News in Short

• An international team of astronomers has detected large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of one of the oldest and most elementally depleted stars ever known.
• The new finding, made using WM Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii to analyze the chemical makeup of the ancient star called 'J0815+4729,' provides an important clue on how oxygen and other important elements were produced in the first generations of stars in the universe.
• Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium but it does not occur naturally.

• IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva  has said that the growth slowdown in India is temporary and that it expects momentum to improve going ahead.
• Recently the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had marginally lowered its growth estimate for India to 4.8 per cent for 2019 citing stress in non-bank financial sector and weak rural income growth.
• India’s GDP growth rate at 4.5 per cent for July-September quarter of 2019-20, has hit a 26-quarter low, dragged down by a contraction in manufacturing, weak investment, and lower consumption demand, as per data from the National Statistical Office (NSO).

• A new snake eel species residing in the Bay of Bengal has been discovered and documented this month (January) by the Estuarine Biology Regional Centre (EBRC) of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) at Gopalpur-on-sea in Odisha.
• This new marine species has been named Ophichthus kailashchandrai to honour the vast contributions of Dr. Kailash Chandra, Director of ZSI, to Indian animal taxonomy.
• Ophichthus kailashchandrai is the eighth species of the Ophichthus genus found on the Indian coast. It is the fifth new species discovered by the Gopalpur ZSI in the last two years.

• Shared mobility start-up Bouncehas raised $105 million (around ?748 crore) in fresh round of funding led by Accel, a leading venture capital firm, and B Capital Group which is a global technology fund.
• The fresh funding will fuel a deeper electric vehicle (EV) integration, platform play and help drive profitability.
• The series D funding also saw participation of existing investors, Accel Partners India, Chiratae Ventures, Falcon Edge, Maverick Ventures, Omidyar Network India, Qualcomm Ventures and Sequoia Capital India.

• The Union Law Ministry has given its approval for Aadhaar Card Voter ID linking process, a proposal put forwarded by the Election Commission of India (ECI). 
• The ECI has sought legal powers to resume the process of linking of 12-digit Aadhaar numbers with Voter ID.
• It has emphasized on the need of seeding of Electors Photo Identity Cards (or EPIC) or Voter cards with Aadhaar claiming that the move would weed out duplicate entries and bogus voters, and thereby serves the national interest.