Prelims Focus 6th August 2024

Yamini Krishnamurthy 

In News: 

Veteran Bharatanatyam dancer Yamini Krishnamurthy died at the age of 83.

• Awards and Honors

• • • She obtained the Padma Shri at the young age of 28 in 1968, Padma Bhushan in 2001 and Padma Vibhushan in 2016. 
    • She was also conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1977.

• Bharatanatyam 

• • Bharatanatyam is an Indian classical dance shape that originated in Tamil Nadu. It is taken into consideration to be over 2000 years old.
  • Several texts starting with Bharata Muni’s Natya Shastra offer information about it. 
  • In the early 19th century, the famous Tanjore Quartette, under the patronage of Raja Serfoji, is stated to have been answerable for the repertoire of Bharatanatyam dance as we see it these days.
  • The dance is thought to be ekaharya, in which one dancer takes on many jobs in a single performance. 
  • The accompanying orchestra consists of a vocalist, a mridangam player, violinist or veena player, a flutist and a cymbal player.
  • The person who conducts the dance recitation is the Nattuvanar. 

AMRUT 2.0

In News: Under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0, cities are likely to initiate projects as a part of the 100-day agenda of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, during its third term.

• AMRUT scheme was released by the government in 2015, with its 2.0 model launched in 2021.
• The mission was drawn to cover 500 cities and towns with a population of over one lakh with notified municipalities. 
• The purpose of the AMRUT project become to:
  • ensure that each family has access to a tap with confident supply of water and a sewerage connection; 
  • growth the value of cities by using growing greenery and well-maintained open spaces consisting of parks and; 
  • lessen pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for non-motorised shipping. 
• AMRUT 2.0: Aimed at making cities ‘water secure’ and service functional water faucet connections to all families in all statutory cities.
  • Ambitious targets were set up such as providing 100% sewage management in 500 AMRUT cities.
• Pey Jal Survekshan to check equitable distribution of water, reuse of wastewater, mapping of water bodies and promote healthy competition among the cities /towns.
• Technology Sub-Mission for water to leverage nlatest global technologies in the field of water.
• Information, Education and Communication (IEC) marketing campaign to spread attention among masses about the conservation of water.

Thadou people

In News: The Thadou tribe has formed a new global body called the Thadou Community International (TCI) to represent the voice of the suppressed and silenced Thadou people. The TCI aims to safeguard the rights and identity of the Thadou community.

• The formation of the TCI comes after an eight-hour virtual meeting attended by Thadou people living in nine countries, including the US, UK, Norway, Australia, and Malaysia. The Thadou Students’ Association (TSA) announced the creation of the new global body in a statement.
• The Thadou people, also known as Thadou te, are a Thadou language-speaking Mizo ethnic group inhabiting Northeast India, Burma, and Bangladesh. They include numerous clans such as Kipgen, Haokip, Doungel, and Hangshing.
• The main objectives of the Thadou Community International are to represent the voice of the suppressed and silenced Thadou people. By forming this global organization, the Thadou tribe aims to have a unified platform to address their concerns and safeguard their rights and identity on an international scale.

Great Four-Ringed Butterfly

In News:  A four-ringed butterfly, belonging to a family with most members in China, has resurfaced in India after 61 years. 

• • The butterfly, known as Ypthima cantliei and a species of Satyrinae butterfly, was recorded in 2018 from the Namdapha National Park in Arunachal Pradesh by a team including a policeman and members of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

• Significance of the Discovery

• • The discovery highlights the rich biodiversity of India’s easternmost tiger reserve, Namdapha, which straddles the border with Myanmar.
  • The butterfly was last reported in 1957 from Assam’s Margherita, 61 years before the recent documentation.
  • The discovery was made during a survey to document the butterfly diversity in the Miao range of the Namdapha National Park.

• Details of the Butterfly

• • The butterfly was identified based on general morphological patterns and habitat.
  • It has dull brown-grey wings with three yellow-ringed single eye spots (ocelli) on its hind wing and a large bipupilled apical ocellus obscurely ringed with yellow on the forewing above.
  • Ypthima is considered a rich genus of the family Nymphalidae, which has some 6,000 species of butterflies.

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