Blog

1) Guillotine: In legislative parlance, to “guillotine” means to bunch together and fast-track the passage of financial business. It is a fairly common during the Budget Session in Lok Sabha. Parliament goes into recess for about three weeks after budget presentation, during which the House Standing Committees examine Demands for Grants for various Ministries, andRead more

1) Aragalaya: It is a Sinhalese word for “struggle”. It is being used widely to describe the daily gathering of people at Colombo that began with the demand that Gotabaya resign as President and make way for a new dispensation, even “a new system”. aragalaya also captures the struggle of individual Sri Lankans to findRead more

1) Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID): It is a public platform started by the WHO in 2008 for countries to share genome sequences. Created as an alternative to the public domain sharing model, GISAID’s sharing mechanism took into account the concerns of Member States by providing a publicly accessible database designed byRead more

1) Siniyah Island: Archaeologists have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the UAE. The pearling town sits on Siniyah Island, whose name means ‘flashing lights’. Siniyah Island shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands and located north of Umm al-Quwain which is the least-populatedRead more

1) Sangita Kalanidhi Awards: It is considered the highest accolade in the field of Carnatic music since 1942.  Prior to that, a senior musician/expert was invited to preside over the Music Academy’s annual conference. In 1942, it was decided that the musician so invited would be conferred the title of Sangita Kalanidhi, the award comprisingRead more

1) Horseshoe crabs: one of the oldest living creatures on earth (around 450 million years) and medicinally priceless, appear to be disappearing along Odisha’s coast which is the largest habitat of horseshoe crabs in India These crabs are basically deep-sea animals and known as marine ‘living fossil’ The blood of this crab is very importantRead more

1) ‘Indira Jaising vs. Union of India’ (2017): In 2017, the Supreme Court released a list of “Guidelines to Regulate the Conferment of Designation of Senior Advocates” after a case filed by India’s first woman Senior Advocate Indira Jaising for greater transparency in the process of designating. The Court guidelines discouraged the system of ‘votingRead more

1) Security Bond-2023:  Naval forces from China, Iran and Russia — all countries at varying degrees of odds with the United States — are staging joint drills in the Gulf of Oman The three countries held similar drills last year and in 2019, underscoring China’s growing military and political links with nations that have beenRead more

1) Boma capturing Technique: A boma is traditionally known throughout Africa as an enclosure, stockade or fort used to secure and protect people’s livestock. It involves luring of animals into an enclosure by chasing them through a funnel-like fencing. The funnel tapers into an animal selection-cum-loading chute, supported with grass mats and green net toRead more

1) Central Industrial Security Force (CISF): The CISF is a central armed police force under the aegis of Ministry of Home Affairs, established in 1969 under CISF Act, 1968 to protect major PSUs. However, it was converted to armed force with a larger ambit under an amendment to the Act in 1983. CISF is taskedRead more