- Rythu Bandhu Scheme: The Rythu Bandhu scheme, also known as the Farmer’s Investment Support Scheme (FISS), is a welfare programme for farmers started by the Telangana government in 2018.The objective of this scheme is twofold:
- to provide a timely cash grant for the initial investment needs of farmers
- to ensure that farmers do not fall into the debt trap.
Under the scheme, financial assistance of Rs 5,000 per acre per farmer each season is directly transferred to each farmer’s account. This financial support was distributed biannually, allocated for both the kharif and rabi harvests. The assistance can be used for the purchase of inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, labour, and other investments in the field operations of Farmer’s choice for the crop season. The scheme is open to all resident farmers in the state who own land. Farmers cultivating the land in the forest, a majority of them from Scheduled Tribe communities and having a Record of Forest Rights (ROFR) document, are also eligible to receive benefits under the scheme. It is the country’s first direct farmer investment support scheme where cash is paid directly to the beneficiary.
- AstroSat: It is India’s first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory aimed at studying celestial sources in X-ray, optical, and UV spectral bands simultaneously. AstroSat, with a lift-off mass of 1515 kg, was launched by the Indian launch vehicle PSLV from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on September 28, 2015, into a 650 km orbit. The spacecraft control centre at Mission Operations Complex (MOX) of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, manages the satellite during its entire mission life. The minimum useful life of the AstroSat mission is around 5 years. It carries a total of five scientific payloads, enabling imaging and studying the temporal and spectral properties of galactic and extra-galactic cosmic sources in a wide range of wavelengths on a common platform. Scientific Objectives is to understand high energy processes in binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes, Estimate magnetic fields of neutron stars, Study star birth regions and high energy processes in star systems lying beyond our galaxy, Detect new, briefly bright X-ray sources in the sky, Perform a limited deep-field survey of the Universe in the Ultraviolet region.
- Gulf of Aden: It is an extension of the Indian Ocean, tucked between the Arabian Peninsula and the African continent. The gulf is named after “Aden,” a port city on Yemen’s coast. It is bounded to the south by Somalia and the Socotra Islands (part of Yemen), to the north by Yemen, to the east by the Arabian Sea, and to the west by Djibouti. The gulf is connected to the Somali Sea to the south by the Guardafui Channel and to the Red Sea on the west by the Strait of Bab el Mandeb. The dominant relief feature of the gulf’s terrain is the Sheba Ridge, an extension of the Indian Ocean ridge system, which extends along the middle of the gulf. It is also a critical part of the Suez Canal shipping route, which connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Some of the major cities near the gulf include Aden, Mukalla, Ahnwar, Balhaf, Berbera, Bosaso, and Djibouti City.
- Sagittarius C (Sgr C): It is the star-forming region known to be situated approximately 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.It is revealing a bustling cluster of protostars within an infrared-dark cloud. These nascent stars are in the process of accumulating mass, their outflows glowing intensely in the infrared spectrum, akin to embers in a cosmic bonfire. The cloud that protostars are emerging from is so dense that the light from stars behind it cannot reach Webb. Scattered throughout are smaller infrared-dark clouds, akin to celestial voids against the starry backdrop, signalling the birthplaces of future stars. Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) has detected extensive emissions from ionised hydrogen on the periphery of the dark cloud, highlighted in a striking cyan hue.
