These current affairs are written in a easy to remember format and are useful for competitive exams like - UPSC Civil Services, UPPSC, BPSC, MPPPSC, State PSCs and other competitive examinations.
What is "Tibetan antelope" ?
The Tibetan antelope or chiru is a medium-sized bovid native to the Tibetan plateau.
Fewer than 150,000 mature individuals are left in the wild, but the population is currently thought to be increasing.
They are hunted for their extremely soft, light and warm underfur which is usually obtained after death.
This underfur, known as shahtoosh (a Persian word meaning "king of fine wools"), is used to weave luxury shawls.
Despite strict controls on trade of shahtoosh products and CITES listing, there is still demand for these luxury items.
In September 2016, Tibetan antelop has been reclassified on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red list from Endangered to Near Threatened due to the increased population.
IUCN: Near Threatened
Wildlife (Protection) Act: Schedule-I
CITES: Appendix-I
Environment
India got its 39th World Heritage Site
Kakatiya Rudreswara Temple (Ramappa Temple) at Palampet, Mulugu district, near Warangal in the state of Telangana has been inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
Ramappa, was proposed by the government as its only nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage site tag for the year 2019. Even so, the temple has been in UNESCO?s tentative list since 2014.
A tentative list is like an inventory of properties a country thinks should be on the World Heritage Site. After UNESCO includes a property in the Tentative List, the country prepares a nomination document that will be considered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
Art & Culture
Tripura Agarwood Policy 2021
Recently, the government of Tripura has launched the the Tripura Agarwood Policy 2021. It It seeks to promote the state's agarwood business in a bid to develop a Rs 2000 crore economy in the state within 2025.
The agarwood tree (Aquilaria malaccensis) oil is also known as liquid gold.
Agar is an evergreen tree (~40 m) which grows in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Northeast India, Sumatra and Kalimantan of Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Luzon Philippines, Singapore and Southern Thailand.
In India, it is found in North Eastern States viz Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and also in West Bengal.
It has been used for over 2000 years for medicinal, aromatic and religious purposes.
Agartala, the state capital of Tripura is believed to have origin of its name from Agarwood.
IUCN has listed it under the critically endangered category.
Gov. Schemes
Russian ISS module "Nauka"
Russia's space agency Roscosmos will be attaching a module called "Nauka" to ISS.
The module that exited the ISS to make way for Nauka was called Pirs, a considerably smaller structure that was only used as a docking port for Russian spacecraft and allowed for cosmonauts to enter or leave the ISS for spacewalks.
Nauka - meaning "science" in Russian - is the biggest (42 feet long) space laboratory Russia has launched to date, and will primarily serve as a research facility.
The ISS is a pathbreaking collaborative effort between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe) and CSA (Canada).
243 people from 19 countries
Science & Tech