Daily Current Affairs – 16-02-2025
Tamil Nadu
WEF 2025 in Davos
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The 55th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF 2025) was held in Davos, Switzerland.
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The theme was “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age ”.
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India sent its largest ever delegation to the summit, led by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw .
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The delegation included 5 Union Ministers, 3 Chief Ministers (Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra), and Other state leaders.
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8 Indian states were represented at the WEF 2025: Kerala, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and West Bengal.
World Economic Forum (WEF):
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Headquarters – Cologny, Switzerland
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Established in – 1971
BRICS Youth Council
meeting in India
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The Department of Youth Affairs, under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports , will organise the BRICS Youth Council Entrepreneurship Working Group Meeting in March 2025.
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The theme of the meeting is “ Youth Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Growth ”.
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Around 45 youth representatives from the BRICS countries will attend the meeting.
₹3028 crore
for disaster mitigation
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A high-level committee (HLC), chaired by Union Minister Amit Shah , has approved ₹3,027.86 crore for disaster mitigation projects .
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₹2,022.16 crore was approved as catalytic assistance to 49 districts across 12 drought-prone states : Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh .
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₹186.78 crore was approved for lightning safety projects in 10 states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
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₹818.9 crore was approved for forest fire risk management in 144 high-priority districts across 19 states : Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamil Nadu , Telangana, and Uttarakhand.
Wetland City tag
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The Ramsar Convention ’s independent Advisory Committee on Wetland City Accreditation (WCA) has added 31 new cities to the list of accredited Wetland Cities, taking the total to 74 .
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The accreditation, given under the Ramsar Convention , is valid for 6 years.
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India joined the Ramsar Convention in 1982.
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As of January 2025, India has a total of 85 wetlands
protected under this treaty.
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Tamil Nadu (TN) has the highest number of Ramsar Sites in India with 18 Ramsar Sites.
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Two cities from India have been added to the list:
Indore (Madhya Pradesh)
Udaipur (Rajasthan)
WHO report on
drowning
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According to the first edition of the “Global Status Report on Drowning Prevention 2024” released by the WHO , the global drowning death rate has decreased
by 38% since 2000.
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Over 3 lakh deaths were reported in 2021.
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The South-East Asia region of the WHO reported 83,000 (28%) of these deaths.
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Nearly 92% of all drowning deaths are in low and middle-income countries.
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Children under 5 years of age account for 24% of global drowning deaths.
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Those aged 5-14 years account for 19%
of global drowning deaths.
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The drowning rate in low and middle-income countries is 3.2 times higher than that of high-income countries.
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Highest drowing death rate in Africa with 5.6% deaths per 1 lakh people.
NASA unveils new
Mars helicopter
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NASA has revealed the design of the “Mars Chopper” , the successor to the Ingenuity helicopter .
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The SUV -sized drone is designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Ames Research Center.
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It features six rotors with six blades each.
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It offers higher lift capacity (up to 5 kg payload ).
Asteroid discovered
by Indian student
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Students of Dyal Singh Public School in Karnal, Haryana have discovered and registered 11 near-Earth objects
through the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) of NASA.
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Diksha , a class 11 student and her team “ Aryabhatta ”, have provisionally discovered a main belt asteroid named ‘TD40’ .
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An asteroid will be named after
Diksha , a first for any school in Haryana .
ISRO’s SpaDeX
mission successful
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ISRO successfully launched the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX)
mission using the PSLV C60 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota .
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The mission involves two satellites: SDX01 ( Chaser ) and SDX02 ( Target )
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Each weighing around 220 kg .
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The satellites were placed in a
475 km circular orbit.
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The docking process will involve progressively reducing the inter-satellite distance from 20 km to 3 m .
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The mission also includes 24 PS4-Orbital Experiment Module ( POEM-4 ) payloads.
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India is the fourth country in the World to develop space docking technology after Russia, USA and china.