India assured Mauritius of continued support in Chagos islands territorial dispute with United Kingdom (UK).

About Chagos islands

• Comprises around 58 small, very low-lying islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
  • Key Islands include Salomon Islands, Diego Garcia,  Nelsons Island, etc.
  • Diego Garcia is home to a US naval support facility.
• Strategic located at about 1,600 km south of the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent.
• Currently controlled by UK as British Indian Ocean Territory.
  • In 2019, International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its advisory opinion directed United Kingdom to unconditionally withdraw from Island.

Asia’s first health research-related Pre-clinical Network Facility has been inaugurated in Faridabad (Haryana) under the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). 

• Genetically Defined Human Associated Microbial Culture Collection (Ge-HuMic) Facility has been also inaugurated.  

About CEPI

• Genesis: Launched in 2017 by Norway and India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Economic Forum (WEF), etc. 
• Aim: To accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines.
• Headquarter: Oslo, Norway

Recently, 96^th Foundation and Technology Day of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) was celebrated.

About ICAR

• Genesis: 1929 as a registered society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
  • Formed based on the report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture
• Objective: Coordinate, guide, and manage research and education in agriculture including horticulture, fisheries, and animal sciences in the entire country.
• It is an autonomous organisation under Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
• Headquarters: New Delhi. 
• Union Minister of Agriculture is the ex-officio President of the ICAR Society.

SEBI proposed to introduce a new asset class for investors which can offer investment strategies including long-short equity funds and inverse ETFs.

About Inverse ETF (‘Short ETF’ or ‘Bear ETF’)

• It is an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) constructed by using various derivatives to profit from a decline in the value of an underlying benchmark.
  • ETFs are marketable securities that track an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an Index Fund.
• It gains from a drop in the value of an underlying benchmark.
• Only intended for short holding periods.

Supreme Court has agreed to list petitions challenging the Money Bill route taken by the Union Government to pass certain bill in the Parliament.

About Money Bill

• Defined under Article 110 of the Indian Constitution. A bill shall be deemed to be a Money Bill if it contains only provisions dealing with:
  • the imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of any tax.
  • the regulation of the borrowing of money or the giving of any guarantee by the Government of India, etc. 

• Decision of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha is final on question arises whether a Bill is a Money Bill or not.
• As per Article 109, a Money Bill shall be introduced only in Lok Sabha.

A recent research published in a journal indicates that the melting of polar ice caps is slowing the rotation of Earth, thereby lengthening our days at an unprecedented rate.

Impact of Climate Change on Length of Earth Day

• Accelerated melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets, led to a rise in sea level and pole-to-equator mass transport.
• This mass transport has significantly increased the Earth’s oblateness and length of day since 1900.
• These findings signify implications of climate change for precise timekeeping and space navigation, among others.

West African country Ivory Coast became the first country to roll out the new R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine to children below 2 years.

• Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by a single-cell parasite of genus Plasmodium spread to humans by some types of mosquitoes.

About R21/Matrix-M vaccine

• Second malaria vaccine recommended by WHO in 2023, after RTS,S/AS01 vaccine.
• Developed by the University of Oxford, leveraging an adjuvant technology from Novavax.
• Manufactured and scaled by the Serum Institute of India.
• Targets the plasmodium ‘sporozoite’, which is the first form of the malaria parasite entering the human body.

Ministry of Education launched Asmita Project along with two other initiatives to promote multilingualism in education.

• These initiatives are aligned with New Education Policy, 2020. 

About Three Initiatives: 

• Asmita (Augmenting Study Materials in Indian languages through Translation and Academic writing) Project:   Ensuring that students have access to high-quality study materials in their native languages.
  • Under it, 22,000 books will be produced in 22 scheduled languages in 5 years.
  • Implementing Agencies: University Grants Commission (UGC) and Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti (BBS)
• Bahubhasha Shabdkosh: A comprehensive multilingual dictionary repository. 
• Real-time Translation Architecture: Enhancing translation with cutting edge technology