1.Ahom Dynasty

News

The mound-burial system of the Ahom dynasty in Assam—’Moidams’—was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List recently.

About Ahom Dynasty:

The Ahom Dynasty (1228–1826, called Kingdom of Assam in medieval times) was a medieval kingdom in the Brahmaputra valley in Assam that maintained its sovereignty for nearly 600 years and successfully resisted Mughal expansion in North-East India.
It was able to establish its suzerainty over the Brahmaputra valley and had a profound effect on the political and social life in the region.
The Ahom dynasty was established by Sukaphaa, a Shan prince of Mong Mao who came to Assam after crossing the Patkai Mountains.
Though it came to be called the Ahom kingdom in the colonial and subsequent times, it was largely multi-ethnic, with the ethnic Ahom people constituting less than 10% of the population toward the end.
The people of the kingdom used to call them ‘Chaopha’ or ‘Swargadeo’.
The kingdom came under repeated Mughal attacks in the 17th century, and on one occasion in 1662,the Mughals under Mir Jumla occupied the capital, Garhgaon.
- The Mughals were unable to keep it, and finally, during the battle of Saraighatin 1671, the Ahomsled by Lachit Borphukan successfully defeated the Mughals.
- Borphukan is mainly known for his leadership in this battle.
- By 1682, the Mughal influence in the region was completely eradicated.
Following a period of confusion, the kingdom got itself the last set of kings, the Tungkhungia kings,established by Gadadhar Singha.
The kingdom became weaker with the rise of the Moamoria rebellion, and subsequently fell to a succession of Burmese invasions.
With the defeat of the Burmeseafter the First Anglo-Burmese War and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826,control of the kingdompassed into British (East India Company) hands.

What are Moidams of Ahom dynasty?

The Moidams (also spelt as Maidam) are burial mounds of Ahom kings, queens, and noblesin Assam.
The name “Moidam” comes from the Tai words “Phrang-Mai-Dam” or “Mai-Tam,” meaning to bury and the spirit of the dead.
These mounds are distinct for their architecture and reflect the Ahom’s foreign influences.
They are found throughout upper Assam, with Charaideo, the first Ahom capital, being the main necropolis.
Each Moidam has three main parts:
- A vault or chamber where the body is placed.
- A hemispherical earthen mound covering the chamber.
- A brick structure (Chaw-chali) on top for annual offerings and an octagonal boundary wall with an arched gateway.
Originally, vaults were made of wooden poles and beams but were replaced with stone and brick during the reign of King Rudra Singha (CE 1696-1714).

Inside the vault, the dead were buried with their belongings, including clothes, ornaments, and weapons.

2.RIVER YAMUNA

Yamunotri Dham:

It is a part of Char Dham (along with Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath), the four mostrevered Hindu pilgrimages in the Himalayas.
It is situated at an altitude of 3,293 metres (10,804 ft) in the Garhwal Himalayas in District Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand.
It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and lies in close proximity of the Indo-China border.
It is the second most sacred river of India after the Ganges, originates in Yamunotri.
The small mountain hamlet, with the Yamunotri Temple at its centre, is the commencing point of the Char Dham Yatra pilgrimage, which proceeds from Yamunotri to Gangotri and finally to Kedarnath and Badrinath.
Lodged in a narrow gorge, close to the source of the Yamuna, the Yamunotri Temple is dedicated to Yamuna.

Key Facts about Yamuna River:

Yamuna River (also known as Jumna), is the major tributary of the Ganges River.
Origin: It rises in the high Himalaya, in the Yamunotri Glacier, at the height of 4,421 meters.
Course:
- The 1,376 km long Yamuna flows solely through India, crossing three states: Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
- After rising in the high Himalayas, it flows in a southerly direction swiftly through the Himalayan foothills and, exiting Uttarakhand, on to the Indo-Gangetic Plain,along the border between Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana state to the west.
- The Eastern and Western Yamuna canals are fed from the river at that point.
- The Yamuna then passes Delhi, where it feeds the Agra Canal.
- South of Delhi, and now wholly within Uttar Pradesh, it turns southeastward.
- Near Prayagraj (Allahabad), after a course of about 855 miles (1,376 km), the Yamuna joins the Ganges River.
- The confluence of the two rivers is an especially sacred place to Hindus and is the site of annual festivals as well as the Kumbh Mela, which is held every 12 years.
Tributaries:
- Near Dehradun, the capital city of Uttarakhand, the Yamuna is joined by its biggest tributary, the Tons River.
- The Chambal River is Yamuna’s biggest tributary on the right.
- Other important tributaries of the Yamuna include the Hindon, Sarda, and Giri rivers on the right and Betwa and Sindh on the left.

major tributaries of the Ganges River?

Tributaries of Ganga include Ramganga, Gomti, Ghaghara, Gandak, Kosi and Mahananda from the left bank and Yamuna, Tamsa, Son and Punpun from the right bank.

3.PERSEVERENCE ROVER

Overview:

Nasa’s Perseverance rover recently made an intriguing discovery that could shed light on the ancient history of Mars and the possibility of past microbial life.

Why in News?

The rover has identified a rock named “Cheyava Falls” that exhibits intriguing characteristics, suggesting it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago.
Cheyava Falls, an arrowhead-shaped rock, was found on the northern edge of Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley that once channeled water into Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is working.
It is rich in chemical signatures and structures that may have been formed by life when the area contained running water.
The rover’s SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrumentdetectedorganic compounds in Cheyava Falls.
These carbon-based molecules are considered the building blocks of life, although they can also be formed by non-biological processes.

About Perseverance Rover:

Perseverance, nicknamed “Percy“, is a semi-autonomous rover the size of a small car designed to explore the surface of Mars.
It is part of NASA’s ongoing Mars 2020 Mission.
Launch: It was launched on July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Landing: Successfully landed on the surface of Mar’s Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
- The rover will collect samples of rock and soil, encase them in tubes, and leave them on the planet’s surface to be returned to Earth at a future date.
Features:
- It is about 3 metres long, 2.7 metres wide, and 2.2 metres tall.
- It is about the size of a car but weighs only about 1,025 kilograms with all instruments on board.
- Power source: Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). It converts heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity.
- It has a rectangular body, six wheels, a robotic arm, a drill for sampling rocks, cameras and scientific instruments.

3. Climate FINANCE

About Climate Finance Action Fund:

It will be capitalised with contributions from fossil fuel producing countries and companies across oil, gas and coal, and Azerbaijan will be a founding contributor.
It was launched within a package of 14 initiatives under the framework of the llthematic days.
It will be a catalytic public-private partnership fund, mobilising the private sector and de-risking investment.
The fund will also contain special facilities with concessional and grant-based support to rapidly address the consequences of natural disasters in the developing countries in need.
CFAF will become operational at the conclusion of the initial fundraising round, which seeks to capitalise the fund with $1 billion, and when 10 contributing countries committed as shareholders.
- Fifty percent of the capital will be directed towards climate projects in developing countries that rely on support, across mitigation, adaptation, and research and development.
- Fifty percent of the contributions will be allocated to helping meeting members’ the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to keep the 1.5C temperature target within reach.
Twenty percent of the revenues generated from investments will be deposited in a Rapid Response Funding Facility (2R2F) providing highly concessional and grant-based support.

The fund will be headquartered with its secretariat in Baku, Azerbaijan

ABOUT UNFCC

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a treaty that establishes the legal framework for international cooperation on climate change. The UNFCCC’s goal is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

4.HANTAVIRUS

Hantaviruses are a family of viruses which can cause serious illnesses and death.
The virus can cause severe infections of the lungs (with cough and shortness of breath) or kidneys (with abdominal pain, and sometimes kidney failure).
It causes diseases like hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS).
Transmission:
- They are spread mainly by rodents like rats and mice, and are not spread from person-to-person.
- Transmission of the virus to humans occurs through inhalation of infected rodent urine, droppings, or saliva.
Symptoms:
- Symptoms of hantavirus infection can be mild or severe, depending on whether a person’s lungs become infected.
- The infection starts with sudden fever, headache, muscle aches, and sometimes abdominal symptoms, which may be followed by a cough and shortness of breath or by kidney problems.
- The infection gets worse quickly. Lung failure can occur and may lead to death.
Treatment:
- There is no specific treatment for hantavirus infection, but early medical care can help if serious disease develops.
- More than half of people who have this disease in their lungs die.

ABOUT VIRUS

Viruses are not plants, animals, or bacteria. They are generally placed in their kingdom.

In the strictest sense, they should not even be considered organisms – because they are not free-living. They cannot reproduce and carry on metabolic processes without a host cell.
It is an acellular organism that is 10 to 100 times smaller than bacteria, about 20-300 nm in size.
They can infect a variety of living organisms, including bacteria, plants, and animals.
The infective, extracellular (outside the cell) form of a virus is called the virion.
It is a small collection of genetic code (either DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat.
They lack metabolic machinery of their own to generate energy or synthesize proteins. They can reproduce only within a living cell – hence they are obligate intracellular parasites. They take over the functions of the host cell hence causing infection.
They are inactive outside the host (crystallized form) and active inside. This puts them in the unique criteria of living as well as the non-living entity or ‘not truly living’.

5. BIMSTEC

ABOUT BIMSTEC

● India hosted the 2nd BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Foreign Ministersʼ Retreat in New Delhi.

● focus on providing an “informal platform to discuss ways and means of cooperating and accelerating action in security, connectivity, trade, and investment within the Bay of Bengal.”

● BIMSTEC is the regional organisation devoted to the Bay of Bengal, with a membership of five South Asian and two Southeast Asian countries, cooperating across seven diverse sectors.

● It allows New Delhi to engage multilaterally with the other countries of the Bay of Bengal region, which are its eastern neighbours and therefore vital for its economic development, security, and foreign policy imperatives.

● India also remains intent on solidifying relations with its eastern neighbours as Chinaʼs growing presence in the Bay of Bengal poses a potential threat to regional stability and New Delhiʼs position as a preferred security partner in these waters.

● Strengthening ties with Bangladesh and Myanmar accords India the advantage of providing its landlocked north-eastern region with access to the sea.

● Improved ties with Myanmar and Thailand will also lend India the opportunity to have a more profound presence in the Indo-Pacific, as it holds the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), in which these two countries are members,to be of central importance in its vision of the Indo-Pacific.

● Thailand reinforced this idea at the retreat by identifying itself as a bridge between BIMSTEC and ASEAN.

Major Focus

● focusing on Agriculture, Disaster Management, and Maritime Transport.

● India announced support for cancer research, treatment, and issuance of e-visas for patients of all BIMSTEC states, while Sri Lanka proposed the inclusion of kidney disease.

● The need for involving the private sector in trade and promoting young entrepreneurs was also highlighted, as was the importance of connectivity, cyber-security, and countering the trafficking of narcotics and illegal arms.

● Bangladesh highlighted the need for cooperation in the Blue Economy and urged member states to ban fishing during the breeding season to address the problem of depleting catch in the Bay.

● Bhutan expounded on the need for collaboration in tourism and cultural exchanges, while Nepal highlighted its ʻwhole of the regionʼ approach to leverage synergies among member states and transform BIMSTEC into a results-oriented regional forum.

● Thailand underscored the need for cooperation in non-traditional security domains, and Myanmar added the need to combat online scamming to the list.