In News:

• Indian rosewood (Dalbergialatifolia in the south and Dalbergia sissoo in the north), often referred to as the “ivory of the forests”, is prized globally for its rich grain, deep colour, and durability.
• It serves as both a premium timber resource for furniture, handicrafts, and musical instruments, and an ecologically significant species that enhances soil fertility through nitrogen fixation, supports bird and insect diversity, and acts as a long-term carbon sink.

Distribution and Habitat

• Dalbergialatifolia: Native to the Nilgiris, Anamalai, and Parambikulam ranges in Tamil Nadu, with significant habitats in Karnataka and Kerala.
• Dalbergia sissoo (North Indian rosewood): Found along the Himalayan foothills, from Afghanistan to Bihar, typically growing along riverbanks between 200–1,400 m elevation.
• Recent habitat modelling by the Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST), Bengaluru, using 3,224 geo-referenced points and 19 bioclimatic variables, found that only 17.2% of India’s suitable habitat lies within protected areas.

Current Status in Tamil Nadu

• Field surveys (2019–2025) by IWST and the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education revealed that Tamil Nadu has the lowest density of rosewood in South India, with just 2.85 trees per 0.1 hectare, compared to 6.19 in Karnataka and 5.38 in Kerala.
  • The populations are dominated by mature, ageing trees with little or no natural regeneration, and seedlings are rare or absent in many areas.
• The situation has worsened after the lapse of the Tamil Nadu Rosewood (Conservation) Act, 1995, which had regulated felling of rosewood for nearly three decades.
  • With no renewal after February 2025, privately owned rosewood, especially in tea plantations of the Nilgiris, faces heightened risk of exploitation.

Threats

• Weak Legal Safeguards – With the lapse of State legislation, most rosewood outside protected areas is exposed to felling and land-use change.
• Climate Change – IWST modelling projects shrinking suitable habitats in coming decades, further compounding the species’ vulnerability.
• International Demand – Luxury furniture and musical instruments drive high global demand.
• Regeneration Crisis – Ageing tree populations without sufficient seedlings threaten long-term survival.

Conservation Status

• IUCN Red List: Vulnerable (since 2018).
• CITES: Appendix II (regulated trade).
• India’s Last National Assessment (2011–12): Near Threatened.

In News:

Recently, several beaches in Guardamar del Segura, Spain, were closed after an unusual invasion of blue sea dragons (Glaucus atlanticus), a rare but strikingly beautiful species of sea slug. Authorities imposed the ban as a precautionary measure to protect residents and tourists from potential stings.

About Blue Sea Dragons

• Taxonomy: A type of mollusk belonging to the nudibranch family.
• Other Names: Also called blue sea slugs, sea swallows, and blue angels.
• Appearance: Known for their ethereal blue and silver coloration and small size (1–3 cm), often floating upside down on the ocean surface.
• Distribution: Found across Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans in tropical and temperate waters.
• Reproduction: They are hermaphrodites, possessing both male and female reproductive organs.

Feeding and Venom Storage

• Diet consists mainly of venomous siphonophores such as the Portuguese man-o’-war and bluebottle jellyfish.
• Instead of digesting their prey’s stinging cells (nematocysts), they store and concentrate them in finger-like structures on their backs called cerata.
• This makes their sting more potent than that of the original prey, giving them a powerful defence mechanism despite their fragile appearance.

Impact on Humans

• Though not venomous on their own, their stored nematocysts can deliver extremely painful stings.
• Reported symptoms include nausea, vomiting, pain, dermatitis, allergic reactions, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.
• Children and elderly individuals are especially vulnerable.

In News:

The Ramon Magsaysay Award 2025, Asia’s most prestigious honour, has been conferred on ‘Educate Girls’, an Indian non-profit organisation working to promote girls’ education in rural and remote areas. This marks the first time an Indian NGO has received this award, making it a historic milestone for the country.

About Educate Girls

• Founded by Safeena Husain, Educate Girls (also known as the Foundation to Educate Girls Globally) has been instrumental in addressing gender inequality in education.
• The organisationmobilises communities to enrol out-of-school girls, improve learning outcomes, and empower them to continue education.
• Its grassroots volunteers, known as Team Balika and preraks, work in partnership with governments, donors, and local communities.

About Ramon Magsaysay Award

• Instituted in 1958 to celebrate “greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia”.
• Named after Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay, remembered for his integrity and people-centric leadership.
• From 1958–2008, the award was given in six categories: Government Service, Public Service, Community Leadership, Journalism & Creative Communication Arts, Peace & International Understanding, and Emergent Leadership.
• Since 2009, except for Emergent Leadership, it is presented without fixed categories.
• Winners receive a certificate and a medallion bearing the image of Ramon Magsaysay.
• The award ceremony takes place annually in Manila, Philippines on 31st August, Magsaysay’s birth anniversary.
• Till date, over 300 individuals and organisations across Asia have been recognised.

Other 2025 Awardees

• Shaahina Ali (Maldives): Environmental activist.
• Fr. Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva (Philippines): Human rights advocate known for opposing extrajudicial killings during the Duterte administration.

In News:

The Indian Army recently conducted Exercise Yudh Kaushal 3.0 in the high-altitude Kameng region of Arunachal Pradesh, reaffirming its preparedness for next-generation warfare in extreme Himalayan terrain.

The exercise underscored the Army’s shift towards multi-domain operations, greater reliance on emerging technologies, and closer engagement with the domestic defence industry.

Key Highlights of the Exercise

• Terrain & Conditions: Conducted in high-altitude, harsh Himalayan conditions, validating combat effectiveness and operational resilience.
• Technological Integration: Featured drone surveillance, precision strikes, real-time target acquisition, air–littoral operations, and synchronized battlefield tactics, reflecting the Army’s technological adaptation.
• Debut of ASHNI Platoons: Marked the first operational deployment of the newly raised ASHNI platoons, designed to combine advanced technology with traditional combat expertise for decisive battlefield advantage.
• Indigenous Defence Industry Participation: Reflected India’s emphasis on Atmanirbhar Bharat and the “Decade of Transformation,” with active involvement of the domestic defence sector.

Strategic Significance

• Demonstrated India’s ability to conduct large-scale, coordinated operations in sensitive border regions.
• Validated the Army’s preparedness for multi-domain conflicts involving land, air, cyber, and unmanned systems.
• Reinforced the importance of self-reliance in defence technology by incorporating indigenous systems in live combat simulations.
• Showcased India’s resolve to maintain combat superiority in high-altitude operational theatres along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In News:

A landmark study by the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, in collaboration with international scientists, has provided the most precise measurement yet of the Hubble constant, the rate of expansion of the universe. The work, co-authored by Nobel laureate Adam Riess, introduces oxygen-rich Mira variable stars as a new and reliable anchor in the cosmic distance ladder.

What are Mira Variables?

• Mira (Omicron Ceti), discovered in the 17th century, was the first known variable star, named “Mira” meaning ‘the wonderful’ in Latin.
• Mira variables are cool, giant stars (surface temperature ~3,000 K) in their late life stages.
• They exhibit regular cycles of expansion and contraction, leading to predictable brightness variations over 100–1,000 days.
• Crucially, their luminosity is strongly related to pulsation periods, making them excellent “standard candles”—objects of known brightness used to measure cosmic distances.

The IUCAA Study

• Led by Prof. Anupam Bhardwaj, the team studied 40 oxygen-rich Mira stars across 18 stellar clusters in our galaxy.
• Using precise distance data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, they calibrated the absolute luminosities of these stars with unprecedented accuracy.
• This enabled an independent period–luminosity relationship, bypassing traditional reliance on Cepheid variables.
• The study achieved a 3.7% precision in measuring the Hubble constant—the most accurate determination using Miras to date.

Significance for Cosmology

• Mira-based calibration provides an independent check on Cepheid-based measurements, reducing metallicity-related uncertainties (Miras are 3 times less sensitive to metal abundance than Cepheids).
• Current results show consistency between Mira-anchored and Cepheid-anchored Hubble constant values, suggesting that the long-standing “Hubble tension”—the mismatch between early-universe (CMB-based) and late-universe (stellar-based) expansion rates—is not due to measurement errors.
• This points toward possible new physics beyond the Standard Cosmological Model.

Limitations and Future Prospects

• Presently, only two supernova-host galaxies contain known Mira stars, limiting large-scale calibration.
• Upcoming surveys with the Rubin Observatory are expected to discover numerous Miras in distant galaxies, significantly improving cosmic distance measurements.
• The study thus opens pathways to a more accurate determination of the universe’s age and size.