Red Panda

• Habitat and most of the corridors of Red Panda are outside the Protected Area network.
• They live in chilly, cold, mountainous mixed deciduous and coniferous forests of the eastern Himalayas.
• Altitude - Ranging from 2,200 metres and 5,000 m.
• Temperature - They prefer a viable temperature range of 10 ºC to 25 ºC.

Spotted in National Parks

• Singalila National Park – Darjeeling.
• Neora Valley national park - West Bengal.
• Kangchenjunga National Park - Sikkim.
• Ex-situ site of Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park (PNHZP) in West Bengal.
• PNHZP is the only zoo in India designated for the conservation and breeding of Red Pandas in captivity.
• Transboundary conservation is essential to save endangered Red Pandas.

Types of Red Pandas

• The Himalayan Red Panda – Found in Sikkim, Darjeeling, West Bengal, Nepal, Bhutan and Southern Tibet.
• The Chinese Red Panda - Southeastern Tibet, Northern Myanmar and the Sichuan and Yunan provinces of China.
• Yarlung Zangbo River acts as the actual geographical barrier between the distributions of these two species.
• The zygomatic (cheekbone) breadth and skull size of the Chinese Red Panda is larger than the Himalayan Red Panda.
• The facial colour of the Chinese Red Panda is redder than the Himalayan Red Panda.
• In the Chinese Red Panda, tail rings are more prominent, with dark rings being darker red and the pale rings being whitish than the Himalayan Red Panda.
• These animals are hunted for their lucrative red skin and meat.
• They are also captured live and traded as pets.

Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano erupted on the island of Hawaii.

Mechanism behind Volcanic Eruption

• The center of the Earth is called the core, the next layer up is the mantle, the outermost layer is the crust.
• Magma is a melted rock mixed with gas and mineral crystals accumulates in an underground chamber beneath the volcano.
• The magma forms when a hot mantle plume that melts the rock.
• The volcano is an opening that lets magma out onto the surface of the Earth.
• Once released from the volcano, the magma is called lava.
• Earthquakes - If more magma was making its way upward, because pressure from rising magma can expand the sides of a volcano and cause rocks to shift and break causes earthquakes.

Types of volcanoes

• Shield volcano – It built up over thousands of years through lava eruptions and its sides slope gently downward in all directions.

E.x - Mauna Loa

• Composite volcano –It is also known as a stratovolcano, with steep sides that come to a point at the top, like an upside-down sugar cone.

E.x - Mount Semeru

Karnataka ranked the most innovative state by the National Manufacturing Innovation Survey

National Manufacturing Innovation Survey, 2021-22

• It is a joint initiative of Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
• Aim - It aims to understand the current innovation activities of the manufacturing economy in India.
• It is a two-pronged survey that examined the innovation processes, outcomes, and barriers in manufacturing firms, and also studied the innovation ecosystem that affects innovation outcomes in these firms.
• The exercise is a follow-up of the DST’s first National Innovation Survey held in 2011.

Findings of the Survey

• Degree of Innovation among Manufacturing Firms
• Karnataka is the most innovative state overall followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu (DNH&DD), Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.
• Highest share of Innovative firms - Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu
• Lowest share of Innovative firms - Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand.
• Nearly 3/4th of the 8,000-odd firms neither made any innovative product nor business process innovation during the survey period of financial years 2017-2020.
• Most of them are micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME).
• However, nearly 80% of the firms that did reported significant gains such as expanding markets and reducing production costs.
• Barriers to Innovation - Lack of internal funds, high innovation costs, and lack of financing from external sources.
• Gujarat and DNH&DD reported the highest frequencies of barriers to innovation, despite being among India’s most industrialised States.

Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said regional languages should be used in courts in every State.

Promotion of Regional Languages

• The Constitution of India doesn’t specifies the official languages of different states.
• The legislature of a state may adopt one or more of the languages in use in the state or Hindi as the official Language of the state.
• Until that English is the official Language of that state.
• The Official Languages Act (1963) lays down that English should be the communication language between the Union and the states for non-hindi states.
• When the President is satisfied that a substantial portion of the population of a state desired the use of any language spoken by them, he may recognized that as the official language of that state.
• This provision aims at protecting the linguistic minorities in states.
• Citizens can use any language other than the eighth schedule language for the redressal grievances in the court.

Convectional Rainfall

• Convectional rainfall occurs when the energy of the sun (or insolation) heats the earth’s surface and causes water to evaporate changing to water vapor.
• This warm, moist air then rises, and as it rises, it cools.
• The air reaches a point called the condensation level where it has cooled to such an extent that the water vapor condenses and turns back to a liquid form.
• This process of condensation high in the atmosphere leads to the development of clouds.
• As the clouds continue to grow the weight of the water droplets can eventually lead to precipitation.
• This type of rainfall is widespread in tropical areas (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) and in areas such as South-east England during warm sun.