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📰 Dark sky reserve to come up in Ladakh. • In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the Department of Science & Technology (DST) has announced the setting up of India's first Dark Sky Reserve in Hanle, Ladakh in the next three months. • The area falls under the very beautiful and pristine Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary. • A tripartite agreement was signed between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, the Ladakh Union Territory Administration, and Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in order to form India’s first ever Dark Sky Reserve at Hanle in Ladakh. • Hanle, which is about 4,500 metres above sea level, hosts telescopes and is regarded as one of the world’s most optimal sites for astronomical observations. • However, ensuring that the site remains well-suited for astronomy implies keeping the night-sky pristine, or ensuring minimal interference to the telescopes from artificial light sources such as electric lights and vehicular lights from the ground. • A Dark Sky Reserve is a designation given to a place that has policies in place to ensure that a tract of land or region has minimal artificial light interference. • The International Dark Sky Association is a U.S.-based non-profit that designates places as International Dark Sky Places, Parks, Sanctuaries and Reserves, depending on the criteria they meet. • Several such reserves exists around the world but none so far in India. 📰 ISRO tests system to recover spent rocket stages. • The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully tested a technology that could aid cost-effective recovery of spent rocket stages and safely land payloads on other planets. • The Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD) was designed, developed and successfully test-flown by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) on a Rohini-300 (RH300 Mk II) sounding rocket from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS). • "This demonstration opens a gateway for cost-effective spent stage recovery and this technology can also be used in ISRO's future missions to Venus and Mars," said ISRO chairman S. Somanath. 📰 Scientists remains sceptical about how Nano urea benefits crops. • Nano-urea, a product developed by the Indian Farmers and Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) and heavily advertised by government as panacea to reduce farmer dependence on packaged urea is yet to be fully tested despite having been fast tracked for commercial application. • Normally, three seasons of independent assessment by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is required for approving a new fertiliser, but in the case of nano urea this was reduced to two. Moreover scientists are still unclear if the product can on its own cut farmers’ dependence on urea. • Nano urea is a patented and indigenously made liquid that contains nanoparticles of urea, the most crucial chemical fertiliser for farmers in India. A single half-litre bottle of the liquid can compensate for a 45kg sack of urea that farmers traditionally rely on, it is claimed. • Chemically, packaged urea is 46% nitrogen, which means a 45 kg sack contains about 20 kg of nitrogen. Contrastingly, Nano Urea sold in 500 ml bottles has only 4% nitrogen (or around 20 gm). How this can compensate for the kilogrammes of nitrogen normally required puzzles scientists. • Plants need nitrogen to make protein and they source almost all of it from soil bacteria which live in a plant’s roots and have the ability to break down atmospheric nitrogen, or that from chemicals such as urea, into a form usable by plants. • “Urea is highly water soluble and already reaches the lowest form of concentration when absorbed. How nanoparticles can increase the effectiveness of nitrogen uptake by being still smaller is unclear to me. That foliar spraying (spraying on leaves) improves fertilizer uptake is known for over half a century. So what’s new here?” Dr. Abrol, former Deputy Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) asked.

With reference to the period of extremist nationalist movement in India with its spirit of Swadeshi, which one of the following statements in not correct? (a) Liaquat Hussain led the Muslim peasants of Barisal in their agitation. (b) In 1889, the scheme of national education was formulated by Satish Chandra Mukherjee. (c) The Bengal National College was founded in 1906 with Aurobindo as the Principal. (d) Tagore preached the cult of Atmasakti, the main plank of which was social and economic regeneration of the villages.