About Ervebo Vaccine:

• It is licensed for use against the Ebola virus disease.
• It is a replication-competent, live, attenuated recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) vaccine.
• Working
  • The vaccine only contains one protein from the Zaire Ebola virus and cannot cause Ebola virus disease.
  • When a person receives the vaccine, it triggers an immune response against this viral protein. 
• Administration: It is indicated for active immunization of individuals 1 year of age or older to protect against Ebola Virus Disease.
• It is manufactured by Merck.
• It does not provide protection against other species of orthoebolaviruses or orthomarburgviruses.

Key Facts about Ebola:

• It is a severe and often deadly viral disease caused by a group of viruses known as orthoebolaviruses (formerly ebolavirus).
• It is a severe contagious disease affecting humans and non-human primates. 
• Ebola, first identified in 1976 in southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, primarily affects remote villages in Central and West Africa.  
• It is known as a hemorrhagic fever virus because it can cause problems with the clotting system of the body and lead to internal bleeding as blood leaks from small blood vessels.
• Transmission:
  • The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals (such as fruit bats, porcupines, and non-human primates).
  • It then spreads in the human population through direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs, or other bodily fluids of infected people and with surfaces and materials contaminated with these fluids.
  • Ebola cannot be transmitted by air.

About Brazil:

• Location: It is located in the central-eastern part of South America.
• Bordering Countries: Argentina and Paraguay (Southwest), Bolivia and Peru (West), Columbia (Northwest), and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana (North).
• Bordering Water body: It borders the Atlantic Ocean.
• It occupies almost half of the continent’s landmass and is dissected by both the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• Capital City:
• Geographical Features of Brazil:
  • Physiographic zones: It includes the Brazilian Highlands, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Pantanal Wetlands.
  • Major Rivers: Amazon, São Francisco River and Iguacu River.
  • Amazon Basin: It is the world’s largest river basin, spans across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, and Suriname.
  • Highest Peak: Pico da Neblina (2,999 m) is Brazil’s tallest mountain.
  • Natural Resources:  It mainly consists of iron ore, tin, copper, pyrochlore and bauxite. 

About Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan:

• It was launched in 2018.
• It is aimed at strengthening the implementation of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and ensuring remunerative prices for farmers.
• Components of Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan
  • Price Support Scheme (PSS)
    • It ensures procurement of crop at MSP when market prices fall below MSP during harvest.
    • It mainly covers pulses, oilseeds, and copra.
    • Procurement is carried out through agencies such as the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India Limited (NCCF) at the request of state governments.
    • Only registered farmers with valid land records are eligible, which ensures direct benefit without intermediaries.
  • Price Stabilization Fund (PSF)
    • It protects consumers from price volatility by maintaining buffer stocks of essential commodities like pulses, onions, and potatoes.
    • It was set up to stabilize the prices of key agri-horticultural products.
    • Commodities are procured during harvest and released in lean seasons to control price spikes and ensure affordability.
  • Price Deficiency Payment Scheme (PDPS)
    • Under PDPS, farmers’ produce is not physically procured.
    • Instead, they are paid the price difference between the MSP and the actual market price in the notified market, up to 15% of the MSP value, directly into their bank accounts.
    • It is mainly used for oilseeds and reduces the need for large procurement infrastructure.
  • Market Intervention Scheme (MIS)
    • It is designed to procure a range of perishable agricultural and horticultural commodities.
    • It targets products such as tomatoes, onions, and potatoes for which a Minimum Support Price does not apply.
    • The scheme activates when market prices drop by at least 10% over the previous normal season's rates.
    • It operates through cost-sharing between the Centre and State governments for the operations undertaken by Central Nodal Agencies like NAFED and NCCF.

About Singhbhum Craton:

• The Singhbhum Craton, located in eastern India (Jharkhand and Odisha states) between the Chhota Nagpur plateau and the Eastern Ghats, is one of the oldest and most important cratons in the Indian Shield.
  • A craton is a stable continental block composed of ancient crystalline rocks, typically surrounded by mobile belts.
  • Studying them offers a window into how processes within and on the surface of Earth operated in the past.
• It represents a fragment of the ancient Gondwana supercontinent and holds significant geological and economic importance due to its rich mineral resources.
• This ancient part of the Earth’s crust has been found in previous research to date back to 3.5 billion years ago.
• The craton’s oldest rock assemblages are largely volcanic and sedimentary rocks, also known as greenstone successions.
  • Greenstones are rock assemblages made up mostly of sub-marine volcanic rocks with minor sedimentary rocks.
• The geology of this area shares stark similarity with the greenstone belts documented in South Africa’s Barberton and Nondweni areas and the Pilbara Craton in western Australia.
  • All these areas experienced widespread submarine mafic — meaning high in magnesium oxide — volcanic eruptions between 3.5 and 3.3 billion years ago, preserved as pillowed lava and komatiites.
• Significance:
  • They offer a clearer picture of Earth’s early tectonic activities during the Archaean times, contributing to our understanding of the planet’s formative years.
  • The Singhbhum Craton’s unique geological features, including its greenstone belts, provide invaluable information about Earth’s surface and atmospheric processes.
  • This is crucial for hypothesising early habitable conditions and the emergence of life on Earth.

Why in News?

• The maiden flight marks the first instance in India's defence history of an indigenously designed, developed, and manufactured jet-powered loitering munition fitted with a fully indigenous power plant taking to the skies.

About Divyastra Mk3:

• It is an indigenous loitering munition (kamikaze drone or suicide drone).
• It was developed by Lucknow-based defence startup Kawa UAV Pvt. Ltd (HoverIt).
• It is designed to destroy high-value enemy assets, infrastructure, and personnel in a warzone by striking the target directly with an onboard explosive warhead.
• Features:
  • It is powered by an indigenous jet-propulsion system developed by New Delhi-based DG Propulsion.
  • It features autonomous flight control and AI-enabled target-engagement

Why Does Jet Propulsion Matter?

• Its propulsion system sets it apart from many conventional drones and one-way attack UAVs because it uses a jet engine rather than a propeller-driven piston engine or an electric motor.
• Conventional UAVs such as Iran’s Shahed-136 use an internal-combustion engine to drive a propeller, an architecture that generally prioritises endurance, simplicity, and relatively low-cost operation.
• Divyastra Mk3, by contrast, uses a compact indigenous jet engine designed to give it a higher speed.
• This could reduce the time available for an adversary to detect, track, and engage the incoming weapon.
• This makes the Mk3 closer in concept to a small jet aircraft than to a conventional propeller-driven UAV.

About Christmas Island:

• It is a special territory of Australia located in the Indian Ocean.
• The island is the summit of an oceanic mountain whose highest point on the island is Murray Hill.
• The island has steep cliffs along most of its coast.
• The main settlement and chief port is at Flying Fish Cove on the northeastern part of the island.
• Most of the island is covered in tropical rainforest. Much of the island (63%) is a national park.
• One of the island’s best-known animal residents is the Christmas Island red crab (Gecarcoidea natalis), whose spectacular annual emergence and migration draws large numbers of tourists.
• The reefs around Christmas Island have healthy coral. They are home to several rare marine animals.
  • These reefs, along with those near the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, are sometimes called "Australia's Galapagos Islands".
• The population includes many ethnic Chinese, a small number of people of European ancestry, and Malay labourers recruited mainly from Malaysia, Singapore, and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
• Economy:
  • The economy was completely based on phosphate mining and extraction earlier.
  • With the mineral close to exhaustion now, subsistence cropping, fishing, and tourism serve as the backbone of its economy.

About AIKosh Platform:

• It is a national platform for datasets, AI models and related resources.
• It aims to enhance access to datasets and models from various sources to boost AI innovation, support AI solution development with shared toolkits, and showcase use cases to inspire new applications.
• It is designed to enable greater discoverability, access and responsible use of AI-ready resources for India's AI ecosystem.
• It also features AI sandbox capabilities through an integrated development environment along with tools and tutorials.
• It is an initiative under the IndiaAI Mission.
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

What is IndiaAI Mission?

• It was initially launched as a joint initiative between the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Nasscom in 2023. 
• Aim: To bolster India’s AI ecosystemby making high-end computing resources accessible to startups and researchers.
• Implementing agency:IndiaAI an independent business division under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)
• Pillars of the IndiaAI Mission:
  • Common Compute Facility
  • AI Kosha (IndiaAI Datasets Platform)
  • AI Safety Institute of India (Upcoming)
  • IndiaAI Innovation Centre
  • AI Application Development Initiative
  • Future Skills Initiative
  • Startup Financing.

About RK-251 Drug:

• It is a smart cancer drug designed to activate primarily in cancer cells and does not harm healthy cells.
• Working Mechanism:
  • When RK-251 enters a cancer cell with high reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, these molecules trigger the drug’s activation, releasing an anticancer compound called NBDHEX.
    • NBDHEX blocks target proteins that many cancer cells use to survive and resist treatment.
    • The idea is to keep RK-251 relatively inactive in normal tissues and activate its anticancer action inside cancer cells.
  • It exhibited strong activity against aggressive triple-negative breast cancer cells, with much less effect on healthy cells.
  • It displayed the desired fluorescence in the presence of reactive oxygen species.
    • The fluorescence response also provides an indication that the drug is being activated in an ROS-rich environment, supporting the underlying mechanism of the targeted approach.