Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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India, Korea Coast Guards to hold joint exercise.

News: 

• The Indian Coast Guard and the Korea Coast Guard will hold a joint exercise off Chennai on April 5. Korean Coast Guard ship Badaro 3011 will arrive at the Chennai port ..

Beyond News: 

• The joint exercise, named Sahyog – Hyeoblyeog 2018 is part of a proposed establishment of a MoU between the two Coast Guards to improve maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region.
• The MoU, which is currently in the draft stage, will be deliberated on by the two sides over the course of the next three days and a final agreement will be signed on board one of the Coast Guard ships after the completion of the joint exercise.
• There will also be cross presentations, and we will be providing them our perception of the Indian Ocean region.
• The joint exercise is one in a series of exercises being undertaken by the Indian Coast Guard with a number of countries.
• In 2016, a Korean ship came to India while in 2017, an Indian Coast Guard ship visited South Korea, to take part in joint exercises.
• The two sides will also try to have cross landing operations on board the ships mid-sea.
• The joint exercise will focus on jointly planning, training, and executing a series of well-developed anti-piracy scenarios and rescue operations.

Donate floral offerings to shelter homes: SC

News: 

• The Supreme Court has urged temple towns across the country to follow in the footsteps of the Uttar Pradesh Women Welfare department’s initiative to donate “huge” floral offerings received at temples to destitute women and widows’ shelter homes.

Beyond News

• The department, under Principal Secretary Renuka Kumar, ensures that the flowers, after use in the temples in Vrindaban and Mathura, are sent to the shelter homes.
• The inmates of these shelters use the flowers to make eco-friendly products like sugandh essence, sugandh jal, agarbatti, etc, with the technical support of Floral and Fragrance Development Centre, Kannauj, under the Union Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry.
• Earlier dumped as garbage, the flowers are now a major source of rehabilitation, dignity and earning for the Vrindavan widows, the Supreme Court acknowledged the novel initiative.

Kerala looks at yoga as new tourism ‘sutra’

News

• After positioning Kerala as the ‘land of Ayurveda’ and the best place to experience authentic Ayurveda in the global wellness market, it is the turn to promote the State as a dedicated yoga destination.

Beyond News

• Since Kerala is billed one of the best places to rejuvenate mind and body, the tourism industry stakeholders plan to combine the demand from wellness travellers for yoga, meditation, and health tourism.
• They intend to position the State as a dedicated yoga destination and develop a yoga circuit linking yoga and meditation centres, ashrams, and tourist destinations.
• To popularise Kerala as a yoga destination abroad, the Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI) has worked out a ‘yoga ambassadors tour’.
• The Union government’s Department of Ayush and Kerala Tourism have joined hands with the ATTOI for the initiative as the Centre has given its nod for the tour.
• For this, 100 leading yoga tour operators, journalists specialising in yoga, and yoga teachers from around the globe will visit the State for 10 days from June 13 to familiarise themselves with the yoga circuit.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

China’s Tiangong-1 space station burns up over South Pacific

News

• China’s Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and burnt up over the middle of the South Pacific, the Chinese space authority said.

Beyond News

• The craft re-entered the atmosphere and the “vast majority” of it had burnt up upon re-entry, the authority said in a brief statement on its website.
• It had said shortly before that it was expected to re-enter off the Brazilian coast in the South Atlantic near the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
• The 10.4-metre-long (34.1-foot) Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace 1, was launched in 2011 to carry out docking and orbit experiments as part of China’s ambitious space programme, which aims to place a permanent station in orbit by 2023.
• It was originally planned to be decommissioned in 2013 but its mission was repeatedly extended.
• China had said its re-entry would occur in late 2017 but that process was delayed, leading some experts to suggest the space laboratory was out of control.

India steps up vigil at Walong tri-junction

News

• Indian troops deployed along the disputed Sino-India border in the Himalayan range of the Arunachal sector have increased their patrolling at a tri-junction of India, China and Myanmar to prevent a repeat of a Doklam-like standoff.

Beyond News

• The tri-junction is located around 50 km from Walong, India’s easternmost town in Arunachal Pradesh, near the Tibet region.
• A senior Army official said that,after the Doklam stand-off, they have increased their presence on India’s side of the tri-junction as it is very important for them from the strategic dimension.
• After the tri-junction in Doklam in the Sikkim sector, this is the most important tri-junction along the Sino-India border.
• The official said that, Chinese troops did not enter the tri-junction too frequently, but had developed road infrastructure near the area, which could be advantageous for the mobilisation of troops.

ISRO says it has lost contact with GSAT-6A

News

• A day after GSAT-6A, the country’s newest communication satellite, went incommunicado in space, officials of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that they were working to restore the link with it.

Beyond News

• The silence is initially believed to have been caused by a power glitch or a short circuit on the satellite.
• The spacecraft, launched on March 29, was meant to support military communications in hostile regions using handy ground terminals. Built to last 10-12 years, it was to be a standby for its three-year-old replica GSAT-6.
• ISRO Chairman said that, Going by preliminary data, they expect that they will be able to recover the satellite. Its systems are in good health. Teams are working round the clock to re-establish contact with the satellite. They are trying through our ground stations across the world.”
• He also said that, functionally, there would be no shortage or disturbance as GSAT-6 was at work for some more years.

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