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The United Nations 2023 Water Conference held recently was the first such meeting in 46 years. What is the Water Conference? The UN 2023 Water Conference is formally known as the 2023 Conference for the Midterm Comprehensive Review of Implementation of the UN Decade for Action on Water and Sanitation (2018-2028). It was held …

The 10th edition of exercise SLINEX-23 is scheduled at Colombo. Key details: It is a bilateral maritime exercise between India-Sri Lanka. The exercise is being conducted in two phases: the Harbour Phase a Sea Phase. Indian Navy is being represented by INS Kiltan, an indigenous Kamorta class ASW corvette and INS Savitri, an Offshore Patrol Vessel. The previous edition of SLINEX was conducted …

After the Chinese government released a list of “standardised” names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian authorities rejected the move “outright”. China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs put out names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese, Tibetan and pinyin characters which includes: two land areas, two residential areas, five mountain peaks and two rivers. Is this the …

Vice President greets the nation on the eve of Mahavir Jayanti Mahavir Jayanti is an important religious festivals in Jainism. It celebrates the birth of Lord Mahavir, the twenty-fourth and last. Birth of Lord Mahavira: Mahavir was born in the year 599 BCE in Kundagram (which is today’s Kundalpur in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar). He was born in a …

Continuing the military-to-military engagement, the Air Forces of India and the U.S. are set to conduct the Cope India exercise at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal, with Japan as an observer. The exercise will see intense air manoeuvres aimed at improving interoperability, a defence source said. The Japanese Air Self Defence Force …

Italian, French and Norwegian researchers are in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago to preserve crucial ice records for analysing past environmental conditions. Scientists camped in the Arctic are set to start drilling to save samples of ancient ice for analysis before the frozen layers melt away due to climate change. They will extract ice in a series of tubes from as far …

A video of a group of men performing the traditional dance of Indian ‘garba’ under the stunning northern lights in Alaska has gone viral. What are ‘Auroras’? Auroras are a natural phenomenon caused by magnetic storms initiated by the Sun’s activity such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. They are visible as bright lights in the sky and are …

The famous Banarasi Paan and Banarasi Langda mango are the two latest products to have got the Geographical Indication (GI) tag. As many as 33 products were granted GI certification on a single day by the GI Registry, Chennai. Among them 10 products belong to Uttar Pradesh, including three from Varanasi. As of now, UP has 45 GI goods, …

India and Malaysia have agreed to settle trade in the Indian rupee which indicates that India is willing to take concrete steps towards de-dollarisation of its international trade.  Key details: The Union Bank of India has become the first bank in India to operationalise this option by opening a Special Rupee Vostro Account through …

Bandipur completes 50 years as Project Tiger reserve. It was on April 1, 1973, that the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launched Project Tiger, the flagship conservation programme to arrest the big cat’s dwindling population. There were 12 tigers in Bandipur when Project Tiger was launched and now the number of tigers utilising the park is 173 while the number …