Sodium Ion Batteries and Lithium-Ion Batteries

• Currently, the two dominant commercial options to fulfill energy storage needs in India are lithium-ion batteries (LIB) and lead-acid batteries (LAB).
• LABs are hugely popular in India — especially for the manufacturing of two and three-wheeler electric vehicles — owing to their affordability, material accessibility, and recycling rates.
• However, these batteries have various social, environmental, and safety-related issues, despite years of innovation and popularity.
• LABs, though pioneer batteries in EVs, raise concerns for the convenience of users due to their low energy density and explosive potential.
• LIBs have gained high commercial value in the global market due to their high energy density, compact size, and enhanced cycle life.
• Apart from being the drivers of EV manufacturing in the world, they are used for energy storage in electronics and off-grid power supply.
• Sodium-Ion Batteries (SIBs) are rechargeable like LIBs and require sodium ion movement between electrodes during the charging and discharging of the battery.
• Moreover, SIBs have 45 percent less global warming potential than lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and about 25 percent less than NMC batteries in the cradle-to-gate life cycle comparison.

Living Lands Charter

• All 54 Commonwealth members have agreed to voluntarily dedicate a ‘living land’ in their respective countries to future generations, in line with the strategy set for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
• The non-binding Living Lands Charter mandates that member countries will safeguard global land resources and arrest land degradation while acting against climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable management.
• The Living Lands Charter helps to encapsulate the combined effort to hold the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• It aimed to support member countries to effectively deliver their commitments under the three Rio conventions — UN Convention on Biological Diversity, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

CAPSTONE Mission of NASA

• The full name of the mission is the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment.
• For Artemis, NASA’s program to send astronauts back to the moon, NASA decided to include Gateway, a small space station around the moon.
• That would make it easier for astronauts to reach more parts of the moon.
• This outpost is to be placed in what is known as a near-rectilinear halo orbit.
• Halo orbits are those influenced by the gravity of two bodies — in this case, the Earth and the moon.
• The influence of the two bodies helps make the orbit highly stable, minimizing the amount of propellant needed to keep a spacecraft circling the moon.
• The gravitational interactions also keep the orbit at about a 90-degree angle to the line-of-sight view from Earth.
• This is the near-rectilinear part of the name.
• Thus, a spacecraft in this orbit never passes behind the moon, where communications would be cut off.
• A trip around the moon will take about one week.
• No spacecraft has ever traveled in this orbit.
• Thus, CAPSTONE will provide data to NASA to confirm its mathematical models for operating its Gateway outpost in a near-rectilinear halo orbit.

Regularized, Accelerated, Linear Fascicle Evaluation (ReAl-LiFE)

• Researchers of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a new Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)-based machine learning algorithm that can help scientists better understand and predict connectivity between different regions of the brain.
• The algorithm, called Regularized, Accelerated, Linear Fascicle Evaluation, or (ReAl-LiFE), can rapidly analyze the enormous amounts of data generated from diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) scans of the human brain.
• Using ReAL-LiFE, the team was able to evaluate dMRI data over 150 times faster than the existing state-of-the-art algorithms.
• Tasks that previously took hours and days can now be done within seconds and minutes.

Pay Roll Automation for Disbursement of Monthly Allowances (PADMA)

• It is an automated platform leveraging the latest technology which will provide seamless and timely disbursal of Pay & Allowances to around 15,000 Indian Coast Guard personnel.
• This module has been developed under the aegis of the Defense Accounts Department and will be operated by the Pay Accounts Office Coast Guard, Noida.
• The launch marked the beginning of the Centralized Pay System (CPS), the foundation of which is being laid down by the Defense Accounts Department Headquarters to provide one-stop pay accounting solutions for all organizations under the Defense Ministry.