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UPSC Current Affairs Pointers is an initiative of UPSC Essentials to consolidate your prelims exam prep. Every Monday, take a quick look at last week’s current affairs tidbits curated specially for those preparing for UPSC, State PSC, and various other competitive examinations.
If you missed the UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | September 16 to September 22, 2024 from the Indian Express, read it here.
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— The Summit of the Future (SoTF) took place from September 22-23, prior to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The theme of the Summit is ‘multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow’.
— A Pact for the Future — with two additional documents on Global Digital Compact and Declaration on Future Generations — is the outcome document of the Summit.
— President Droupadi Murmu addressed the opening ceremony of the 16th assembly of the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI).
— It is being organised by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in New Delhi from 21st-27th September 2024.
— Shri Girish Chandra Murmu is the current CAG of India.
— The Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) of India assumed the Chairmanship of ASOSAI for the period 2024 to 2027.
— The inaugural session of the ASOSAI Assembly took place in New Delhi, India, in 1979, followed by subsequent gatherings in various locations.
— Shri Rajnath Singh presided over the first Joint Commanders’ Conference (JCC) held in Lucknow from 04-05 September 2024.
— The theme of the inaugural conference is ‘Sashakt aur Surakshit Bharat: Transforming the Armed Forces‘. He launched a publication on ‘Colonial Practices and the Armed Forces – A Review’ during JCC.
— The Defence Minister chairs the JCC and will complement the Combined Commanders’ Conference (CCC) that is presided over by the Prime Minister.
— JCC brings together all the top commanders of the Indian military for extended deliberations on matters about national security.
— Antyodaya Diwas (since 2014) is an annual occasion in India commemorating the birth anniversary of Indian leader Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.
— He was the co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the forerunner of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was also one of the thinkers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
— The term “Antyodaya” translates to “upliftment of the last person,” epitomising Upadhyaya’s mission to address the needs of the most disadvantaged individuals in society.
— He also propounded the idea of Integral Humanism which talks about unity and harmony among the various components that make up a human individual, and among individuals and society as a whole.
— World Pharmacists Day, organized by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), a WHO partner, is observed on September 25.
— This year’s theme is Pharmacists: Meeting global health needs.
— World Rhino Day is observed on September 22 every year. The day commemorates the global effort to protect rhinos and raise awareness to curb poaching.
— The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is found only in the Brahmaputra valley, parts of North Bengal, and parts of southern Nepal.
— The Indian rhino is listed as vulnerable (better than endangered, worse than near threatened) in the IUCN Red List.
— The three species of rhino—black, Javan, and Sumatran—are critically endangered in the IUCN Red List.
— September 27 is observed as World Tourism Day to commemorate the adoption of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) statutes in 1975.
—The theme for World Tourism Day 2024 is “Tourism and Peace,” which will highlight the association between tourism and world peace.
— The Supreme Court on September 23 ruled that even viewing, possessing, and not reporting child pornography is punishable under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act regardless of whether it is shared or transmitted further.
— Section 15 of the POSCO Act deals with the “Punishment for storage of pornographic material involving child”.
— The verdict also called upon Parliament to “seriously consider” an amendment to the POCSO Act to substitute the term “child pornography” with “child sexual exploitative and abuse material” (CSEAM) to “reflect more accurately on the reality of such offences”.
— On the occasion of World Rhino Day, PM Modi shared photos from his visit to Assam’s Kaziranga National Park.
— The park is located on the edge of the Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspots – Golaghat and Nagaon district.
— In the year 1985, the park was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
— The forest region of Kaziranga Park is home to the world’s largest population of Indian Rhinoceros.
(Source: kaziranga-national-park.com)
— Moo Deng, the viral pygmy hippo, sent a frenzy among avid social media users in no time.
— Pygmy hippos are smaller cousins of the hippopotamus and occurs mainly in four African countries, namely, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, and Liberia.
— They are primarily nocturnal, secretive, and relatively solitary.
— It is currently listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
(Source: pygmyhippofoundation.org)
— Bangladesh’s interim government said it would export 3,000 tonnes of hilsa fish to India, coinciding with the upcoming Durga Puja.
— There are two varieties of hilsa in the Bay of Bengal – Tenualosa ilisha and Tenualosa toli ilish.
— It is the national fish of Bangladesh and it is the world’s largest hilsa producer.
— Tenualosa ilisha is the state fish of West Bengal.
(Source: iucn.org)
— The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to clear water hyacinth from the Dhanauri wetlands and sought to know why the state authorities have not yet sent a proposal to notify the wetland as a Ramsar site.
— Dhanauri Wetlands is located in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It is a Sarus crane hotspot and supports 23 species of birds that are endangered, critically endangered and threatened.
— The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the Quad comprises of India, Japan, Australia, and the US. It was formed as an informal alliance after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. It was formalised in 2007 by the efforts of then PM of Japan, Shinzo Abe.
— The United States will host the 2025 Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting, and India will host the 2025 Quad Leaders Summit.
— US President Joseph R. Biden hosted the fourth Quad Leaders’ Summit in Wilmington, Delaware on September 21.
— QUAD Cancer Moonshot: The QUAD has launched it as a collective effort to leverage public and private resources to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer in the Indo-Pacific, with an initial focus on cervical cancer. India has pledged a grant of $7.5 million for testing, screening, and diagnosis of the disease in the Indo-Pacific region.
— Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific (MAITRI): To maximise the tools provided by the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), which was launched in the 2022 Quad Leaders’ Summit in Tokyo, the QUAD launched MAITRI. The purpose is to monitor and secure Indo-Pacific waters, enforce their laws, and deter unlawful behaviour. The inaugural MAITRI workshop will be hosted by India in 2025.
— It also launched the Quad maritime legal dialogue to support efforts to uphold the rules-based maritime order in the Indo-Pacific.
— Indo-Pacific Logistics Network: It is launched as a pilot project to pursue shared airlift capacity among the four nations and leverage collective logistics strengths, to support civilian response to natural disasters more rapidly and efficiently across the Indo-Pacific region.
— Quad Ports of the Future Partnership: It will harness the Quad’s expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific, in collaboration with regional partners. The inaugural Regional Ports and Transportation Conference will be hosted by India in Mumbai in 2025.
— Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission: QUAD countries have planned to launch a first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission in 2025 in the Indo-Pacific to improve interoperability.
(Source: pmindia.gov.in)
— India signed the US-led 14-member Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) bloc’s agreements on a clean and fair economy on 21st September.
— IPEF was launched on 23 May 2022 at Tokyo, Japan, comprising of 14 countries – Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and USA.
— The IPEF seeks to strengthen economic engagement and cooperation among partner countries with the goal of advancing growth, economic stability and prosperity in the region.
| PAST PULSE |
| Hoolock gibbons: The forests of Northeast India are home to the country’s only apes: the western hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock) and the eastern hoolock gibbon (Hoolock leuconedys). The western hoolock gibbon is found in all the states of the northeast, restricted between the south of the Brahmaputra River and east of the Dibang River. It is listed as Endangered in the IUCN Redlist and Schedule 1 of the Indian (Wildlife) Protection Act 1972. |
— India is now formally a part of the Minerals Security Finance Network (MSFN), a US-led initiative aiming to strengthen cooperation among members to secure supply chains for critical minerals.
— It has stemmed from the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) which was established by the US in 2022. India was inducted into the MSP in June 2023.
— The MSP is a collaboration of 14 countries and the EU to catalyze public and private investment in responsible critical minerals supply chains globally.
— The Union Cabinet has approved India’s first mission to Venus that ISRO aims to launch in March 2028.
— This is the country’s second interplanetary mission after the Mars Orbiter Mission launched in 2013.
— The mission will carry scientific payloads weighing around 100 kg.
— The mission will also see India perform aero-braking for the first time.
— The US has planned two more missions to Venus in the future — DaVinci in 2029 and Veritas in 2031 — and the ESA has planned the EnVision mission for 2030.
About Venus
— Venus is often called Earth’s twin because it is similar in mass, density, and size.
— It has an extremely high surface temperature of around 462 degree Celsius, even hotter than Mercury — the planet that is closest to the Sun.
— The atmospheric pressure on Venus is much higher than on Earth. It is almost similar to the pressure felt underneath the oceans on Earth.
— 96.5% of the atmosphere of Venus is made up of carbon dioxide and there are sulphuric acid clouds on the planet.
— Venus rotates very slowly on its axis as compared to Earth. One rotation of Venus lasts around 243 Earth days.
— The three new supercomputers are all indigenously built PARAM Rudra computers have been installed at premier scientific institutions in Delhi, Pune, and Kolkata.
— It has been developed under the National Supercomputing Mission.
— A High-Power Computing (HPC) system has been set up at two atmospheric sciences institutes, one in Pune and the other in Noida for upgrading weather and climate research. Both already have a supercomputer.
— Japan is preparing to construct a groundbreaking ‘zeta-class’ supercomputer, projected to be 1,000 times faster than today’s most advanced machines.
— Development of the machine, known as “Fugaku Next,” will begin in 2025, led by Japanese firms RIKEN and Fujitsu.
(Just FYI: UPSC has consistently included questions on health and diseases in its examinations over the years. For instance, in 2014, a question about the Ebola virus appeared in the Prelims, and in 2017, a question about the Zika virus was featured. Therefore, it is crucial to stay updated on diseases that are currently in the news.)
— Dengue is a viral infection that is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquitos.
— The WHO has recommended two vaccines against dengue: Sanofi’s Dengvaxia and Takeda’s QDenga.
— Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are the primary vectors for dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika viruses.
— Venu Vasudevan has been appointed chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF). He was former Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala and former Director General of the National Museum in Delhi
— KBF was established in 2010 by artists for artists as a non-profit, charitable trust set up in Kerala, South India to promote art, culture, heritage and education.
— KBF hosts the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), India’s largest contemporary art festival that is presented biennially in the historic port city of Kochi, on the Malabar coast of India.
— India’s first biennale of international contemporary art had its inaugural edition in December 2012.
(Source: kochimuzirisbiennale.org)
— The government has announced that it has appointed Air Marshal Amar Preet Singh as the next Chief of the Air Staff.
— He will take charge from the present Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari on September 30.
— Mary Poonen Lukose was the first woman member of a legislative council by becoming a member of the erstwhile Travancore Legislative Council on September 23, 1924.
— In 1938, she became the first woman surgeon general of Travancore and she served as the royal physician of the Travancore kings till 1942.
— Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the Sri Lankan Presidential election by securing 42.31% of the vote.
— This is a watershed moment for his Leftist party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
— Sri Lankan President, Anura Kumar Dissanayake has appointed Dr Harini Amarasuriya as the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on September 24.
— She became the first woman in 24 years to serve the post, since Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 2000, and the third woman Prime Minister overall.
— She completed her B A (Honours) in Sociology from Hindu College, Delhi University in 1994.
— Shigeru Ishiba is set to become the next Prime Minister of Japan after winning the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has ruled the country for the past seven decades.
— The current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has been dogged by party corruption scandals.
(Just FYI: The location of the place is important, considering that UPSC has asked several questions about places that were in the news, such as Aleppo and Kirkuk, in the 2018 UPSC Prelims. The best way to remember them is to plot them on a world map.)
— Tuvalu, whose mean elevation is just 2 m (6.56 ft), has experienced a sea-level rise of 15 cm (5.91 inches) over the past three decades, one-and-a-half times the global average.
— It is a tiny Pacific island nation located halfway between Hawaii and Australia.
(Just FYI: With the unpredictability of the UPSC examinations and questions like the ICC World Test Championship question 2021, you can’t be sure of anything. It is wise to know what it is and not go into too much detail.)
— India on Sunday scripted history as they clinched their first-ever gold medal in the open section of the 45th Chess Olympiad held in Hungary. The second position was acquired by the United States while the defending Champion Uzbekistan finished third.
— India also clinched the gold medal in the women’s section of the Chess Olympiad.
— The team of Gukesh D, Praggnanandhaa R, Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi, and Harikrishna Pentala, with Srinath Narayanan as the captain, led the Open section.
— The team of Harika Dronavalli, Vaishali R, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal, and Tania Sachdev, with Abhijit Kunte as the captain, led the Women’s section to victory.
— Lt Cdr Roopa A from Puducherry and Lt Cdr Dilna K from Calicut will circumnavigate the globe under the Navika Sagar Parikrama II onboard INSV (Indian Naval Sailing Vessel) Tarini.
— The navigation will be flagged off from the Naval Ocean Sailing Node, INS Mandovi, at Goa.
— It will be the first from India to accomplish the feat in double-handed mode.
— It will see them navigating around 21,600 nautical miles (approximately 40,000 km) over eight months.
— The inaugural edition of the Navika Sagar Parikrama that sailed in 2017 became the first Indian circumnavigation of the globe by an all-women crew of six officers.
— Captain Dilip Donde (retd) was the first Indian to circumnavigate the globe in 2009-10.
— Cdr Abhilash Tomy (Retd) was the first Asian skipper to participate in two circumnavigations and completed the Golden Globe Race in 2022.
— The Wall Street Journal has published a highly critical report on Neom, the ambitious Saudi megacity project.
— Neom was visualised as part of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 project, which sought to diversify the country’s economy and thus reduce its dependence on oil.
— It is situated in Saudi Arabia’s western Tabuk province. It is a fusion of the Greek word “neo” meaning “new”, and the Arabic word “mustaqbal” meaning “future”.
— Keffiyeh: Recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri declined to accept an award from New York City’s Noguchi Museum Wednesday after it sacked three employees for wearing ‘keffiyeh’. It is a headdress that has become heavily associated with Palestinian solidarity.
— There is alleged controversy over the adulteration of ghee used in the preparation of laddoos at the Sri Venkateswara temple in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati.
— It received the GI tag in 2009 which was renewed in 2018 and is applicable till 2028.
— Geographical Indications of goods refer to the place of origin of a product. Such tags are accorded as they convey an assurance of quality and distinctiveness, attributable to the fact of its origin in a specific geographical locality, region or country.
— In India, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, awards GIs.
| GI Tag Products | States |
| Kutch Ajrakh | Gujarat |
| Rupa Tarakasi, or silver filigree | Odisha |
| Lanjia Saura Painting | Odisha |
| Similipal Kai chutney | Odisha |
| Majuli Mask | Assam |
(Note: The best way to remember facts for UPSC and other competitive exams is to recall them through MCQs. Try to solve the following questions on your own.)
A. Consider the following pairs:
| Mission | Space Agency |
| 1. Envision | European Space Agency |
| 2. Artemis | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency |
| 3. Chang’e-6 | National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
B. Antyodaya Diwas is celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary of which of the following leaders?
(a) Ram Manohar Lohia
(b) Veer Savarkar
(c) Deendayal Upadhyaya
(d) Jay Prakash Narayan
C. Consider the following statements:
1. The Minerals Security Finance Network (MSFN) is a new initiative that stemed from the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP).
2. MSP is a US-led initiative started in 2022 with 14 countries including India.
Which of the following statements is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Previous Weekly Current Affairs Pointers
UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | September 16 to September 22, 2024
UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | September 9 to September 15, 2024
UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | September 2 to September 8, 2024
UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | August 26 to September 1, 2024
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