Daily Current Capsules
26th October 2022

Bestu Varsh

What's the NEWS

 

• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has greeted all Gujaratis on the occasion of Gujarati New Year or Bestu Varsh
• It is being celebrated on October 26, 2022

 

Know! about Bestu Varsh

 

• Bestu Varsh is celebrated as part of the five-day Diwali Celebrations in Gujrat
• Ideally, Gujarati New Year falls on Pratipada of Shukla Paksha in the Kartik month; therefore, it is generally celebrated on Govardhan Puja during Diwali.

 

Sukapaika River

 

What's the NEWS

 

• The Sukapaika River which stopped flowing 70 years ago, is set to be rejuvenated as the Odisha government has started working on its revival plan following a recent direction from the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

 

Know! about Sukapaika River

 

• Sukapaika is one of the several distributaries of the Mahanadi river in Odisha.
• Sukapaika river is an important system of the Mahanadi to control floodwater and maintain the flow in the river as well as the Bay of Bengal.

 

Mahanadi River

 

• It is the third largest of peninsular India after Godavari and Krishna, and the largest river of Odisha state.
• The catchment area of the river extends to Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
• Its basin is bounded by the Central India hills on the north, by the Eastern Ghats on the south and east and by the Maikala range in the west.
• It rises from a place near Sihawa, in the Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh.
• The Seonath, the Hasdeo, the Mand and the Ib joins Mahanadi from left whereas the Ong, the Tel and the Jonk joins it from right.

 

National Green Tribunal

 

• The National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 is an Act of the Parliament of India which enables the creation of a special tribunal to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues.
• It draws inspiration from India's constitutional provision of (Constitution of India/Part III) Article 21 Protection of life and personal liberty, which assures the citizens of India the right to a healthy environment.

 

Dirty Bomb

 

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Russia recently claimed that Ukraine is planning to use a dirty bomb.

 

Know! about Dirty Bomb

 

• It is a bomb that contains radioactive material, such as uranium, which is scattered through the air when its conventional explosive detonates.
• It doesn't need to contain highly refined radioactive material, as is used in a nuclear bomb. Instead, it could use radioactive materials from hospitals, nuclear power stations or research laboratories.
• This makes them much cheaper and quicker to make than nuclear weapons. They can also be carried in the back of a vehicle.
• However, as weapons, they are very unreliable.
• For the radioactive material in a dirty bomb to be scattered across its target zone, it has to be reduced to powder form.
• But if the particles are too fine or released into strong winds, they will scatter too widely to do much harm.

 

 

Rishi Sunak - United Kingdom's first Indian-origin British Prime Minister

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Rishi Sunak became the United Kingdom's first Indian-origin British Prime Minister.
• Since the Conservative party has a majority in the current U.K. parliament, the winner of the party leadership contest will automatically become prime minister.

 

Know! the U.K election process

 

• Under usual circumstances, British prime ministers are chosen in a general election held every five years.
• Instead of voting for the nation's leader directly, as is the case in presidential electoral systems, the public chooses between delegates of each party to represent their local area, known as a constituency.
• The party that wins the most constituencies wins the election, and the leader of that party typically becomes the prime minister.
• Party leaders are chosen by an internal process normally in advance of a general election, or in the case that a leader steps down or is forced out.
• To take part in the race, a Conservative member of parliament needs to be nominated by at least 20 colleagues.

• First, MPs whittle the candidates down in a series of secret ballots, whereby the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated at each round until two are remaining.
• In the second stage, card-carrying grassroots party members vote on the final two candidates.

 

 

Partial Solar Eclipse

 

What's the NEWS

 

• India and a few other places in the world witnessed a partial solar eclipse on October 25, 2022.

 

Know! all about eclipse

 

• An eclipse happens when the moon while orbiting the Earth, comes in between the sun and the Earth, due to which the moon blocks the sun's light from reaching the Earth, causing an eclipse of the sun or a solar eclipse.

 

There are three types of eclipses.

Total solar eclipse:

• This happens when the sun, moon and Earth are in a direct line.
• The dark silhouette of the Moon completely covers the intense bright light of the Sun.
• Only the much fainter solar corona is visible during a total eclipse which is known as a Totality.

Partial solar eclipse:

• This happens when the sun, moon and Earth are not exactly lined up.
• The shadow of the moon appears on a small part of the sun.

Annular solar eclipse:

• This happens when the moon is farthest from the Earth, which is why it seems smaller.
• In this type of an eclipse, the moon does not block the sun completely, but looks like a "dark disk on top of a larger sun-colored disk" forming a "ring of fire".

 

New Basmati Varieties

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Five new Basmati varieties, developed by a group of scientists from Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), in 2020 and 2021 will bring changes in the way paddy is cultivated in the country.
• Three of the five varieties can resist two common diseases of paddy - Bacterial leaf blight (BLB) and blast (leaf and collar) diseases caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae.

 

New Varieties:

1.  Pusa Basmati 1847,
2.  Pusa Basmati 1885 and
3.  Pusa Basmati 1886.

 

 

• All these varieties have two genes to resist BLB and two genes to resist blast disease.
• The other two can save 35% of the water now required as the seeds can be directly sown, obviating the need for transplanting seedlings.
• These two seeds are resistant to herbicides too, helping the farmers control weeds more efficiently.
• In the next three years, all of the five seeds will have the combined qualities of disease and herbicide resistance.

 

Know! about Basmati rice

 

• India is known for its Basmati rice, with the produce from seven States - Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand - earmarked for Geographical Indication.
• Basmati, known for its mouthfeel, aroma, length of the grain when cooked and taste, has a market abroad and brings about ₹30,000 crore in foreign exchange every year.
• While 75% of the export is to West Asian countries, European Union countries also import Indian Basmati.

 

Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)

 

• The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly known as the Pusa Institute, is India's national institute for agricultural research, education and extension.
• The name Pusa Institute is derived from the fact that the institute was originally located in Pusa, Bihar as the Imperial Institute of Agricultural Research in 1911.
• It was then renamed as the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute in 1919 and following a major earthquake in Pusa, it was relocated to Delhi in 1936.
• The current institute in Delhi is financed and administered by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
• The IARI was responsible for the research leading to the "Green Revolution in India" of the 1970s.

 

Sandalwood Spike Disease (SSD)

 

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Sandalwood spike disease (SSD) has recently started spreading to private fields where the cultivation of sandalwood has been taken up on a commercial basis.

 

Know! about SSD

 

• It is caused by phytoplasma - bacterial parasites of plant tissues - which are transmitted by insect vectors.
• The disease was first reported in Kodagu in 1899.
• It is being classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1998.
• Presently, there is no option but to cut down and remove the infected tree to prevent the spread of the disease.
• Between 1 and 5% of sandalwood trees lost every year due to the disease.
• SSD has been one of the major causes for the decline in sandalwood production in the country for over a century.

 

 

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