Bangladesh approved construction of Padma barrage before the 1996 Ganga Water Sharing Treaty with India approaches expiry in December 2026. 

About Padma Barrage

• Location: Proposed on the Padma River (the Bangladesh stretch of the Ganga) in Rajbari District, Bangladesh.
• Purpose: To address water scarcity, salinity intrusion caused by reduced dry-season flows, often blamed to Farakka Barrage in Indi by Bangladesh.
• Project Features:
  • Length: 2.1 km
  • 113 MW hydropower generation capacity
• Coverage: Projected to influence about 37% of Bangladesh's land area.
• Impact on India: The Padma Barrage may alter downstream hydrology and sediment dynamics of the Ganga-Padma basin.

Drop Shipping faces threats from creation of entire shop fronts and e-commerce websites in minutes with cheap domains and a few AI coding prompts.

About Drop Shipping

• An e-commerce business model where the seller does not keep products in stock.
• The seller receives customer orders and forwards them to a manufacturer, wholesaler, or supplier.
  • The supplier stores, packs, and ships the product directly to the customer.
  • The drop shipper acts as a middleman between the buyer and the actual seller.
  • One or more intermediaries may exist between the customer and the original producer.
• Advantages: Low startup cost, no inventory management, and minimal warehousing requirements.

Brazil's suspension of Butantan-DV highlights the need for robust vaccine safety surveillance as India advances soon-to-be-launched DengiAll; similar, dengue vaccine.

About DengiAll

• Developer: Panacea Biotec.
• Trials: Conducted by Panacea Biotec in collaboration with ICMR.
• Type: Tetravalent live-attenuated vaccine against all four dengue serotypes (DENV-1 to DENV-4).
  • Tetravalent live-attenuated vaccine an immunization formulated with weakened, living versions of all four distinct serotypes of a virus (typically Dengue).
• Significance: India's first indigenous dengue vaccine.
• Dengue: A mosquito-borne viral disease caused by the dengue virus and transmitted primarily by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. 

Scientists have found a new way to build highly porous materials using nanographene.

About nanographene

• It is a molecule-sized or nanoscale piece of graphene. 
• Unlike large graphene sheets, its edges and limited size strongly change its electronic, optical, and chemical behavior.
• Distinctive Properties: Tunable Band Gap enabling semiconductor behaviour, Photoluminescence, etc.
• Major Applications: Optoelectronics (Light–electronics interaction), Biomedical Applications, Quantum technologies etc.

Jharkhand’s Bhagaiya silk, Kuchai silk, Munda jewellery and bamboo craft received Geographical Indication (GI) tag.

• GI Tag is granted under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, to protect products whose quality, reputation or characteristics are linked to a specific geographical origin. 

About Products

• Bhagaiya Silk
  • Traditional hand-spun silk textile of Santhal Pargana, woven mainly by Santhal tribal women.
  • Known for tribal motifs and indigenous weaving techniques.
• Kuchai Silk
  • Produced in Kuchai (Saraikela-Kharsawan district) from Tasar (Tussar) silk.
  • Famous for its natural golden sheen and high durability.
• Munda Jewellery
  • Traditional jewellery of the Munda tribe, reflecting tribal identity and culture.
  • Crafted mainly from silver, brass and beads with distinctive ethnic designs.
• Jharkhand Bamboo Craft
  • Traditional bamboo handicraft made by rural and tribal artisans using locally available bamboo.
  • Includes utility and decorative products, supporting sustainable livelihoods.

Switzerland recently rejected a proposal to cap its population through a referendum.

About Referendum

• It is an instrument of Direct Democracy through which citizens vote directly to accept or reject a specific proposal.
• The result of a referendum may be legally binding, as determined by the law or constitution under which it is called,
• The Indian Constitution does not explicitly mention referendums, as India is a parliamentary democracy where elected representatives make decisions.

National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) marked 50 years, with celebrations under the theme ‘Resilient Urban India @2047’.

• National Urban Learning Platform was also launched as the urban arm of iGOT-Mission Karmayogi.

About NIUA (HQ: New Delhi)

• Established in: 1976.
• Ministry: An autonomous institute under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Functions: 
  • A national think tank on urban development and management.
  • Provides technical assistance for flagship missions such as Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT.
  • Promotes innovation, knowledge-sharing, and best practices for sustainable urbanization in India.

Project GIB records successful hatching of three Great Indian Bustard chicks, raising the captive conservation population to 94 birds. 

About Great Indian Bustard (GIB)

• Habitat: Ground-dwelling bird of grasslands, scrublands and semi-arid regions.
• Distribution: Endemic to the Indian subcontinent; now largely confined to Rajasthan, with small populations in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
  • Desert National Park (Rajasthan), spread across Jaisalmer and Barmer districts with human settlements inside, is one of its critical natural habitats. 
• Characteristics: One of the heaviest flying birds; feeds on grass seeds, insects, small reptiles and rodents.
• Major Threats: Habitat loss and fragmentation, especially due to infrastructure development and collision with overhead power lines.

• Protection Status
• IUCN Red List: Critically Endangered
• Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I
• CITES: Appendix I
• Covered under the Species Recovery Programme of the Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH) scheme.
• State Bird of Rajasthan, locally called Godawan.

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) collaboration in China has published its first results. 

About Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) 

• Located in Guangdong Province, China, about 650 m underground. 
• Objective: To study neutrinos, determine the neutrino mass hierarchy, and make precision measurements of neutrino oscillations.
  • Neutrinos are fundamental subatomic particles with almost no mass and no electric charge that interact only through the weak nuclear force and gravity. 
• It is one of the world's leading neutrino experiments, alongside DUNE (USA) and Hyper-Kamiokande (Japan).