Important Facts for Prelims (20th December 2018) | 20 Dec 2018

Black-necked Crane

• Black-necked cranes also known as 'Trung-Trung Karmo' migrate every winter from Tibet and China's Xinjiang province to Arunachal Pradesh in India.
• Sangti Valley in West Kameng district and Zemithang of Arunachal Pradesh are the only wintering sites of the bird in India. The crane also breeds in Ladakh and Bhutan.
• The bird is revered by the 1 lakh-strong community of Monpas (major Buddhist ethnic group of Arunachal Pradesh) as an embodiment of the sixth  Dalai Lama (Tsangyang Gyatso).
• It is protected under Schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 - the highest legal protection given to birds and wildlife.
• It has been classified as 'vulnerable' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in its Red List of Threatened Species.

World’s First Drone-delivered Vaccine in Vanuatu

• A one-month-old baby in Vanuatu has become the first person in the world to be immunised using vaccines delivered by a commercial drone which has raised hopes that the method could save lives in other far-flung areas.
• Vaccines are difficult to transport as they need to be kept at specific temperatures. During the drone flight, they were kept in Styrofoam boxes with ice-packs and a temperature sensor.