Prelims Focus 5th November 2025

Encephalomyocarditis Virus

In News: The lone African elephant of Delhi zoo died of the rare rodent-borne encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV), the first of its kind recorded in any Indian zoo.

• It is an enveloped non-enveloped small single-strand RNA virus that triggers myocarditis, encephalitis, neurological, and reproductive disorder as well as diabetes in different mammals.
• It has a strain-specific as well as a host-specific pathogenesis that requires further investigation into its virulence factors.
• Transmission: Eating of food and water contaminated with rodent urine or feces.
  • Eating of rats or mice, which are infected by EMCV.
  • Swine Transplacental (vertical) infection.
  • Pigs to pig transmission has not been reported.
• Incidences: EMCV was first documented in 1945 in Florida in a gibbon and the occurrence of the first pig was documented in Panama in 1958. It has become common in most parts of the world particularly in South America, Australia, China, Europe, Canada and the US.

Coal India Limited (CIL)

In News: Coal India Limited (CIL), is celebrating the 50th year of its making. 

• Coal India Limited is a Maharatna Public Sector Undertaking that is a part of the Ministry of Coal.
• It was founded in November 1975.
• Headquarters: Kolkata.
• Products: CIL manufactures coking coal, semi-coking coal, non-coking coal, washed and beneficiated coal, coal fines and coke.
  • CIL has 21 training Institutes and 76 Vocational Training Centres.
• Strategic Relevance: It produces 80 percent of the domestic coal; 75 percent of the coal based generation.

Exercise Poorvi Prachand Prahar

In News: Exercise Poorvi Prachand Prahar is a major tri-service military exercise conducted by the Indian Armed Forces in Mechuka Valley, Arunachal Pradesh. 

• It aims to enhance warfighting capabilities, technological adaptation, and operational synergy among the Army, Navy, and Air Force. 
• The exercise focuses on multi-domain integration across land, air, and maritime fronts, improving interoperability, situational awareness, and validating command-and-control structures for joint missions. 
• Key aspects include coordinated use of special forces, unmanned platforms, precision systems, and networked operations under realistic high-altitude conditions. 
• This drill follows previous exercises like Bhala Prahar (2023) and Poorvi Prahar (2024), reinforcing India’s joint military readiness, particularly along the sensitive India-China border.

Ramnami tribe

In News: During the Chhattisgarh Foundation Day celebrations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi honoured the Ramnami tribe, known for their unique devotion to Lord Ram. 

• Modi broke protocol to allow members of this community to adorn him with their traditional “mor mukut” (peacock feather crown) as a mark of respect and devotion. 
• The gesture highlighted the tribe’s deep cultural and spiritual identity, where chanting Lord Ram’s name and inscribing it on their bodies symbolize unwavering faith. 
• This moment was widely appreciated and seen as a reaffirmation of the cultural richness and religious devotion of the Ramnami community. 

About the Ramnami tribe

• The Ramnami tribe is a unique Hindu sect primarily found in Chhattisgarh, India. 
• Emerging in the 19th century as a peaceful resistance movement against caste discrimination, the Ramnamis tattoo the name “Ram” extensively on their bodies and faces as a symbol of the omnipresence of God, whom they worship in a formless, nirgun (unmanifest) form. 
• Founded by Sant Parsuram, a low-caste sharecropper’s son, this community used tattooing as a way to claim spiritual equality and defy social restrictions, especially temple entry bans.

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