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NASA Reported Solid Inner Core for Mercury Afghan Women Started #MyRedLine Campaign for Peace Indonesia Releases Ramayana Theme Stamp World’s First Malaria Vaccine RTS,S Launched in Malawi World’s First Floating Nuclear Power Plant Tested Successfully

NASA Reported Solid Inner Core for Mercury

• On the basis of Messenger Mission’s reports NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has revealed that Mercury has a massive solid inner core.
• The Messenger spacecraft orbited Mercury for around 2011 to 2015 before crash- landed. It was its second mission to Mercury after Mariner 10.
• A new mission BepiColombo, a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to explore Mercury, is on its way. It was set off in 2018 and on arriving at Mercury in 2025.
• Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and is also the smallest planet in the solar system.
• It takes Mercury 59 Earth days for rotation and 88 Earth days for revolution.

Further Reading

Afghan Women Started #MyRedLine Campaign for Peace

• Across Afghanistan, women have taken to social media to join a campaign dubbed #MyRedLine that aims to pressure the Government, the Taliban and the United States into ensuring the participation of women in negotiation so that women’s hard-won advancements are not tossed aside in a rush for a peace accord.
• The United States is holding direct talks with Taliban leaders- all men– in a bid to forge a peace deal.
• Farahnaz Forotan, a journalist and activist who started the #MyRedLine campaign with support from UN Women Afghanistan, said her own red line was “my pen and my freedom of expression”.
• Women are afraid the comeback of Taliban and curtailment of women freedom and rights. During Taliban regime they were confined to their homes, forced to wear burqas and forbidden from going to school. Some were publicly stoned to death on flimsy allegations of adultery.

Further Reading

Indonesia Releases Ramayana Theme Stamp

• Indonesia released a special stamp on the theme of Ramayana at the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between India and Indonesia.

• It features a scene from Hindu epic Ramayana in which Jatayu valiantly fought to save Sita.

Further Reading

World’s First Malaria Vaccine RTS,S Launched in Malawi

• The world’s first malaria vaccine RTS, S is also known as Mosquirix has launched in Malawi n a landmark pilot programme coordinated by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
• The vaccine has been created by British Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 1987 and after that vaccine has undergone 30 years of testing.
• The malaria vaccine will be provided to children up to 2 years of age.

Malawi (in Brief)

Capital: Lilongwe Currency: Malawian Kwacha Official Languages: English, Chichewa Old Name: Nyasaland

Further Reading

World’s First Floating Nuclear Power Plant Tested Successfully

• Russia’s state-run Atomic Energy Corporation, ROSATOM developed the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ world’s first floating nuclear power plant (FNPP).
• It was designed to make it possible to supply electricity to hard-to-reach areas, regardless of transport infrastructure, landscape, and cost of fuel delivery.
• The small nuclear reactor can operate non-stop without the need for re-fuelling for three to five years, thereby considerably reducing the cost of electricity generation.

Further Reading

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