Daily Current Affairs — September 13, 2026

Scientists at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal, in collaboration with G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, have successfully produced a calf of the indigenous Badri cattle breed using Ovum Pick-Up and In Vitro Fertilization (OPU-IVF) technology.

The Badri cattle, locally called "Pahadi", is the first certified indigenous cattle breed of Uttarakhand recognized by the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR). Reared in high-altitude environments, the cattle graze on wild medicinal herbs and shrubs, resulting in milk with high organic and therapeutic value. Physically, they are small, hardy, and sure-footed with upward and inward curved horns. The application of OPU-IVF technology involves extracting viable oocytes directly from live donor cows, fertilizing them in vitro with elite germplasm, and transferring embryos to surrogate cows, drastically accelerating genetic multiplication compared to conventional breeding methods.

Indigenous cattle breeds such as the Badri feature notable heat tolerance, disease resistance, and adaptability to climate extremes. Implementing modern assisted reproductive techniques preserves native bovine germplasm, enhances livestock productivity in hilly terrains, and supports rural hilly livelihoods under national dairy genetic improvement programs.

India has registered a global milestone by creating a Guinness World Record for constructing the World’s Longest Steel Slag Road located at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh.

Steel slag is a major industrial byproduct generated during steel manufacturing, produced either through the smelting of iron ore in a Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) or during melting in Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF). Chemically, slag consists primarily of calcium, magnesium, manganese, and aluminium silicates and oxides. In road pavement, processed steel slag aggregates substitute natural stone aggregate due to their superior crushing strength, higher impact resistance, and enhanced anti-skid characteristics. Beyond infrastructure, its alkaline, oxide-rich nature enables its application in environmental remediation, such as treating acid mine drainage and serving as a soil conditioner by supplying available silicon, calcium, and magnesium.

The large-scale integration of steel slag advances circular economy mandates by reducing mineral aggregate quarrying and conserving natural riverbed and hill ecology. It addresses the challenge of solid industrial waste accumulation across metallurgical clusters and lowers aggregate transportation and lifecycle costs in national highway and industrial corridor projects.

A three-day Table Top Exercise (TTX) organized under the framework of the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) was recently conducted at the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) in Visakhapatnam.

The Colombo Security Conclave is an Indian Ocean regional security architecture established in 2020, evolving from the 2011 Trilateral Maritime Security Cooperation among India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. The grouping has expanded to six member states: India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius, and Seychelles. The conclave operates under five core pillars: Maritime Safety and Security, Countering Terrorism and Radicalisation, Combating Trafficking and Transnational Organised Crime, Cybersecurity and Protection of Critical Infrastructure, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR). Its permanent secretariat is based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The conclave anchors India's SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) doctrine and Neighborhood First policy. By fostering operational interoperability among littoral states, the CSC counters maritime threats including piracy, narcotics trafficking, and hostile maritime surveillance, strengthening collective security across crucial international shipping lanes (ISLs) of the Indian Ocean.

The Prime Minister welcomed international delegations against the backdrop of Tamil Nadu's architectural landmark, the Ramanathaswamy Temple, highlighting India's civilizational heritage on the multilateral stage.

The Ramanathaswamy Temple is situated on Rameswaram Island in Tamil Nadu and is dedicated to Lord Shiva. It holds the dual distinction of being the southernmost of the 12 Jyotirlingas and the only Shiva temple among the four sacred Char Dham sites (alongside Badrinath, Puri, and Dwarka). The earliest stone structures were built under the Chola dynasty in the 12th century, followed by significant structural expansions by the Pandya dynasty, the Vijayanagara Empire (notably Krishnadeva Raya in 1513), and completed under the patronage of the Sethupathi rulers of Ramnad during the Nayaka period. It is renowned for classic Dravidian architecture, characterized by massive boundary walls (madil), 22 sacred theerthams (wells), and the longest temple corridor in India, spanning nearly 197 metres east-to-west.

Integrating iconic heritage sites into diplomatic cultural diplomacy emphasizes India's pluralistic cultural synthesis. The architectural evolution of Rameswaram demonstrates the inter-dynastic continuity of south Indian architectural styles, spanning Chola, Pandya, Vijayanagara, and Nayaka traditions.

Member states of the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN) recently adopted the Kathmandu Declaration to reinforce regional collaboration in combating illegal wildlife trade and transnational environmental crimes.

SAWEN is an intergovernmental wildlife law enforcement agency formally launched in 2011 at Paro, Bhutan, with its permanent secretariat in Kathmandu, Nepal. The network comprises eight member states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The Kathmandu Declaration focuses on harmonizing national legislative frameworks, real-time intelligence sharing, monitoring cross-border poaching corridors, developing standard operating procedures for seized wildlife derivatives, and implementing localized National Action Plans under multilateral conventions like CITES.

South Asia functions as both a major source and transit hub for poached flora and fauna, including tiger skins, pangolin scales, rhino horn, and red sanders. The collective commitment under SAWEN limits institutional fragmentation among neighboring customs and forest enforcement agencies, curbing organized international wildlife trafficking syndicates.

The West Bengal Forest Department has initiated a wildlife translocation plan to relocate a tigress from Bihar to the Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) in northern West Bengal to revive the reserve's local tiger population.

Buxa Tiger Reserve is situated in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal within the Indo-Malayan biodiversity hotspot. Geographically, it shares an international northern border with Bhutan (contiguous with Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary) and an eastern interstate boundary with Assam, demarcated by the Sankosh River. The reserve encompasses Terai, Bhabar, and sub-Himalayan ecosystems, spanning an elevation from 60 metres up to 1,750 metres. It is drained by transboundary rivers including the Raidak, Sankosh, and Jayanti, with predominantly moist tropical forest vegetation that serves as an essential international corridor for Asian elephants and big cats.

Buxa had previously witnessed local depletion of breeding apex predators. Reintroducing tigers through inter-state translocation under the guidance of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) restores ecological balance, curbs ungulate overgrazing, and establishes a secure genetic corridor connecting protected forests in Assam, North Bengal, and Bhutan.

Marine researchers have identified a newly discovered species of marine-origin bivalve clam, named Deltachion ravenshaw, discovered from the sandy intertidal zone of the Devi estuary in Puri district, Odisha.

Deltachion ravenshaw belongs to the family Donacidae (commonly known as wedge clams), under the order Veneroida. While the genus Deltachion is typically restricted to high-salinity marine environments, this species was found thriving in the fluctuating brackish waters of the Devi river mouth. The specimen measures approximately 6.9 mm and displays an elongated, triangular shell with a pointed anterior end, broad and flat radial ribs on its posterior portion, and fine intersecting striations that form a unique lattice-like pattern. Odisha's coastline now accounts for 7 of the 12 Donacidae species recorded in India.

Estuarine bivalves are sensitive bio-indicators of benthic ecosystem health, sediment quality, and hydrological salinity variations. Identifying new species in coastal habitats aids in baseline biodiversity mapping and informs conservation strategies for estuarine ecology along the Bay of Bengal coast.

Artificial intelligence research lab Anthropic utilized its Claude AI system to computationally formalize complex mathematical steps of Fermat’s Last Theorem using the interactive theorem-proving language Lean.

Fermat’s Last Theorem is a historic mathematical statement formulated by French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637. It conjectures that the equation xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ has no positive integer solutions for n > 2. While Fermat famously noted in the margin of Diophantus’s Arithmetica that he had a proof too large to fit, the proposition remained unproven for 358 years until British mathematician Andrew Wiles published a verified proof in 1995, using modern advances including the Modularity Theorem for elliptic curves. The recent computational effort translates human mathematical proofs into machine-verifiable code through the Lean formal language.

Formalizing high-level abstract proofs via AI demonstrates how automated theorem provers can verify intricate mathematical arguments without human calculation error. This transition accelerates formal verification in mission-critical software, aerospace engineering, cryptography, and cybersecurity protocols.

The Hasdeo River was recently in the news following tragic drowning incidents in Chhattisgarh’s Janjgir-Champa district, drawing renewed attention to the river basin's hydrological and ecological profile.

The Hasdeo River is a major left-bank tributary of the Mahanadi River, stretching approximately 333 km entirely within Chhattisgarh. It originates from a small waterbody near Ambikapur in the Surguja district, traversing through Korea, Korba, and Bilaspur districts before discharging into the Mahanadi near Akaltara in Janjgir-Champa. Its primary tributaries include the Gej and Ahiran rivers. Across the river lies the multi-purpose Hasdeo Bango Dam (Minimata Bango Reservoir), essential for regional irrigation and power. The basin drains the Hasdeo Arand forest, widely referred to as the "lungs of Chhattisgarh" and one of the largest unfragmented dense forest canopies in Central India.

The Hasdeo river basin is ecologically and economically sensitive due to massive underlying coal reserves that overlap with dense biodiversity corridors and elephant habitats. Sustainable catchment management of the Hasdeo is critical to maintaining downstream river volume in the Mahanadi and protecting indigenous forest-dwelling communities.

Yemen’s Houthi forces have gained operational control over the strategically positioned Mayun Island (also known as Perim Island), situated directly within the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

Mayun Island is a 13-square-kilometer volcanic island belonging sovereignly to Yemen. It sits at the narrowest section of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (approximately 26 km wide), splitting the strait into two maritime corridors: the eastern Bab Iskender channel and the western Dact-el-Mayun channel. Due to its elevated topography (up to 65 metres above sea level), natural deep-water harbor, and military runway, possession of the island enables direct radar and anti-ship missile oversight of maritime traffic entering the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal. Historically captured by the British in 1857 as a coal bunkering station, it integrated into independent South Yemen in 1967.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a critical maritime chokepoint through which substantial volumes of global containerized trade and Persian Gulf hydrocarbon exports transit. Military occupation of Mayun Island heightens asymmetric threats against commercial shipping, escalating insurance premiums and forcing freight rerouting around Africa's Cape of Good Hope.