Feb 26, 2025 | Current Affairs for UPSC, State PCS & other Govt. Exams

The government of the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) in Assam has included ‘Bathouism’ as an official option in the religion column of various application forms.

Bathouism is the traditional faith of the Bodos, the largest plains tribe of Assam. The Bodo homeland is located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River, with the foothills of Bhutan to the north.

Nearly 700,000 Olive Ridley turtles laid eggs at the Rushikulya rookery in Odisha’s Ganjam district during the eight-day arribada (Spanish for mass nesting), which concluded on February 23, 2025.

The Ministry of Ayush conferred the prestigious National Dhanwantari Ayurveda Awards for the current year on three distinguished practitioners for their exceptional contributions to traditional Indian medicine.

This year's recipients of the coveted award are:

1) Vaidya Tara Chand Sharma – Renowned Nadi Vaidya and author.
2) Vaidya Maya Ram Uniyal – A distinguished scholar of Dravyaguna Vigyana with six decades of service.
3) Vaidya Sameer Govind Jamadagni – Founder of the Vishwa Vyakhyanmala national conference.

Each recipient receives a citation, a trophy featuring a statue of Lord Dhanwantari, and a cash prize of ₹5 lakh.

Denmark has announced the Green Transition Alliance India (GTAI) initiative to strengthen collaboration with India on sustainable energy solutions and accelerate their shared commitment to global carbon neutrality.

PRAKRITI 2025 (Promoting Resilience, Awareness, Knowledge, and Resources for Integrating Transformational Initiatives), the International Conference on Carbon Markets, successfully concluded on its second day, bringing together national and international experts, policymakers, industry leaders, researchers, and practitioners.

The conference was inaugurated on February 24, 2025, by Shri Manohar Lal, Hon’ble Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs. As a flagship initiative of the Government of India, it was organized by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the patronage of the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change.

PRAKRITI 2025 served as a premier platform for in-depth discussions on global carbon market trends, challenges, and future pathways.

The Government of India established the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) on March 1, 2002, under the provisions of the Energy Conservation Act, 2001.

BEE's mission is to assist in developing policies and strategies with an emphasis on self-regulation and market principles, aiming to reduce the energy intensity of the Indian economy. The Energy Conservation Act provides for both regulatory and promotional functions to achieve this objective.

Billionaire industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani pledged to invest ₹50,000 crore each in Assam during the Advantage Assam 2.0 Investment & Infrastructure Summit 2025, held in Guwahati on February 25.

Earlier that day, PM Modi delivered the inaugural speech at the summit.

The investments will span various sectors, including airports, aerocity development, power transmission, cement production, gas distribution networks, and road construction projects in Assam.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recalled the first edition of Advantage Assam, held in February 2018, highlighting that the Numaligarh Refinery was expanded to 9 million metric tons at a cost of ₹27,000 crore.

The Advantage Assam 2.0 Investment & Infrastructure Summit 2025 aims to attract investments and drive economic development in the state.

Kannada author Banu Mushtaq's short story collection Heart Lamp, translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, has been longlisted for the esteemed International Booker Prize 2025. This is the first time a Kannada work has been featured on the longlist, which honors outstanding translated fiction.

A private company launched a lunar lander on February 26, 2025, aiming to explore the moon’s south pole with a drone designed to enter a permanently shadowed crater.

The lander, Athena, built by Intuitive Machines, was launched aboard a SpaceX rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It is set to land 100 miles (160 km) from the lunar south pole, near a crater that never receives sunlight. The drone, Grace, will hop into this jet-black crater to explore its depths.

So far, only five countries—Russia, the U.S., China, India, and Japan—have successfully achieved lunar landings, while the moon remains scattered with debris from past failed missions.

The 15-foot (4.7-meter) Athena will target a landing 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Just a quarter-mile (400 meters) away is a permanently shadowed crater — the ultimate destination for the drone named Grace.

The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Ltd (TRIFED), under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, has signed key MoUs with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and the Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation Ltd (HPMC).

These agreements, formalized during the Aadi Mahotsav event in New Delhi on February 24, 2025, aim to transition tribal marketing from a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model to a broader Business-to-Business (B2B) model.

This shift is expected to significantly enhance market reach and create greater opportunities for tribal artisans and producers.

A new international fund, the ‘Cali Fund,’ has been created to help protect biodiversity. It was launched on February 25, 2025, at the resumed 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Rome.

The fund will collect money from private companies that use genetic data from nature in their businesses, ensuring that industries benefiting from biodiversity also contribute to its conservation.

The Cali Fund will receive contributions from businesses that rely on Digital Sequence Information (DSI), which includes genetic data from plants, animals, and microorganisms. Industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agriculture, and biotechnology use DSI to develop products.

At least 50% of the fund’s resources will go to indigenous peoples and local communities, recognizing their crucial role in protecting nature. This marks the first time a global biodiversity fund under the UN will receive direct contributions from businesses.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) will manage the fund, while the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTFO) will handle administrative tasks.

The fund was established following a historic agreement at COP16 in Colombia from 21 October - 1 November 2024, which set up a global system for sharing benefits from DSI. The Cali Fund is considered a key step toward achieving the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030.

The resumed session of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will convene from 25 – 27 February 2025 in Rome, Italy.

Negotiators will have three days to resolve the pending decisions from the biodiversity negotiations in Colombia.

Astronomers are excited to be poring over the first-ever detailed geological map of the Moon's south polar region, where India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar module, Vikram, touched down on August 23, 2023. The map is expected to shed new light on the Moon’s origin and evolution.

Researchers from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad, Panjab University in Chandigarh, and the Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems at the ISRO in Bengaluru created the map using data from the Pragyan rover.

Pragyan was deployed by Vikram on a nine-day mission to analyze the chemical composition of the regolith—the loose rock fragments and dust that cover the lunar surface.

Chandrayaan-3 was the first mission to land in a high-latitude polar region of the Moon, just 630 km from the south pole, and scientists considered it the best opportunity to solve the magma mystery.

The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer aboard the Pragyan rover detected magma beneath the landing site, confirming that the ancient ocean of molten lava extended across the entire Moon.

Researchers identified the Schomberger craters as the primary source of the debris covering the Chandrayaan-3 landing zone. Scientists estimated the age of the region to be around 3.7 billion years—roughly the same time the first signs of microbial life emerged on Earth.

The inclination, or tilt, of the Moon's orbit is similar to Earth’s rotation, and both bodies are aligned with the ecliptic plane of the solar system. Additionally, the Moon and Earth share several common isotopes, supporting the theory that they originated from the same cloud of molten material.

According to the latest Brand Finance report, Tata Group, with a brand value of $31.6 billion (a 10% increase), has retained its position as the most valuable Indian brand and ranks 60th globally among the world's top 100 brands in 2025.

Infosys follows as the second most valuable Indian brand and has been recognized as the third most valuable IT services brand globally for the fourth consecutive year.

LIC has emerged as the fastest-growing Indian brand in 2025, recording a 36% increase in brand value.

On the global front, the United States dominates the brand value market, accounting for 52.9% of the total, while India ranks 8th, contributing 1.7% to the Brand Finance Global 500 rankings.

India: Tata Group > Infosys > HDFC Group
World: Apple > Microsoft > Google

Feb 26, 2025 | Current Affairs for UPSC, State PCS & other Govt. Exams

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