UPSC Prelims Current Affairs for 24 October 2025

Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary Latest News

After being declared locally extinct for about 50 years, the blackbuck has made a remarkable comeback at Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary in Chhattisgarh thanks to a focused five-year revival plan.

About Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary

• It is located in the northern part of the Mahasamund district of Chhattisgarh.
• It is named after the Bar and Nawapara forest villages, which are in the heart of the sanctuary. 
• It is spread over an area of 245 sq. km.
• The tributaries of Mahanadi are the source of water. The River Balamdehi forms the western boundary, and the Jonk River forms the northeastern boundary of the sanctuary. 
• Flora: 
  • The flora chiefly comprises tropical dry deciduous forest, with Teak, Sal, Bamboo and Terminalia being the prominent trees. 
  • Other major plants found in the sanctuary include Semal, Mahua, Ber, and Tendu.
• Fauna: It is home to neelgai, wild boar, tigers, leopards, Indian bison, porcupines, pythons, antelopes, sambhar and cheetal, along with 150 species of birds, including parrots, blackbucks, herons, egrets, peafowl, etc.

Source: IE

About LISA Mission:

• The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (Lisa) mission is a collaborative effort between Nasa and the European Space Agency (ESA) set to launch in the mid-2030s.
• The main objective of the mission is to detect and study gravitational waves by putting three spacecrafts into the Earth’s orbit and positioning them in a triangular format with 1.6 million miles on each side.
• It will be the "first gravitational wave detector in space" and will "explore the fundamental nature of gravity and black holes". It will also probe the rate of expansion of the Universe.
  • All three spacecraft will have two telescopes each. The LISA mission will use lasers to detect gravitational waves.
  • The LISA mission will comprise three spacecraft. These three spacecraft will fly in a triangular formation behind the Earth as our planet orbits the Sun.
  • The spacecraft will sit in a heliocentric orbit, about 50 million km from Earth, with a distance of around 2.5 million km between each spacecraft.
  • LISA will detect ripples in spacetime through subtle changes in the distances between free-floating cubes nestled within each spacecraft.
  • Changes in the relative distances between these golden cubes will be tracked with extreme accuracy using laser interferometry.

Q1: What are Gravitational waves?

Gravitational waves are distortions in spacetime caused by energetic events involving dense objects with strong gravitational fields. They were first predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. They are weak and interact minimally with matter, allowing them to penetrate cosmic distances undistorted and leaving pristine signatures on source dynamics and local spacetime structure.

News: Nasa reveals first look at six telescopes tasked with detecting gravitational waves

About Payment Aggregator (PA):

• A PA (also known as a merchant aggregator) is a third-party service provider that allows merchants to accept payments from customers by integrating it into their websites or apps.
• PAs enable their clients to accept various payment methods such as debit cards, credit cards, cardless EMIs, UPI, bank transfers, e-wallets, and e-mandates.
• PA provides a stack of multiple payment methods to merchants so that their customers can payusing their preferred mode of payment.
• Also, a payment aggregator does fund settlement, i.e., it moves the money from banks and other issuing entities to the merchants.
• Similarly, they also enable disbursing payments to various stakeholders, such as partners, employees, suppliers, and authorities.
• It allows merchants to accept bank transfers without setting up a bank-based merchant account. It means a merchant need not have a merchant account directly with the bank.
• A PA in India is incorporated under the Companies Act 2013.
• A PA can be a bank or a non-bank entity.
• Since a PA handles funds, it requires a license from the RBI. 
• Only non-bank PAs require unique authorization from RBI as ‘handling funds’ is considered a part of the normal banking relationships for bank PAs.
• Examples: Amazon (Pay) India, Google India, Razorpay, Pine Labs, etc.

What is a Payment Gateway?

• It is a software service that connects your bank account to the platform where you need to transfer your money.
• It authorizes you to conduct an online transaction through different payment modes like net banking, credit card, debit card, UPI, or other online wallets.
• A Payment gateway plays the role of a third party that securely transfers your money from the bank account to the merchant’s payment portal.

Payment Aggregator v/s Payment Gateway:

• A payment gateway is a software that allows online transactions to take place, while a payment aggregator is the inclusion of all these payment gateways.
• While a payment gateway is an intermediary, the payment aggregator is the interface where the payment gateway processes the transactions. 

Most payment aggregators own payment gateways to offer various exclusive services to their merchant customers.

Q1: What Is a Merchant Account?

A merchant account is a business bank account created and used for business purposes where companies can make and accept payments. For example, a Merchant account enables a business to accept credit or debit card payments and facilitate payment deposits through multiple other payment methods. Merchant accounts require a business to partner with an acquiring bank or a merchant account provider that facilitates an electronic payment transaction.

Source: RBI’s latest recommendations to regulate payment aggregators in offline spaces | Explained