About PM-SURAJ Portal:

• Pradhan Mantri Samajik Utthan evam Rozgar Adharit Jankalyan (PM-SURAJ) portal was launched by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in 2024.
• Objective: To provide credit support to entrepreneurs from disadvantaged sections of society virtually.
• It is a centralised platform where individuals from underprivileged backgrounds can apply for and track the progress of all available loans and credit schemes.
• Only those intending to establish a new business can apply on this portal, as this platform provides loans exclusively for business startups.
• Business loans up to Rs 15 lakh are available at low interest rateS through this portal, which are transferred directly to your bank account through banks, NBFC-MFIs, and other financial institutions.
• It is run by government bodies like the National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC), the National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation (NSKFDC), and the National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation (NBCFDC).
• It is designed to uplift the most marginalized segments of society, such as the backward classes, scheduled castes, tribes, and other disadvantaged sections, and extend credit assistance to one lakh entrepreneurs from disadvantaged communities.

About Wajid Ali Shah:

• Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887) belonged to the princely kingdom of Awadh (Oudh) in Uttar Pradesh.
• He succeeded his father, Nawab Amjad Ali Shah, to become the province’s tenth and last nawab.
• His deposition and the annexation of Awadh became one of the major causes of the Revolt of 1857.
• He was a poet, playwright, dancer, and profound patron of arts.
• His works included numerous poems, prose, ragas, playwrights, and ghazals under his pen name of ‘Qaisar’.
• The Ishqnamah (Book of Love) is a youthful autobiography written in Urdu verse by Wajid Ali Shah.
• He is also credited for contributing to the revival of the Indian dance form Kathak.
• He was also greatly interested in architecture. He started building the Qaiser bagh palace complex as soon as he came to the throne.
• Besides the Nawab’s immense contributions to India, one of his wives, Begum Hazrat Mahal, was known to be a great Indian freedom fighter who played a major role during India’s First War of Independence (1857-58) against the British.

About Wet Dress Rehearsal:

• It is the final practice run for a high-stakes rocket launch.
• The “wet” in the name refers to the loading of cryogenic fuel (typically liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for large rockets) into the rocket’s massive tanks.
• It is a rigorous demonstration of ground team preparedness.
• Wet rehearsals are important because only they can reveal events that happen in cryogenic conditions, e.g., leaks in seals or in the connections between the rocket and ground equipment.

What is a Dry Dress Rehearsal?

• It practices the countdown and important operations without loading cryogenic propellants into the rocket.
• Instead, the team power up vehicle and ground systems, verify its communications equipment, simulate critical events, and validate decision-making and handoffs between launch control, engineering, range safety, and, if applicable, crew operations.
• Many of the testing steps use simulated sensor inputs.
• These rehearsals are useful to reveal logical problems in the flow of events without risking fuel leaks.

Key Facts about Artemis II Mission:

• It is the second scheduled flight of NASA's Artemis program and the first crewed Artemis mission.
• It will be the first mission to carry humans to the moon’s vicinity since 1972.
• It is the first to fly astronauts aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft.
• While Artemis 1 successfully flew Orion around the moon without astronauts in 2022, Artemis 2 will be the first time that humans will travel aboard the spacecraft and venture beyond Low Earth Orbit.
• The astronauts and mission controllers will collect data on Orion and the crew’s performance to assess how ready the Artemis program is to send people to the moon’s surface.

About Gilbert Hill:

• It is located in Maharashtra.
• The hill has a sheer vertical face and is one of the oldest basalt rock formations in the world.
• According to geological records, only three such columnar basalt formations exist in the world. The other two are:
  • Devil’s Tower (USA)
  • Giant’s Causeway (Northern Ireland)
• It was declared a National Park and is categorized by the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation as a Grade II heritage structure. 

About Public Financial Management System:

• It is a web-based online transaction system for fund management and e-payment to implementing agencies and other beneficiaries.
• It is a Centralized Transaction System & Platform, providing end to end financial management services to all stakeholders.
• It is developed and implemented by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
• Function: To facilitate sound Public Financial Management System for Government of India by establishing an efficient fund flow system as well as a payment cum accounting network.
• Key Features of Public Financial Management System:
  • It tracks funds released under all plan schemes of Government of India, and real time reporting of expenditure at all levels of Programme implementation.
  • Government has mandated PFMS as a single platform for payment, accounting & reconciliation of government transactions and DBT.
  • Cash management modules: It has been introduced on PFMS for better fund management like Single Nodal Agency (SNA), Treasury Single Account (TSA), Central Nodal Agency (CNA) and Single Nodal Agency Samyochit Pranali Ekikrit Shighra Hastantaran (SNA SPARSH).
  • Grievance Redressal System: PFMS has introduced the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, to strengthen the grievance redressal mechanism for PFMS users/ beneficiaries.