1) Mission showcasing Nari Shakti: Five officers of the Indian Navy created history by completing the first all-woman independent maritime reconnaissance and surveillance mission in the Arabian Sea, onboard a Dornier-228 aircraft.
- This first-of-its-kind military flying mission was, however, unique and is expected to pave the way for women officers in the aviation cadre to assume greater responsibility and aspire for more challenging roles, the Navy stated.
2) Hasdeo Aranya region: The Hasdeo Aranya forests are called the lungs of Chhattisgarh. Over the past one year, protests against mining in this region have erupted several times and some still continue to sit-in demanding a complete stop to mining.
- It lies in the catchment area of the Hasdeo river
- The Hasdeo river is a tributary of the Mahanadi river which originates in Chhattisgarh and flows through Odisha into the Bay of Bengal.
- The Hasdeo forests are also the catchment area for the Hasdeo Bango Dam built across the Hasdeo river which irrigates six lakh acres of land, crucial to a State with paddy as its main crop.
- Besides, the forests are ecologically sensitive due to the rich biodiversity they offer and due to the presence of a large migratory corridor for elephants.
3) Rare Earth Elements: The rare earths minerals (REM) are a set of seventeen metallic elements. These include the fifteen lanthanides on the periodic table in addition to scandium and yttrium that show similar physical and chemical properties to the lanthanides.
- The REMs have unique catalytic, metallurgical, nuclear, electrical, magnetic and luminescent properties. While named ‘rare earth’, they are in fact not that rare and are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust.
- Its usage range from daily use (e.g., lighter flints, glass polishing mediums, car alternators) to high-end technology (lasers, magnets, batteries, fibre-optic telecommunication cables).
4) Minerals Security Partnership (MSP): The US and 10 partners — Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission — have come together to form the MSP.
- The new grouping is aimed at catalysing investment from governments and the private sector to develop strategic opportunities.
- The new grouping, will focus on the supply chains of minerals such as Cobalt, Nickel, Lithium, and also the 17 ‘rare earth’ minerals. The alliance is seen as primarily focused on evolving an alternative to China, which has created processing infrastructure in rare earth minerals and has acquired mines in Africa for elements such as Cobalt.
5) Diammonium Phosphate: Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) [(NH4)2HPO4] is the world’s most widely used phosphorus fertilizers.
- It is a preferred fertilizer in India because it contains both Nitrogen (18% N) and Phosphorus [46% )that are primary macronutrients and part of 18 essential plant nutrients.
- It is highly soluble and thus dissolves quickly in soil to release plant-available phosphate and ammonium.
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