrated traditionally in Land of Israel.

Significance

• At the Temple of Jerusalem, the Jewish farmers used to present their “Bikkurim” to the god.
• Bikkurim is the first ripe fruit offered in thanks to God.

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Whitley Awards are called “Green Oscar”. In 2021, the Whitley Award was won by Nuklu Phom of Nagaland. He is the only Indian to receive the award.

Whitley Awards:

• Whitley Awards are presented annually by the Whitley Fund for Nature. It is presented to recognise grass root level conservation leaders.
• It involves process of reference, application and interview.
• The Whitley Fund for Nature was established by Edward Whitley in 1994. It has so far given 16 million pounds to support the work of two hundred environmental heroes.

Nuklu Phom:

• Nuklu Phom is creating “Biodiversity Peace Corridors”. The main objective is to extend the “Yaongyimchen Community Biodiversity Area”.
• Apart from conservation of wildlife and environmental protection he also extends his works to health, education and micro finance.
• Lemasachenlok Society was founded by him. It has worked towards sensitising the locals about the Amur Falcons. It has set up three reserves that helped to increase the number of roosting Falcons.
• Nuklu Phom is populary known as the “Amur Falcon Man of Nagaland”.

ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS ?

Tauktae Cyclone is the first cyclone in 2021 in India. The Kerala Government has issued “Red Alert”.

This name has been given by Myanmar and it means ‘gecko’.

ABOUT CYCLONE:

• The warm and moist air in the ocean rises up. As more and more air rises up, it leaves less air. This creates an area of low pressure. The pressure around this area is high. The air from the surrounding areas pushes into the low-pressure area. Now this air gets warmed up and rises. The cycle continues.
• As the warm air rises up it cools and condenses into clouds. The whole system of wind and clouds spins and grows. This is aided by the ocean heat and evaporating water.
• As the system rotates faster and faster, an eye is formed at the centre. The eye is clear and calm.
• When the system rotates at 63 kilometre per hour, it is called “Tropical Storm”. When the wind speed reaches 119 kilometre per hour it is called tropical cyclone or hurricane.

Conditions for Cyclone Formation

The following conditions favour cyclone formation:

• The Surface Sea Temperature increases to 27° C and higher.
• Presence of Coriolis force
• Differences in Vertical wind speed
• Upper divergence above the sea level system
• Low pressure area
• Favourable Madden Julian Oscillation
• Ocean heat potential

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The scientists from the University of Bristol and Goethe University have found traces of bee wax in the potteries unearthed in Nigeria. These potteries belong to the Nok Culture.

ABOUT:

Nok Culture:

• The culture developed in Central Nigeria in 1500 BCE.
• The culture vanished in 500 AD.
• The people of Nok Culture belong to Iron Age.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The Voyager 1 probe recently picked up humming sound. The scientists have named this as “Plasma Wave Emission”. This humming sound has been interpreted as interstellar gas activity. Moving forward, the Voyager 1 will help scientists to understand the interactions between solar winds and the interstellar medium. The hum was of narrow frequency bandwidth.

About the discovery

• The discovery of humming sound was made by the Plasma Wave System Instrument of Voyager 1. This sound was heard after Voyager 1 exited the heliosphere and entered the interstellar space.
• The first humming sound was heard after three months the Voyager 1 exited heliosphere. The second sound was heard after six months the Voyager 1 exited the heliosphere. However, the second sound was louder. With this, the scientists conclude that the interstellar medium is getting thicker at faster rate.

Voyager 1

• The Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft to enter the heliosphere of the sun in 2012.
• The Voyager 1 was launched in 1977.
• It was launched to study the outer solar system and planets such as Saturn and Jupiter on its way.
• Voyager 2 is called the twin of Voyager 1.
• After operating for 44 years, it is still communicating with the Deep Space Network of NASA. The Deep Space Network of NASA is a worldwide space communication network located in the US, Spain and Australia.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Ocean Rewilding is expected to come up in COP26. A network of 68 European organisations are working together to find ways to reinvigorate the marine life of the earth.
• Rewilding is restoring to its natural uncultivated state. This is done by introducing animal or plant species that have been exterminated (destroyed completely) or driven out in a region. Ocean rewilding is introducing plant and animal life in the oceans and allowing them to grow without human interferences.

Why is Ocean rewilding important?

• Today the oceans have lost their capabilities to store blue carbon. Blue carbon is the term for carbon captured by the coastal systems and oceans. It is higher than that captured by the land. The annual carbon sequestration rate for mangrove forests is four times greater than that of a tropical forest!

Bio Restore Project

• It is an Ocean Rewilding project that was started by France in 2012. It aims to restore the coastal fish population. Under the programme, more than eighty five species of fishes have been reintroduced in the French Mediterranean region.

Sea Grass Restoration Project

• It was launched by the UK in 2020. It is also an Ocean Rewilding project. Under the project eight different sea grasses are to be planted across the south coast of England.

Carbon Sequestration

• It is an artificial process by which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and is held in liquid or solid form.

COP26

• The United Nations is to host the COP26 in Glasgow. It will bring together parties to accelerate goals of Paris Agreement and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The National Bamboo Mission recently launched the Management Information System to strengthen the domestic Agarbatti industry.

About the MIS Module

• It will collect data about Agarbatti production, availability of raw materials, location of stick making units, production capacity, functioning of units, etc.
• The system will act as an intermediary between the production units and the Agarbatti industry (as a whole). This will help to fill the information gaps.

National Bamboo Mission

•   The National Bamboo Mission was launched in 2018-19.
•   It is currently implemented in twenty one states.
•   To boost the domestic Agarbatti units, the import duty on round sticks were increased to 25%. Also, the raw batti imports were moved from free to restricted category.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The African swine fever has stuck Meghalaya. Earlier, it had struck Mizoram.

About African swine fever

• It was first detected in Africa in 1920s.
• There is no cure to the disease and thus the only way to stop the disease from spreading is by culling the animals.
• It is not a threat to human beings. This is because the disease spreads from animal to animal.
• The African swine fever virus is resistant to low temperatures. It dies only when the hogs are heated to seventy to hundred degrees Celsius.
• It is highly contagious and is a trans boundary disease.
• Between 2016 and 2019, there were 10,211 outbreaks in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Transmission

• The disease is transmitted through direct contact.
• The biological vectors that transmit the disease are ticks and fomites.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• A Blood Moon occurs when the Moon of the Earth is on total lunar Eclipse. During this time, the moon looks red or ruddy brown. Thus it is called Blood Moon. The next Blood Moon is to occur on May 26, 2021. The last Blood Moon occurred on January 20-21, 2019.

Why does the colour of the moon changes during Blood Moon?

• Lunar Eclipses happen only during a full moon. During this time, the moon is completely under the Earth’s shadow. At this time, a little bit of the sunlight that reaches the earth during sunrise and sunset falls on the moon. It can be noted that the sky is red in colour during sunrise and sunset. This means during this time out of all the seven VIBGYOR colours in the white light, only red reaches the earth. This red colour light is reflected on the moon and thus the moon turned into a Blood Moon.

Do all full moons have eclipses?

• No. This is because the plane in which the earth revolves around the sun and the plane in which the moon revolves around the earth are different. Eclipses occur only when the planes coincide.

Why is the sky red during sunset and sunrise?

• As the sun is at the horizon (imaginary line where the surface of the earth and the sky meets), the sunlight has to travel a longer distance to reach the earth’s surface. It means that during this time of the day, the light has to encounter more atmospheric particles. These particles scatter maximum amount of the light. Of all the VIBGYOR colours in the sunlight, Red has the highest wavelength and thus can withstand scattering and manage to reach the earth’s surface. Other colours get scattered away during their journey towards the earth.