Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA), launched in 2017, has emerged as India's "One Nation, One Digital Platform" for school education.

About DIKSHA

• Launched by: National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in collaboration with the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET).
• Ministry: Ministry of Education.
• It is an open-source platform that provides easy access to high-quality, curriculum-linked digital learning materials in multiple languages to students and teachers across the country.
• Key Features:
  • Interactive resources, including 2D/3D animations, AR experiences, simulations.
  • Inclusive features like DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) format, text-to-speech, and Indian Sign Language (ISL) videos.QR-coded Energised Textbooks.
  • Personalised learning with unlimited practice questions, detailed solutions, adaptive assessments, and competency-based question banks.

NASA is executing the Swift Boost mission to rescue its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from orbital decay caused by solar activity.

• Swift Boost Mission is a $30 million commercial contract deploying Katalyst Space’s LINK robotic servicing spacecraft to capture and elevate the propulsion-less telescope.
  • Propulsion-less spacecraft in low Earth orbit experience atmospheric drag, gradually reducing their altitudes. 
  • Recent solar storms magnified this effect on Swift, causing it to sink faster than anticipated.

About the Swift Telescope

• Launch & Objective: Launched in 2004, it is a multi-wavelength space observatory designed to study gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and transient cosmic explosions.
• Payload: Features three co-aligned instruments detecting visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray electromagnetic spectra.
• Significance: Renowned for rapid, autonomous repointing, serving as NASA's first responder to volatile stellar phenomena and advancing astrophysics.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has published a draft notification proposing amendments to Medical Devices Rules, 2017.

• Under the Medical Devices Rules, 2017, medical devices are classified into four risk-based categories- Class A, Class B, Class C and Class D- with Class D comprising the highest-risk devices.
  • The 2017 Rules prescribe statutory timelines for processing applications for manufacturing licences for each category.

About Draft Amendments

• It seeks to rationalize the timelines for grant of manufacturing licences for medical devices across different risk categories. 
  • Class B (Low-Moderate Risk; e.g., BP monitors): Proposed manufacturing licence timeline reduced from 140 days to 115 days.
  • Classes C & D (High Risk; e.g., stents, implants): Proposed manufacturing licence timeline reduced from 105 days to 90 days.

A national workshop was organized in Alwar to mark 18 years of successful scientific tiger reintroduction in Sariska Reserve.

• Sariska now supports 56 tigers and is the world's first successful scientific reintroduction of tigers into a landscape where the species had become locally extinct.

About the Sariska Tiger Reserve

• Location: Alwar district, Rajasthan; situated in Aravalli Hills.
• River: Ruparail (or Ruparel) River 
• Fauna: Tiger, Leopard, Striped Hyena, Caracal, Nilgai, Sambar, Spotted Deer, Four-horned Antelope, Pangolin.
• Flora: Dhok, arjun, and tendu trees.
• Vegetation: Northern Tropical Dry Deciduous and Thorn forests.
• Heritage: Houses prominent historical monuments like Kankwari Fort, Neelkanth Temple, and Pandupol Hanuman Temple.

The Centre has mandated that all vaccines, antimicrobials, narcotics and anti-cancer drugs carry a QR code, which can enable the tracking of medicine.

• The tracking mechanism will be implemented for the new categories of products by July 2027 for vaccines, narcotics, and anticancer drugs and by July 2028 for antimicrobials.

About QR Code System:

• It is a two-dimensional barcode that stores a large volume of data in a small physical space. 
• Invented by: Masahiro Hara in 1994.
• Working: It encodes data in a square grid of dark and light boxes and can be read from any orientation (left, right, top, or bottom).
  • They can be read even if the code is torn, stained, scratched, or partially missing.
• Applications: Manufacturing, Ticketing, Logistics, marketing, etc.

Union Rural Development Minister has launched the ‘Rural Internal Audit Portal'.

About Rural Internal Audit Portal

• Ministry: Office of the Chief Controller of Accounts (CCA), Ministry of Rural Development.
• Developed in collaboration with: National Informatics Centre (NIC)
• Key Features:
  • Unified Platform: End-to-end digital platform for compliance and risk-based internal audits.
  • AI-Enabled Governance: Uses AI to enhance transparency, accountability, and technology-driven governance.
  • Digital Transformation: Replaces manual, paper-based audits with a transparent and data-driven audit management system.

Team of Researchers detected a complex and hardy form of organic matter called macromolecular carbon on Mars’ Jezero Crater using NASA Perseverance Rover. 

• Researchers used the rover’s SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument, located on the end of rover’s robotic arm. 

About NASA Perseverance Rover 

• Launched in 2020 to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith for possible Earth return. 
• Target: Jezero Crater, Mars
  • 45 km wide, located on western edge of flat plain called Isidis Planitia, lying north of Martian equator. 
  • Jezero Crater has diverse mineralogy with rocks and deposits in and around spanning the geological history of Mars.

Union Home and Cooperation Minister launched the pilot project of PM Family Care Tracker at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. 

About PM Family Care Tracker

• Integrated digital platform to track the health, nutrition and education of beneficiaries from pregnancy until the age of 18. 
• Provide every child with a unique ID, linked to Birth Registration Number or ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) ID. 
• Significance: Integrate data from multiple government platforms, generate risk alerts, and monitor key indicators ensuring benefits of government schemes reach automatically and in a timely manner. 

Recently, PM hailed fight against superstition that saved rare stork in Assam. 

About Greater Adjutant Stork (locally known as ‘Hargilla’)

• Distribution: Mainly India (in Assam and Bihar) and Cambodia.
• Habitat: Inhabits wetlands, nesting in tall trees with closed canopies and bamboo clumps around nesting trees, and historically on cliffs. 
• Characteristics: Principally carnivorous, feeding on fish, frogs, snakes and other reptiles.
• IUCN Status: Nearly Threatened (NT).