Panama Disease

• The fungal disease, called Fusarium Wilt, is popularly known as the ‘Panama Disease’ and afflicts banana plants.
• For the first time, Indian scientists have brought out a biopesticide that can control the disease. This biopesticide has been made using another fungus.
• For a long time, banana cultivators have been struggling with the Panama Disease.
• This disease affects the Cavendish variety or the G9 Banana cultivar, which is the most widely grown banana in the world.

Spread in India

• In India, more than 60 per cent of bananas are of the G9 variety.
• They go by names like ‘Grand Naine’, ‘Robusta’, ‘Bhusaval’, ‘Basrai’ and ‘Shrimanth’.
• Farmers in at least four Indian states — Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh — have been badly affected by this disease.
• All these are areas where the Cavendish variety is grown.

Explanation:

Astronomers peering into thick, rapidly rotating clouds in Venus’ atmosphere have gained an understanding of the energy powering “super rotation,” a phenomenon in which a planetary body’s surface spins at a slower rate than the heavens above it, according to a study released Thursday.
The second planet from the sun has a thick atmosphere that traps heat and creates a greenhouse effect that makes it the hottest planet in our solar system.
Venus also spins slowly in the opposite direction that most planets do. Surface rotation on Earth’s planetary neighbor is slow, requiring 243 Earth days to complete one rotation.
But the Venusian atmosphere spins at a rate that is nearly 60 times faster, whipping around the planet once every four Earth days.
Data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spacecraft Akatsuki, which has been orbiting Venus since 2015, played a key role in helping the research team understand atmospheric super rotation.
The Akatsuki craft captured ultraviolet images and thermal infrared measurements of the planet’s clouds, providing a team of Japanese and U.S.-based researchers with a detailed map of planetary wind patterns.
An analysis of the observations indicate super rotation is caused by a combination of planetary waves, atmospheric turbulence and the thermal tides, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The moonless planet’s wind map helped researchers understand a force at the cloud-top level of Venus’ atmosphere known as angular momentum balance.
A continuous redistribution of angular momentum helps the planet overcome friction with the planet’s surface, leading to the super rotation phenomenon.

Subramania Bharati

• Bharati was a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist, social reformer and polyglot.
• Popularly known as “Mahakavi Bharathi”, he was a pioneer of modern Tamil poetry and is considered one of the greatest Tamil literary figures of all time.
• His numerous works included fiery songs kindling patriotism during the Indian Independence movement.

Literary works

• As a working journalist, Bharati necessarily employed prose to communicate, and his writings in Swadesamitran and India made an important contribution to Tamil political vocabulary.
• He wrote stories, commentaries, and was also the pioneer of column writing in Tamil.
• Active participation in the day-to-day politics of the nationalist movement notwithstanding, Bharati never lost sight of the future, the dream of how a free India should look like.
• Aspects of this dream form part of his fantasy story, Gnanaratham (The Chariot of Wisdom), written when he was still in his late 20s.

Explanation:

UN Commission on Status of Women
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW or UNCSW) is a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the main organs within the United Nations. Hence statement 1 is correct.
CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Every year, representatives gather at UN Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.
India will be a member of United Nation’s Commission on Status of Women for four years, 2021 to ‘25.
This year is the 25th anniversary of the famous Beijing World Conference on Women (1995).

Explanation: The Western Ghats are spread over 6 states: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat. Himalayas are spread over J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, and also some parts in Haryana and Punjab. The Pulicat Lake is present in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.