• The 19th edition of the Indian and French Navy bilateral exercise ‘VARUNA-2021’ is scheduled to be conducted in the Arabian Sea from 25th to 27th April 2021.

Varuna 2021

• The Indian and French Navies have been conducting bilateral maritime exercises since 1993.
• Since 2001, these exercises have been called ‘VARUNA’.
• The three day exercise will see high tempo-naval operations at sea, including advanced air defence and anti-submarine exercises, intense fixed and rotary wing flying operations, tactical manoeuvres, surface and anti-air weapon firings, underway replenishment and other maritime security operations.
• Units of both navies will endeavour to enhance and hone their war-fighting skills to demonstrate their ability as an integrated force to promote peace, security and stability in the maritime domain.

• Border Roads Organization’s Project DANTAK is commemorating its Diamond Jubilee in Bhutan.
• Indian Ambassador to Bhutan laid a floral wreath at the DANTAK Memorial in Simtokha.
• It was a fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by personnel of DANTAK in strengthening the bonds of friendship between India and Bhutan.

Project DANTAK

• It was established on April 24, 1961 as a result of the visionary leadership of his Majesty the Third King and then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru.
• Identifying the utmost importance of connectivity in spurring the socio-economic development and growth of Bhutan, DANTAK was tasked to construct the pioneering motorable roads in the Kingdom.

• India is the second-largest producer of wheat in the world, with over 30 million hectares in the country dedicated to producing this crop.
• But with severe groundwater depletion, the cropping intensity or the amount of land planted in the winter season may decrease by up to 20% by 2025.
• Some of the important winter crops are wheat, barley, mustard and peas.
• The international team studied India’s three main irrigation types on winter cropped areas: dug wells, tube wells, canals, and also analysed the groundwater data from the Central Ground Water Board.
• They found that 13% of the villages in which farmers plant a winter crop are located in critically water-depleted regions.
• The team writes that these villages may lose 68% of their cropped area in future if access to all groundwater irrigation is lost.
• The results suggest that these losses will largely occur in northwest and central India.

• As part of the nation's fight against COVID 19, Indian Navy ships under Headquarters, Southern Naval Command at Kochi are progressing with the mission of OXYGEN EXPRESS in order to render support to the local administration of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep (UTL).

Thotlakonda Buddhist Site

• Historians and biologists campaign to protect the ancient Buddhist site of Thotlakonda - Home to around 90 species of birds.
• The site is found at a hill of Mangamaripeta Village, Bheemunipatnam Taluka of Visakhapatnam District, Andhra Pradesh.

Background

• In 1976, during a helicopter survey by the Indian Navy to set up a naval facility, ruins of the Buddhist site were spotted.
• Subsequently, the entire hill was declared as an area comprising a protected monument under the Andhra Pradesh Ancient and Historical Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1960.
• The area housed remnants of a flourishing monastery, practising Hinayana Buddhism, which was most active for 400 years from 200 BCE to 200 CE.

Unicorn Black hole

• The black hole is located about 1,500 light years - the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) - from Earth.
• While it may be the closest one to us, it is still far away, by way of comparison, the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is 4 light years away.
• There are three categories of black holes.

1. The smallest, like 'the Unicorn,' are so-called stellar mass black holes formed by the gravitational collapse of a single star.
2. There are gargantuan 'supermassive' black holes like the one at our galaxy's center, 26,000 light years from Earth, which is four million times the sun's mass.
3. A few intermediate-mass black holes also have been found with masses somewhere in between.

Road Trains

• Road-Train is a motor vehicle wherein the traction is provided by the puller, which is connected to a serial combination of trailers or semi- trailers.
• These shall ply on select stretches to reduce congestion, save fuel and reduce noise & air-pollution.
• To revolutionize the transport of goods and reduce the overall logistic costs, the Automotive Industry Standards Committee has amended its AIS-113 Standard to include the safety requirements of Road-Trains.
• The standards have been prepared after examining European benchmarks, keeping in mind Indian operating conditions.
• The Automotive Industry Standards Committee has representatives from the relevant Ministries, Testing Agencies, Industry stakeholders, BIS etc.

InvITs and REITs

• Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvIT) - It is like a mutual fund, which enables direct investment of small amounts of money from possible individual/institutional investors in infrastructure to earn a small portion of the income as return.
• InvITs can be treated as the modified version of REITs designed to suit the specific circumstances of the infrastructure sector.
• They are similar to REIT but invest in infrastructure projects such as roads or highways which take some time to generate steady cash flows.
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) - A REIT is roughly like a mutual fund that invests in real estate although the similarity doesn’t go much further.
• Essentially, it’s like a group of people pooling their money together and buying real estate except that it’s on a large scale and is regulated.
• Recently Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) allowing insurers to invest in debt securities issued by infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) and real estate investment trusts (RETTs).

Sahel Region

• The Sahel is the Eco climatic and biogeographic realm of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south.
• Having a semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea.
• The Sahel part of Africa includes following nations

1. Senegal,
2. Mauritania,
3. Mali,
4. Burkina Faso,
5. Algeria,
6. Niger,
7. Nigeria,
8. Cameroon
9. Central African Republic,
10. Chad,
11. Sudan,
12. Eritrea,
13. Ethiopia.

• Historically, the western part of the Sahel was sometimes known as the Sudan region.
• This belt was roughly located between the Sahara and the coastal areas of West Africa.

Zhurong Mars Rover

• Recently, CNSA has announced that it will name its first Mars rover as ‘Zhurong’.
• By this China would become the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to put a robot rover on Mars.
• It is China’s first Mars rover aboard the Tianwen-1 probe that arrived in Mars orbit in February 2020.
• The rover is part of Chinese space plans that include launching a crewed orbital station and landing a human on the moon.
• The top candidate for the landing site is Utopia Planitia, a rock-strewn plain where the U.S. lander Viking 2 touched down in 1976.