About Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW):

• It was established in 1968 to handle India’s international intelligence affairs.
• At present, R&AW is under the aegis of the Prime Minister’s Office.
• Working mechanism: It collects military, economic, scientific, and political intelligence through covert and overt operations.
• The agency is also charged with monitoring terrorist elements and smuggling rings that transport weapons and ammunition into India.
• Formation:
  • Until 1968, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) was responsible for India’s internal intelligence and also handled external intelligence.
  • However, after the 1962 China-India war and the Indo-Pakistani war in 1965, India established a separate and distinct external intelligence organization–the R&AW.
  • Since its inception, RAW is credited with providing intelligence support to many significant operations on foreign soil.

Q1: What is the Intelligence Bureau (IB)?

IB is an internal intelligence agency of India which is used to gather intelligence from within India and also execute counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism tasks. In addition to domestic intelligence responsibilities, the IB is particularly tasked with intelligence collection in border areas, following the 1951 recommendations of the Himmatsinhji Committee (also known as the North and North-East Border Committee), a task entrusted to military intelligence organizations, prior to independence in 1947. It comes under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The IB activities are highly confidential, and no publications other than the internal ones reveal their arcane workings.

Source: Man posing as R&AW officer held in Noida, fake ID papers seized

About Project NAMAN:

• It is designed to provide dedicated support and services to Defence Pensioners, Veterans and their families.
• It is centered around the implementation of the SPARSH (System for Pension Administration Raksha), digital pension system, which streamlines pension related processes for Defence Pensioners, addressing the critical need for accessible facilitation points for Veterans and Next of Kin (NOK) across the country.
• It involves the establishment of reception and facilitation centres, enabled through a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Indian Army’s Directorate of Indian Army Veterans Common Service Centre (CSC) e-Governance India Limited, and HDFC Bank Limited signed last year in September 2023.
• These Common Service Centres are dedicated to Army Veterans, Pensioners, War Widows, and NOKs, offering SPARSH-enabled pension services, Government to Citizen (G2C) services, and Business to Consumer (B2C) services, all at a single, convenient location.
• In the first phase of Project NAMAN, 14 CSCs have been established at key locations across India, including New Delhi, Jalandhar, Leh, Dehradun, Lucknow, Jodhpur, Bengdubi, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Secunderabad, Saugor, Guntur, Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
• This initiative not only delivers essential care and support to esteemed veterans but also extends services to the entire resident population of military stations and surrounding localities.
• Each CSC is managed by a Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE), selected from among the veterans or NOKs by the respective Local Military Authorities (LMAs).
• These VLEs are onboarded by CSC e-Governance India Limited and receive comprehensive training to deliver the required services.
• Financial assistance: HDFC Bank also supports the VLEs with a monthly monetary grant of ₹ 20,000 for the first 12 months, assisting in the stabilisation and sustainability of the centres.

Q1: What is the SPARSH portal?

It is being implemented by the Ministry of Defence for meeting the pension sanction and disbursement requirements for Armed Forces viz. Army, Navy, Air Force and Defence Civilians. This system will be administered by the Defence Accounts Department through the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions).

Source: INDIAN ARMY LAUNCHES PROJECT NAMAN: SPARSH-CENTRIC COMMON SERVICE CENTRES ESTABLISHED ACROSS INDIA

About Nazca Ridge:

• It is a submarine ridge located in the southeastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America.
• It is approximately 1,100 kilometers (684 miles) long and varies in width.
• The ridge extends from the Nazca Plate, off the coast of Peru, and runs southwest toward Easter Island, Chile.
• It was formed by volcanic activity associated with a hotspot in the Earth's mantle.
• The ridge is composed of abnormally thick basaltic ocean crust.
• The ridge is tectonically active and is being subducted beneath the South American Plate at the Peru-Chile Trench.

What is a Seamount?

• A seamount is an underwater mountain with steep sides rising from the seafloor.
• Most seamounts are remnants of extinct volcanoes. 
• Typically, they are cone-shaped but often have other prominent features such as craters and linear ridges, and some, called guyots, have large, flat summits. 
• There is a broad size distribution for seamounts, but to be classified as a seamount, the feature must have a vertical relief of at least 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above the surrounding seafloor.
• Seamounts are found in every world ocean basin.
• These are formed near mid-ocean ridges, where the earth’s tectonic plates are moving apart, allowing molten rock to rise to the seafloor.
• Some seamounts have also been found near intraplate hotspots – regions of heavy volcanic activity within a plate – and oceanic island chains with a volcanic and seismic activity called island arcs.

Q1: What is ocean crust?

Oceanic crust, the outermost layer of Earth’s lithosphere that is found under the oceans and formed at spreading centres on oceanic ridges, which occur at divergent plate boundaries. Oceanic crust is about 6 km (4 miles) thick. It is composed of several layers, not including the overlying sediment. The topmost layer, about 500 metres (1,650 feet) thick, includes lavas made of basalt (that is, rock material consisting largely of plagioclase [feldspar] and pyroxene).

Source: Ocean World Exploration: A New Seamount And Previously Unknown Species Discovered

About Payment Passkey Service:

• It uses device-based biometric authentication methods such as fingerprints or facial scans.
• It will provide customers with a non-OTP-based solution for transaction management.
• Working
  • Passkeys work using algorithms to encrypt data so users can verify their identity fast and securely.
  • When users first sign into an account, their device creates a pair of keys: one that is public and shared with the website to validate the passkey, and one that is private on your device to unlock the passkey to access your account.
  • And it can work across devices from the same operating system: If you set up a passkey for an app or website on your phone, it can work if you log in from your laptop or tablet.
• Advantage: By replacing traditional passwords and OTPs, the Mastercard Payment Passkey Service makes transactions not only faster, but also more secure against fraud and scams.
• Passkeys can be used for payments. Payment passkeys offer a more secure and easier way for cardholders to authenticate themselves during e-commerce transactions on web or merchant apps.

Q1: What is Tokenization?

It refers to replacement of actual credit and debit card details with an alternate code called the “token”.It is a combination of card, token requestor and device.

Source: Mastercard chooses India for world debut of Payment Passkey Service

About Whale shark:

• It is the largest fish in the world and the largest fish known to have lived on this planet.
• They are one of only three species of filter feeding sharks.
• Distribution: They can be found in all temperate and tropical oceans around the world, except the Mediterranean Sea.
• Appearance
  • They are dark gray on top and light underneath, with a series of light spots or stripes covering the dark parts of their bodies. This helps to camouflage them as they swim.
  • Unlike most shark species, its mouth is located at the front of the head (terminal) instead of the underside of the rostrum (subterminal).
  • They are filter feeders and can neither bite nor chew. They can process more than 6,000 litres of water an hour through their gills. 
  • Inside the mouth are specialized flaps called velums. These stop the backflow of water as the whale shark closes its mouth, preventing the loss of food.
• Food Habit: They feed on plankton and travel large distances to find enough food to sustain their huge size, and to reproduce.
• They also eat small and large fish and mollusks, including sardines, anchovies, mackerels, squid, and even small tuna and albacore.
• Conservation Status:
  • IUCN: Endangered
  • Wildlife Protection Act 1972: Schedule I
• Threats: The whale sharks continue to face challenges primarily due to bycatch and accidental capture in fishing nets, illegal hunting and habitat degradation.
• A global study indicates that over the past 75 years, the world’s whale shark population has decreased by 50%.

Q1: What are Cetaceans?

Cetaceans are a group of marine mammals that include whales, dolphins, and porpoises. They are well-adapted to life in aquatic environments and have a variety of unique features that enable them to thrive in the ocean.

Source: International Whale Shark Day: Saving the gentle giants of the sea along the Indian coast

About Bonda Tribe:

• The Bondas are exclusively found in Malkangiri district of Odisha and are mostly concentrated in Khairaput block of the district.
• It is a particularly vulnerable tribal group and one of the oldest tribes of India.
• They are also known as Bondo, Bondas, Bonda Paraja, and Bhonda.
• They belong to the Austro-Asiatic racial stock and speak Remo-an Austro-Asiatic dialect.
• The Bondas are divided into two groups because of their distinct cultural practices:
  • The Lower Bondas, who live in the Malkangiri district in south Odisha and border Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and
  • The Upper Bondas, who live in the remote villages of the district’s hilly terrain.
• They have an interesting dressing style – ladies are semiclad and wear different sorts of rings and pieces of jewelry around their bodies, while the men convey deadly retires.
• Occupation: They are primarily farmers, but they also hunt, gather forest products, and perform labor.

Q1: Who are known as Tribes?

According to the Imperial Gazetteer of India, a tribe is a collection of families bearing a common name, speaking a common dialect, and occupying or professing to occupy a common territory.

Source: Bonda tribe student set to pursue MBBS programme in Odisha