Researchers from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Banaras Hindu University found that 12% of India's eligible children received no dose of the measles vaccine.

Measles

• About: Measles is an acute viral respiratory illness.
• Symptoms: High fever, cough, coryza, conjunctivitis (the three “C” s), and rash. 
• Pathogen: Measles virus (a single-stranded, enveloped RNA virus)
• Hosts: Humans are the only natural hosts 
• Vaccines: The Measles Rubella (MR) vaccine has been part of India’s Universal Immunization Programme since 2017.
  • Rubella virus infection usually causes a mild fever and rash. 

KNP Collected the highest revenue in its 50-year history.

About KNP

• Location:  Golaghat and Nagaon districts (Assam) in the Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspots. 
  • Situated between the river Brahmaputra in the North and the Karbi Anglong hills in the South. 
• UNESCO recognition: Declares as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
• Major Vegetation: Wet alluvial grassland interspersed with deciduous to semi-evergreen woodlands.
• Flora:  Elephant grass, Kumbhi, Indian gooseberry etc. 
• Fauna: One-horned rhinoceroses (the world's largest population), wild Asiatic water buffaloes, swamp deer, hog deer, Ganges Dolphin, etc.

• 7th edition of Exercise 'Shakti', a joint military exercise between India and France, started in Meghalaya. 

Ministry of Power held a meeting to review a study conducted by IIT-Delhi on the effect of installing Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) technology on Sulphur Dioxide (SO₂) emissions. 

• Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change made it mandatory for all coal-based TPP to install FGD system. 

About FGD Technology

• It is used to remove SO₂ from the flue gas emissions of coal-fired Thermal Power Plants (TPP).
  • FGD systems can remove over 90% of SO₂.
• Majorly, three types of FGD systems – Dry Sorbent (Limestone) Injection, Wet Limestone Based, and Sea Water Based –are adopted worldwide.

10^th and 12^th standard students from the CISCE board can now obtain verified marksheets through the DigiLocker platform.

About DigiLocker Platform 

• Launched in 2015, it is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the Digital India program.
• It is a secure cloud-based platform for the issuance and verification of documents & certificates in a digital way.
• These digital documents are legally valid documents under the Indian Information Technology (IT) Act 2000.
  • According to IT Rules, 2016, these are treated at par with original physical documents.
• Benefits: Reduced Administrative cost, Paperless Governance, Real-Time Verification etc.

Scientists have found mass sea anemone bleaching off Agatti island, Lakshadweep.

About Sea Anemone

• They are ocean-dwelling members of the phylum Cnidaria. 
• Sea anemones are predatory animals and most species are found in coastal tropical waters.
• Like corals, sea anemones establish symbiotic relationships with green algae.
  • Sea surface temperature rise disrupts this relationship, resulting in bleaching. 
• They also have a symbiotic relation with clownfish.
  • Clownfish are protected by the stinging tentacles of anemone and anemone gets food from Clownfish’s meals.
• They play key biogeochemical roles in benthic ecosystems.

Ruskin Bond was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship. 

• Fellowship is the highest honour conferred by Akademi on a writer. 
• It is reserved for 'the immortals of literature'. 
• Major literary of Ruskin Bond: Vagrants in the Valley, Once Upon a Monsoon Time, Angry River, Strangers in the Night, All Roads Lead to Ganga, etc.

About Sahitya Akademi

• Genesis: Formally inaugurated in 1954 and Registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
• Ministry:  An autonomous body under Ministry of Culture.
• Role: Undertakes literary activities in 24 languages (22 scheduled languages and English and Rajasthani).
• Its major awards: Sahitya Akademi Award, Bhasha Samman.

Researchers found altered food habits in C. elegans worms after they ate a disease-causing bacteria (P. vranovensis) that produces sRNA.

About sRNA

• sRNA is a group of primarily non-coding RNA (NcRNA) and generally contains 20 to 200 nucleotides.
  • ncRNA refers to RNA that does not encode a protein. 
  • Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is made up of 4 types of nucleotides adenine (A), uracil (U), cytosine (C) or guanine (G).
• They bind to other proteins and RNAs, and either enhance or reduce the expression of other genes.