📝 Indus Water Treaty (IWT)[1]
🚀 A water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan to use the water available in the Indus River and its tributaries ⇒ Arranged and negotiated by the World Bank and signed in 1960.
👉🏽 The treaty allocates India the three eastern rivers: Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej, while Pakistan is allocated the three western rivers: Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum.
👉🏽 Pakistan received roughly 80% of the total water from the system ⇒ India is permitted to use the western rivers in limited quantities for non-consumptive needs such as irrigation, transport, and hydropower.
🚀 On 23 April 2025, following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, the Government of India suspended the treaty.
📝 Lipids[2][3]
🚀 A class of biomolecules ⇒ Constituents of the cell which are insoluble in water and soluble in organic solvents of low polarity, such as chloroform, ether, benzene, etc.
🚀 Examples: Fats, oils, waxes, steroids, and some components of cell membranes.
🚀 Importance
1. Fat: Main food storage compound and a reservoir of energy.
2. Oil or fat: Essential for efficiently absorbing fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
3. Subcutaneous fat: Biological insulator against excessive heat loss.
4. Phospholipid: Essential component of the cell membrane.
5. Steroid: Controls many biological activities in living organisms.
🚀 Earlier, lipids were seen as passive fat layers holding proteins in cell membranes. However, recent research by the CSIR-CCMB scientists highlights that lipids actively interact with proteins, influence their stability, and co-evolve with them. They play crucial roles in energy production, evolution, and health, not just providing structural support as previously believed.
📝 International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI)[4][5]
🚀 Founded in 1994 by eight nations: Australia, France, Japan, Jamaica, Philippines, Sweden, UK, and USA ⇒ Strives to preserve coral reefs and related ecosystems.
👉🏽 102 members, including India.
🚀 4 global coral bleaching events
1st (1998): 21% of reefs experienced bleaching
2nd (2010): 37% of reefs experienced bleaching
3rd (2014-2017): 68% of reefs experienced bleaching
4th (since 2023, ongoing): 84% of reefs have experienced bleaching so far
🤔 What are coral reefs? What role do they play in nature? Where can they be found?
📝 World Immunization Week[6]
🚀 Organised by the WHO ⇒ Observed every year in the last week of April.
🚀 Theme for 2025: Immunisation for All is Humanly Possible.
💡 Over the last 50 years, essential vaccines have saved more than 15 crore lives.
📝 Cabinet Committee on Security[7]
🚀 Final decision-making body on senior appointments in the national security apparatus, defence policy and expenditure, and generally all of India’s national security matters.
🚀 Composition: Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Home Minister, Finance Minister, Minister of External Affairs.
💡About Cabinet Committees
1. They are extra-constitutional in emergence. However, the Rules of Business provide for their establishment.
2. They are set up by the Prime Minister and invariably headed by him/her if he/she is a member.
3. They are of two types: standing (permanent) and ad hoc (temporary).