Daily Current Affairs for UPSC IAS: 13th November 2025

INVAR Missile:

The Ministry of Defence recently inked an agreement with Bharat Dynamics Limited for the procurement of INVAR Anti-Tank Missiles worth over 2 thousand 95 crore rupees to enhance the lethality of T-90 tanks.

• It is an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) designed to be launched from tank platforms.
• The Invar missile, capable of being fired from the barrel of T-90 tanks, has been in active deployment by Indian forces and is known for its long-range precision strike capability.
• The missile can neutralise adversaries tanks fitted with Explosive Reactive Armour Protection.
• The Invar missile is built by Rosoboronexport of Russia, and it is produced under license in India by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL).
• The missile uses semi-automatic laser beam-riding guidance, making it resistant to electronic jamming.
• It can destroy both stationary and moving targets traveling at speeds up to 70 kilometres per hour.
• Weighing 17.2 kilograms with a length of 695 millimetres, the Invar features a tandem warhead specifically designed to defeat explosive reactive armour, a defensive system commonly fitted to modern battle tanks.
• The missile is fired through the tank’s main gun barrel and guided to the target by the gunner using the vehicle’s integrated fire-control optics.
• Other technical features include a length of 695 mm (missile) and 395 mm (throwing device).
• It has a calibre of 125 mm and a range of 5000 m.

Omen Drone:

America’s Anduril and the UAE’s state-owned defence conglomerate, EDGE Group, will jointly develop the Omen drone at a new, 50,000 square feet (4,645 square metres) research centre in Abu Dhabi.

• It is a new tail-sitting vertical takeoff and landing drone with a hybrid-electric propulsion system.
• It will be developed by America’s Anduril and the UAE’s state-owned defence conglomerate, EDGE Group.
• It is intended to be modular and adaptable to a wide array of military and non-military missions.
• The Omen drone is designed to complement larger systems in tactical roles such as maritime surveillance, critical infrastructure protection, and persistent ISR coverage over choke points and coastal areas.
• Omen is a twin-rotor aircraft that takes off from and lands in a tail-sitting position, where it stands about 10 feet tall.
• It features relatively long and slender main wings, mounted toward the rear of the fuselage, together with canard foreplanes on either side of the nose.
• It also has a twin-boom tail configuration extending from the rear of the nacelles on each wing.
• It is compact, foldable, and transportable by a two-person team without heavy infrastructure, allowing deployment from rough terrain or forward sites.
• It is designed to switch between two flight modes: it can take off, hover, and land vertically like a drone or helicopter but can also transition to airplane-style flight for longer and faster missions.
• Its open architecture supports modular payloads like electro-optical or infrared sensors and communication relays.

Metformin:

Metformin may weaken the benefits of exercise, a new study suggests.

• Metformin (1,1-dimethylbiguanide hydrochloride) is an anti-diabetic medication (biguanide).
• It is commonly prescribed to help manage type 2 diabetes.
• Metformin works in a few different ways to help keep your blood glucose (sugar) from getting too high.
• Metformin decreases the amount of glucose your body absorbs from things you eat and drink.
• Metformin reduces the amount of glucose that your liver makes.
• Metformin also helps your body’s own insulin to work better. (Insulin is a hormone that helps your body use glucose as a source of energy.)
• It is the most widely used glucose-lowering medication used around the world.
• Metformin, listed among the World Health Organization’s essential medicines since 2011, is generally safe but may cause mild gastrointestinal upsets, give a metallic taste, or, rarely, may cause lactic acidosis (a buildup of lactic acid in your blood) in kidney-impaired patients.

Painganga River:

Four women and three children trapped for almost two hours in the gushing water of the Penganga River, near the famous Sahastrakund waterfall, were rescued recently.

• The Painganga River (also known as the Penganga River) is the chief river of the Yavatmal district in Maharashtra state.
• It is a major tributary of the Wardha River, the other major river in the district.
• It originates in the Ajantha ranges in Aurangabad district in Maharashtra.
• It then flows through Buldhana & Washim District & flows through the border of Washim & Hingoli District.
• Then it acts as a boundary between Yavatmal and Nanded districts of Maharashtra.
• The river flows along the State border between Maharashtra and Telangana before converging into Wardha river.
• The Wardha River flows into the Wain Ganga River to form the Pranhita River, which finally joins the Godavari River, which empties into the Bay of Bengal.
• The total length of the river is 676 km.
• It is deeply entrenched and difficult to navigate.
• The main tributaries of the river are Adan, Kas, Arunavati, Kayadhu, and Pus.
• The Penganga River gets flooded in the rainy and winter seasons and partially flooded in the summer.
• There are two dams being constructed on the river, namely Upper Painganga and Lower Painganga. This dam is also known as Isapur Dam.

Mudh-Nyoma Airbase:

The Chief of the Air Staff recently inaugurated the Mudh-Nyoma airbase in Ladakh by landing a C-130J special operations aircraft there.

• It is an Indian Air Force (IAF) base located in Nyoma, in southeastern Ladakh.
• It is located at a height of 13,700 feet and is 23 km from the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
• Nyoma is the fourth IAF base in Ladakh, the highest airfield in the country, and the fifth highest in the world now.
• It lies close to the southern bank of the Pangong Tso and earlier had a mud-paved landing ground.
• The responsibility of upgrading the airbase was entrusted to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). The work began in September 2023.
• It underwent a ₹230 crore upgrade, which included extending the original airstrip into a 2.7 km ‘rigid pavement’ runway, a new ATC complex, hangars, a crash bay, and accommodation.
• The airfield is designed to house a number of military unmanned, rotary-wing, fixed-wing aircraft, including heavier transport planes, like the C-17 Globemaster III, and fighter jets, like the Sukhoi-30MKI.
• The infrastructure at the airbase includes necessary facilities for maintenance and sustaining air and ground crews, essential for operations in a region where winter temperatures can plummet to below minus 20°C.

ESCAPEDE Mission:

Blue Origin has successfully launched Nasa’s highly anticipated Escapade mission to Mars.

• The ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission is the first coordinated multi-spacecraft orbital science mission to the Mars.
• Its twin orbiters known as Blue and Gold which will take simultaneous observations from different locations around Mars.
• It is part of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) program.
• This mission has chosen ‘launch and loiter’ strategy
• It means the satellites will launch from Earth toward the Lagrange 2 Point (L2), a point in space where the balance of Earth and Sun’s gravitational pull ensures that a spacecraft stays put.
• The spacecraft will stay put or loiter at L2 until the apt window for Mars travel opens up, and then it will move toward Mars in late 2026.
• It will reveal the planet’s real-time response to space weather and how the Martian magnetosphere changes over time,
• These spacecraft will travel to Mars to study the interaction between solar wind, streams of charged particles from the Sun, and the Martian magnetic field.
• Understanding how solar wind strips Mars of its atmosphere is critical for planetary science and future human exploration.

Cohort Connect 2025:

The Union Minister of State for Science & Technology launched the Phenome National Conclave on Longitudinal Cohort Studies: Cohort Connect 2025 at CSIR–IMMT, Bhubaneswar. A nationwide scientific platform under the Phenome India programme, bringing together India’s major longitudinal cohort studies to generate large-scale, India-specific health data for precision medicine, disease prediction, and public health planning. Launched In: 2025, by the Ministry of Science & Technology at CSIR–IMMT, Bhubaneswar. Aim is to examine how genes, lifestyle, behaviour, nutrition, pollution, and environment influence disease patterns in Indian populations,to create a massive longitudinal dataset for chronic and emerging diseases like diabetes, cancer, neurological disorders, and infectious disease interactions (e.g., diabetes–TB link).

Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment Bill:

Pakistan’s President has signed the 27th Constitutional Amendment Bill, instantly making it part of the Constitution and dramatically reshaping the country’s power structure.A rapidly passed constitutional amendment that centralises military authority, elevates the role and immunity of five-star officers (currently Asim Munir), and creates a new Federal Constitutional Court above the existing Supreme Court for constitutional matters. Aim is To formalise the military’s dominant role in Pakistan’s political and security structure,to institutionalise a new judicial architecture that limits the Supreme Court’s influence over constitutional interpretation,to grant permanent legal immunity and expanded authority to top military leadership.

Draft Seeds Bill, 2025:

The Government of India has released the Draft Seeds Bill, 2025 for public consultation to overhaul India’s seed regulation framework.It aims to replace the Seeds Act, 1966 and Seeds (Control) Order, 1983 with a modern, farmer-centric and innovation-driven system. A modern legislation to regulate seed quality, protect farmers, and build a transparent, traceable, and accountable seed ecosystem, including registration, certification, and QR-based digital tracking.Existing laws (Seeds Act, 1966; Seeds Control Order, 1983) became outdated amid rising hybrids, GM traits, private R&D and global trade.
Earlier reform attempts (like the 2004 Seeds Bill) stalled.The 2025 Draft Bill introduces digital traceability, farmers’ rights, graded penalties, and ease of doing business.

Moon’s Sphere of Influence (MSI):

ISRO confirmed that the Chandrayaan-3 Propulsion Module (PM) re-entered the Moon’s Sphere of Influence (MSI) during its high-altitude Earth-bound orbit, undergoing two lunar flybys.The Moon’s Sphere of Influence (MSI) is the region around the Moon where its gravitational influence dominates over Earth’s for orbital calculations.Inside this region, it is mathematically more accurate to treat a spacecraft as orbiting the Moon, with Earth acting as a perturbing body.The MSI is an imaginary, approximately spherical (or oblate spheroid) region surrounding the Moon. For the Earth–Moon system, the MSI radius is roughly ~66,000 km from the Moon’s center (approximate, varies with models).