GS-III

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had raised the issue in Parliament on July 11 Restricting the speeds of vessels and blowing sirens and horns is how the Ministry of Shipping plans to safeguard the population of the Ganges River Dolphin, in the country’s one dolphin reserve through which National Waterway-1 connecting …

Funds set aside under a 2010 action plan for resolving sanitation and drinking water issues were allegedly misappropriated by the State’s rehabilitation wing It’s 2 a.m., and the stench of sewage wafts in through the only window of Aziza Jawahar’s crumbling house. Taking the cue that she is now long …

‘There should be no imposition of any language nor should there be opposition to it’ Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu has underlined the importance of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in educational institutions, at least at the primary level. He was delivering the inaugural address of the golden jubilee …

Consuming a healthy diet rich in fibre during pregnancy may promote the wellbeing of both the mother and child, and reduce the risk of preeclampsia, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. Plant-based fibre is broken down in the gut by bacteria into factors that influence the …

The method offers a portable, low-cost and safe alternative to X-ray and MRI scans Uday Khankhoje’s team at IIT Madras is interested in developing a way of detecting breast cancer using microwaves – or radio frequency (RF) waves, as they are called. While several groups have worked on this in …

These elephants remained solitary or associated in mixed-age and mixed-sex groups within the forested areas. Environmental and anthropogenic factors have not just degraded elephant habitats and left them stressed, but also changed their social behaviour, notes a recent study conducted by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. The …

Alternatively, gold nanoparticles can be used to convert carbon dioxide into methane Using gold nanoparticles that absorb sunlight over the entire visible region and even the near infrared light, researchers at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, have been able to desalinate seawater to produce drinking water. Unlike …

Russia launched a space telescope on Saturday from the cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in a joint project with Germany. A video posted on the website of the Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, showed a Proton-M rocket carrying the Spektr-RG taking off from the launch pad. The launch was originally scheduled …

Will help in studying human evolution In 2014, a virus called crAssphage that infects bacteria was discovered as part of the human body’s intestinal environment. Now, a recent study indicates that it may have co-evolved with human lineage. The study published in the journal Nature Microbiology showed that the virus …

Fossil discovered in Myanmar Some 99 million years ago, a small creature with a weird elongated toe died and became partially entombed in amber. Its lower leg and foot remained undisturbed in the hardened tree resin until amber miners eventually discovered the fossil in Myanmar’s Hukawng Valley in 2014. The …

Zoo tours give insights into homosexuality among animals Organisers of this year’s Gay Pride week in Munich have a group of rather wild partners — penguins, giraffes and lions at the city zoo — where tours are being run about same-sex love in the animal kingdom. The Munich Zoo has …

U.S. officials began to clean up a massive oil spill on Friday that dumped nearly 30 lakh litres of oil and water into a California canyon, making it larger if less devastating than the State’s last two major oil spills. The newly revealed spill has been flowing off and on …

Following application to revoke registration of potato variety used for Lays chips Food and beverage giant PepsiCo India has been slapped with a notice from a Central agency under the Agriculture Ministry regarding an application to revoke the registration of its potato variety used to make its trademark Lays chips. …

ISRO to launch moon landing mission at 2.51 a.m. on Monday Chandrayaan-2, the first Indian moon landing mission, is all set to head on its 3.84 lakh km voyage to the moon in the wee hours of Monday, July 15. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has scheduled the launch …

Much of the immense amount of electronic waste generated in the city seems to be going into a rabbit hole over which the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has little control or oversight. Disposal of e-waste, if not done properly, can be hazardous to the environment and health. Right …

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are set to hold their second informal summit in Varanasi on October 12, as part of a fresh drive to energise ties following their meeting last month in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. A …

A Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange said on Friday it had halted all services after losing cryptocurrency worth more than $32 million in the latest hack involving virtual money. Remixpoint said its subsidiary BITPoint Japan discovered overnight that about $32.3 million in various digital currencies had gone missing. The apparent hack was …

Artificial intelligence programs have bested humans in checkers, chess, Go and two-player poker, but multi-player poker was always believed to be a bigger ask. Mission: accomplished. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, working with Facebook’s AI initiative, has announced that their program defeated a group of top pros in six-player no-limit …

Umpire wears an earpiece connected to iPhone and relays the call upon receiving it from a computer system “Robot umpires” have arrived. The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional baseball league to let a computer call balls and strikes on Wednesday night at its All-Star Game. Plate umpire …

Changes in soil characteristics affect organic elements, ruins of Viking settlements In Greenland, climate change isn’t just a danger to ecosystems but also a threat to history, as global warming is affecting archeological remains, according to a study. There are more than 1,80,000 archaeological sites across the Arctic, some dating …