Defence
Maritime Partnership Exercise

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the exercise + about Tyrrhenian Sea -location)
What's the NEWS

• As part of the ongoing deployment to the Mediterranean, INS Tabar entered the Port of Naples, Italy
• The ship was accorded a warm welcome by the Italian Navy.
• On departure from port, the ship also undertook a Maritime Partnership Exercise with ITS Antonio Marceglia (F 597), a frontline frigate of the Italian Navy in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Maritime Partnership Exercise

• The exercise covered a wide range of naval operations including air defence procedures, replenishment at sea, communication drills and cross deck helo operations by day and night.
• The exercise was mutually beneficial in enhancing interoperability and towards consolidating combined operations against maritime threats.
• The exercise culminated with a ‘Steam Past' by the two ships, as per the naval custom.

Defence
World's first solo motorcycle expedition in Northern Himalayan passes culminates

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Umlingla Pass)
What's the NEWS

• The world's first solo motorcycle expedition undertaken by Miss Kanchan Ugusandi, covering 18 treacherous passes in Northern Himalayan ranges culminated at Seema Sadak Bhawan in New Delhi.
• The expedition was flagged off by Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh on June 11, 2021 from New Delhi.
• The month-long expedition witnessed many firsts by a solo woman rider.

Umlingla Pass

• Miss Ugusandi has become the first solo woman biker to scale the Umlingla Pass, the first woman to cover the 18 passes and also the first woman to traverse a distance of 3,187 kilometre from New Delhi-Manali-Leh -Umlingla-Delhi in one go.
• Umling La Pass in Ladakh, at an altitude of 19000 Feet or 5883 Mtrs, is the highest motorable pass in the world dethroning the Mana Pass in Uttarakhand and road to Uturuncu in Bolivia
• The world's highest motorable Umlingla pass at 19,300 feet made by Border Roads Organisation (BRO).

Prelims Factoids
Bhalia wheat
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Bhalia wheat)
What's the NEWS

• In a major boost to wheat exports, the first shipment of Geographical Indication (GI) certified Bhalia variety of wheat was exported today to Kenya and Sri Lanka from Gujarat.

Geographical Indication (GI) certified Bhalia variety of wheat

• The GI certified wheat has high protein content and is sweet in taste.
• The crop is grown mostly across Bhal region of Gujarat which includes Ahmadabad, Anand, Kheda, Bhavanagar, Surendranagar, Bharuch districts.
• The unique characteristic of the wheat variety is that grown in the rainfed condition without irrigation and cultivated in around two lakh hectares of agricultural land in Gujarat.
• The Bhalia variety of wheat received GI certification in July, 2011.
• The registered proprietor of GI certification is Anand Agricultural University, Gujarat.

Science & Technology
DBT-NIBMG creates world's first database of genomic variants of oral cancer

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about dbGENVOC -database of genomic variants of oral cancer) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• DBT-National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani an Autonomous Institute funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India has created a database of genomic variations in oral cancer; the first of its kind in the world. NIBMG has made this database publicly-accessible.

dbGENVOC

• dbGENVOC is a browsable online database of GENomic Variants of Oral Cancer and is a free resource.

First release of dbGENVOC contains
(i) ~24 million somatic and germline variants derived from whole exome sequences of 100 Indian oral cancer patients and whole genome sequences of 5 oral cancer patients from India,
(ii) (somatic variation data from 220 patient samples drawn from the USA and analyzed by TCGA-HNSCC project and
(iii) (manually curated variation data of 118 patients from recently published peer-reviewed publications.

• dbGENVOC is not just a catalogue of genomic variants, it has a built-in powerful search engine.
• It also allows a reasonable extent of statistical and bioinformatic analysis to be carried out online, including identifying variants in associated altered pathways in oral cancer.
• The repository, which will be updated annually with variation data from new oral cancer patients from different regions of India and southeast Asia, has the potential to support advances in oral cancer research and will be a major step in moving forward from simply cataloguing variants to gain insight into their significance.

Oral cancer

• It is the most prevalent form of cancer among men in India, largely fuelled by tobacco-chewing.
• Tobacco-chewing causes changes in the genetic material of cells in the oral cavity.
• These changes (mutations) precipitate oral cancer. Research to identify those genetic mutations that drive oral cancer are ongoing. Such driver mutations may be variable across populations

Know! about DBT

• The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, boosts and augments the development of the biotechnology ecosystem in India through its expansion and application in agriculture, healthcare, animal sciences, environment, and industry.

Know! about NIBMG

• The National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) has been established as an autonomous institution by the Government of India, under the aegis of the Department of Biotechnology.
• This is the first institution in India explicitly devoted to research, training, translation & service and capacity-building in Biomedical Genomics. It is located in Kalyani, West Bengal, India, near Kolkata.

Governance/ Bilateral Relations
Personnel Management and Public Administration

Relevance IN - Prelims ( Mains GS II Governance and bilateral relations - can be used to substantiate questions based on governance and bilateral relations)
What's the NEWS

• India and Singapore held a bilateral meeting last evening through virtual mode under the aegis of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) entered into between Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Public Service Division (PSD), Prime Minister's Office, Singapore on 01st June, 2018 on the subject of "Personnel Management and Public Administration".
• During the meeting, both sides shared experiences on Good Governance Practices in a Pandemic, Transforming Leaderships and Ethics, Capacity Building and Training of Leaders and Public Officers, Citizen Centric Governance and identified Citizen-centric service delivery and E-governance as potential areas for future collaboration.
• Since the scope of cooperation laid down under the MoU is immensely relevant to the processes of development in both the countries, both sides' decided to share the best practices on current technology tools and processes of governance, capacity building, service delivery etc. so that both the nations could benefit through cross learning.

Prelims Factoids
Webinar on "Women in Renewable Energy and Sustainability"

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the WEBINAR - organising agency + about ISA) + Mains ( GS III infrastructure development - energy + GS II international organisations)
What's the NEWS

• The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), in collaboration with the International Solar Alliance (ISA), organized a webinar on "Women in Renewable Energy and Sustainability"

Know! about the webinar

• The webinar featured two panel discussions. The theme for the first panel was "Women Leadership in Renewables: Envisioning a New World"
• The theme for the second panel was "Women Entrepreneurs in RE: A gateway to innovation and economic growth"
• The webinar was joined by audiences from around the world.
• This was an opportunity to open a consequential dialogue towards bringing more and more women to the forefront and in leading positions in the Renewable Energy sector as well as making entrepreneurial opportunities available to them.
• The webinar was also a part of India's global advocacy efforts in the role of a Global Theme Champion for the UN High Level Dialogue on Energy which is set to take place in September 2021.

International Solar Alliance

• The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of 121 countries initiated by India, most of them being sunshine countries, which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• The primary objective of the alliance is to work for efficient consumption of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
• This initiative was first proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech in November 2015 at Wembley Stadium (London HA9 0WS, United Kingdom), in which he referred to sunshine countries as Suryaputra ("Sons of the Sun").
• The alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental organization. Countries that do not fall within the Tropics can join the alliance and enjoy all benefits as other members, with the exception of voting rights.After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states world-wide.
• The initiative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the India Africa Summit, and a meeting of member countries ahead of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015
• The framework agreement of the International Solar Alliance opened for signatures in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016, and 200 countries have joined.
• The ISA is headquartered in Gurugram India. In January 2016, Narendra Modi, and the then French President François Hollande jointly laid the foundation stone of the ISA Headquarters and inaugurated the interim Secretariat at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gwal Pahari, Gurugram, India.

India's Pledge

• India has pledged a target of installing 175 GW of renewable energy of which 100 GW will be solar energy by 2022 and reduction in emission intensity by 33-35% by 2030 to let solar energy reach to the most unconnected villages and communities and also towards creating a clean planet.
• India's pledge to the Paris summit offered to bring 40% of its electricity generation capacity (not actual production) from non-fossil sources (renewable, large hydro, and nuclear) by 2030.

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