1.Nagoba Jatara

Why in News?

• Nagoba Jatara, the tribal festival of Telangana has been concluded recently.

About:

• Nagoba Jatara is a Tribal Festival held in Keslapur village, Inderavelly Mandal Adilabad district of Telangana which starts in pushya masam.
• It is celebrated by Meshram clan of Gond tribes for 10 days. Tribal people from Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh belonging to the Mesram clan offer prayers at the festival.
• The Gusadi Dance performance by dancers from the Gond tribe is a major special attraction of the event.
• The event also includes a ceremony called ‘bheting’, which incorporates new brides into the clan.
• The ceremony of Betal puja, which involves display of martial art, constitutes the last of the rituals in the event.

About Gond Tribe:

• Gonds are one of the largest tribal groups in the world.
• They mostly live in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
• Gonds are subdivided into four tribes:

1.Raj Gonds
2.Madia Gonds
3.Dhurve Gonds
4.Khatulwar Gonds

• It has been notified as a Scheduled Tribe.

2.Indian Railways opens its 1^stwaste-to-energy plan

Why in News?

• The East Coast Railways commissioned the first waste-to-energy plant of Railways sector of India.
• The plant, a patented technology called Polycrack, is first-of-its-kind in the Indian Railways and fourth in the country.
• It converts multiple feed stocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water.

Polycrack Technology:

• Polycrack Technology is the world’s very first patented heterogeneous catalytic process which converts multiple feedstocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon as well as water.
• In Polycrack Technology, waste is processed and reformed in 24 hours.
• The technology involves de-polmerization, cracking, reforming, scrubbing, particle filtration and rapid quenching.
• The waste generated will become the feeder material for the waste to energy plant.
• The energy which will be produced at the plant, will be in the form of light diesel oil and this oil will be used to light furnaces.
• The plant, having a capacity of 500 kg per batch can be fed with all kinds of existing plastic, Petroleum sludge, Un segregated MSW with moisture up to 50 per cent, E-waste, Automobile fluff, Organic waste including bamboo, garden waste, Jathropa fruit and palm bunch.

Significance:

• The major benefit of the method is that it does not require pre-segregation. The waste as collected from the source, can be directly fed into the polycrack plant.
• The plant has high tolerance to moisture hence drying of the waste after treatment, is not required.The waste is processed in the plant and reformed within a period of 24 hours
• The biological decomposition is not allowed as the waste is treated in the plant as it is received
• All the constituents are converted to valuable energy therefore, making it a zero discharge process through the plant.
• The gas generated in the process of the plant is reused in order to provide energy to the system, hence making it self-reliant and self-sufficient for its energy requirements. This also brings down the operating cost of the plant.

• The plant does not cause atmospheric emission during the process unlike the other conventional methods except for the combustion of gases which have pollutants less than the prescribed norms across the world.

3.Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST):

Why in News?

• Recently, the world’s most powerful solar telescope has captured the most detailed image of sun.

About DKIST:

• The telescope’s huge mirror can study objects as small as 35 km across from such a huge distance away.
• It is located in Haleakala, Maui. It shows the Sun’s elusive corona at any time, regardless of positions of the sun, moon, and earth.
• It is funded by National Science Foundation and managed by the National Solar Observatory. It is a collaboration of numerous research institutions
• Coronagraph-an instrument that blocks out light emitted by the sun’s actual surface so that the corona can be observed.
• The National Solar Observatory (NSO) is a United States public research institute to advance the knowledge of the physics of the Sun.

4.Wildlife Institute of India (WII)

Why in News?

• Wildlife Institute of India has Decided to map select Rivers of Ganga Basin for Bio-diversity Conservation.

About:

• The mapping includes 10 rivers such as Ganga, Gomti, Ghagra, Gandak, Koshi, Ramganga, Yamuna, Son, Chambal and Rupnarayan.
• It will use state-of-the-art scientific tools and techniques such as laser-based distance measurement units for channel width determination, sonar-based depth estimator, Doppler-based river flow determination, GPD and GIS technology.

• It generates baseline data on river habitat conditions based on which a roadmap will be prepared for aquatic biodiversity conservation in the Ganga basin.

About WII:

• It is an autonomous institution under the Union Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change. It is based in Chandrabani, Dehradun.
• It conducts specialised research in areas of study like Endangered Species, Biodiversity, Wildlife Management, Wildlife Policy, Wildlife Forensics, Habitat Ecology, Spatial Modelling, Eco development, and Climate Change.
• It has contributed in studying and protecting wildlife in India and also has popularized wildlife studies and careers.

5.Yellow Rust-Wheat crop

Why in News?

• Recently, in Punjab and Haryana, yellow rust disease has been detected in the wheat crop.

About Yellow Rust (Stripe Rust):

• It is a fungal disease which attacks the leaves of wheat crop by forming yellow stripes.
• It affects their photosynthesis that causes shrivelling of grain size.
• It is a disease of cool weather in the northern hills and north-western plains zone.
• The favourable conditions for yellow rust is slight increase in the Temperature and Humid Climate.