26th Oct Daily current affairs for UPSC Civil Service Exam

Fish – Lizard

• Indian scientists have recently discovered a fully preserved fossil sea-dwelling reptile known as the ‘fish lizard’ from Gujarat’s Kutch district.
• The fossil is believed to be from Jurassic period, which lasted from about 250 million to 200 million years.
• The discovery adds to the knowledge of ichthyosaur (fish – lizard) from the southern continents.
• It is the first Jurassic ichthyosaur found in India. It has been found in Americas, Australia and Europe.
• Other Ichthyosaur fossils from the Crustacean period which lasted 145 million to 66 million years ago found in India usually in the form of teeth or fragments of vertebrae.
• It’s the second significant fossil discovery in India this year.
• The oldest plant fossil in India, red algae from the Chitrakoot region in Madhya Pradesh, believed to be 1.6 billion years old was discovered earlier.

Mekedatu Project

• The central water commission has recently sent back a pre-feasibility report on the Mekedatu project to the Karnataka government.
• It is a balancing reservoir cum drinking water project on the Cauvery River proposed by Karnataka.
• It is proposed to be located about 110 km from Bengaluru, with storage capacity of 66.50 tmc ft.
• Tamil Nadu objected the project saying that it would affect the flow of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

Central Water Commission

• It is a premier technical organization in the field of Water Resources.
• It is presently functioning as an attached office of the Ministry of Water Resources.
• It will carry out techno-economic appraisal of medium and major irrigation and multi-purpose projects on inter-state rivers.

Integrity Index

• Central Vigilance Commission has set to develop integrity index for public sector undertakings, public sector banks and financial institutions, Ministries and its departments.
• CVC will calculate scores by linking the essential drivers of vigilance with long term efficiency, profitability and sustainability of public organizations.
• It will help in creating an internal and external ecosystem that promotes working with Integrity in public organizations.
• Initially 25 organizations have been selected for development of the index.

Central Vigilance Commission

• Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is an autonomous statutory body created to address governmental corruption.
• It is free of control from any executive authority, charged with monitoring all vigilance activity under the Central Government of India.
• The Commission shall consist of

1. A Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) - Chairperson;
2. Not more than two Vigilance Commissioners (VC) - Members;

• They are appointed by the President on the recommendation of three member committee.
• The committee consists of PM as its head, the union minister of Home affairs and the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha.
• They hold office for a term of 4 years or until they attain the age of 65 years whichever is earlier.
• They are not eligible for further employment after their tenure.
• The salary, allowance and other conditions of CVC is similar to chairman of UPSC and VC is similar to members of UPSC.

Dawn Mission

• Dawn mission was launched by NASA deploying spacecrafts to orbit extra terrestrial objects.
• It is the only mission ever to orbit two extraterrestrial targets.
• It orbited giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months from 2011 to 2012, then continued on to Ceres, where it has been in orbit since March 2015.
• Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
• NASA has recently authorized a second extension of the Dawn mission at Ceres.
• During this extension, the spacecraft will descend to lower altitudes than ever before at the dwarf planet, which it has been orbiting since 2015.

Passport Index

• The index ranks passports worldwide based on the cross-border access a holder has.
• It was developed by Canada based global consultancy Arton Capital.
• In its new ranking, Singapore has the world’s most powerful passport which allows travel to 159 countries either without a visa or visa on arrival.
• It is the first time that an Asian country has occupied the first place in the index.
• Germany listed in second place with its citizens able to visit 158 countries.
• India has improved its ranking to 75th position from 78th last year.

Source: PIB, The Hindu.