1) PESA Act: The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 or PESA Act is a law enacted by the Government of India for ensuring self-governance through traditional Gram Sabhas for people living in the Scheduled Areas of India, on the recommendation of Bhuria committee.
- The PESA conferred the absolute powers to Gram Sabha, whereas state legislature has given an advisory role to ensure the proper functioning of Panchayats and Gram Sabhas.
- The power delegated to Gram Sabha cannot be curtailed by a higher level, and there shall be independence throughout.
2) AGM-88 HARM: United States Under Secretary of Defence for Policy confirmed that Washington has supplied some “anti-radiation missiles” to Ukraine.
- The acronym ‘HARM’ in the AGM-88 HARM air-to-surface missile stands for High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile.
- It is a tactical weapon fired from fighter aircraft, and has the capability to detect and home into radiation emitted by hostile radar stations that have surface-to-air detection capabilities.
- It also has an anti-radar homing seeker broadband RF antenna and receiver, and a solid state digital processor. The missile has a range of more than 100 km.
3) circular and elliptical orbits: The eccentricity (e) of an orbit indicates the deviation of the orbit from a perfect circle.
- A circular orbit has an eccentricity of 0, while a highly eccentric orbit is closer to (but always less than) 1.
- Mostly objects such as satellites and spacecrafts are put in elliptical orbits only temporarily.
- They are then either pushed up to circular orbits at a greater height or the acceleration is increased until the trajectory changes from an ellipse to a hyperbola and the spacecraft escapes the gravity of the Earth in order to move further into space — for example, to the Moon or Mars or further away.
- Satellites that orbit the Earth are mostly placed in circular orbits. One reason is that if the satellite is used for imaging the Earth, it is easier if it has a fixed distance from the Earth. If the distance keeps changing as in an elliptical orbit, keeping the cameras focussed can become complicated.
4) Kushiyara River: River Kushiara (also known as Kushiyara river) is originated from India.
- The original Barak river divided into two rivers named Surma and Kushiara. Later both the rivers merged together near the Bhairab bazar in Bangladesh, and later joins to massive river Meghna.
- Kushiara is not a massive river in Bangladesh, but a prominent river.
- The waters of the Kushiyara thus originate in the state of Nagaland in India and pick up tributaries from Manipur, Mizoram and Assam
5) Fluorosis: Fluorosis is a crippling disease resulted from deposition of fluorides in the hard and soft tissues of body.
- It is a public health problem that is caused by excess intake of fluoride through drinking water/ food products/ industrial pollutants over a long period. It results in major health disorders like dental fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis and non-skeletal fluorosis.
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