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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 03 August 2021

::NATIONAL::

Wildlife organisation of Odisha’s Forest and Environment Department has decided to do DNA profiling of the leopards in the state.
It will help to trace the origin of crime in case of leopard deaths.
Madhya Pradesh has maximum population of leopard followed by Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Conservation status:

As per IUCN red list, its Vulnerable category.
The protection was given in the Schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.

India’s conservation efforts

Project Snow leopard.
India is party to Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection (GSLEP) Programme since 2013.

Intel, in collaboration with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Ministry of Education, launched this initiative to create basic understanding of AI for everyone in India.

About:

It is a 4-hour, self-paced learning programme that describes AI in an inclusive manner and aims to introduce AI to one million citizens.
India’s National Education Policy 2020 emphasizes preparing students for an AI driven economy.
NITI Aayog s National Strategy for AI is built on philosophy of ‘AI for AII’ and focuses on leveraging AI for inclusive growth.

The metaverse is closely related to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies currently being developed by Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft in addition to Facebook.

About:

It is used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe.
Roblox, a game targeted at children is often considered an example of a metaverse.
AR uses a real-world setting to augment user’s experience while VR is completely virtual.

Eutelsat Quantum, the world’s first commercial fully re-programmable satellite lifted off from French Guiana.
Unlike conventional models that are designed and “hard-wired” on Earth and cannot be repurposed once in orbit, Eutelsat Quantum allows users to tailor it almost in real-time.
This means the satellite can be used to provide mobile coverage for moving objects such as aircraft and oceangoing vessels, or coverage after a natural disaster or for one-off events.
It has been developed under an ESA (European Space Agency) partnership project with Airbus.

State Bank of India (SBI) has launched a new and enhanced security feature – ‘SIM Binding’ in YONO and YONO Lite.

About:

The new version of these platforms will protect customers from various digital frauds. With the SIM Binding feature, YONO and YONO Lite will work only on those devices which have SIM of mobile numbers registered with the Bank.
To access to the new version of YONO and YONO Lite, users will have to update their mobile app and complete the one-time registration process on these Apps.
The registration process verifies the SIM of the Registered Mobile Number (RMN) with the bank in order to complete the registration.
Customers will have to ensure that they register themselves with the device which has the SIM of the registered contact number.

Astronomers have for the first-time detected light behind a black hole that is known for not allowing any light to come out.

About:

Researchers spotted bright X-Ray flares emerging from a supermassive black hole at the centre of another galaxy, which is nearly 800 million light-years away.
The new detection is likely to change our understanding of the biggest villains in the universe that can suck planets and stars, defying gravitational forces.

Detecting light behind a black hole

The light was detected by coincidence when researchers were studying the feature known as the corona.
It is a form of X-Ray light that is formed by materials falling into a supermassive black hole that can be analysed to map and characterise them.
However, the telescope picked up unexpected “luminous echoes”, smaller flashes, which were of a different colour than bright flashes.
Analysis of the X-ray flares revealed short flashes of photons consistent with the re-emergence of emission from behind the black hole.
The energy shifts of these photons identify their origins from different parts of the disk.These are photons that reverberate off the far side of the disk, and are bent around the black hole and magnified by the strong gravitational field