About Incredible India Campaign:
- The ITB is a prestigious platform and is among the top international travel shows, where travel professionals come together to connect and showcase destinations and tourism products.
- In view of promoting Incredible India holistically, the Ministry of Tourism has developed five thematic television commercials on different themes which are Adventure Tourism, Heritage Tourism, MICE Tourism, Art & Craft and Wellness Tourism.
- Encouraging inbound travel and particularly in the backdrop of India’s G20 Presidency as well as grand celebrations of India@75 ‘AzadikaAmritMahotsav’, the Ministry of Tourism has declared “Incredible India! Visit India Year 2023”.
Key facts about Incredible India Campaign
- Incredible India is the name of an international tourism campaign maintained by the Government of India since 2002, to promote tourism in India.
- Incredible India 2.0 Campaign: It aims to shift from generic promotions to promotional plans specific to the market and content creation with thematic creatives depending on different niche products such as spiritual, medical, and wellness tourism.
- The Incredible India 2.0 campaign focuses on promoting niche tourism products, including yoga, wellness, luxury, and cuisine wildlife.
- Incredible India 2.0 represents the post-pandemic plan for Indians in the sector.
- Nodal Ministry:Ministry of Tourism.
Scheme under Incredible India 2.0 Campaign:
- The Holistic Island Development plan focuses on the Andaman & Nicobar (A&N) and Lakshadweep Islands.
About Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile:
- This weapon system also called the ‘Abhra’ Weapon Systemis a state-of-the-art medium-range air defence weapon system.
- It is a joint venture of DRDO and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and is produced at Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL).
- It is designed to destroy hostile aircraft, helicopters cruise missiles and drones at a 70km range.
What is a BrahMos missile?
- It is a joint venture of India and Russia which makes supersonic cruise missiles
- It has a speed of 2.8 Mach or about three times the speed of sound.
- The missiles can be launched from a range of platforms such as submarines, ships, aircraft, or land.
- BrahMos Aerospace is also developing the BrahMos NG, a compact version of the missile.
About Guindy National Park:
- Guindy is India’s eighth-smallest national park and one of the very few national parks located inside a city.
- It is located in the heart of Chennai’s metropolitan area of Tamil Nadu.
- It is one of the last remnants of the tropical dry evergreen forests of the Coromandel Coast.
- Flora: Tropical dry evergreen forest, Scrub and thorn forests.
- Fauna: Blackbuck, Toddy cat, Civet cat, Jungle cat, Pangolin, Hedgehog, Shrew and black-naped hare etc.
Key facts about the tropical dry evergreen forests of India
- The Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest is a unique forest found only in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
- Its distribution is restricted to the narrow coastal strip from Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh in the north to Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu in the south.
- The dissymmetric climatic condition of this region, where rainfall occurs both during summer and winter monsoons and extended the dry season from March to September, favours the development and sustenance of the Tropical Dry Evergreen forest in this narrow strip.
- The TDEF has a mixture of trees, shrubs, lianas, and herbs and forms a complete canopy in pristine condition and provides habitat to a wide variety of animals including insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.
About Interstellar Boundary Explorer:
- NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) was launched in October 2008 to study the outer edge of the heliosphere.
- The spacecraft is designed to map the boundary where winds from the Sun interact with winds from other stars.
- The solar system's boundary is studied by observing energetic neutral atoms or ENAs.
- ENAs are high-energy particles produced at the very edge of our solar system.
- Major discoveries of IBEX
- This spacecraft fully mapped the heliosphere within a year after its launch.
- Its most famous discovery is uncovering a dense region of particles, the ‘IBEX ribbon
What is Heliosphere?
- Heliosphere is the region where the constant flow of particles from our Sun, called the solar wind, collides with material from the rest of the galaxy.
About Yaoshang Festival
- The festival is celebrated every year on the full moon of Lamta month (February-March) of the Meitei lunar calendar.
- The festival is celebrated by the Meitei people who are predominantly Hindu.
- It is celebrated at the same time as Holi and is known as ‘Manipur’s version of Holi’.
- The five-day-long celebration begins with the burning of ‘yaoshang’ (a small thatch hut/straw hut) which is constructed with bamboo and straws on the first day
- The highlight of the festival is the ThabalChongba, a traditional Manipuri folk dance where boys and girls hold hands and sing and dance in a circle.
- The festival marks the rejuvenation of the spirit of life and commemorates the birthday of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
- Children visit neighbours to ask for a monetary donation which is called
Who are the Meitei people?
- Meiteis are the dominant population of Manipur in northeastern India.
- A majority follow Hinduism while more than 8% are Muslims, locally known as
- The Marup system (literally, "friendship association"), a type of cooperative saving and credit institution, is an intriguing aspect of Meitei village's socio-economic organisation.
- They speak a Tibeto-Burman language, they differ culturally from the surrounding hill tribes by following Hindu customs.
Why in News?
- The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has recently come up with a 'zero-tolerance' policy to achieve 100% motor insurance.
About IRDAI:
- It is an autonomous and statutory body established under the IRDA Act 1999.
- It is the apex body that supervises and regulates the insurance sector in India.
- Objective: To protect the interests of policyholders, to regulate, promote and ensure orderly growth of the insurance industry in India.
- Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Finance
- Head Office: Hyderabad.
- Composition: IRDAI is a 10-member body- a Chairman, five full-time members, and four part-time members appointed by the Government of India.
Functions:
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- To have a fair regulation of the insurance industry while ensuring financial soundness of the applicable laws and regulations.
- Frame regulations periodically so that there is no ambiguity in the insurance industry.
- Registering and regulating insurance companies;
- Protecting policyholders' interests;
- Licensing and establishing norms for insurance intermediaries;
- Promoting professional organizations in insurance;
- Regulating and overseeing premium rates and terms of non-life insurance covers;
- Specifying financial reporting norms of insurance companies;
- Regulating investment of policyholders' funds by insurance companies;
- Ensuring the maintenance of solvency margin by insurance companies;
- Ensuring insurance coverage in rural areas and of vulnerable sections of society.
About Hindu Rate of Growth:
- It is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged around 4%.
- The term was coined by the late economist Raj Krishna in 1978 to describe the slow growth in the country.
What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?
- GDP is the final value of the goods and services produced within the geographic boundaries of a country during a specified period of time, normally a year.
- The GDP growth rate is an important indicator of the economic performance of a country.
- It can be measured by three methods, namely, Output Method, Expenditure Method, and Income Method
8. Securities-Based Lending?
About Securities-Based Lending:
- It is the practice of raising a loan by offering your existing investments in stocks/mutual funds/ Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as collaterals.
- These kinds of loans are generally offered to high-net-worth individuals by large financial institutions and private banks.
- The loan amount depends on the security the borrower is offering.
- The loan can then be used for making purchases like real estate or personal items.
- This loan cannot be used for making further security purchases.
- Due to the inherent volatility in the nature of stocks/mutual funds, the risk of forced liquidation tends to be very high for these loans.
- Borrowers benefit from easy access to capital, lower interest rates, and greater repayment flexibility and also avoid having to sell their securities.
9. What is a Hailstorm?
About Hailstorm:
- Hail is a type of solid rain made up of balls or lumps of ice.
- Storms that produce hail which reaches the ground are known as hailstorms.
- Conditions for Hailstorms to occur:
- Highly developed Cumulonimbus clouds need to be present. These are the massive anvil or mushroom-shaped clouds that are seen during thunderstorms which can reach heights up to 65,000 feet.
- There must be strong currents of air ascending through these clouds. These currents are commonly known as updrafts.
- The clouds will need to contain high concentrations of supercooled liquid water.
- How are Hails formed?
- It begins as a water droplet that is swept up by an updraft inside of a thundercloud.
- Other supercooled water droplets which are already present inside the cloud will adhere to the water droplet’s surface, forming layers of ice around
- As the water droplet reaches higher elevations within the cloud, it comes into contact with more and more supercooled particles.
- The hail embryo will grow larger and larger as it reaches higher altitudes in the updraft.
- Finally, it will reach a size and weight where gravity will begin to act on it and pull it down.
10. What is Transit Anticipatory Bail?
About Transit Anticipatory Bail:
- A transit anticipatory bail is sought when a case against a person has been or is likely to be filed in a state different from the one in which the person is likely to be arrested.
- The purpose of transit bail is to allow the person bail, so they can approach the appropriate court in the state in which the case has been filed for anticipatory bail.
- In the absence of transit anticipatory bail, the result would be that another state’s police could arrest a person from their home state without them having the opportunity to apply for anticipatory bail at all.
- The procedure to be followed in transit anticipatory bail is exactly the same as of any other anticipatory bail application.
- The concept of transit anticipatory bail is not codified in Indian law but has found its identity through judicial practice and legal precedents.
What is a Bail?
- Bail is a judicial release of an accused person from custody on the condition that the accused person will appear in court at a later date.
- Sections 436 to 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code deal with the concept of Bail.
- Under the CrPC, bail can be granted to an accused person either by a police officer or by a judicial magistrate.
What is an Anticipatory Bail?
- It is the bail granted to a person in anticipation and apprehending arrest.
- Under Section 438 of CrPC, any individual who discerns that he may be tried for a non-bailable offense can apply for anticipatory bail.
- The application shall be made to the High Court or Sessions Court, where the crime is alleged to be committed.
- Anticipatory Bail is bail before the arrest, and the police can't arrest an individual if the Court has granted anticipatory Bail.