ANSWER: D

 ANSWER: B

 ANSWER: A

 ANSWER: B

• Conference on Accelerating Rail Digital Transformation in Asia and Pacific region was organized by

ESCAP, an intergovernmental platform, in collaboration with Ministry of Railways.

About UN-ESCAP

• United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP) has headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand.
• It supports inclusive and sustainable development in region by generating action-oriented knowledge, and by providing technical assistance and capacity-building services in support of national development objectives, regional agreements.
• It was first established by Economic and Social Council in 1947 as United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and Far East (ECAFE).
  • Renamed in 1974 as ESCAP.
• Membership: 53 member States and 9 associate members.

 ANSWER: C

• The Sports Authority of India has integrated Khelo India Games Certificates with Digilocker.
• Khelo India Games certificate is a document that is awarded to athletes who participate in the Khelo India Games.
• The certificate recognizes the participation of the athlete in the games and serves as proof of their achievement.

About

This will allow athletes, support staff, technical officers and competition managers to access their certificates digitally. It would also provide for real time verification of Certificates.

About Sports Authority of India (SAI)

• Sports Authority of India (SAI) was set up in 1982 as a Society registered under Societies Act, 1860.
• SAl has been entrusted with the twin objectives of promoting sports and achieving sporting excellence at the national and international level.
• SAI has played a significant role in shaping India’s sports development by providing training to elite athletes and at the same time operating a number of schemes for the identification and development of young talent.

About Digilocker

• DigiLocker is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) under Digital India programme.
• DigiLocker aims at ‘Digital Empowerment’ of citizens by providing access to authentic digital documents to citizen’s digital document wallet.
• DigiLocker is a secure cloud-based platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents & certificates.

 ANSWER: A

• NASA’s high-resolution air pollution monitoring instrument TEMPO lifted atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
• TEMPO will allow scientists to monitor air pollutants and their emission sources and air quality across greater North America on an hourly basis during daytime.
• Situated in geostationary orbit 35,786 kilometers above the equator.
• Among the pollutants tracked by TEMPO will be nitrogen dioxide, produced from the combustion of fossil fuels, formaldehyde and ozone.
• It will be able to measure atmospheric pollution down to a spatial resolution of 10 square kilometers or neighborhood level.

 ANSWER: C

• The 13th edition of the Olive Crown Awards was held in Mumbai, India, to commend individuals and corporates that promoted sustainability or ‘green advertising’.
• This award is awarded by the International Advertising Association.
• The awards featured 17 categories, including ‘Green Agency of the Year’ and ‘Green Campaign of the Year’.
• Notable winners included
  • N. Mohan– ‘Green Crusader of the Year award for his commitment to restoring seven lakes near Chennai.
  • Kirloskar Limitless received the gold award in the ‘Corporate Crusader of the Year’ category for their work on ‘A Minute for Nature’.
  • Chirag Rural Development Foundation and People for Animals Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Centre were awarded the gold prize in the ‘Green NGO of the Year’ category.

 ANSWER: B

• Recently, Volume 1 of Environment statistics 2023 was released by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
• Key findings
  • In 2022, annual rainfall measured in India has increased in comparison to 2021.
  • In 2022, maximum heatwave days were reported in Rajasthan, followed by Punjab and Haryana, Jharkhand, and Delhi.
    • Notably, Assam and Himachal Pradesh have not reported a heatwave day since 2010.
  • Number of cyclonic storms experienced by North Indian Ocean (NIO) increased substantially in 2018 which persisted in subsequent year but again reduced in 2022.

 ANSWER: D

• World Homeopathy Day is celebrated on April 10^th every year, to honour the birth anniversary of Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy and a German physician.
• The focus of World Homeopathy Day 2023 is centered around the theme ‘One Health, One Family’. The primary objective of this theme is to advocate for evidence-based homeopathic treatment for the well-being of every family member through the involvement of family physicians within the community.
• Principle- Likes can heal likes, according to homoeopathy’s “similia similibus curantur”.
  • It is a notion that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people.

 ANSWER: D

• Kerala State Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC) has launched a solar-powered tourist boat called Sooryamshu that can produce 27 KW of energy.
• The boat also comes equipped with generators, which will help power passenger lift systems and air-conditioners.
• The solar panels will provide about 75% of the vessel’s energy needs, while the rest will be met by the generators.
• The boat was built in Sri Lanka for Rs. 3.95 crores.

 ANSWER: C

• Himachal Pradesh assembly constituted a committee of legislators to legalise cultivation of cannabis for its medicinal properties.
• The committee will be headed by Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi.
• Under NDPS (Narcotic-Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act, state has been given the right to cultivate cannabis and transport of cannabis.
• Central government has given legal status to cultivation of cannabis in some districts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
• Apart from this, cannabis is also being cultivated in Uttarakhand for industrial use.
• Primary psychoactive constituent in cannabis is Delta9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).