Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)

• It was launched by the National Statistical Office (NSO), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, in April 2017.
• The objective of PLFS is primarily twofold:
  1. to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), and Unemployment Rate (UR) in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
  2. to estimate employment and unemployment indicators in both ‘Usual Status’ (ps+ss) and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.
• These indicators and ‘Current Weekly Status’ are defined as follows:
• Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in the labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population.
• Worker Population Ratio (WPR): WPR is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.
• Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force.
• Current Weekly Status (CWS): The activity status determined on the basis of a reference period of the last 7 days preceding the date of the survey is known as the current weekly status (CWS) of the person.

Black Death

• The term Black Death refers to the bubonic plague that spread across Western Asia, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe in 1346-53.
• It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and was spread by fleas that were carried by rodent hosts.
• The microorganism Y. pestis spread to human populations, who at some point transmitted it to others either through the vector of a human flea or directly through the respiratory system.
• The onset of symptoms was followed by intense fever and vomiting of blood.
• After the initial infection, most victims died within 2-7 days.

Why it is called black death?

• It is commonly believed that the term Black Death gets its name from the black marks that appeared on some of the plague victims’ bodies.
• However, historians argued that this term, which only emerged centuries later, had less to do with the disease’s clinical symptoms, and more to do with how European writers from the 19th century onwards understood the epidemic.

How was the origin of the disease identified?

• In the late 19th century, excavations of two Christian cemeteries near Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan unearthed a settlement of a trading community that had been affected by an unknown disease in 1338-1339.
• The researchers found that the strain of Y. pestis that caused the epidemic in the settlements near Lake Issyk-Kul was the direct ancestor of the strain that caused the Black Death.

Cosmic Cannibalism

• Astronomers have observed a dead star ripping up an entire planetary system.
• A star is ending its life so violently that the dead star left behind, called a white dwarf, is disrupting an entire planetary system by sucking in debris from both its inner and outer reaches.
• This cosmic phenomenon is the first time that astronomers have observed it.
• The white dwarf star is consuming the rock-metallic and icy material, both of which are the “ingredients of planets”.
• This case of cosmic cannibalism was diagnosed with the help of archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA observatories.
• A white dwarf is formed when a low-mass star like our sun exhausts most of its nuclear fuel. It is usually very dense and about the size of a planet.
• These research findings are also interesting because it is such icy objects are credited for crashing into dry rocky planets in the solar system and “irrigating them”.
• Such comets and asteroids are believed to have delivered water to Earth billions of years ago, thereby sparking the conditions necessary for life as we know it.
• The makeup of the bodies attracted by the white dwarf implies that such icy reservoirs might be common among planetary systems.
• Helmi Stream: a group of stars that originally belonged to a dwarf galaxy that was devoured by the Milky Way in what the astronomers called, an act of galactic cannibalism.

Various Tenancy Acts

Chota Nagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act, 1908

• The Chota Nagpur Tenancy -CNT Act, 1908, is a land rights legislation that was created to protect the land rights of the tribal population of Jharkhand, instituted by the British.
• A major feature of the CNT Act is that it prohibits the transfer of land to non-tribals to ensure community ownership.
• The areas of North Chota Nagpur, South Chota Nagpur, and Palamau divisions are included in the jurisdiction of the CNT Act.
• It came as a response to the Birsa movement.

Santhal Pargana Act, 1876

• Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act enacted in 1876 had been passed following the Santhal rebellion in 1855 against feudal land tenure systems of the colonial government.
• The 1876 Act prohibits the sale of Adivasi land to non-Adivasis in the Santhal Pargana region along Jharkhand's border with Bengal.

Model Tenancy Act, 2021

• The Model Act requires the landlord and tenant to sign a written agreement that specifies the rent, period of tenancy, and other related terms. 
• Security deposit is capped at two months’ rent for residential premises and six months’ rent for non-residential premises.
• Conditions for eviction of the tenant under the Model Act include (i) refusal to pay agreed-upon rent; (ii) failure to pay rent for more than two months; (iii) occupation of part or whole of premises without written consent; and (iv) misuse of premises despite a written notice.

Water bodies and their location

• Nares Strait is located between Ellesmere Island of Canada and Greenland (Denmark).
• The Nares Strait joins the Lincoln Sea at Cape Sheridan.
• The Barents Sea extends between Russia and Norway.
• Issyk-Ku is located in Kyrgyzstan.
• The Chukchi Sea is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and on the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea.
• It extends between Alaska (USA) and Siberia (Russia).