• The Supreme Court has recently asked the Centre to respond to a plea challenging the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
• In agreeing to examine the law, the court has opened the doors for litigation in various places of worship across the country including Mathura and Varanasi.

Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991

• The Act prohibits conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on the 15th day of August, 1947, and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
• No person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination into one of a different denomination or section.
• All suits, appeals or other proceedings regarding converting the character of a place of worship, that were pending on August 15, 1947, will stand abated when the Act commences and no fresh proceedings can be filed.
• However, legal proceedings can be initiated with respect to the conversion of the religious character of any place of worship after the commencement of the Act if the change of status took place after the cut-off date of August 15, 1947.
• Nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the place or place of worship commonly known as Ram Janma Bhumi-Babri Masjid situated in Ayodhya in the State of Uttar Pradesh.

Besides the Ayodhya dispute, the Act also exempted:

1. any place of worship that is an ancient and historical monument or an archaeological site, or is covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958
2. a suit that has been finally settled or disposed of
3. any dispute that has been settled by the parties or conversion of any place that took place by acquiescence before the Act commenced

• Politician-writer M Veerappa Moily, poets Arundhathi Subramaniam and Anamika are among the twenty writers who will be conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020.

Sahitya Akademi Award

• Every year since its inception in 1954, the Sahitya Akademi Award prizes to the most outstanding books of literary merit published in English and Rajasthani, besides the 22 languages recognized by the Constitution of India.
• The first Awards were given in 1955.
• The author must be of Indian Nationality.

One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) Scheme

• The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution in association with State/UT Governments is implementing ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ (ONORC) plan for nation-wide portability of ration cards under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA).
• So far, the facility has been enabled in 32 States/UTs covering nearly 69 Crore beneficiaries, almost 86% of NFSA population of the country.
• This system allows all NFSA beneficiaries, particularly migrant beneficiaries, to claim either full or part foodgrains from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) in the country through existing ration card with biometric/Aadhaar authentication in a seamless manner.
• The system also allows their family members back home, if any, to claim the balance foodgrains on same the ration card.

Superior Mirage

• It is an optical illusion, seen, at sea–shore in winter evening, due to which an image of a ship is seen formed in air in sea–sky. The actual ship is nowhere visible.
• Such illusions are reasonably common in the Arctic but can also happen in UK winters when the atmospheric conditions are right, though they are very rare.
• The illusion is caused by a meteorological phenomenon called a temperature inversion.
• Normally, the air temperature drops with increasing altitude, making mountaintops colder than the foothills.
• But in a temperature inversion, warm air sits on top of a band of colder air, playing havoc with our visual perception. 
• Because cold air is denser than warm air, it has a higher refractive index.
• In the case of the “hovering ship”, this means light rays coming from the ship are bent downwards as it passes through the colder air, to observers on the shoreline.
• This makes the ship appear in a higher position than it really is – in this instance, above the sea surface.

Inferior Mirage

• It is an optical illusion, seen in deserts at summer noon, due to which an inverted image of a distant tree is seen formed in hot sand below it, as if formed in water. Actually there is no water anywhere.

• Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has recently launched Mera Ration Mobile App for the benefit of those ration card holders who move to new places in search of livelihood.

1930 Dandi March

• The Lahore Congress of 1929 had authorized the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to launch a programme of civil disobedience including non-payment of taxes.
• In February 1930, CWC meeting at Sabarmati Ashram, invested Gandhi with full powers to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement at a time and place of his choice.
• The Dandi March, also known as the Salt March and the Dandi Satyagraha was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience led by Gandhi.
• The march lasted from 12th March, 1930 to 6th April, 1930 as a direct-action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.
• On 12th March, Gandhiji set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea.
• There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater.
• Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people.

Seabuckthorn

• It’s a shrub which produces an orange-yellow coloured edible berry.
• In India, it is found above the tree line in the Himalayan region, generally in dry areas such as the cold deserts of Ladakh and Spiti.
• In Himachal Pradesh, it is locally called chharma and grows in the wild in Lahaul and Spiti and parts of Kinnaur.
• According to the Seabuckthorn Association of India, around 15,000 hectares in Himachal, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh are covered by this plant.
• The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to start planting seabuckthorn in the cold desert areas.
• As a folk medicine, seabuckthorn has been widely used for treating stomach, heart and skin problems.
• Its fruit and leaves are rich in vitamins, carotenoids and omega fatty acids, among other substances, and it can help troops in acclimatising to high-altitude.

Ayya Vaikunda Swamikal

• Ayya Vaikunda (1809-1851) was a great humanist and social thinker.
• He founded 'samathva samajam' in 1836 and was considered the first socio reform movement in India.
• He is remembered as the first well known social reformer in India who critiqued the caste discrimination and religious hierarchy and fought against the practice of untouchability.
• His gave an exhortation of 'One caste, One religion, One clan, One world, One god'.
• He was against idol worship and he did not allow the portraitures to draw his figure.
• He organized ‘Sama Panthi Bhojana’ in each and every place of worship in the name of ‘Annadanam’.

India’s Joint space Missions

• LUPEX - India and Japan are already working on a joint lunar polar exploration (LUPEX) mission.
• LUPEX aims to send a lander and rover to the Moon’s south pole around 2024.
• Megha-Tropiques - The Indo-French joint satellite mission called MEGHA-TROPIQUES was launched in 2011 for the study of the tropical atmosphere and climate related to aspects such as monsoons, cyclones, etc.
• SARAL - The Indo-French joint mission, named SARAL (Satellite for ALTIKA and ARGOS) for studying the ocean from space using altimetry was successfully launched in 2013.
• NISAR - ISRO and NASA are realizing a joint satellite mission called NISAR (NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) for earth science studies.
• The mission will observe Earth and measure its changing ecosystem and masses globally.
• It is the world’s most expensive imaging-satellite and the two space agencies intend to launch the satellite by 2022.
• TRISHNA - ISRO and the French space agency CNES have partnered in developing advanced upgradation satellites like TRISHNA to monitor the water cycle to help in finding out proper ways to utilize it.

Bamyan Buddhas

• The Bamiyan Buddhas were great examples of a confluence of Gupta, Sassanian and Hellenistic artistic styles.
• The Bamiyan Buddhas are said to date back to the 5th century AD and were once the tallest standing Buddhas in the world.
• Salsal and Shamama, as they were called by the locals, rose to heights of 55 and 38 metres respectively.
• The Salsal means “light shines through the universe” and the Shamama is “Queen Mother”.
• Bamiyan is situated in the high mountains of the Hindu Kush in the central highlands of Afghanistan.
• The valley, which is set along the line of the Bamiyan River, was once integral to the early days of the Silk Roads.
• In 2001, the Taliban began blowing up two monumental Buddha statues in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.
• Recently, the Bamiyan Buddhas have been brought back to life in the form of 3D projections in an event called “A Night with Buddha”.