👏🦏@Evening: Assam Took Rhino Poaching Down To Numero Zero In 2022

1. 📰 Catch Up

• Four days after launch, the Howrah-New Jalpaiguri Vande Bharat Express was pelted with stones by miscreants in Bengal.

• No additional restrictions on free speech for MPs and MLAs, rules SC.

• India's apex court is set to launch the electronic Supreme Court Reports project to advance digitisation of the Indian Judiciary.

• New Aadhaar feature makes online updating of address a 'family affair'.

• New government initiative, called the 'SMART' programme, will promote scientific research in Ayurveda.

2. 🤯Not a single rhino poached in Assam last year

Assam nailed rhino conservation efforts in 2022.

• A proud chief minister took to Twitter to share the great news: "Not a single rhino poached in 2022..."

• Only two rhinos were poached in 2021.

• Himanta Biswa Sarma gave kudos to the Assam Forest Department and Assam Police "for their since efforts to protect the iconic animal."

• The Prime Minister gave a shout-out on Twitter in response.

• Only in 1972 and 1977 had Assam recorded zero rhino poaching previously.

Rhino poaching in Kaziranga is the lowest it's been in a couple of decades.

• Only two rhinos were killed by poachers in Assam in 2021 and 2022.

• This is a happy fall from a figure of 37 back in 2013.

• The population of rhinos at the Kaziranga National Park jumped by 200, taking the total to 2,613, as per the 2022 census.

The poaching of rhinos in Assam had become a hot-button election issue in 2016, with the BJP promising to crack down on poachers.

• The fall in rhino casualty over the years is interpreted as an indication of good governance and improvement in the law-and-order situation.

• Jaideep Mazumdar wrote about it in detail in this article (January 2022).

3. 📚Braving a viral storm, India-style

Book alert, folks.

• Braving A Viral Storm: India's Covid-19 Vaccine Story, written by Aashish Chandorkar and Suraj Sudhir, will be out in stores in the coming days. (Roughly between 5 and 10 January; preorders available)

• The book is about India's successful efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, including the development and distribution of vaccines.

• The authors, both Swarajya contributors, have used data to recount the story of India’s fortitude and collective resolve to fight the pandemic.

• Chandorkar is a counsellor at India's Permanent Mission to the WTO in Geneva. Sudhir works in the field of computer systems and machine learning in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

4. 🪙Bitcoin turns 14 today

On this day in 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of the bitcoin blockchain, dubbed the "Genesis Block."

• Satoshi left a message in the code of this block: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝟎𝟑/𝐉𝐚𝐧/𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬

• Satoshi Nakamoto is recognised as the pseudonym of the person or group of persons who created Bitcoin.

• Bitcoin is the world's biggest and most popular cryptocurrency.

• Cryptocurrencies are byproducts of blockchain technology.

5. 👑Remembering two queens today, on the anniversary of their birth

One was a queen for her pioneering work on education, especially for girls and for ostracised sections of society, and the other... well, a literal queen.

Savitribai Phule (1831-1897): A social reformer in the nineteenth century, she is considered the first feminist of India.

• Savitribai Phule was born on 3 January 1831 in a rich and influential farming family in Maharashtra's Naigaon.

• She was married off at the age of nine to 13-year-old Jyotirao Phule, from whom she learnt to read and write.

• When she turned 17, the couple founded India's first school for girls and women in Bhidewada, Pune.

• It started with just nine girls from different castes enrolled as students, but it was a historic step given that female education was considered taboo in the orthodox Indian society prevalent then.

• The Phule couple launched a crusade against social discrimination based on caste and gender, and sparked the flame for equal rights for women in British-ruled India.

• Savitribai's campaign covered child marriage, child widows, pregnancy of rape victims, the practice of 'Sati', education of women, and striving for equal rights for all women.

• The Maharashtra government renamed Pune University as 'Savitribai Phule University' as a tribute to the women's icon in August 2014.

• "She personifies the indomitable spirit of our Nari Shakti": PM Narendra Modi said in a tweet today.

Rani Velu Nachiyar (1730-1796): Known by Tamils as Veeramangai (the brave one), she was the first queen to fight against British colonial power in India.

• Rani Velu Nachiyar was the princess of Ramanathapuram.

• She was trained in weapons use, martial arts, horse riding, and archery.

• She was a scholar, proficient in languages like French, English, and Urdu.

• She married the king of Sivagangai, with whom she had a daughter.

• When her husband was killed by British soldiers and the son of the Nawab of Arcot, she was drawn into battle.

• She escaped with her daughter and lived under the protection of Palayakaarar Kopaala Naayakkar at Virupachi near Dindigul for eight years.

• She then set out to avenge her beloved’s death and take back control of her kingdom.

• Velu not only fought the British but also the Nawab of Arcot, ably supported by her military commander, Kuyuili.

• "Her bravery will keep motivating generations to come": PM Narendra Modi said in a tweet today.