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(Topic: Response to COVID-19 crisis)
In order to capture the information regarding movement of migrants and facilitate the smooth movement of stranded persons across States, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has developed an online Dashboard - National Migrant Information System (NMIS).
States will be able to visualize how many people are going out from where and how many are reaching destination States. The mobile numbers of people can be used for contact tracing and movement monitoring during COVID-19.
(Topic: Skill development)
By the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) in partnership with Facebook where 5,000 young tribal entrepreneurs, professionals, artisans and artists will be trained on digital skills under digital entrepreneurship program
The digitally enabled program envisages to act as a catalyst to explore hidden talents of the tribal youth, which will help in their personal development as well as contribute to all-round upliftment of their society.
(Topic: Response to COVID-19 crisis)
A clarion call for आत्मनिर्भर भारत अभियान or Self-Reliant India Movement was given; Outlined five pillars of Aatmanirbhar Bharat –
Free food grains supply to migrants for 2 months
Technology system to be used enabling Migrants to access PDS (Ration) from any Fair Price Shops in India by March, 2021-One Nation one Ration Card
Scheme for Affordable Rental Housing Complexes for Migrant Workers and Urban Poor to be launched
2% Interest Subvention for 12 months for Shishu MUDRA loanees- Relief of Rs. 1,500 crore
Rs 5,000 crore Credit facility for Street Vendors
Rs 70,000 crore boost to housing sector and middle income group through extension of Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme for MIG under PMAY(Urban)
Rs 6,000 crore for Creating employment using CAMPA funds
Rs 30,000 crore Additional Emergency Working Capital for farmers through NABARD
Rs 2 lakh crore credit boost to 2.5 crore farmers under Kisan Credit Card Scheme
Source: Click here
(Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
The government has clarified that ration cards not linked to Aadhaar cards will not be cancelled till September. There were reports that ration cards of those without Aadhaar number will be cancelled.
The ministry has issued clear instructions to all states and union territories (UTs) that no genuine beneficiary or household should be denied from entitled quota of food grains. Their names/ration cards should not be deleted/cancelled only on the ground of not possessing an Aadhaar number.
Further, instructions have been issued that food grains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) will not be denied due to failure of Aadhaar authentication of beneficiary because of poor biometrics of the beneficiary, issues with network/connectivity/linking or any other technical reasons.
But is it mandatory? Why?
The government has also started the implementation of the inter-state portability of NFSA ration card holders under 'One Nation One Ration Card' plan to protect the interest of poor and migratory beneficiaries.
To achieve seamless inter-state portability transactions of a ration card, it is essential to have a centralised repository for maintaining unique ration cards/beneficiaries' data of all states and UTs covered under the NFSA. Therefore, the ministry said that the seeding of Aadhaar numbers becomes critical in establishing a unique record of each eligible ration card holder and beneficiary in the country, so that his or her entitlement is protected.
‘One Nation One Ration Card’ national portability platform:
Solve: A pragmatic approach is needed now so that no poor or deserving person or family is denied access to food grains. Discuss.
(Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
The monitoring system, comes under the Government of India's Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) programme, is already underway in two districts on a pilot basis to monitor the functionality of water supply in the rural water sector regularly on a long-term basis.
Out of 93.6 lakh rural households in the state, 65 lakh (70%) are already having household tap connections. The state now plans to provide 11.15 lakh household tap connections in rural areas in 2020-21.
Aim: To monitor the functionality of water supply i.e. potable water in adequate quantity and of prescribed quality being provided to every rural household on regularly on long-term basis.
Gujarat state has set the target year of 100% coverage by the year September, 2022. Gujarat, primarily a water stressed state, has dealt the crisis with a very strategic approach so far.
Owing to the current situation of CoVid-19 pandemic, water has to be made available for all, for which Government of India has issued advisory to states to take up works related to water supply on priority. Henceforth, a proper plan by Gram Panchayats and Villages is needed to ensure that household taps are made available in rural households. This will ensure drinking water in household premises and also facilitate social distancing by minimising crowd in public stand-posts.
Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM)
Government of India has restructured and subsumed the ongoing National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) into Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) to provide Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) to every rural household i.e., Har Ghar Nal Se Jal (HGNSJ) by 2024.
Proposed Jal Jeevan Mission will be a decentralised, community-managed and sustainable water management scheme –
Work to be taken up under JJM:
73rd Amendment of Constitution of India: Gram Panchayats or its sub-committees will play a crucial role in planning, designing, execution, operations and maintenance of the in-village infrastructure under the Jal Jeevan Mission – Every village is to prepare a village action plan (VAP) which will be essentially having three components namely:
Note:
SDG-6: Ensuring universal access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030
Water-stressed districts: Districts with critical or over-exploited groundwater levels as per the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) 2017. For states without critical and over-exploited groundwater levels, districts with the least availability of groundwater in comparison to the rest of the districts in the state have been selected.
Water stress and water scarcity
Solve:
(Topic: Response to COVID-19 crisis)
The Government of India and the World Bank today signed a $750 million of $1 billion proposed for Accelerating India’s COVID-19 Social Protection Response Programme to support India’s efforts at providing social assistance to the poor and vulnerable households, severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This takes the total commitment from the Bank towards emergency COVID-19 response in India to $2 billion. A $1 billion support was announced last month towards immediate support to India’s health sector.
This new support will be funded in two phases –
Why the social assistance?
Social protection is a critical investment since half of India’s population earns less than $3 a day and are precariously close to the poverty line.
Importantly, in an urbanising India, cities and towns will need targeted support as India’s largest social protection programmes are focused on rural populations. The programme will create a system that will strengthen the delivery of India’s safety nets program. It will:
(Topic: International organisations)
The Government of India, the Government of West Bengal and the World Bank signed a loan agreement for a $145 million project to improve irrigation services and flood management in the Damodar Valley Command Area (DVCA) in West Bengal. India is adopting a strategic growth path that uses and manages its water resources more efficiently.
The West Bengal Major Irrigation and Flood Management Project will benefit about 2.7 million farmers from five districts of West Bengal across 393,964 ha area with better irrigation services and improved protection against annual flooding to mitigate the impact of climate change.
To solve the following Challenges –
(Topic: Response to COVID-19 crisis)
First priority should be saving lives
First focus on immediate and concrete actions that can ease the distress being faced by people all over the world due to Corona pandemic. The unprecedented situation calls for solidarity and a balanced, inclusive and calibrated response. An overriding priority for all countries at this time, is to save precious lives. India strongly called for
Secondly, ensuring food security
Doing away with the policy instrument of export restrictions is not a panacea that will guarantee access to medical products and food for all. In fact, such a step is likely to lead to a flight of these critical products to the highest bidder, making them inaccessible to the resource-poor. More effective and lasting way to ensure food security of the most vulnerable, would be by
Learning from this extremely distressing experience, the world has to come together to build partnerships among like-minded nations with shared values of democracy, rules-based and transparent business models and concern for humanity as a whole.
India’s future will be crafted on five pillars –
Widely regarded as the ‘Pharmacy of the World’, India is also proactively partnering in global efforts to develop vaccines and effective treatment for this disease.
Thirdly, building digital skills than making binding rules on trade
Underscoring the wide digital divide between developed and developing countries, India stressed on the urgent need to build the digital skills and capacities of developing countries and LDCs, rather than rushing to make binding rules on digital trade and e-commerce, which will freeze the extremely non-level playing field against their interests, and deprive them of the opportunity to benefit from the immense potential in these areas. As a result of the pandemic, a large number of professionals, workers and students located overseas are facing difficulty in maintaining their visa status. We must allow suitable accommodation in their visa status and take other necessary steps to address their distress.
(Topic: Energy and Climate Change)
National technology day is celebrated to commemorate the nuclear test that took place 22 years ago, that brought us national security. After that India has entered into many International agreements with various countries to promote nuclear commerce for peaceful purposes. The idea was to secure energy security through nuclear energy.
Correlation between Human Development Index (HDI) and Per Capita Energy Consumption all over the world:
As per the statistics, countries with higher HDI where citizens enjoy high quality of life have higher per capita consumption of energy. However with the rising climate issues, a developing country like India faces the challenge where we are caught between energy security on one side and climate security on the other.
The need of the hour is to strike a balance between enhancing the quality of human life as well as keeping a control over the climate crisis.
Studies undergoing on how to control CO2 emissions:
As per the report of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, “staying below 1.5 degree increase in 2,100 will require cuts in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions of 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 and to net zero by 2050”; which means we have only 10 years left to realise deep CO2 emission cuts while ensuring development aspirations of many countries across the world.
To achieve this, the world has to act now by leveraging available/rapidly deployable technologies. This is where the requirement of nuclear energy, which can easily meet the ‘zero emission’ target, arises. With the contribution of nuclear energy, the cost of deep decarbonisation can be reduced. Decarbonising means reducing carbon intensity, i.e. reducing the emissions per unit of electricity generated (often given in grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour).
Decarbonisation of energy production in the country is essential since the demand for electric power from industries/commercial sector is high. Decarbonisation is possible by increasing the share of low-carbon energy sources, particularly renewables like solar, hydro and biomass together with nuclear which can greatly contribute in achieving zero emissions to a great extent.
Even when many countries are making active efforts in the field of energy efficiency the CO2 emission is still high when compared to preceding years. This shows we need better plans to control the same.
In order to control CO2 emission, different levels of consumption strategy need to be observed by different countries based on their HDI. For example, those countries with high Human Development Index, should reduce their energy consumption since it may not affect their HDI, much. In addition to this they should also decarbonise their electricity generation. And the countries with moderate HDI should focus on non-fossil electricity consumption while countries with low HDI should be able to provide subsidised source of cleaner energy to their citizens. This way every country can actively contribute towards low / zero emission.
Japan is a country which has seen the brunt of the negatives of nuclear energy – the cruellest nuclear bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that raised the global sensitivity of nuclear energy. But still the country has drafted an energy plan, to generate 20% to 22% of their total energy consumption as nuclear energy, to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030. Countries like Germany and Japan are already planning to cut GHG emission by 2020 and 2030 respectively which has allotted huge amount on production of renewable energy.
For a country like India, in order to decarbonise the energy consumption, we need a 30-fold increase in renewable energy, 30-fold increase in nuclear energy and doubling of thermal energy which would make 70% of energy carbon free.
To meet the energy requirements of the country, currently there are 66 units with the capacity of 49180 MWe (including projects that are operating, under planning, under construction and those that are approved).
But how to manage the nuclear waste?
The major concern that pops up is of how to manage the nuclear wastes, that is produced during energy generation. India adopts the policy of ‘Nuclear Recycle Technology’ - where the nuclear fuel - Uranium, Plutonium etc, once used for generation of energy, is reused as a resource material by the commercial industries to be recycled. More than 99% of Nuclear waste is reused as the waste management program in India prioritises recycling.
Technology
A. Patenting of Innovative Low Cost PPE developed by Indian Navy Paves way for Rapid Mass Production: The low cost PPE has been developed by a Doctor of Indian Navy. It is made of a special fabric which affords high level of protection along with high ‘breathability’ as against other PPEs available in the market and is therefore more suitable for use in hot and humid weather conditions as prevalent in India. The technology has also been tested and validated by ICMR approved Testing Lab. B. COBAS 6800 testing machine: This is the first such testing machine that has been procured by the Government for testing of COVID-19 cases and is installed at the National Centre for Disease Control.COBAS 6800 is a sophisticated machine enabled with robotics that minimizes the chance of contamination as well as the risk of infection to the health care workers since it can be operated remotely with limited human intervention. As the machine requires a minimum BSL2+ containment level for testing, it cannot be placed at just any facility. COBAS 6800 can also detect other pathogens like Viral Hepatitis B & C, HIV, MTb (both rifampicin and isoniazide resistance), Papilloma, CMV, Chlamydia, Neiserreia etc.
C. A novel tool to help gain deeper insight into Parkinson’s disease: Parkinson’s disease is a common neurodegenerative disease that has no cure.It is believed that an aggregation of a protein called alpha synuclein (ASyn) plays a crucial role in the pathology of the disease. The aggregation is found in abundance in what is called the substantia nigra portion in the midbrain of patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
The Z-scan method could help in monitoring both the early and late stages of the aggregation of ASyn nicely. They found that the protein possesses nonlinearity starting from its monomeric state to the fibrillar structure. They made three particularly interesting observations:
The present grid-scale energy-storage sector is dominated by lithium-ion batteries, because of their higher energy density & specific power and long cycle life. However, there are some serious concerns regarding Li-ion batteries, such as safety risk, limited resource supply, high cost, and lack of recycling infrastructure. This necessitates the development of an alternative battery system with lower environmental concerns, economic and higher energy density. As a result, lead-acid batteries are still one of the most reliable, economical, and environmentally friendly options. However, electrodes in the lead-acid batteries suffer from the problem of heavyweight, corrosion, poor thermal stability, and diffusion of electrolytes in one dimension, which ultimately affects the output power.
E. Development of injectable Silk Fibroin-based hydrogel for sustained Insulin delivery in diabetic patients: Scientists have developed the silk fibroin (SF) formulation using biocompatible additives and prepared an injectable SF hydrogel (iSFH) that can ease insulin delivery in diabetic patients.The iSFH has proved to be an effective insulin delivery tool for diabetic patients with excellent mechanical strength, biocompatibility, encapsulation, storage, and demonstration of its sustained delivery of active insulin in the diabetic animal. The active encapsulation and delivery of insulin by iSFH may also have implications for the future development of formulations for oral insulin delivery.
Background:
Diabetes affects more than 70 million people in India, the second-highest in the world. It results from inadequate production of insulin due to loss of beta cells or insulin resistance within the body, which imbalances the glucose homeostasis is leading to an abrupt increase of blood glucose level.
The conventional and last resort of treatment involves repeated subcutaneous insulin injections to maintain the physiological glucose homeostasis. The multiple subcutaneous insulin injections are associated with pain, local tissue necrosis, infection, nerve damage, and locally concentrated insulin amyloidosis responsible for inability to achieve physiological glucose homeostasis. This problem can be overcome with controlled and sustained insulin delivery. Thus, encapsulation and sustained delivery of insulin in its active form (without loss of activity) is the key to the development of such controlled and sustained in vivo delivery of Insulin.
F. ARCI scientists develop next-generation biodegradable metal implants: Scientists have developed new generation Iron-Manganese based alloys for biodegradable metal implants for use in humans. Biodegradable materials (Fe, Mg, Zn, and polymer), which can participate in the healing process and then degrade gradually by maintaining the mechanical integrity without leaving any implant residues in the human body are better alternatives to currently used metallic implants which remain permanently in the human body and can cause long-term side effects like systemic toxicity, chronic inflammation, and thrombosis.(Topic: Technology to solve COVID-19 Crisis)
The Centre announced that an IgG ELISA test for detection of antibodies to Covid-19 had been developed, and released a document outlining details of surveillance to be carried out in all districts to check for the prevalence of infection using the same.
Pune-based National Institute of Virology has developed an immunological assay — enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) — that can detect antibodies that are developed in response to the coronavirus infection. This the first test of the kind to be developed in India and it will play a critical role in surveillance of proportion of the population exposed to the virus.
ELISA-based tests are blood-based tests, which have high sensitivity and specificity. The sensitivity of a test refers to the percentage of results that will correctly find out the presence of infection in a person and specificity refers to the percentage of results that will correctly find out whether or not a person is infected. It has a sensitivity of 92% and its specificity is 97%.
It is an IgG Elisa-based test. This means that the test will be done to detect the Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody.
Note: ELISA-based tests and point-of-care tests are not used for confirming Covid-19 infection and are only used for surveillance purpose.
(Topic: Technology)
A. Defence Research Ultraviolet Sanitiser (DRUVS): It has been designed to sanitise mobile phones, iPads, laptops, currency notes, cheque leafs, challans, passbooks, paper, envelopes, etc.The proximity sensor switches, clubbed with drawer opening and closing mechanism, makes its operation automatic and contactless. It provides 360 degree exposure of UVC to the objects placed inside the cabinet. Once the sanitisation is done, the system goes in sleep mode hence the operator need not wait or stand near the device.
B. NOTESCLEAN: The RCI has also developed an automated UVC currency sanitising device, called NOTESCLEAN. Bundles of currency notes can be sanitised using DRUVS, however disinfection of each currency notes using it will be a time consuming process. For that purpose, a sanitising technique has been developed, where one has to just place the loose currency notes at the input slot of the device. It picks the notes one by one and makes them pass through a series of UVC lamps for complete disinfection. C. BiPAP Non Invasive Ventilator SwasthVayu: BiPAP Non-Invasive ventilator is a microcontroller-based precise closed-loop adaptive control system with a built-in biocompatible “3D printed manifold & coupler” with HEPA filter (Highly Efficient Particulate Air Filter). These unique features help to alleviate the fear of the virus spread. It has features like Spontaneous, CPAP, Timed, AUTO BIPAP modes with provision to connect Oxygen concentrator or Enrichment unit externally. The system has been certified for safety and performance by NABL accredited agencies. It is simple to use without any specialized nursing, cost effective, compact and configured with majority of indigenous components. This is ideal for treating COVID -19 patients in Wards, Make shift Hospitals, dispensaries and home in current Indian COVID 19 scenario.Please note:
May 12: International Day of the Nurse
PM CARES (Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations) Fund Trust : Allocated Rs. 3100 Crore for fight against COVID-19. Out of Rs 3100 crore,
May 11: National Technology Day
In the COVID 19 crisis, technology has been at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic. As the world adjusts to its new normal, business leaders world over are rethinking and devising new strategies to harness technologies that would help drive resilience and make them emerge from the crisis stronger.
The day has a historical perspective as it was on May 11, 1998, that India achieved a major technological breakthrough by successfully carrying out nuclear tests at Pokhran.
The celebration of Technology Day symbolizes India’s quest for scientific inquiry, technological creativity & innovations, and the integration of these developments into national socio-economic benefits and global presence.
KVIC’s Kumhar Sashaktikaran Program:
Launch of CHAMPIONS portal
By: Ministry of MSME
CHAMPIONS: Creation and Harmonious Application of Modern Processes for Increasing the Output and National Strength
It is a technology driven control room cum management information system. The system utilising modern ICT tools is aimed at assisting Indian MSMEs march into big league as National and Global CHAMPIONS.
The portal is basically for making the smaller units big by solving their grievances, encouraging, supporting, helping and handholding. It is a real one-stop-shop solution of MSME Ministry.
Atal Pension Yojana (APY) Completes Five Years
MISSION SAGAR: As part of the Government of India outreach amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Indian Naval Ship Kesari has departed for: Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros, to provide Food Items, COVID related Medicines including HCQ Tablets and Special Ayurvedic Medicines with Medical Assistance Teams embarked, on 10 May 20. This deployment as ‘Mission Sagar’, is in line with India’s role as the first responder in the region and builds on the excellent relations existing between these countries to battle the COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant difficulties.
Personality in News
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
Why relatives of former president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed are not on Assam’s final NRC draft?
The family of Ziauddin Ali Ahmed, the late president’s nephew, was not able to apply to be included in Assam’s National Register of Citizenship, which is currently being updated for the first time since 1951 in a bid to detect undocumented migrants. This is because Ahmed said they could not find any of their ancestors, including the former president, on the 1951 National Register of Citizens or any of the electoral rolls up to 1971.
The rules of the National Register of Citizens require every individual to prove that they or their ancestors entered the country before the midnight of March 24, 1971. To do this, they must produce proof that the ancestor lived in the country before that date and link data proof that they are related to the ancestor. The 1951 NRC and all electoral rolls upto March 24, 1971, were digitised for the NRC updating exercise. Everyone who featured on those rolls was alloted a legacy code. Most people applying to be included on the list used these codes to draw connections to their pre-1971 ancestors.
Ziauddin claimed that he could not locate his legacy data in these digitised rolls.
Ziauddin is the son of the late president’s younger brother, Ehtramuddin Ali Ahmed. Ehtramuddin and Fakhruddin’s father, Zalnur Ali Ahmed, is thought to be the first Assamese person to obtain a medicine degree. He was employed by the Army and retired as a colonel.
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