Notes:
The Australian Open tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments held every year, before the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open events. It is organized by Tennis Australia and generally held during the last fortnight of every January. The event comprises of many categories including Singles and Doubles matches for Men and Women, Mixed Doubles, Junior Championship and wheel-chair matches.
The 2020 Australian Open is the 108th edition, scheduled from January 20 to February 2 at Melbourne Park, Victoria, Australia. The defending Champions of the event in Men’s singles and Women’s singles are Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka respectively.

Notes:
The state government of Bihar under its ‘Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali’ campaign, recently organized a record 18034 km long human chain, which witnessed the participation of more than 5 Crore people.
The Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar participated in the event along with the Deputy Chief Minister and his Cabinet members. The human chain was organized to create awareness among the public on climate change and social ills such as dowry and child-marriage. The human-chain, which is claimed to be the longest in the world is the third of its kind event after the chains formed in Bihar in 2017 and 2018.

Notes:
The capital of Telangana and a major hub of technology industries, Hyderabad was recently adjudged as the ‘World’s most dynamic city’, as per the JLL City Momentum Index, 2020.
The US-based by global real estate services firm Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL), recently released the index by assessing 129 cities around the world. In this seventh edition of the ranking, Hyderabad was placed at the top spot followed by another Indian tech-hub Bengaluru. Southern city Chennai is placed at the fifth place while Delhi is at the sixth place. India leads the 2020 Index with its seven cities being placed in the top 20 ranks.

Notes:
Recently, India has successfully test-fired fired a 3,500 km range nuclear capable missile from the coast of Andhra Pradesh. The ballistic missile named ‘K-4’ that can be launched from a submarine, is developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The missile, which is to be fitted into the Arihant-class submarines of the Indian Navy, has ideal configuration to strike its targets. Arihant is India’s first nuclear-powered submarine of 6000 tonnes, which was successfully tested in November 2018.

Notes:
Chilika Lake is the largest brackish water lake of India, situated in the state of Odisha. It is also home to the highest single lagoon population of the endangered species called Irrawady dolphins.
The Chilika Development Authority (CDA) recently undertook the Dolphin Census and 146 Irrawady dolphins were directly sighted. The estimated range of population of the dolphins is 133-172. The population of the aquatic mammal species last year was 151. After removal of certain encroachments in the lake, the dolphins are found colonising in the central and southern regions of the lake for the first time.