Gaganyaan Mission: Indian Astronauts Complete Training
- ISRO has announced that Indian astronauts have completed the first phase of training at NASA for India’s Gaganyaan mission, which will send humans to the International Space Station.
- Gaganyaan Mission astronauts Shubhanshu Shukla and Prasad Balakrishnan Nair began their training from August this year under the ISRO-NASA joint project ‘Axiom-4’.
- They were trained on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the internal systems of the International Space Station, taking photographs from space, daily operations, and communication protocols.
- The Gaganyaan mission showcases human spaceflight capabilities by sending a 3-member crew into a 400 km orbit for 3 days, landing in Indian waters, and bringing them safely back to Earth.
- The Indian Space Research Organisation has named its mission to send humans into space Gaganyaan.
- The Sanskrit word Gagan means sky. The name is given to the vehicle that goes towards the sky.
- Through the Gaganyaan mission, Indian astronauts will be sent for space exploration in 2025.
- The Indian astronauts, launched by the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3), will conduct a three-day exploration mission in an orbit of 400 km above the Earth.
- They will then be safely brought back to Earth and splashed down in Indian waters for recovery.
- Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Pratap, Ajith Krishnan and S Shukla have been selected for the mission to go into space on India’s spacecraft.
- The Gaganyaan mission was approved by the Union Cabinet on 28 December 2018.
The UN India re-elected as a member of the Peacebuilding Commission:
- India has been re-elected as a member of the UN Peacebuilding Commission for the year 2025-26.
- Earlier, India was elected as a member of the Commission for the year 2023-24.
- The UN Peacebuilding Commission is making efforts to restore peace in countries affected by violence.
- It has 31 member states. These member states are elected from the three main bodies of the UN.
- Apart from this, financial and troop-sharing countries are also members.
- India is the leading troop-sharing country.
- India has deployed about 6,000 military and police officers in the Central African Republic, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, the Middle East, Somalia, Abyei, South Sudan, and Western Sahara.
‘Secularism’ part of the Constitution: Supreme Court
- The Supreme Court ruled that ‘secularism’ has always been a part of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution.
- The government led by the late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, through the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976, added the words ‘equality’ and ‘secularism’ to the Preamble of the Constitution.
- Based on the idea put forward by Ambedkar, the word ‘socialism’ has been added to the Preamble of the Constitution.
- The Preamble had ‘sovereign, democratic republic’, which has been changed to ‘sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic’ through the amendment.
December 1: World AIDS Day
- World AIDS Day is observed every year on December 1 to raise awareness and knowledge about HIV and to call for an end to the HIV epidemic.
Important Facts:
- In the unified Andhra Pradesh state, a law enacted in the 1990s barred people from contesting local body elections if they had more than two children.
- Subsequently, those with more than two children were allowed to contest in urban local body elections.
- The doctor-population ratio in India is 1:811, which is higher than the World Health Organization’s standard of 1:1000, said by Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda.
- The British Parliament has approved a bill that will allow euthanasia for those facing death due to an incurable disease.
- India lost to Pakistan in the U-19 Asia Cup cricket match being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.