GS-III

A new species of ‘crying’ snake has been discovered in Lepa-Rada district of Arunachal Pradesh. The discovery of the non-venomous crying keelback, whose zoological name is Hebius lacrima , has been published in Zootaxa , the New Zealand-based scientific mega-journal for animal taxonomy. “The name for this keelback was suggested …

India and China are leading the global greening effort, a finding that is quite contrary to the general perception worldwide, a study based on NASA satellite data has said, observing that the world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago. “China and India account for one-third of …

Retail inflation declined marginally to 2.05% in January over the previous month on continued decline in food prices, including vegetables and eggs, government data said on Tuesday. Retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December 2018 has also been revised downward to 2.11% from the earlier estimate …

‘Plan is to consolidate instead of expanding network’ Air India will focus on making 14 of its snag-ridden aircraft airworthy in the next three months and add more frequencies in order to improve its aircraft utilisation. This is part of the airline’s efforts to make it more attractive to private …

CAG says I-T dept. has no mechanism to ensure all registered companies have PAN and file returns In an audit of assessments made by the Income Tax Department on the real estate sector, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that a whopping 95% of the companies registered with the …

More than 82% voters want more women in the next Lok Sabha, according to a survey by a citizen’s collective called Shakti. The survey was conducted among 10 lakh voters across 24 States on a mobile application called Neta app. The application has more than two crore verified users and …

No sovereign guarantee in Russian S-400 deal either, say senior officers In the backdrop of revelations that government had waived guarantees and anti-corruption clauses for France in the Rafale fighter jet deal, senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officers said there were no such pacts even in deals with Russia and …

Hydrothermarchaeota, or microbes living in extreme environments may hold clues to the evolution of early life. These microbes use carbon monoxide and sulfate as sources of energy – chemosynthesis. Published inThe ISME Journal, the study used genomic approaches to unravel the secrets of its survival. It may help predict about …

The abundance of 86 proteins were altered It is well known that TB bacteria can actively manipulate the degradative pathway of macrophages (cells responsible for detecting, engulfing and destroying pathogens) such that instead of getting destroyed, the TB bacteria can actually multiply inside the macrophages. Now, researches at the Institute …

By studying the faecal samples of over 100 healthy people from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, researchers from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal have decoded the Indian gut microbiome and have created a gene catalogue. Constructed using multiple omics approaches such as genomics and proteomics, the …