About Guruvayur Temple:

• Guruvayoor Sree Krishna Swamy Temple, also known as the Dwarka of the South, is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and the young form of Lord Krishna.
• It is located in the small town of Guruvayur, in the Thrissur District of Kerala.
• The earliest temple records date back to the 17th century, but other literary texts and legends indicate that the temple may be around 5000 years old.
• Features:
  • Lord Krishna, or Guruvayoorappan, is the chief deity of this temple.
  • The temple is built in the traditional Kerala architectural style.
  • The central shrine is believed to have been rebuilt in 1638 C.E. 
  • Structures like the Nalambalam (temple structure surrounding the sanctum sanctorum), Balikkal (sacrificial stone), and Deepasthambham (pillar of lights) are situated on the temple premises.
  • The wall of the sanctum sanctorum is decked with ancient 17th-century murals.
  • Another famous sight here is the Dwajasthambam. It is a flagstaff, around 70 feet tall, fully covered with gold.  
  • One of the most popular offerings at Guruvayoor temple is Thulabharam, where devotees are weighed against bananas, sugar, jaggery, and coconuts equivalent to their weight on a giant pair of scales.
  • The temple is also noted for being home to a large population of captive male Asian elephants.
    • The Punnathur Kotta elephant sanctuary, where 56 elephants live, is very close to the temple.

About Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF):

• USOF was set up by an Act of Parliament in December 2003 by amending the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
• The objective of the USOF is to provide access to telecom services in a non-discriminatory manner to people in rural and remote areas at affordable and reasonable prices, thereby bridging the rural-urban digital divide.
• For commercially non-viable rural and remote areas, USOF provides subsidy support in the form of Net Cost or Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to incentivize telecom service providers for the expansion of telecommunications and broadband services in those areas.
• Funding Mechanism:
  • The USOF is funded through a levy on the revenue earned by telecom operators.
  • The government imposes a Universal Service Levy (USL) on the gross revenue of the telecom companies, which is a percentage of their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR).
  • This levy is collected and deposited into the USOF.
• Administration:
  • USOF is headed by the Administrator, USO Fund who is appointed by the Central Government, for the administration of the fund.
  • It is an attached office of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications.

What is the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF)?

• USOF officially launched the TTDF Scheme on October 1st, 2022.
• The TTDF Scheme is aimed at domestic companies and institutions involved in technology design, development, and commercialization of telecommunication products and solutions to enable affordable broadband and mobile services in rural and remote areas.
• This initiative helps to connect schools with varied volunteers from the Indian Diaspora, namely, young professionals, retired teachers, retired Government officials, retired professionals, NGOs, Private Sector and Public Sector Companies, Corporate Institutions, and many others.
• Under the scheme, USOF is also targeting to develop standards to meet countrywide requirements and create an ecosystem for research, design, prototyping, use cases, pilots, and proof-of-concept testing, among others. 
• The scheme entails grants to Indian entities to encourage and induct indigenous technologies tailor-made to meet domestic needs.

About Indian Tectonic Plate:

• It is a minor tectonic plate.
• It is bound by four major tectonic plates. North of the Indian plate is the Eurasian plate; to the south east is the Australian plate; to the south-west is the African plate; and to the west is the Arabian plate. 
  • As the Indian plate moves northward relative to the Eurasian plate and collides with it, a convergent boundary is created.
  • On the opposite side, the Indo-African boundary is divergent.
  • The western Indo-Arabian boundary is lateral relative to each other, giving rise to a transform boundary.
  • It was previously thought that the Indian and Australian plates formed one single plate as there is no clear type of boundary but recent seismologic evidence suggests that the two plates will have a transform boundary, as the drift velocities of these two plates are different even if the general direction of motion of the two plates is similar.
• The collision of the Indian plate with the Eurasian plate about 50 million years ago resulted in the erection of the Himalayan Mountains.
• As the Indian plate is still active today and drifts at a velocity of about 5 cm per year, earthquakes occur in the northern part of the plate.