Measles

• It is an extremely contagious viral infection that usually causes high fever, rashes, cough, muscle pain, headache and red eyes.
• Severe symptoms include pneumonia and brain swelling, leading to death.

Rubella

• It is also a contagious viral infection that can cause Low-grade fever, sore throat, rash (often mild and less severe than measles), and swollen lymph nodes.
• While it is mild in children and adults, it can lead to serious complications during pregnancy such as miscarriage, stillbirths, birth defects and developmental problems.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

• MPAs are designated areas within the ocean where human activities are regulated to protect marine life and ecosystems.
• They are similar to land-based parks, but in the ocean, these areas offer special protection for natural or historic marine resources.
• Revive Our Ocean Initiative - Aim – To scale up effective, community-led marine protected areas (MPAs) through local action.
• It hopes to remove key barriers that prevent coastal communities from protecting and managing their ocean spaces.

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Hypersonic missiles

• They travel at or above Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound).
• Their key differentiating feature from ballistic missiles is their manoeuvrability during flight.
• Unlike ballistic missiles that follow a predictable trajectory, hypersonic missiles can adjust their course to reach the target.
• A scramjet engine is a Supersonic Combusting Ramjet used in hypersonic propulsion.

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Global bleaching events

• It is the widespread mass bleaching of Coral reefs that affects coral reefs area globally.
  • 1^st global coral bleaching event (1998) - 21%
  • 2^nd global coral bleaching event (2010) - 37%
  • 3^rd global coral bleaching event (2014-2017) - 68%
  • 4^th global coral bleaching event (2023-2025) - 83.7%

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Spaghetti bowl effect

• It is an interesting phenomenon in trade economics where the increasing number of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between countries slows down trade relations between them.
• FTA - In free trade agreements, members agree on a lowered internal tariff to be applied between them, while at the same time each member can have its own external tariff levied on imports from non-member countries.
• Country of Origin (CoO) - This introduces the concept of ‘country of origin’ of the traded product to distinguish products of one country from the other.

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