Prelim Bits 06-09-2018

Asia-Europe Meeting

Republic of Korea is organising 3^rd Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) conference on ‘Global Ageing and Human Rights of Older Persons’.
It will be attended by international institutions including the UN, regional institutions such as UNESCAP, UNECE, European Union, ASEAN and international NGOs.
India is also taking part in this conference. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment will represent India.
ASEM) is an exclusively Asian–European forum, established in 1996 at the firstsummit in Bangkok, Thailand.
It currently has 51 nations from the European Union and South Asia and 2 regional organisations (ASEAN,EU) as partners.
The 3 pillars of ASEM are Political, Economic, Socio Cultural and Educational.
In 2016, it adopted Ulaanbaatar declaration to resolve fight against terrorism was signed in the ASEM summit.

Chagos Island

There is a dispute between Mauritius and UK over the sovereignty of Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean.
Itis home to Diego Garcia, the key military base of the U.K. and the U.S. in the Indian Ocean.
The island was taken by UK before the Mauritius decolonisation.
After the Independence in 1968, most of the islanders were deported to give the island in lease to US for its airbase.
The evicted islanders have been campaigning for their right to return home.
A resolution by Mauritius was passed in UN general assembly asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to offer a legal opinion in the issue.
Twenty-two countries and the African Union are going to appear before ICJ to give their statements.
India has backed Mauritius over its claim on the disputed Chagos islands.
Australia and the United States are expected to back Britain’s position.

Click here to know more about the issue.

Mid-Air Refuelling

Tejas is an indigenously developedlight combat aircraft.
It is a single-seat, single-jet engine, multirole light fighter.
It is the smallest and lightest multi-role supersonic fighter aircraft in its class.
It can fire Air to Air Missiles, carry bombs and Precision Guided ammunition.
The Indian Air Force has successfully carried out the first ever mid-air refuelling ofTejas.
A Russian-built IL-78 MKI tanker transferred fuel to a Tejas MK I aircraft.
It is considered as a major milestone in its development cycle.
The ability to carry out air-to-air refuelling is one of the critical requirements for Tejas to achieve final operational clearance.
Earlier, Tejas has successfully fired an air-to-air beyond visual (BVR) range missile.

FOXSI Mission

Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) is a sounding rocket mission by NASA.
It aims at directly focus at Sun and search for nanoflares using its X-ray vision.
The mission’s third flight is going to be launched soon.
FOXSI rockets travel above the Earth’s atmosphere for a peek at space before falling back to the ground.
It is the first instrument built specially to image high-energy X-rays from the Sun by directly focusing them.

Nanoflares

Nanoflares are miniature explosions invisible to the naked eye.
They are born when magnetic field lines in the Sun’s atmosphere tangle up and stretch until they break like a rubber band.
Consequence - The energy they release accelerates particles to near light speed and heats the solar atmosphere to its searing million-degree Fahrenheit temperature.

Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH)

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairshas recently approved continuation of the IDWH beyond the 12thPlan period from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
It is a centrally sponsored umbrella scheme consists of Project Tiger, Development of Wildlife Habitats and Project Elephant.
The schemes would result in overall strengthening/ consolidation of tiger, elephant and wildlife conservation in the country.
Besides, it would also address the Man-Animal conflict effectively and benefit the communities relocating from core protected areas.
The implementation of the schemes would be done through the respective States in designated Tiger Reserves, Protected Areas and Elephant Reserves.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director

In the ongoing WHO’s South-East Asia regional meeting , Indian member Dr. Poonam Khetrapal was unanimously re-elected as Regional director.
She has already served as the regional director for south-east Asia since 2014.
She is the first Indian National and the first woman to hold this post.
The WHO’s south-east Asia region covers Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.

Source: PIB, The Hindu, Business Standard