1) C+C5: China convened an online meeting of trade ministers of the grouping known as C+C5 — China and the five Central Asian republics, namely Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
- The first C+C5 summit was held in virtual format last year, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
- Diplomatic relations were established in January 1992, and China’s relationship with the region was institutionalised as the Shanghai Five, the forerunner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
2) Stockholm Agreement: The main warring sides in Yemen are the Iran-backed Houthis and the pro-Yemen government, Saudi-led coalition.
- The warring parties in control of parts of Yemen had signed the Stockholm Agreement in December 2018 whereby they had committed to freeing conflict-related detainees.
- The agreement brokered by the United Nations had three main components — the Hudayah agreement, the prisoner exchange agreement, and the Taïz agreement.
- The Hudayah agreement included a ceasefire in the city of Hodeidah and other clauses like no military reinforcements in the city and strengthened UN presence.
- The Taïz agreement includes the formation of a joint committee with participation from civil society and the UN.
3) Jagadish Chandra Bose: He was a Plant Physiologist and physicist who invented the crescograph, a device for measuring the growth of plants. He for the first time showed that plants have feelings.
- Bose discovered wireless communication and was named the Father of Radio Science by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Bose is widely believed to be the first one to generate electromagnetic signals in the microwave range.
- He was responsible for the expansion of experimental science in India.
- Bose is considered the father of Bengali science fiction. A crater on the moon has been named in his honour.
- He founded Bose Institute, a premier research institute of India and also one of its oldest. Established in 1917, the Institute was the first interdisciplinary research centre in Asia.
- His books include Response in the Living and Non-Living (1902) and The Nervous Mechanism of Plants (1926).
4) National Quantum Mission (NQM): NQM will fund research and development of quantum computing technology and associated applications.
- The mission will have defined milestones that are expected to be achieved over the course of eight years (2023-24 to 2030-31).
- India is the sixth country to have a dedicated quantum mission after the US, Austria, Finland, France and China.
- Four thematic hubs, or T-Hubs, with a focus on quantum computing, communication, sensing and metrology, and materials and devices will be established in India’s leading academic and national R&D institutes.
- Objectives: Create intermediate-scale quantum computers with 50-1000 qubits in the next eight years.
- Establish satellite-based secure quantum communications between ground stations within India, as well as with other countries, covering a range of 2000 km.
- It will look to provide inter-city quantum key distribution over 2000 km.
5) Garbh-Ini programme: It promotes Maternal and Child Health and develops prediction tools for preterm birth.
- It is an initiative under the Department of Biotechnology of the Union Ministry of Science and Technology. This program is led by the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), NCR Biotech cluster, Faridabad.
- It is part of the Atal JaiAnusandhan Biotech Mission – Undertaking Nationally Relevant Technology Innovation (UNaTI).
