1) Conjugal visits for prisoners: it refers to the concept of allowing a prisoner to spend some time in privacy with his spouse within the precincts of a jail.
- Conjugal visits are considered a fundamental right of the spouses of the prisoners
- Recognized as prisoner rights (by UN and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Part of a prisoner’s right to life and inherent dignity
- Madras HC (in Meharaj vs State (2022)): There have to be differential standards in the enforcement of Article 21 for law abiders and law violators.
2) SpaceTech Innovation Network (SpIN): ISRO has signed a MoU with Social Alpha to launch SpaceTech Innovation Network
- India’s first dedicated platform for innovation, curation and venture development for the blooming space entrepreneurial ecosystem. It is a one-of-a-kind PPP for start-ups and SMEs in the space industry. Provides a level playing field for all stakeholders to contribute.
- the 1st SpIN innovation challenge was launched to develop solutions in areas like urbanisation, mapping, natural resources management etc. Selected start-ups can access ISRO and Social Alpha’s infrastructure and resources
3) Arctic Landscape: Scientists have found the oldest (at least 2 million years old) known fragments of DNA, just 600 miles from the North Pole that reveals that the region was once covered by a forest of poplar and birch trees inhabited by mastodons, caribou and Arctic hares
- The Arctic sea ice is seasonal. It forms in the winter when seawater freezes into massive floating ice blocks and thaws during the summer.
- Understanding the timings of thawing and freezing is crucial in knowing the heat budget of the ‘Atmospheric-ice-ocean’ system
- The surface and bottom of the Arctic sea ice often do not melt and freeze simultaneously
- The study is crucial to study the impact of climate change on the Arctic Ocean, as past reports show us temperatures in the Arctic are rising four times as fast as in the rest of the world.
4) Nature Positive Fund: Nature-positive is the term used to describe a world where nature – species and ecosystems – is being restored and is regenerating rather than declining
- It gives a Monetary valuation of nature’s ecological functions.
- If the total monetary value remains constant, it means that nature remains stable.
- Ex – Carbon Trading was introduced in Kyoto to monetise carbon emissions
- More than 100 experts have rejected the idea of this fund at the CoP15 on Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada.
5) Gamma-Ray bursts (GRBs): GRBs are powerful astronomical cosmic bursts of high-energy gamma-ray. GRB emits more energy in a few seconds than our Sun will emit in its lifetime and has two distinct emission phases:
- the short-lived prompt emission (the initial burst phase that emits gamma-rays), followed by a long-lived multi-wavelength afterglow phase
- The prompt emission (initial gamma-ray emission) of GRBs are automatically discovered by space-based gamma-ray missions such as NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and India’s AstroSat.
