Thewa Art

Art & Culture

Context

PM Modi presented Thewa motif cufflinks to the Slovak President during his recent visit.

Thewa Art

Thewa art is among India’s most distinctive traditional crafts of Pratapgarh, Rajasthan.
The art form dates back nearly 400 years and traces its origins to the Mughal era.
It is known for its intricate gold engravings on coloured glass.
It involves creating delicate designs in 23-carat gold and embedding them on multicoloured glass surfaces.
Thewa work requires precision and patience, it takes around three days to create a single set.
Over the years, it has emerged as a symbol of India’s cultural heritage while also generating livelihood opportunities for artisans associated with the craft.

Art & Culture

In News

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in Scotland has unveiled a statue honouring Sushruta, the ancient Indian physician believed to have lived around 2,600 years ago.

Sushruta

Sushruta was an ancient Indian physician and surgeon, widely regarded as the Father of Surgery and the Father of Plastic Surgery.
He is known for advanced surgical techniques, anatomical studies and systematic medical education.
He performed complex surgical procedures centuries before these practices became common in the Western world.
Sushruta’s medical knowledge is compiled in the Sushruta Samhita, one of the oldest and most comprehensive medical texts.

The text is divided into:

Purva Tantra: Surgery, anatomy, internal medicine, pediatrics, and toxicology.
Uttara Tantra: Diseases of the eye, ear, nose, throat, psychiatry, and geriatric care.

Major Contributions

Pioneered Rhinoplasty: Nasal reconstruction using a skin flap from the forehead or cheek (pedicle flap).
Eight Types of Surgery (Ashtavidha Shastrakarma): Classified surgical procedures into excision, incision, scraping, puncturing, probing, extraction, drainage, and suturing.
Burn and Trauma Management: Classified burns and other thermal injuries, including heat stroke and frostbite.
Lifestyle Diseases: Described conditions resembling diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disorders, emphasizing the role of lifestyle in health.

Geography

Context

Since the mid-1990s, the Caspian Sea has lost nearly 24,000 sq km of its surface area, roughly equivalent to the size of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.

Caspian Sea

- The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water, located between Europe and Asia.
- It is bordered by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan.
- Despite its name, it is technically a saltwater lake with no natural outlet.

The region is rich in oil and natural gas reserves, making it strategically important.

Science & Technology

News

The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, has successfully concluded the first cohort of BHARATI (Bharat’s Hub for Agritech, Resilience, Advancement and Incubation for Export Innovation).

BHARATI

It is APEDA’s flagship export acceleration programme aimed at helping Indian agri-food startups become globally competitive exporters.

Objectives:

- Promote an ‘export-first’ approach among agri-food startups.
- Build a pipeline of export-ready enterprises to support India’s target of USD 50 billion in APEDA-scheduled exports by 2030.