Suez Canal Lakes
- Due to the blockage of the Suez Canal, the $200 billion of India’s trade flows with Europe, North America and South America is at risk.
- To know more about Suez canal, click here.
Global Gender Gap Index 2021
- This Index was released by the World Economic Forum since 2006.
- The Gender Gap Index serves as a compass to track the progress on their towards gender parity of the countries in four areas,
- Political Empowerment,
- Economic Participation and Opportunity,
- Educational Attainment and
- Health and Survival.
- It also examines the drivers of gender gaps and outlines the policies and practices needed for a gender-inclusive recovery.
- The index scores the countries from 0 (inequality) to 1 (equality).
- Findings - Among 156 countries ranked by the Gender Gap Report 2021, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world.
- India has ranked 140th rank, becoming the third-worst performer in South Asia. India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap till date.
- For India, most of the decline occurred on the political empowerment subindex. The decline also took place on the economic participation and opportunity subindex, and health and survival subindex.
- The estimated earned income of women in India is only one-fifth of men's, which puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on the economic participation and opportunity subindex.
AIM-PRIME
- AIM-PRIME (Program for Researchers on Innovations, Market-Readiness & Entrepreneurship) aims to translate science-based deep-tech research to startups & ventures across India.
- Partners - Atal Innovation Mission has joined hands with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to launch this initiative, which will be implemented by Venture Center, a technology business incubator.
- Beneficiaries - The program is open to technology developers (early-stage deep tech start-ups, and scientists/ engineers/ clinicians) with strong science-based deep tech business ideas.
- It is also open to CEOs and Senior incubation managers of AIM Funded Atal Incubation Centers that are supporting deep tech entrepreneurs.
- Working - It aims at addressing specific issues through in-depth learning, training and guidance over a period of 12 months.
- AIM-PRIME program is specifically tailored for the rapid scaling up of deep-tech science ventures in India, providing not just the necessary intellect and support but also the exposure they rightly deserve.
DSIR-PRISM Scheme
- DSIR-PRISM Scheme will be aligned with three National Initiatives like Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA), Smart India Hackathon (SIH) and Rural Technology Action Group (RuTAG), IIT Delhi.
- Dept. of Scientific and Industrial Research - Promoting Innovations in Individuals, Startups and MSMEs (DSIR-PRISM) scheme supports individual innovators enabling inclusive development of India.
- It aims at transforming an innovator into a technopreneur by promoting and funding implementable and commercially viable innovations created for the society.
- PRISM extends its support to any citizen of the country through Direct Benefit Transfer for idea development, prototype development and pilot scaling, and patenting in the core technology areas.
- Areas - Affordable Healthcare, Water, Sewage Management, Green Technology, Clean Energy, Industrially Utilizable Smart Materials, Waste to Wealth aligned with our National objectives.
- PRISM considers the Intellectual Property (IP) as a belonging to the innovators.
- The grant is given in two phases: Phase I and Phase II, catering to both the initial innovation stage and the advanced enterprise setup phase through DSIR outreach-cum-cluster innovation centres across India.
Culex Mosquito
- With the change in season and rise in temperature, culex or common house mosquitoes have made reappearance across Delhi.
- Unlike Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread dengue and chikungunya and breed in clean water, culex mosquitoes breed in unclean stagnant water.
- Culex mosquitoes are known as carriers or vectors of diseases such as Japanese encephalitis, West Nile Virus and Lymphatic filariasis.
- They bite by detecting body heat and carbon dioxide that humans exhale.
CIISCO Algorithm
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) Identification in Inner Solar Corona (CIISCO) algorithm will be used in India’s first solar mission, Aditya-L1.
- CIISCO was developed by the Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciences (ARIES) and Royal Observatory of Belgium.
- This new algorithm will be used to detect and track the accelerating Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in the lower corona of the Sun.
- Previously, Computer Aided CME Tracking Software (CACTus) based on a computer vision algorithm was used to detect and characterise such eruptions.
- This vision algorithm detects the CMEs automatically in the outer corona where these eruptions cease to show accelerations and propagate with a nearly constant speed.
- However, this algorithm could not be applied to the inner corona observations due to the vast acceleration experienced by these eruptions.
Coronal Mass Ejections
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) that comes from the Sun are huge bubbles of gas threaded with magnetic field lines.
- They cause various disturbances to the space environment, and cause geomagnetic storms, satellite failures, and power outages.
Source: PIB, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Down To Earth, Business Line
