GS Paper - III
Vehicles equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), the new satellite-based road toll collection system, will be able to travel for free up to 20 km in each direction every day on national highways and expressways, the government has said. GNSS is intended to eventually replace FASTag for toll collection on highways. The movement of the vehicle will be tracked by satellite, and users will pay toll only for the distance they have travelled, rather than the fixed amounts for set distances that they pay now.
GS Paper - II
The Centre and Tamil Nadu have been sparring once again over the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, with TN Chief Minister MK Stalin and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan exchanging letters.
GS Paper - III
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on 10 September 2024, carrying American billionaire Jared Isaacman and three others into orbit to attempt the world’s first private spacewalk. The five-day mission, known as Polaris Dawn, is the first of three testing and development missions under the Polaris Program, which will be jointly executed by Isaacman and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The program aims to develop new technologies that could be used to send people to Mars some day.
GS Paper - III
A study of adolescent brain development that tested children before and after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in the United States found that girls’ brains aged far faster than expected, something the researchers attributed to social isolation. The study from the University of Washington published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences measured cortical thinning, a process that starts in late childhood or early adolescence, as the brain begins to prune redundant synapses and shrink its outer layer. (‘COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males’: Neva M Corrigan et al.)
