1) NOTA (None of the Above) option in elections: NOTA is one of the options available in the Electronic Voting Machine.
- If a voter does not support any of the candidates contesting in the election, they have the option to select NOTA.
- It was introduced following the 2013 Supreme Court directive in the PUCL versus Union of India case.
- There is no provision for re-polling in a constituency even if NOTA gets the most votes.
- SC ruled that the NOTA option is applicable only for direct elections and not indirect elections such as the Rajya Sabha polls
2) Miyawaki Plantation Method: South Eastern Coalfileds Ltd (SECL) will undertake plantation using Miyawaki method in coal belt region of Chhattisgarh.
- Pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki.
- Involves planting native trees, shrubs and groundcover plants within every square meter to create a dense canopy layer of tall trees in small land parcels.
- Species chosen are plants which can survive harsh weather and water-scarce conditions.
- Benefits of the method: Forests grow rapidly; Utility in urban forestry; increase carbon sequestration, reduce air and noise pollution and attract local birds and insects
3) National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS): As of 2023, NAFIS has been established at 1022 locations across the country.
- NAFIS is a country-wide searchable database of crime- and criminal-related fingerprints
- It is managed by the National Crime Record Bureau at the Central Fingerprint Bureau.
- It assigns a unique 10-digit National Fingerprint Number (NFN) to each person arrested for a crime.
- NAFIS provide the much-needed unique identifier for every arrested person in the CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems) database as both are connected at the backend
4) Diel Vertical Migration (DVM): DVM is synchronised movement of deep-sea marine animals up and down in oceanic water column over a daily cycle.
- Free-floating zooplanktons swim up to food-rich surface waters at night to feed when light is scarce and they are “hidden” from predators.
- They return to the depths before sun rises.
- DVM plays a pivotal role in sequestering carbon.
- Animals remove substantial amounts of carbon from Upper Ocean as they feed on surface-dwelling plankton.
- When these organisms return to deeper waters, they carry carbon with them.
