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One Liners 09-04-2025
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History, Art and Culture
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Harit Yoga Initiative
Recently, the Minister of State for Ayush launched Harit Yoga.
- Part of – 10 Signature Events of International Day of Yoga (IDY) 2025.
- Objective – To encourage individuals to plant trees as a symbolic act of nurturing both personal and planetary health.
- More than 5000 medicinal plants were distributed amongst the Yoga enthusiasts.
- It integrates yoga with environmental consciousness.
International Day of Yoga 2025 will be celebrated on 21st June 2025, with a theme of ‘Yoga for One Earth One Health’.
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Social Issues
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Antar Drishti
Recently, Antar Drishti was inaugurated in New Delhi.
- It is a unique sensory dark room specially designed to experience sensory space.
- Launched by – National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD) and National Association for the Blind (NAB).
- Aims – To raise awareness and sensitize society towards the challenges faced by persons with visual impairments.
- To foster empathy, understanding, and inclusion by bridging the gap between perception and lived reality.
- Feature – In this dark room, individuals experience complete darkness and engage in activities that help simulate the everyday experiences of persons who are blind or have low vision.
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Enable Inclusion App
The National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD) will implement the Enable Inclusion App.
- It is a digital platform for early identification, intervention, and tracking of children with developmental disabilities.
- Developed by – Amar Seva Sangam.
- Role – It is expected to revolutionize early intervention, tele-counseling, tracking and rehabilitation planning.
- It is setting a benchmark for inclusive practices across India and beyond.
- It has been successfully used across various communities to support intellectual and developmental needs.
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Economy
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Quick Commerce (Q-Commerce)
Recently, Competition Commission of India has sought additional information on a complaint against quick commerce companies.
- Q-Commerce – It refers to ultra-fast delivery services, typically within 10-30 minutes.
- It is facilitated by an elaborate network of dark stores and/or distribution centres.
- It focusses on small, high-demand FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) products like groceries, snacks, and daily essentials.
- For example – Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit among others.
Dark stores refer to warehouses used by the platforms solely to fulfil online orders, with no in-person shopping.
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Ready Reckoner (RR) Rates
The Maharashtra government recently increased the ready reckoner (RR) rates across the state.
- It is the minimum value at which a property must be registered during a transaction.
- Determined by – State government.
- Features – It serves as a reference for calculating stamp duty and registration charges.
- It ensures uniformity and transparency in property transactions, and acts as a safeguard against underreporting.
- It is also known as the Circle Rate or Guidance Value in some states.
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Special Additional Excise Duty (SAED)
Recently, the Union government raises SAED on petrol and diesel by ₹2 per litre each after a gap of 34 months.
- Excise duty – It is a tax on the manufacture or production of goods within the country.
- Special Additional Excise Duty – It is an additional tax imposed on top of the basic excise duty.
- It is levied to shore up government revenue.
- Thus, the net effective excise duty will increase to Rs.13 per litre for petrol and Rs.10 per litre for diesel.
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Environment
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New Species of Trapdoor Spiders
A team of scientists from the University of Western Australia recently discovered 2 new species of trapdoor spiders.
- Discovered in – Kimberley region, marking the 1st recorded discovery of this spider group in northern Australia.
- 2 new species – Kwonkan fluctellus and Kwonkan nemoralis.
- Unique features – Highly specialized burrow construction, which creates elaborate burrow entrances.
- Burrows constructed by Kwonkan nemoralis – It had a little collapsible silken collar around the entrance, which had grains of sand embedded in it.
- When it was disturbed, the collar around the burrow’s entrance collapses & seals the entrance, which blends with the surrounding landscape, making it virtually invisible to predators.
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Security
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Mi-17 V5 helicopters
Recently, the Ministry of Defence has signed a contract with Bharat Electronics Limited for acquisition & installation of Electronic Warfare (EW) suites and aircraft modification kits on Mi-17 V5 helicopters.
- It is a Russian made aircraft purchased for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
- Role – It is designed to carry personnel, cargo and equipment inside the cargo cabin or on an external sling.
- Features – Night vision technology, on-board weather radar, a new PKV-8 autopilot system, and a KNEI-8 avionics suite which helps reduce pilot workload.
- Top speed – 250 kilometers per hour.
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Science
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Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures’ Campaign
Recently, ‘Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’ campaign was launched as a part of World Health Day (April 7, 2025).
- It is a year-long campaign on maternal and newborn health.
- Launched by – World Health Organization (WHO).
- Objective – To urge the governments and the larger medical community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
- To prioritise women’s longer-term health and well-being.
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Y2K Bug Crisis
Recently, the Minister of Commerce & Industry recalled how Indian IT sector leveraged the Y2K bug crisis of late 1990s, to mark IT sectors emergence on the global stage.
- Y2K bug – It was a computer flaw, or bug emerged due to the erstwhile practice followed in computer to store the dates in two-digit format.
- For instance, to refer 1970, the number "19" was left out and only the number ‘70’ was used.
- Engineers shortened the date because data storage in computers was costly and took up a lot of space.
- Issue – As the year 2000 approached, computer programmers realized that computers might not interpret 00 as 2000, but as 1900.
- Y2K stands for Year 2000, where letter ‘k’ is commonly used to represent the number 1,000.
- It is also known as the Millennium Bug.
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