UPSC Quiz – 2024 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 13th May 2024

·       It promotes the management, conservation, and sustainable development of all types of forests.

·       The Forum meets annually at the UN Headquarters in New York, bringing together representatives of all member states and forest-related agencies for high-level dialogue on technical matters in odd years and policy matters in even years.

·       India is a founding member of UNFF.

·       The declaration of the 19th session aims to achieve agreement on a high-level political commitment to forest protection, with specific actions for effective implementation of the UN Strategic Plan for Forests (UNSPF) by UNFF and its stakeholders.

·       Its target is to increase forest area by 3% worldwide by 2030. The plan contains a set of six Global Forest Goals and 26 associated targets to be reached by 2030. All these are voluntary in nature and universally applicable.

·       The National Curriculum for Early Childhood Care and Education, 2024 is titled as ‘Aadharshila’.

·       The ‘Aadharshila’ (foundation stone), it is a detailed 48-week curriculum following the NEP 2020 guidelines to improve foundational literacy and numeracy.

·       The curriculum includes a play calendar with weeks focused on activities like storytelling, rhymes, art, basic counting and so on to develop skills like listening, vocabulary, imagination, following instructions etc.

·       It aids to help children easily transition from anganwadis to Grade 1 by strengthening pre-school learning through targeted activities and observation.

·       The national framework will serve as a base for states to develop their own contextualized curricula to tackle learning gaps in later school years.

·       It provides an alternative to treating pre-school as a downward extension of primary education focused just on reading/writing.

·       Training of anganwadi workers as pre-school instructors has already begun under the ‘Poshan Bhi, Padhai Bhi’ scheme to implement this curriculum.

·       Both the cells are made in the bone marrow.

·       B cells mature in the bone marrow while the T cells travel to the thymus and mature there.

·       These cells are structurally similar and are involved in adaptive immune reaction in an organism.

What are B cells?

·       These cells mature in the bone marrow and produce antibodies in response to the antigens.

·       B cells are involved in humoral response.

·       As soon as B cells encounter the antigens, they produce plasma cells and memory B cells.

What are T cells?

·       T cells originate within the bone marrow and mature within the thymus.

·       These are often further divided into T helper cells and T cytotoxic cells.

·       They are responsible for removing the pathogens from the body.

·       As soon as the foreign antigen enters the cells, T cells trigger the B cells to develop plasma cells and activate T killer cells that kill the cells affected by the invaders.

·       It uses a bipropellant combination of nitrogen tetroxide as the oxidizer and monomethyl hydrazine as the fuel, developed by ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre.

·       The same engine is also used in the Reaction Control System (RCS) of the first stage (PS1) of PSLV.

Additive Manufacturing

·       It is also known as 3D printing which is an emerging technology that is rapidly transforming manufacturing processes worldwide.

·       It creates 3-dimensional objects by successively layering materials under computer control.

·       It involves layering materials like plastics, composites, or bio-materials to create objects that range in shape, size, rigidity, and colour.

·       Compared to traditional subtractive techniques, 3D printing offers immense design flexibility, reduced waste, and the ability to produce complex geometries.

·       The Humboldt Glacier is also known as La Corona.

·       The glacier was located in the Sierra Nevada de Merida mountain range, around 5,000m above sea level. Venezuela had a total of 6 glaciers earlier, with 5 disappearing by 2011.

·       Rapid Melting – The Humboldt glacier was expected to last at least another decade, but assessments found it melted much faster than anticipated.

·       It has now shrunk to an area of less than 2 hectares, leading scientists to downgrade its classification from a glacier to an ice field.

·       The melting has been exacerbated by the current El Nino phenomenon causing record high temperatures in the region.

·       Implications – Loss of glaciers impacts ecosystems, water sources, cultural identity and tourism in the region.

·       Venezuelan glaciers had a limited role in water provision compared to glaciers in countries like Peru.

·       Their disappearance symbolizes the changes expected across the global cryosphere (frozen parts of Earth) due to climate change.

·       Similar scenario – Indonesia, Mexico and Slovenia are next in line to potentially become glacier-free countries.

·       The Venezuelan government attempted to prevent further melting by installing a thermal blanket, but experts view it as futile.

·       The loss underscores the need for climate action to protect remaining glaciers worldwide.