Additional Information

Indian Rhino

• One of the most amphibious rhino species, the Indian rhino is an excellent swimmer. It can run at a speed of 55km/hr for short periods. 
• Though it has an incredible sense of hearing and smell, its eyesight is relatively poor. 
• Breeding takes place at all times of the year, and the gestation period is about 16 months. The female attains sexual maturity between five and six years and the male between seven and ten years. 
• The preferred habitat of an Indian rhinoceros are primarily areas that contain grasslands and wetlands located in the foothills of the Himalayas and the Brahmaputra and Ganges valley.

• • The rhino is primarily a grazer. Its diet consists almost entirely of grasses, but it also eats leaves, branches, fruit, and aquatic plants.
  • At present, the species are restricted to small patches in the Indo-Nepal Terai, northern parts of West Bengal, and Assam. Formerly they were extensively distributed in the Brahmaputra and Gangetic valley.
  • Within India, rhinos are mainly found in the seven Protected Areas viz. – Kaziranga NP, Pobitara WLS, Orang NP, Manas NP in Assam, Jaldapara NP and Gorumara NP in West Bengal and Dudhwa NP in Uttar Pradesh.
    •  In addition, a transient population is also observed in Katerniaghat WLS in Uttar Pradesh and Valmiki TR in Bihar, which experience visits of rhinos from adjoining Nepal.
• Conservation Status:

• • IUCN Red List: Vulnerable

Additional Information

• Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, European Union, Nigeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are the top rice importers.
• India’s rice exports are broadly categorised into basmati and non-basmati rice. The non-basmati rice category includes six subcategories— rice in husk of seed quality; other rice in husk; husked (brown) rice; rice parboiled; non-basmati white rice; and broken rice.
• Basmati accounts for almost one third of India’s total rice export. 
• According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), India accounted for 33 per cent (17 million tonnes) of the world’s total rice exports (53 million tonnes) during the calendar year 2023. 
• In 2022, before the ban on Non-Basmati White Rice shipments, India accounted for about 40 per cent of the total rice exports (56 million tonnes) in the world

Additional Information

• A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have exhausted their nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning stage, this type of star expels most of its outer material, creating a planetary nebula. Only the hot core of the star remains.This core becomes a very hot white dwarf, with a temperature exceeding 100,000 Kelvin.
•  A white dwarf’s low luminosity comes from the emission of residual thermal energy.
• Unlike most other stars that are supported against their own gravitation by normal gas pressure, white dwarf stars are supported by the degeneracy pressure of the electron gas in their interior.
  • Degeneracy pressure is the increased resistance exerted by electrons composing the gas, as a result of stellar contraction
• The central region of a typical white dwarf star is composed of a mixture of carbon and oxygen. Surrounding this core is a thin envelope of helium and, in most cases, an even thinner layer of hydrogen. A very few white dwarf stars are surrounded by a thin carbon envelope.

Additional Information

• Introduced in August 2005, the OCI scheme provides for registration of all Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) who were citizens of India on January 26, 1950, or thereafter, or were eligible to become citizens of India on the said date.
• An OCI card holder — essentially a foreign passport holder — gets a multiple entry, multi-purpose life-long visa for visiting India, and is exempt from registration with local police authority for any length of stay in the country. 

 New restrictions 

• Through the 2021 notification, new restrictions have been  introduced, including a requirement for OCIs to secure a special permit to undertake “any research”, to undertake any “missionary” or “Tablighi” or “journalistic activities” or to visit any area in India notified as “protected”, “restricted” or “prohibited”.

Who cannot be an OCI? And what are OCIs not allowed to do?

• An applicant is not eligible to get an OCI card if his/her parents or grandparents have ever been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh. 
• However, the spouse of foreign origin of a citizen of India or spouse of foreign origin of an OCI, whose marriage has been registered and subsisted for not less than two years, can apply for an OCI card. 
• Foreign military personnel either in service or retired are also not entitled for grant of OCI.

• The OCI card holder is not entitled to vote; to be a member of a Legislative Assembly or of a Legislative Council or of Parliament; to hold Indian constitutional posts such as that of the President, Vice President, Judge of the Supreme Court or High Court. 

• As per government records, there were more than 45 lakh registered OCI card holders in 2023, from 129 countries. The US topped the list with over 16.8 lakh OCI card holders, followed by the UK (9.34 lakh), Australia (4.94 lakh) and Canada (4.18 lakh).

Additional Information

• A solar eclipse takes place when the Moon moves in the middle of the Earth and the Sun. The Moon blocks the light of the Sun, either fully or partially, which casts a huge shadow on some parts of the world.
• There are four different types of solar eclipses, including total solar eclipse, annular solar eclipse, partial solar eclipse, and hybrid solar eclipse.

• When the Moon blocks the Sun entirely, the areas in the centre of the Moon’s shadow at the time witness a total solar eclipse. The sky darkens and people who are in the path of a total solar eclipse can get a glimpse of the Sun’s corona — the outer atmosphere — which is usually not visible due to the bright face of the Sun.

• When the Moon passes in front of the Sun but is at or near the farthest point from Earth, an annular solar eclipse occurs. In this scenario, the Moon covers the Sun in such a way that only the periphery of the Sun remains visible — looking like a ring of fire.

• A partial solar eclipse takes place when the Moon blocks just a part of the Sun, giving it a crescent shape. During both partial and annular eclipses, the regions outside the area covered by the Moon’s umbra — the middle and the darkest part of the lunar shadow — will see a partial solar eclipse. Partial solar eclipse is the most common type of solar eclipse.

• A hybrid solar eclipse — the rarest type of solar eclipse — is witnessed when an eclipse shifts between annular and total as the shadow of the Moon moves across the globe. In this case, some parts of the world see a total solar eclipse, while others observe an annular solar eclipse.

How often does a solar eclipse take place?

• A solar eclipse is witnessed only during the new moon — when the Moon and Sun are aligned on the same side of Earth. A new moon occurs about 29.5 days because that is how long it takes the Moon to orbit Earth. This, however, does not mean that a solar eclipse happens every month. It takes place only between two to five times annually. Why?
  • It is because the Moon does not orbit Earth in the same plane as the Earth orbits the Sun. In fact, the Moon is tilted by about five degrees with respect to Earth. As a result, most of the time when the Moon is in between the Sun and Earth, its shadow is either too high or too low to fall on the Earth.