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🏞 Major rivers in India.

📰 PM released aid for COVID orphans: • Prime Minister Narendra Modi released benefits under the PM Cares for children scheme for over 4,000 COVID-19 orphans through video conference on Monday. • At a ceremony to be conducted across all districts, children will receive school scholarships, health cards under the government's health insurance scheme called Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana as well as a passbook for the 10 lakh promised to all beneficiaries once they turn 23 years old. □ PM CARES for Children scheme: • The PM CARES for Children scheme was launched by Prime Minister on 29 May 2021 for the Children. • It aims to support children who have lost both the Parents or legal Guardian or Adoptive Parents or Surviving Parent to COVID-19 pandemic during the period starting from 11th March 2020 to 28 February 2022. • The objective of the Scheme is to ensure comprehensive care and protection of Children in a sustained manner, and enable their well being through health insurance, empower them through education and equip them for self-sufficient existence with financial support on reaching 23 years of age. • If the child is admitted in a private school, the school fees will be paid from the PM CARES fund as per norms under the Right To Education Act, 2009. PM CARES will also meet expenses on uniform, text books and notebooks. • All children will be enrolled as a beneficiary under Ayushman Bharat Scheme with a health insurance cover of ₹5 lakh, where the premium amount will be paid by PM CARES till a child turns 18. • A portal named pmcaresforchildren.in was launched to register the children.  □ Scholarship for PM CARES Children: • The Department of Social Justice & Empowerment, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has decided to provide scholarship assistance to such Children who have lost both the Parents or legal Guardian or Adoptive Parents or Surviving Parent to COVID-19 pandemic to continue their education without any hindrance. • Accordingly, a new Scheme was formulated for the purpose namely; Scholarship for PM CARES Children as a Central Sector Scheme. • The Scheme was launched by Prime Minister on 30th May, 2022. • Under the scheme, Scholarship  allowance would be ₹20,000/- per child per annum which will comprise monthly allowance of ₹1,000 per month and  Annual academic allowance of Rs.8,000 to cover the entire school fees, cost of the books and uniform, shoes and other educational equipment. • The Scholarship will be disbursed through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the Children from Class 1std until they pass out the 12 std Class.

■ Aurora Borealis & Aurora Australis: • There is a constant streaming solar wind and there are also solar storms. During one kind of solar storm called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), the Sun burps out a huge bubble of electrified gas that can travel through space at high speeds. • These stream of particles originating from the Sun travels towards the planets. • It can vary in density (i.e number of solar particles i.e. protons/electrons in the stream), and in speed. • Magnetopause is a boundary between the Earth’s magnetic field and the Solar Wind. • The Solar Wind approaches and strikes the Earth’s Magnetopause, it causes it to bend and flex. • The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of different atoms, like oxygen and nitrogen, and these Solar wind particles collide with the Oxygen/Nitrogen atoms in our own atmosphere. • When charged particles from the sun strike atoms in Earth's atmosphere, they cause electrons in the atoms to move to a higher energy state. • When the electrons drop back to a lower energy state, they release a photon/light. This results in the Northern (or Southern) Lights. • If the solar wind particles collide with the Oxygen, it produces Green/Red light. • If the solar wind particles collide with the Nitrogen, it produces Blue/Purple light. • This phenomena happens in both Northern and Southern polar. • When this phenomena happens in the Northern pole, it is called as Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). • When this phenomena happens in the Southern pole. It is called as Aurora Australis (Southern Lights). • Auroras doesn't happen only on Earth. If a planet has an atmosphere and magnetic field, they probably have auroras. We can seen amazing auroras on Jupiter and Saturn.

🛳 INS Surat & INS Udaygiri: • INS Surat is a Visakhapatnam Class guided missile destroyer. It is the fourth and last ship of the Indian Navy’s Project 15B destroyers. • It heralds a significant makeover of the P15A (Kolkata Class) destroyers, and is named after the commercial capital of Gujarat and also the second largest commercial hub of western India after Mumbai • The ship was built at the Mazgaon Docks Ltd, Mumbai under Project 15B. • Udaygiri is a frigate ship. Frigates are a type of Naval warship that comes below a destroyer. It is the reincarnation of a previous edition of Udaygiri (1976-2007). • Udaygiri is the third stealth frigate of the Project-17A class. The ship is named after a mountain range in the state of Andhra Pradesh. • The Directorate of Naval Design (DND) has prepared the skeleton of both the 15B and P17A project ships. • DND has been the fountainhead for all warship design activities in India. • At present ten indigenously built warships from four different classes are currently in active service with the Indian Navy. • It includes warships under Shivalik class, Talwar class, Brahmaputra class and Godavari class. □ Project 15B: • The Project 15B class of ships are the next generation stealth guided missile destroyers of the Indian Navy being built at the Mazgaon Docks Ltd, Mumbai • INS Visakhapatnam is the first of four ingenuously designed and built Project-15B class stealth guided missile destroyers and was commissioned in November 2021. • The other two are INS Morgmugao and INS Imphal. These two have been launched but not commissioned yet. • INS Surat is the fourth and last ship of the Indian Navy’s Project 15B destroyers. □ Project 17A: • The Nilgiri-class stealth frigates, also known as Project 17A frigates, are being built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders for the Indian Navy. • The Project 17A programme involves the development of 7 advanced guided missile frigates, of which four will be built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders and the remaining three ships by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE). • The P17A Frigates are warships that are follow-on class of the P17 (Shivalik Class) Frigates with improved stealth features, advanced weapons and sensors and platform management systems. • The ships will be named INS Nilgiri, INS Himgiri, INS Udaygiri, INS Dunagiri, INS Taragiri, INS Vindhyagiri and INS Mahendragiri after the names of hill ranges in India. • The first two ships of this project were launched in 2019 (INS Nilgiri) and 2020 (INS Himgiri). • These frigates are reincarnations of the six ship Leander-class or the Nilgiri-class, which included -INS Nilgiri (1972- 1996), INS Himgiri (1974-2005), INS Udaygiri (1976-2007), INS Dunagiri (1977-2010, INS Taragiri (1980-2013) and INS Vindhyagiri (1981-2012).

🚭 World No Tobacco Day, May 31: • The World No Tobacco Day is observed on May 31 every year. • Theme for this year is 'Tobacco: Threat to our Environment'. • The WHO member countries agreed to observe World No-Tobacco Day on May 31 in 1987 to bring attention to the ill-effects of tobacco. • In 2008, the WHO banned any kind of advertisement or promotion about tobacco, thinking that probably the ads attract youth to indulge in smoking. • According to WHO, tobacco use kills more than 8 million people around the world each year. • According to the WHO, 600 million trees are chopped down annually to make cigarettes, 84 million tonnes of CO 2 emissions are released into the atmosphere, and 22 billion litres of water are used to make cigarettes. • India is the world’s second largest producer of tobacco. It produces about 800 million kg annually. • Farming of tobacco only contributes to 1% of GDP as per one study, the direct health expenditure on treating tobacco-related diseases alone accounts for 5.3% of total health spending in India in a year (WHO). • Every year, the World Health Organisation honours governments, organisations and individuals for their efforts and contributions to curbing tobacco use. • This year, the WHO has selected Jharkhand for the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) Award-2022. • Government of India launched the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) in the year 2007-08 during the 11th Five-Year-Plan, to educate people about the health implications of tobacco consumption.

■ Monkeypox virus: • Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease (a disease that is transmitted from animals to human) that occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of central and west Africa and is occasionally exported to other regions. • Monkeypox virus is an enveloped double stranded DNA virus that belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus of the Poxviridae family. • The Orthopoxvirus genus also includes variola virus (which causes smallpox), vaccinia virus (used in the smallpox vaccine), and cowpox virus. • Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research, hence the name 'monkeypox'. • The first human case of monkeypox was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during a period of intensified effort to eliminate smallpox. • In humans, the symptoms of monkeypox are similar to but milder than the symptoms of smallpox. • Monkeypox begins with fever, headache, muscle aches, and exhaustion. • The main difference between symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox is that monkeypox causes lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy) while smallpox does not. • The incubation period (time from infection to symptoms) for monkeypox is usually 6−13 days but can range from 5−21 days. □ Does the virus mutate? • Monkeypox virus is a DNA virus with a quite large genome of around 2,00,000 nucleotide bases. • While being a DNA virus, the rate of mutations in the monkeypox virus is significantly lower (~1-2 mutations per year) compared to RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2. • The low rate of mutation therefore limits the wide application of genomic surveillance in providing detailed clues to the networks of transmission for monkeypox, unlike what was possible for SARS-CoV-2. • A number of genome sequences in recent years from Africa and across the world suggest that there are two distinct clades of the virus — the Congo Basin/Central African clade and the West African clade. Each of the clades further have many lineages. • The Central African/Congo basin clade is thought to have a higher transmission and virulence compared to the West African clade. □ Does it have an effective vaccine? • Currently there is no specific treatment approved for monkeypox virus infections. • However, antivirals developed for use in patients with smallpox may prove beneficial. The smallpox/vaccinia vaccine provides protection. • While the vaccine has been discontinued in 1980 following the eradication of smallpox, emergency stockpiles of the vaccines are maintained by many countries. • Younger individuals are unlikely to have received the vaccine and are therefore potentially susceptible to monkeypox which could partly explain its emergence in younger individuals.

📙 International Booker Prize 2022: • Geetanjali Shree became the first Indian author to win the International Booker Prize. • Geetanjali Shree's Hindi novel, 'Ret Samadhi' translated by Daisy Rockwell in English as 'Tomb of Sand' wins International Booker Prize for 2022.

■ Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY): • Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a safe motherhood intervention under the National Health Mission (NRHM). • The scheme was launched on 12 April 2005. • It is a centrally sponsored scheme with the objective of reducing maternal and neonatal mortality by promoting institutional delivery among pregnant women especially with weak socio economic status i.e. Women from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Below Poverty Line (BPL) households. • The scheme focuses on the poor pregnant woman with special dispensation for States having low institutional delivery rates. • It is under implementation in all states and Union Territories (UTs), with a special focus on Low Performing States (LPS). • The Yojana has identified ASHA, the accredited social health activist as an effective link between the Government and the poor pregnant women in low performing states. • The scheme also provides performance based incentives to women health volunteers known as ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) for promoting institutional delivery among pregnant women. • The States have been named as Low Performing States (LPS), the remaining States have been named as High performing States (HPS). • In Low Performing States all pregnant women are entitled for JSY benefit for institutional delivery, however in the High Performing States, pregnant women from BPL, SC & ST households only are entitled for JSY benefit for institutional delivery.  • BPL pregnant women, who prefer to deliver at home, are entitled to a cash assistance of Rs 500 per delivery regardless of age of women and the number of children. • States are encouraged to accredit private health facilities for increasing the choice of delivery care institutions.