UPSC Current Affairs 31 July 2026

• Marine Liability Cover: Traditional marine insurance protects physical assets like the ship's body and cargo. P&I insurance covers open-ended third-party liabilities incurred during commercial operations.
• Mutual Pooling Model: It functions as a risk-pooling mechanism where maritime stakeholders collectively fund and absorb liability claims.

• Financial Cap: Offers an indemnity limit of up to USD 1.5 billion through the combined capacity of the pool.
• Sovereign Guarantee: Backed by a government guarantee, maximizing market acceptance and international credibility.
• Global Support: Features a 24x7 port correspondent network to handle on-ground claims and emergency coordination globally.

• Crew Liabilities: Covers medical expenses, injury, illness, or loss of life of crew members and passengers on board.
• Cargo Liabilities: Protects shipowners from claims regarding cargo shortage, physical damage, or total loss during transit.
• Environmental Damage: Covers multi-million-dollar liabilities arising from oil spills, pollution, and general ecological damage.
• Wreck Removal: Absorbs the high financial costs associated with removing or raising sunken or stranded shipwrecks.
• Collision Damage: Handles legal claims if a vessel causes third-party damage to docks, buoys, or other ships.

• Boosts Atmanirbhar Bharat: Advances self-reliance in specialized financial solutions, lowering critical dependence on overseas insurance markets.
• Retains Trade Value: Prevents outflux of heavy premium money to global firms, keeping the generated value within the domestic maritime economy.
• Strengthens Ecosystem: Cultivates deep local maritime risk assessment and complex underwriting capacity among Indian public sector general insurers.

• High-Altitude Desert: They primarily inhabit the Changthang plateau in eastern Ladakh, a harsh trans-Himalayan region sitting at an altitude of over 4,000 meters.
• Harsh Climate: They endure sub-zero winter temperatures, adjusting their entire workload to maximize livestock rearing during short summer windows.

• Pashmina Guardians: Their primary occupation is rearing Changra (Pashmina) goats, which yield the ultra-fine Cashmere wool used globally for premium textiles.
• Animal Husbandry: Besides goats, they herd indigenous yaks, sheep, and horses for transportation, milk, cheese, and meat.
• Internal Divisions: The community is split into the Phalpa (nomadic herders who move dynamically with the seasons) and the Fangpa (sedentary clans settled in permanent villages like Hanle).
• Traditional Governance: They regulate grazing territories and resolve internal socio-economic disputes through a traditional village-head system called the Goba system.

• Religious Beliefs: The Changpas follow Tibetan Buddhism and speak Changskhat, a distinct dialect of the Tibetan language family.
• Iconic Dwellings: Nomadic families live in Reboo, which are large, conical tents woven out of yak hair designed to shield against fierce mountain winds.
• Sacred Spaces: Every Reboo tent explicitly accommodates a shrine for the family deity alongside an image of their spiritual head, the Dalai Lama.
• Rituals & Festivals: They celebrate major purifying rituals such as Jyabten (food offerings to Lord Padmasambhava) and the annual Tangpe Chona festival.

• Scheduled Tribe: They are classified officially as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) in India, qualifying them for constitutional reservations, educational schemes, and structural welfare resources.

• Amending Section 3: The Bill updates the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, by extending the same legal protection afforded to the National Anthem to the National Song, Vande Mataram.
• Criminalising Disruption: Intentionally preventing the singing of Vande Mataram or disturbing an assembly singing it is now a punishable offence.
• Penalties: Mirroring existing rules, penalties include up to 3 years of imprisonment, fines, or both, with a mandatory one-year term for repeat offenders.

• Scope: The original act protected the national flag, constitution, and national anthem, with this amendment adding the national song to that scope.
• Exclusions: The act does not criminalize lawful criticism, ensuring that legitimate discussions about the government or constitution are not considered offences.

• Government Stance: The Ministry of Home Affairs argues the amendment promotes national pride and corrects a long-standing inconsistency in how national symbols are legally treated.
• Concerns: Opposition members and minority groups expressed concern regarding personal liberty, citing legal precedents that protect the right to refrain from singing, based on freedom of conscience.

• Full Name: DAANVEER (with tagline: “Give Back to Your Village”)

• Nodal Ministry: Spearheaded by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the DigiHaat marketplace.
• Core Objective: Aims to bridge hardware gaps across India's nearly 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats.
• Official Tagline: Operates under the inspiring slogan “Give Back to Your Village”.
• Target Audience: Encourages resident citizens, corporate organisations, and the Indian diaspora to support their ancestral roots.
• Operational Platform: Accessible entirely via the government's Meri Panchayat mobile application.
• E-Commerce Integration: Connects with DigiHaat to let donors select state-specific, pre-approved computer bundles.
• Paperless Mechanism: Eliminates manual documentation as delivery details populate automatically upon selection.
• End-to-End Tracking: Offers transparent digital updates to donors from the initial dispatch to final workspace installation.
• Reward System: Grants an officially verified digital certificate of appreciation upon successful system setup.
• Ecosystem Synergy: Complements existing rural governance software like e-GramSwaraj, Sabha Saar, AuditOnline, and Gram Manchitra.

• Fungal Pathogen: It is a fatal disease caused by the ascomycetous fungus Cryptostroma corticale.
• Opportunistic Latent State: The fungus can live harmlessly inside a tree for years, only turning malignant when the host faces environmental stress.
• Climatic Triggers: The pathogen requires extended periods of high summer temperatures (above 20–23°C) and extreme drought to fully manifest.

• Primary Hosts: It predominantly targets maple tree species (Acer), especially sycamore, Norway, and bigleaf maples.
• Habitat Range: It is native to the Great Lakes region of North America but acts as an invasive, destructive introduced pathogen across Europe and Western Canada.

• Early Stages: Infected trees display generic stress signs like leaf wilting, branch dieback, and crown thinning.
• Advanced Stages: The outer bark splits and peels away, revealing dense, thick matting of jet-black fungal spores that resemble heavy soot.
• Rapid Mortality: Once the pathogenic phase accelerates, it blocks the tree's vascular system, killing it in as little as one to three years.

• Spore Factories: A single infected tree releases billions of microscopic, allergenic spores into the air.
• Lung Disease: Inhalation of these spores causes Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis (specifically called Maple Bark Stripper Lung or Maple Bark Disease), which mimics severe flu, asthma, or chronic pneumonia.
• Occupational Hazard: Foresters, loggers, arborists, and woodworkers face the highest risk and must wear specialised personal protective equipment (PPE).

• No Known Cure: There are currently no effective chemical treatments or fungicides to cure an infected tree.
• Containment Felling: The only viable management strategy is to cut down infected trees, carefully wrap the wood, and restrict public access to check spore dispersal.

• Dimensions: The vessel measures 118.4 metres in length and 22.8 metres at its broadest point.
• Displacement: It features a displacement of over 8,560 tonnes (with maximum structural displacement reaching up to 9,350 tonnes).
• Indigenous Content: Built under the Make in India vision, the vessel boasts 75% to 80% indigenous component content, involving nearly 120 local small and medium enterprises.
• Classification: Designed and certified entirely in accordance with the rules of the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS).
• Nomenclature: The name "Nipun" is derived from Sanskrit, meaning "one who is adept, capable, and well-versed" in a specific field.

• Deep-Sea Saturation Diving: Equipped with advanced diving systems allowing divers to execute operations at extreme depths for prolonged durations.
• Submarine Rescue Mothership: Functions as the dedicated "Mother Ship" for the Indian Navy's Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) to rapidly evacuate personnel during a submarine emergency.
• Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs): Outfitted with state-of-the-art ROVs to carry out deep-sea salvage missions, underwater inspections, and real-time diver monitoring.
• Station-Keeping: Features a high-tech Dynamic Positioning System to lock the ship’s position accurately over an underwater site despite rough sea currents.
• Multi-role Utility: Beyond rescue and salvage, it is fully capable of conducting sustained offshore patrolling, search and rescue (SAR) missions, and airborne helicopter operations via its forward deck.

• Connecting Link: It is a 193-kilometre-long artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
• Continental Border: It acts as the official geographic border dividing the African continent from Asia.
• Transit Benefit: Eliminates the need to navigate around the southern tip of Africa, reducing standard Asia-to-Europe voyage times by 10 to 15 days.

• Trade Volume: It typically handles roughly 12% to 15% of total global trade volume and 30% of global container traffic.
• Energy Security: Serves as a vital maritime choke point carrying 7% to 10% of the world's seaborne oil and 8% of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
• Egyptian Economy: Operated by the state-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA), it is one of Egypt's largest sources of direct foreign currency.

• Opening Year: Construction concluded under French direction, and the canal officially opened for international navigation in November 1869.
• Nationalisation: Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the waterway in July 1956, triggering the historic Suez Crisis.
• Past Closures: The canal was closed twice due to military conflicts: during the 1956 Suez War and for eight years following the 1967 Six-Day War.

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