5th August 2025

Explanation - The Waterberg Biosphere Reserve is located in the Bushveld district of Limpopo Province, South Africa, and functions as a water reservoir for this arid region. It comprises low mountain ranges, escarpments, and sparse soils with limited economic activity. The Waterberg Mountain Range is one of three major mountain ranges in the Limpopo Province. There are four main drainage rivers within the area: the Lephalala, Mokolo, Matlabas and the Mogalakwena. The reserve is home to numerous threatened species, including the critically endangered black rhinoceros. It also includes the Nylsvley Nature Reserve, a registered Ramsar wetland site. It contains some of South Africa's most significant San rock art sites. 

Explanation - Sawalkote Hydropower Project is a 2,185 megawatt (MW) run-of-the-river hydroelectric plant proposed on the Chenab River in the Ramban District of Jammu and Kashmir. It will be the largest hydroelectric project in the Union Territory and one of the biggest in North India. The project, to be executed by National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) Ltd in collaboration with Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation Limited (JKSPDC), is estimated to cost ₹22,704 crore. It is expected to generate over 7,000 million units of electricity annually. By regulating the flow of the Chenab River, the Sawalkote project could contribute to flood mitigation downstream, while also ensuring better water management for agriculture and domestic use. 

Explanation - Collusive Litigation is defined as a lawsuit where the parties involved are not genuinely adversarial, but rather cooperate to achieve a desired outcome or to challenge the constitutionality of a law. In India, collusive decrees can be set aside if the party challenging the decree is not a party to it and can prove collusion or fraud. The High Court has the authority to intervene in cases where a decree is found to be collusive, particularly under Article 227. A party to a collusive decree cannot seek to have it set aside. This principle is established in various cases where the courts have ruled that only parties not involved in the collusion may challenge the decree. The burden of proving that a decree was obtained collusively lies with the party seeking to set it aside. 

Explanation - ICRISAT was established under a Memorandum of Agreement between the Government of India and the CGIAR on 28 March 1972. It is a non-profit, non-political public international research organisation that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia & sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT's vision is a prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. It conducts research on five highly nutritious drought-tolerant crops: chickpea, pigeonpea, pearl millet, sorghum, and groundnut. It has been awarded the 2021 Africa Food Prize for the Tropical Legumes Project that has improved food security across 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana State, in India, with two regional hubs (Nairobi, Kenya and Bamako, Mali). 

Explanation - Biofortification is the process of increasing nutritional value of food crops by increasing the density of vitamins and minerals in a crop through either conventional plant breeding; agronomic practices or biotechnology. Examples of these vitamins and minerals that can be increased through biofortification include provitamin A Carotenoids, zinc and iron. Conventional crop breeding techniques are used to identify varieties with particularly high concentration of desired nutrients. These are cross-bred with varieties with other desirable traits from the target areas (such as virus resistance, drought tolerance, high yielding, taste) to develop biofortified varieties that have high levels of micronutrients. Agronomic biofortification entails application of minerals such as zinc or iron as foliar or soil applications, drawing on plant management, soil factors, and plant characteristics to get enhanced content of key micronutrients into the edible portion of the plant.