Urban 20 (U20)

• The Urban 20 (U20) is a city diplomacy initiative launched on December 12, 2017, at the One Planet Summit in Paris.
• Urban-20 (U20), one of the Engagement Groups of G20.
• It provides a platform for cities from G20 countries to facilitate discussions on various important issues of urban development.
• The topics includes climate change, social inclusion, sustainable mobility, affordable housing, and financing of urban infrastructure and propose collective solutions.
• Bearing in mind the importance of cities as growth centres of development, the U20 strives to enhance the profile of cities on the global stage.
• This city diplomacy initiative facilitates a productive dialogue between the national and local governments and helps promote the importance of urban development issues in the G20 agenda.

Primordial Black Holes

• Scientists theorize that primordial black holes formed in the first second after the birth of the universe.
• It is believed that they are formed as a result of collapsing radiations as opposed to the collapse of massive stars, which is the case of any other black holes.
• In that moment, pockets of hot material may have been dense enough to form black holes, potentially with masses ranging from 100,000 times less than a paperclip to 100,000 times more than the Sun’s.
• Then as the universe quickly expanded and cooled, the conditions for forming black holes this way ended.
• Now, 13.8 billion years later, scientists haven’t yet found definitive proof these primordial black holes ever existed.
• It’s possible, however, that they could have evaporated as the cosmos aged due to quantum mechanical processes occurring at the edges of their event horizons.
• According to theoretical predictions, lower-mass black holes (those with less mass than a mountain) would evaporate more quickly than larger ones, which could mean many of these early black holes have completely dissipated.
• But more massive primordial black holes could still linger across the universe.

Podu Cultivation

• In a move that could possibly end the longstanding issue, Telangana Chief Minister pattas for Podu lands.

• Podu cultivation is a type of shifting cultivation that employs methods like slash and burn.
• This is extensively used by the tribes living in the forests of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
• Shifting Cultivation types and the States they are associated with
  1. Jhum – North Eastern India
  2. Vevar and Dahiyaar – Bundelkhand Region (Madhya Pradesh)
  3. Deepa – Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh
  4. Zara and Erka – Southern States
  5. Batra – South Eastern Rajasthan
  6. Podu – Andhra Pradesh
  7. Kumari – Hilly regions of the Western Ghats of Kerala
  8. Kaman, Vinga – Odisha

Global E-Waste Report

• The report is released by the United Nations University (UNU).
• According to the report the global e-waste will increase by 38% in the decade between 2020 and 2030.
• The UNU is an international think tank and postgraduate teaching organisation.
• The headquarters of UNU is in Japan.
• UNU’s mission is to resolve the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of the United Nations, its peoples and the member states.

Treaty of Alinagar

• The Treaty of Alinagar, signed on February 9, 1757.
• It was a reluctant agreement signed by Bengal’s Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula with the English East India Company.
• The treaty strengthened the position of the British in Bengal and laid foundations for the Battle of Plassey a few months later.
• The treaty set the stage for British colonial expansion in India, turning what was an economic enterprise into an imperial one.
• It was Mughal emperor Aurangzeb who gave the Company the right to trade in Bengal for an annual payment of Rs 3000.