UniFocus IAS ( UNIFOCUS UNIVERSAL )

  The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) came into force in 1997, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, with its 193 Member States, it oversees the global endeavour  to permanently and verifiably eliminate chemical weapons. The OPCW was awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize for its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weapons.  India is an original signatory to the Convention. The National Authority Chemical Weapons Convention (NACWC) is the national authority responsible for implementing the Convention in India. In 2024, NACWC successfully mentored the Kenya National Authority under the OPCW Mentorship/ Partnership Programme to strengthen its implementation capacity. The Indian Chemical Council (ICC), India’s  oldest Chemical  Industry Association works closely with  the NACWC for reaching out to industry. ICC brought laurels for India as it was awarded the OPCW-The Ha...

The second of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites and the first instrument for the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission successfully launched.  Both are Earth observation missions developed by the European Sp ace Agency (ESA) with it partnes.  The main mission objective of MTG-S1 mission  is to observe the concentration of air quality parameters in the atmosphere above Europe and North Africa, including ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, glyoxal, and formaldehyde. Sentinel-4 will focus on monitoring of trace gas concentrations and aerosols in the atmosphere to support air-quality near-real time applications, air-quality monitoring, and climate monitoring – specifically with a short revisit period over Europe. The Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission is part of Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Space Programme. The European Space Agency  The European operational satellite agency World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

The WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a panel of 27 independent, international, multidisciplinary experts, today published its  report  on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. In its report, SAGO considered available evidence for the main hypotheses for the origins of COVID-19 and concluded that “the weight of available evidence…suggests zoonotic spillover…either directly from bats or through an intermediate host.” WHO requested that China share hundreds of genetic sequences from individuals with COVID-19 early in the pandemic, more detailed information about the animals sold at markets in Wuhan, and information on work done and biosafety conditions at laboratories in Wuhan. To date, China has not shared this information either with SAGO or WHO. WHO News

  The World Health Organization (WHO) today has launched a major new initiative urging countries to raise real prices on tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks by at least 50% by 2035 through health taxes in a move designed to curb chronic diseases and generate critical public revenue.  The “3 by 35” Initiative  comes at a time when health systems are under enormous strain from rising noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), shrinking development aid and growing public debt. The Initiative has an ambitious but achievable goal of raising US$1 trillion over the next 10 years. Between 2012 and 2022, nearly 140 countries raised tobacco taxes, which resulted in an increase of real prices by over 50% on average, showing that large-scale change is possible. The “3 by 35” Initiative introduces key action areas to help countries, pairing proven health policies with best practices on implementation. These include direct support for country-led reforms with the following goals in mind: Cutting...

Today, Suriname became the first country in the Amazon region to receive malaria-free certification from the World Health Organization (WHO). With today’s announcement, a total of  46 countries and 1 territory  have been certified as malaria-free by WHO, including 12 countries in the Region of the Americas. Certification of malaria elimination is granted by WHO when a country has proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that the chain of indigenous transmission has been interrupted nationwide for at least the previous three consecutive years. WHO News

It was  jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. It is located in  Cerro Pachón in Chile. It’s named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who provided the first convincing evidence for the existence of dark matter. The 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope at Rubin Observatory is equipped with the LSST Camera — the largest digital camera ever built.  The telescope will take detailed images of the southern hemisphere sky for 10 years. About  Vera C. Rubin Observatory Relevance: BBC

Regional Geography  The Strait  The Strait of Hormuz is about 275 kilometers long and an average of 80 kilometers wide. At its narrowest point, between Ra's Sharitah on Oman's Musandam Peninsula and the Iranian island of Jazireh-ye Larak, the waterway is about 50 kilometers wide. Nearly everywhere the Strait is more than 45 meters deep; off the Omani coast, depths range from 75 to 225 meters. The main inbound and outbound shipping channels traverse this area.  There are several islands in the Strait. The largest are close to the Iranian shore and of little concern to vessels transiting the main shipping channels. The remaining islands lie off the northern coast of the Musandam Peninsula, and, while they are important in the demarcation of the shipping channels, they offer no impediment to vessels. They could, however, provide concealment for seaborne terrorists in the channel area.  From July through September the currents in the Strait of Hormuz generally flow weste...

On 24 and 25 June the Netherlands will be hosting the NATO Summit 2025 at the World Forum in The Hague. This is the first time a NATO summit is being held in the Netherlands. This is the first time since NATO’s founding in 1949 that the Netherlands is hosting a NATO summit. The decisions the NATO members make at these summits are important to international peace and security – especially in these times, with so many conflicts in the world, like the war in Ukraine. NATO News

 During Prime Minister Netanyahu’s tenure after 2009, Israel has threatened multiple times to act militarily to destroy or set back Iran’s nuclear program. Israel, which for decades has presumably maintained a nuclear arsenal but has not officially acknowledged it, has taken preemptive action against nuclear programs in the region—destroying an Iraqi facility in 1981 and a Syrian one in 2007. In the 2010s, Israel apparently executed a number of covert actions against Iranian facilities and personnel to disrupt and delay the program. Alongside U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the Obama Administration led international efforts to reach a 2015 agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), which placed new physical constraints, as well as inspection and monitoring provisions, on Iran’s nuclear program. In 2018, President Trump (with strong support from Netanyahu) ended U.S. participation in the JCPOA, citing what he described as the accord’s defects, and increase...

Panel aims to support  the sound management of chemicals and waste and to prevent pollution. As the impacts of the triple planetary crisis – the crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature and biodiversity loss, and the crisis of pollution and waste – become ever more extreme, this new panel works with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ( IPBES ). Newly established panel is expected to conduct global assessments, identify knowledge gaps, communicate complex science in policy-friendly formats, and integrate capacity for national decision-making in relation to the panel’s function.  UNEP News

Elected Countries:  Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Latvia, and Liberia They were  elected on Tuesday to serve as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, with two-year terms beginning in January 2026. They will serve through the end of 2027 on the UN body. The non-permanent seats on the Security Council are distributed according to four regional groupings: Africa and Asia; Eastern Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Western European and other States group. UN News <<< UN Security Council

  In furtherance of the commitment made during the high-level dialogue between India and Chile, the Terms of Reference for negotiating the India-Chile Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) were signed on 8th May, 2025.   The next round of negotiations is expected in July/August 2025. Discussions during the round were held across 17 thematic tracks including: Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, Movement of Natural Persons, Rules of Origin, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Technical Barriers to Trade, Customs Procedures and Trade Facilitation, Initial Provisions and General Definitions, Core and Institutional Provisions, Final Provisions, Transparency, Dispute Settlement, Economic Cooperation, MSMEs, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Critical and Strategic Minerals Trade & Sustainable Development, Global Value Chains, Investment Promotion & Cooperation, and Intellectual Property Rights. The CEPA aims to unlock the full potential of the trade and commercial r...

  The  Caspian gull  ( Larus cachinnans ) is a large  gull  and a member of the  herring and lesser black-backed gull complex . The scientific name is from  Latin .  Larus  appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird, and  cachinnans  means 'laughing', from  cachinnare  'to laugh'. [ 2 ] The Caspian gull has a long, slender bill, accentuated by the sloping forehead. The legs, wings, and neck are longer than those of the herring gull and  yellow-legged gull . The eye is small and often dark, and the legs vary from pale pink to a pale yellowish colour. The back and wings are a slightly darker shade of grey than the herring gull, but slightly paler than the yellow-legged gull. The outermost  primary feather  has a large white tip and a white tongue running up the inner web. The Caspian gull breeds around the  Black  and  Caspian Seas , extending eastwards across  Central Asia ...

  The    Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly   (WHA78), the annual meeting of World Health Organization’s (WHO) Member States, came to a close Tuesday, as health leaders lauded vast accomplishments and global solidarity. The Assembly, WHO’s highest decision-making body, convened from 19 May to 27 May, under the theme “One World for Health”. Member States considered approximately  75 items and sub-items  across all areas of health, engaging in lively debate and adopting consequential resolutions to improve health for all. World’s first pandemic agreement: equity for all On 20 May, Member States adopted the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement. The moment was met with heartfelt applause, celebrating over three years of intense negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, comprising WHO’s Member States. The adoption of the Agreement is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to safeguard the world from a repeat of the suffering caused by the COVID-19 pandemi...

  In a landmark development poised to transform the global standing of traditional medicine systems, an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Ayush and the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 24, 2025. The agreement marks the beginning of work on a dedicated Traditional Medicine module under the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI). Highlighting the significance of this achievement during the 122nd episode of Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi said:  "Friends, something has happened in the field of Ayurveda as well, which you will be very happy to know about. Just yesterday, i.e. on 24th May, an MoU was signed in the presence of WHO Director General and my friend Tulsi Bhai. Along with this agreement, work has started on a dedicated traditional medicine module under the International Classification of Health Interventions. This initiative will help in making Ayush reach maximum number of people across the world in a scientific mann...

  The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is awarded to co-authors of publications based on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Run-2 data released between 2015 and July 15, 2024, at the experimental collaborations ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb. The $3 million prize is allocated to these four experiments at CERN and will be used by the collaborations to offer grants for doctoral students from member institutes to spend research time at CERN, giving the students experience working at the forefront of science and new expertise to bring back to their home countries and regions. 5,345 researchers were involved in ATLAS; while 4,550 researchers in CMS; 1,869 researchers in ALICE; and 1,744 researchers were involved in LHCb. Indian scientists and researchers have played a significant role in the international collaboration for the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) and the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiments. Several Indian institutes, universities, and scientists have contribu...

 The Kirana Hills Site is an extensive rocky mountain range and a reservation of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and nuclear arsenal storage location of Pakistan army, located in the Sargodha District in Punjab, Pakistan. Known locally as "Black Mountains" due to its brownish landscape, it is expanded between the township of Rabwah and the metropolitan city of Sargodha. The highest peak of the Kirana Hills is measured at 1,050 ft (320 m)[3] with average peaks at highest peak is about 600 feet (180 m). In 1970, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) acquired the Kirana Hills as a defense site for the Pakistan Air Force. The Pakistan Air Force established a radar station with the commissioning of the No. 4091 Squadron at the Kirana Hills, which is still in commission at the Kirana Hills. The Kirana Hills forms a larger part of the Mushaf Air Force Base in Sargodha, which falls into its area of command. In 1978–79, the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers acquired the range for the possible te...

  Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi and Hon’ble Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Sir Keir Starmer have announced the successful conclusion of a mutually beneficial India – UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA). This forward-looking Agreement is aligned with India’s vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 and complements the growth aspirations of both the countries. The engagement builds upon the discussions held between the two Prime Ministers on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in November 2024. Following the meeting between the two Prime Ministers, intense FTA negotiations resumed in February 2025 marked by several engagements between the Commerce and Industry Minister Shri Piyush Goyal and the U.K. Secretary of State Mr. Jonathan Reynolds and their teams. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi stated in his social media post on X (formerly twitter) “In a historic milestone, India and the UK have successfully concluded an ambitious and mutually beneficial ...