UNITE Aware

• India is currently presiding over UNSC. In its capacity, it has rolled out an initiative in partnership with UN called “UNITE Aware”.
• It is a technological platform to enhance the security of UN Peacekeeping forces.
• It is to ensure that entire peacekeeping operation can be visualized, coordinated and monitored on a real time basis in order to prevent any attack or respond to an attack immediately.
• It is rolled out in four UN Peacekeeping Missions – UNMISS (Sudan), UNFICYP (Cyprus), MINUSMA (Mali) and AMISOM (Somalia)

Kigali Amendment to Montreal Protocol

• Union Cabinet has recently approved the ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the ozone layer.
• In 2016, Kigali amendment was agreed by more than 170 countries and came into force in 2019.
• It is legally binding.
• The amendment aims to phase down Hydroflurocarbon (HFC) i.e to achieve over 80% reduction in HFC by 2047.
• HFCs were introduced as a replacement to ozone depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydro chlorofluorocarbons.
• Thus, HFCs have zero ozone depleting potential but known to be hundreds, even thousands, of times more potent than carbon dioxide in their ability to cause global warming.
• With the Kigali Amendment, the Montreal Protocol has become an even more powerful instrument against global warming.
• Under the amendment, India’s reduction of Hydroflurocarbon (HFC) will begin from 2028 and target is to reduce it by 80% by the year 2047.

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Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2021

• At present, only government agencies are involved in exploration and the pace of exploration is limited by their capacity.
• The amendment acts empower the Central government to notify entities, including private entities, to undertake prospecting operations.
• The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 empowers the central government to reserve any mine other than coal, lignite, and atomic minerals to be leased through an auction for a particular end-use.
• Particular end-use involves reserving mined ore for a purpose such as iron ore mine for a steel plant. Such mines are called as captive mines.
• The amendment act provides that no mine will be reserved for particular end-use.

Telephonic Interceptions

• In a recent reply by the government in the Parliament, it is made clear that that the Home Secretary is the competent authority to deal with legal interceptions in case of Central government and Secretary in charge of Home Department in case of States/Union Territories.
• Home Secretary’s power to approve legal interceptions is mandated under

1. Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with Rule 419A of Indian Telegraph (1st Amendment of 2014) Rules, 2014
2. Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 read with the Information Technology) Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009.

The Expert Committee on determining the Methodology for Fixing the National Minimum Wages

• It outlined a methodology for enumeration of minimum wages.
• It used consumption expenditure and employment data to arrive at a figure that allowed for a balanced diet, other non-food essential items and expanded the units of consumption per household.
• Based on this, the committee stated a figure of Rs.375/day as a national floor-level minimum wage, with regional variations, and a “city compensatory allowance” for workers in urban areas.
• This figure is much higher than the non-binding national floor wage of Rs.176 (based on National Commission of Rural Labour Recommendations), it is much lower than the `600 demanded by trade union federations, based on the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
• Minimum wage enumeration is based on two key features
  • Recommendations of the 15th Indian Labour Conference (1957)
  • Supreme Court judgment in Workmen v Reptakos Brett (1992).

Wool production in India

• India has  the  3rd largest  sheep  population country  in  the  world  having  07 million sheep producing 43.50 million kg of raw wool in 2017-18.
• Carpet grade is rougher than apparel grade and accounts for 85 per cent of India’s production.
• Apparel grade wool accounts for less than five per cent of production and coarse grade fit for making rough blankets accounts for the rest.
• Largest wool producing states in India are in the order of Rajasthan, Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Himachal Pradesh.
• Rajasthan is the largest wool producer known for its superior carpet grade Chokla and Magra wool.
• Australian Merino sheep, known to have the softest and finest wool used for apparels, India is planning to import these sheeps.
• The last import was of Rambouillet sheep from the US in 1993, its purpose was crossbreeding, which had a low survival rate.

Nuclear Fusion

• Nuclear Fusion is defined as the combining of two lighter nuclei into a heavier one.
• Such nuclear fusion reactions are the source of energy in the Sun and other stars.
• Recently lasers were used to heat pellets containing deuterium and tritium fused and produced more energy (a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules)
• It released positively charged particles called alpha particles, which in turn heated the surrounding plasma.
• The heated plasma also released alpha particles and a self-sustaining reaction called ignition took place.
• Nuclear fusion energy is a good choice as the baseload energy in the future with many advantages, such as inexhaustibility of resources, inherent safety, no long-lived radioactive wastes, and almost no CO2 emissions.

Nuclear Fission

• In this reaction the nucleus of an atom splits into two daughter nuclei.
• The resulting fragments tend to have a combined mass which is less than the original.
• The missing mass is usually converted into nuclear energy.
• Currently all commercial nuclear reactors are based on nuclear fission.

Water plus cities

• Under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), the cities of the country are tested on the basis of various cleanliness parameters.
• It has categories of ODF+, ODF++ and Water+.
• The Water Plus certificate is awarded to cities that have met all the ODF Double Plus standards.
• Also, the residual sewage from residential and commercial establishments is released into the environment only after treatment. Reuse of treated wastewater should also be ensured.
• Indore, which has been ranked number one in cleanliness four times in the country, has been declared as the country's first 'water plus city' in the results of Swachh Survekshan, 2021.

Phagocytic cells

• Phagocytosis is the process by which a cell uses its plasma membrane to engulf a large particle, giving rise to an internal compartment called the phagosome.
• It is one type of endocytosis, a cell that performs phagocytosis is called a phagocyte.
• Newly discovered phagocytic cells were identified in cauliflower coral and starlet sea anemone.
• In a multicellular organism's immune system, phagocytosis is a major mechanism used to remove pathogens and cell debris. The ingested material is then digested in the phagosome.
• Bacteria, dead tissue cells, and small mineral particles are all examples of objects that may be phagocytized.
• Some protozoa use phagocytosis as means to obtain nutrients.

Drone Forensic Lab

• The Kerala Police department will launch a first-of-its-kind Drone Forensic Lab and Research Centre in the state.
• It will help in keeping a watch over unauthorized drones and also for the production of drones for the use of the police force.
• This lab-cum-research centre will look into both utility and threat aspects of a drone.
• It had recently analysed a drone brought down by the Border Security Force (BSF) near the international border in Kathua district in Jammu and Kashmir and helped the local enforcement zero in on its illegal operator.