UniFocus IAS ( UNIFOCUS UNIVERSAL )

  India’s  4 th  Biennial Update Report (BUR-4)   to the United Nations  Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was submitted on 30 th  December, 2024. The BUR-4 updates the Third National Communication (TNC) and contains the National Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory for the year 2020.  In 2020, India’s total GHG emissions decreased by 7.93 per cent with respect to 2019. The emissions, excluding Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), were 2,959 million tonnes of CO 2 e and net emissions of 2,437 million tonnes of CO 2 e with the inclusion of LULUCF. The energy sector contributed the most to overall emissions (75.66 percent), followed by the agriculture (13.72 percent), Industrial Processes and Product Use (8.06 percent), and Waste (2.56 percent). In 2020, India's forest and tree cover, along with other land use, sequestered approximately 522 million tonnes of CO 2 , equivalent to reducing 22% of the country's total carbon dioxide emiss...

 Article 243ZD. Committee for district planning.— (1) There shall be constituted in every State at the district level a District Planning Committee to consolidate the plans prepared by the Panchayats and the Municipalities in the district and to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole. (2) The Legislature of a State may, by law, make provision with respect to—     (a) the composition of the District Planning Committees;      (b) the manner in which the seats in such Committees shall be filled: Provided that not less than four-fifths of the total number of members of such Committee shall be elected by, and from amongst, the elected members of the Panchayat at the district level and of the Municipalities in the district in proportion to the ratio between the population of the rural areas and of the urban areas in the district;     (c) the functions relating to district planning which may be assigned to such Committees;   ...

New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin, named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth.[8] New Glenn is a two-stage rocket with a diameter of 7 m (23 ft). Its first stage is powered by seven BE-4 engines that are also designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. It is intended to launch from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36 (and eventually Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 9),[9] with the first stage landing on a barge called Landing Platform Vessel 1. The inaugural vehicle was unveiled on the launch pad in February 2024. Development of the New Glenn rocket started before 2013 and was formally announced in 2016. The first launch is expected to take place no earlier than 6 January 2025, carrying a prototype Blue Ring spacecraft. This launch will also serve as a National Security Space Launch demonstration mission. Like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle used for space tourism activities, the New Glenn's first stage has...

The Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, is a European research infrastructure located at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. It hosts the next-generation neutrino telescope with water Cherenkov detectors. When completed, KM3NeT will have a total instrumented volume of several cubic kilometres distributed over three locations in the Mediterranean: KM3NeT-Fr (offshore Toulon, France), KM3NeT-It (offshore Portopalo di Capo Passero, Sicily, Italy) and KM3NeT-Gr (offshore Pylos, Peloponnese, Greece). The KM3NeT project continues the work done for the neutrino telescope ANTARES operated offshore the coast of France between 2008 and 2022. Using KM3NeT, scientists search for neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources like supernova remnants, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae or colliding stars. The telescope is a powerful tool in the search for dark matter in the universe. Arrays of thousands of optical sensor modules detect the faint Cherenkov light in the deep sea from charged parti...

Taking note of the outcomes of the second High-level International Conference on the International Decade for Action “Water for Sustainable Development”, 2018–2028, held in Dushanbe from 6 to 9 June 2022, which support the initiative of Tajikistan on declaring an international year of glaciers’ preservation in 2025, and noting with appreciation the intention to strengthen an international mechanism to facilitate access to accurate and timely information on the cryosphere, UN Decides to declare 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and to proclaim 21 March of each year the World Day for Glaciers, to be observed starting in 2025; Profile of Glaciers: A glacier is a large, perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rock, sediment, and often liquid water that originates on land and moves down slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity. Typically, glaciers exist and may even form in areas where: mean annual temperatures are close to the freezing point ...