Hayat Ashraf

The India-Japan partnership for their joint moon mission, Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX), is likely to take flight in a few years, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in an interview recently.  About Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX): It is a collaborative endeavor between Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission is scheduled to launch in 2025. This mission will take off aboard Japan’s H3 rocket. Primary Goal: To explore the moon’s southern polar region, investigating the presence of water and other elements, potentially in the form of surface ice. It aims to showcase innovative surface exploration technologies. The special focus is on vehicular transport and lunar night survival. It features both a lander and a rover. JAXA is responsible for developing and operating the rover, and ISRO for developing and operating the lander that will carry the rover.  The rover will drive on its own to ...

French security forces are stepping up efforts to regain control of New Caledonia amid ongoing and deadly unrest.  About New Caledonia: It is a French overseas collectivity with significant autonomy under the terms of the 1998 Nouméa Accord.   It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about 900 miles (1,500 km) east of Australia. Unlike many Pacific islands that are of relatively recent volcanic origin, New Caledonia is an ancient fragment of the Gondwana supercontinent. It comprises the main island of Grande Terre, the four Loyalty Islands (Ouvéa, Lifou, Tiga, and Maré), the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines, and some remote islands.  Capital:  Nouméa (located on Grande Terre) Population: Just over 270,000 people live in New Caledonia (2019). Approximately 39 percent are indigenous ('Kanak'). The remainder are Caledonians of European, Polynesian, and other (including Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Algerian) origins. New Caledonians are Fre...

It is accepted wisdom that GSP renewal would offer an avenue for wide-ranging U.S.-India trade negotiations that can help in vaulting the bilateral trade relationship.  About Generalized System of Preferences (GSP):  It was instituted in 1971 under the aegis of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). It is a voluntary trade measure implemented by developed countries that provides an advantageous, or “preferential”, tariff treatment to imports from developing countries. The preferences are in the form of either elimination or reduction in customs duty when the list of eligible products from the beneficiary developing country (BDC) is exported to the developed country. However, an exporter under the GSP is required to fulfil the rules of origin under the GSP scheme. The rules of origin are the criteria required to ensure that the product exported originates from the country of export and is not being diverted from another country. The GSP is a unilateral...

Three youths from Konaseema district, Andhra Pradesh, tragically drowned to death in the Godavari River recently.  About Godavari River: It is India's second-longest river after the Ganga and the third-largest in India drains about 10% of India's total geographical area. It is also called `Dakshina Ganga`, which translates into the South Ganges River. Course: The origin of the Godavari River is in Brahmagiri Mountain at Trimbakeshwar in Nashik district of It runs for a length of about 1,465 kilometers. It finally empties itself into the Bay of Bengal at Narasapuram in West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh. The river mainstem, travels through three states: Maharashtra, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, while its basin includes Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, parts of Chattisgarh, and Odisha. It has a drainage basin of some 121,000 square miles (313,000 square km) The basin is bounded by the Satmala hills, the Ajanta range, and the Maha...

Recently, Google at the company’s annual developer conference, presented an early version of Project Astra.  About Project Astra: It is a new multimodal AI agent developed by Google. It is capable of answering real-time questions fed to it through text, video, images and speech by pulling up the relevant information. It can see the world, remember where one has left a thing and even answer if a computer code is correct by looking at it through the phone’s camera. It is more straight-forward, there is no range of emotional diversity in its voice. It is not limited to smartphones. Google also showed it being used with a pair of smart glasses. Project Astra can learn about the world, making it as close as possible to a human-assistant-like experience.  What is multimodal model  AI? A multimodal model is a ML (machine learning) model that is capable of processing information from different modalities, including images, videos and text.  For example, G...

The summer solstice heralds the start of astronomical summer in the Northern Hemisphere and marks the day with the most daylight for the year.  About Summer solstice: In Latin, "Solstice" means "sun stands still". It is an annual astronomical phenomenon that brings the longest day of the year. On the summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, receiving the full glare of the sun's rays. During the solstice, the Earth’s axis — around which the planet spins, is tilted in a way that the North Pole is tipped towards the Sun and the South Pole is away from it. Typically, this imaginary axis passes right through the middle of the Earth from top to bottom and is always tilted at 23.5 degrees with respect to the Sun. What happens during the solstice?  This day sees the Earth receiving a greater amount of energy from the Sun. Each year, the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere falls on one of two days: June 20 or June 21.In the Southern Hemis...

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List (BPPL) 2024.  About Bacterial Pathogens Priority List: It is an important tool in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance. Background  In 2017, WHO developed the first BPPL to guide investment into the R&D of new antibacterials and it listed 13 bacterial pathogens (phenotypes). It was developed with the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method (15). MCDA is a decision-making scientific method that mounts and evaluates alternatives based on multiple criteria, facilitating systematic and transparent decision-making in complex options. The 2024 WHO BPPL covers 24 pathogens, spanning 15 families of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens.  The 2024 list categorizes these pathogens into critical, high, and medium priority groups to inform research and development (R&D) and public health interventions. Significance  The WHO BPPL acts as a guide for ...