1.Bhoomi Rashi Portal

Why in News?

• Bhoomi Rashi Portal is in news recently regarding the land acquisition process of Central Government.

Key Points:

• The Bhoomi Rashi Portal is an e-Governance initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.
• The objective of this is to expedite the process of land acquisition for National Highways. It has fully digitized and automated the entire process of land acquisition.
• Earlier, the acquisition of land for the purpose of National Highway projects, payment of compensation to the landowners etc. was done manually by physical movement of documents.
• It had some constraints viz. delay in issuing land acquisition notification, errors in the land/ area details etc.
• The portal is integrated with the Public Financial Management System(PFMS) for depositing the compensation in the account of affected/ interested persons on a real-time basis.

2. National Archives of India

Why in News?

• An Exhibition named Jallianwala Bagh was recently inaugurated in New Delhi on the occasion of 130^thFoundation Day of National Archives of India.

Highlights:

• The present exhibition was primarily presented with the help of original and digital copies of archival documents relating to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre available in National Archives of India.
• This is an earnest attempt to portray the relentless struggle of the Indian people against the British tyranny through the record holdings.
• Based on the original documents, this exhibition is an endeavor to commemorate the centenary of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.

National Archives of India:

• The National Archives of India is the custodian of the records of enduring value of the Government of India.
• It was established on 11^th March, 1891 at Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department.
• It is the biggest archival repository in South Asia.
• It has a vast corpus of records viz., public records, private papers, oriental records, cartographic records and microfilms, which constitute an invaluable source of information for scholars-administrators and users of archives.
• The Director General of Archives, heading the Department has been given the mandate for the implementation of the Public Records Act, 1993 and the rules made there under, the Public Records Rules, 1997 for the management, administration and preservation of public records in the Ministries, Departments, Public Sector undertakings etc. of the Central Government.
• The Department functions as an Attached Office of the Ministry of Culture.

3.Smallest Dinosaur

Why in News?

• A group of scientists may have discovered the smallest dinosaur ever found.

Highlights:

• They found the fossilized skull of a dinosaur — the size of a modern hummingbird — trapped in a 99-million-year-old amber in northern Myanmar.
• The animal in question would have weighed 2 grams, claimed the scientists in a paper published in the Nature journal.
• The fossil represented the smallest dinosaur from the Mesozoic era — about 250 million to 65 million years ago — according to the group.
• The discovery suggests miniature body sizes in birds evolved earlier than previously recognised.
• This may provide insight into how dinosaurs evolved to be small and shed light on the lowest limit of vertebrate body size.
• The animal’s skull was less than two centimetres long.
• It had several sharp teeth, which suggested it preyed on insects and other small invertebrates, scientists observed. For this reason, the new species has been given the scientific name of Oculudentavis khaungraae, derived from Latin for ‘eye-teeth-bird’.
• Unlike other predators, its eyes were on the sides of its head, which meant the dinosaur had little or no binocular vision.
• It had limited access to light into the eye, which scientists said was evidence that it was active in well-lit, Daytime Environments.

4.Saudi- Russia Tussle Tanks Oil Prices

Why in News?

• Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced they would raise crude oil output by the equivalent of 3.6% of global supplies, adding 3.6 million barrels per day (bpd) to a market that is already massively oversupplied.

Highlights:

• This extraordinary flooding of the market will take place at a time when the coronavirus outbreak has severely impacted businesses and travel, and global demand is predicted to shrink for the first time in nearly 10 years.
• Brent crude was trading at around $36 on Wednesday, up from the week’s low of about $31, but still some 45% lower since the beginning of 2020.
• Saudi Arabia and the UAE have taken a united stand in their ongoing battle with Moscow, which last week rejected a demand by Riyadh that the OPEC+ should cut production sharply to arrest crashing prices. In retaliation, the Gulf allies have decided to scrap all limits on production.
• The crippling of industrial production in China and other Asian countries such as South Korea has resulted in a sharp reduction in their import of crude oil.
• But Moscow argued that production should not be cut until the full impact of the COVID-19 outbreak is assessed in greater detail, and that any attempt to shore up prices would only benefit the costlier US shale industry, which has raised production to levels higher than both Saudi Arabia’s and Russia’s.
• The Saudi-Russian fight signals an end, at least temporarily, to the truce between these two large oil producers that had brought Moscow a seat at the OPEC high table, and held off a potential price war for more than three years now.  However, the OPEC+ deal to control production also helped the American frackers.
• Analysts have said that in walking out of its marriage of convenience with OPEC and the Saudis now, Moscow may be trying to drive prices below the break-even point of shale oil production.

5.Cri-MAC & NCTC

Context:

• Recently, Union Home Minister launched Crime Multi Agency Centre (Cri-MAC) and National Cybercrime Training Centre(NCTC).

About NCTC:

• It is meant for professional quality eLearning services on cyber-crime investigation on large scale to police officers, judges, prosecutors and other stakeholders.

About Cri-MAC:

• It aims to share information between various police forces on heinous crimes.
• It is meant to share information on heinous crimes and other issues related to inter-state coordination.