Prelim Bits 21-03-2018

Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BRIAC)

BIRAC celebrated its 6th Foundation Day recently with the theme as ‘Sustaining Innovation – A Market Driven Pathway’.
It is a not-for-profit Public Sector Enterprise, set up by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology Government of India.
Its aim is to empower the emerging biotech industry to undertake strategic research and innovation.
It is a new industry academia interface and implements its mandate through a wide range of impact initiatives.
BIRAC had launched the National Biopharma Mission.
In addition, Grand Challenges India (GCI) program is the flagship program managed by the Program Managing Unit at BIRAC for the Department of Biotechnology and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation partnership.

National Cultural Audiovisual Archives (NCAA)

NCAA has been certified recently, as the world’s first Trusted Digital Repository as per ISO standard, granted by Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorization Body Ltd. (PTAB), U.K.
It is a project of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, implemented by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).

NCAA’s primary objective is to identify and preserve the cultural heritage of India available in audiovisual form through a process of digitization and making it accessible to the people.
NCAA digital repository is established with and powered by DIGITALAYA which is developed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC),Pune.
IGNCA is set up by the Government of India, as a premier research institute dedicated to holistic understanding and expression of Indian arts in their inter and multi-disciplinary nature.

Dargha Ajmer

The dargha is a sufi shrine of sufi saint Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty at Ajmer, Rajasthan.
Khwaja Chishti is also known by different names as, Khawaja Gharib Nawaz, “Sultan-Ul-Hind”.

Khwaja Chisti established the Chishti order of 'fakirs' in India.
The Dargah Khawaja Gharibnawaz has several tombs, buildings, Daalaans and courtyards are of Mughal architecture.
The annual Urs festival is celebrated to mark the death anniversary of the Sufi saint, his symbolic union with God.

Lingayat and Veerashaiva

Recently,Karnataka government decided to recommend religious minority status to the Lingayat and Veerashaiva community.
The tradition of Lingayatism has been founded by social reformer and philosopher Basavanna in 12th century Karnataka.
Basavanna’s vision of a societal order was based on human freedom, equality, rationality, and brotherhood.
Emergence of the Lingayat sect can be located within Bhakti movements that had swept across South India from the 8th century AD onwards.
Veerashaivism is a Shaiva sect within Hinduism and is predominantly located in Karnataka.
Veerashaivas claim that Basavanna was not the founder of the Lingayat tradition, but rather a reformer of an already existing religious tradition which they call Veerashaivism.

Totten Glacier

A recent research by the Australia’s Antarctica Program revealed that more of Totten Glacier is floating.
As the glacier is in direct contact with warming ocean temperatures it could have a significant impact on the rise of global sea levels(about 3 meters if this glacier melts).
Totten glacier is one of the fastest-flowing and largest glaciers in Antarctica east

NASA found that between 2002 and 2016, Antarctica lost 125 giga tons of ice annually, causing global sea levels to rise by 0.35mm a year.
The amount of ice sitting behind the Totten is comparable to that which is contained within the whole West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS).

Dog-faced Bat Species

International team of scientists has succeeded in recognizing two more species of dog-faced bats.
The dog-faced bats are a fast-flying, insectivorous species.

Species	Location
Cynomops freemani	Canal Zone region of Panama.
Cynomops tonkigui	Eastern Andes of Ecuador and Colombia.

In the case of tonkigui species, the word ‘tonkigui’ means bat in Waorani, a language spoken in Ecuador, where the species is found.

Map of the day

Africa –Physical Features

Okavango Delta is a large low gradient alluvial fan or ‘Inland Delta’ located in north-western Botswana.
Okavango Delta became the 1000th site to be officially inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The system consists of two branches- the main branch, the Eastern Rift (or Albertine) Valley and the western branch of the system, the Western Rift Valley.
Lake Victoria is not a part of the Rift valley system.
Lakes such as Tannayaka, Nayasa, Albert are part of the rift valley system.

Source: PIB, The Hindu, Business Standard