Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Modi’s visit to Japan concludes with six bilaterals on last day

News

• Indian Prime Minister held separate bilateral meetings with leaders of Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, Australia, Singapore and Chile, and discussed a host of key issues, including trade, counter-terrorism, defence, maritime security and sports.

Beyond News

• Indian Prime Minister, was in Osaka, Japan, for the two-day G20 summit, held his first official engagement on the last day of the summit with Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
• They discussed ways to deepen bilateral cooperation in trade and investment, defence and maritime fronts.
• Soon after, Prime Minister met Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro and held wide-ranging discussions on their bilateral relationship, especially on cooperation in trade and investment, agriculture and biofuels in the context of climate change.
• Indian Prime Minister then met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and held talks on a host of key issues, including trade and investment, defence and counter-terrorism. They also talked about the strong development partnership between India and Turkey.The two leaders’ discussions focused on trade and investment, defence, counter-terrorism, IT and civil aviation.
• In his meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Prime Minister had “good discussions on enhancing cooperation in sports, mining technology, defence and maritime cooperation and Indo-Pacific”.
• The Prime Minister then had pull-aside meetings with his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and exchanged views on strengthening bilateral relations.
• Overall, Indian Prime Minister held nine bilateral meetings with the leaders of Japan, the US, Saudi Arabia, South Korea,Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey and Australia; eight pull-aside meetings with Thailand, Vietnam, the World Bank, the UNSG, France, Italy, Singapore and Chile; two plurilaterals  JAI (Japan-America-India) and RIC (Russia-India-China); one multilateral meeting of BRICS and four G20 sessions and a community event.

G-20 resolves to free Internet of extremism

News

• Indian Prime Minister and other G-20 leaders resolved to prevent the use of the Internet to fund and facilitate terrorism and extremism, saying that while the Internet must be “open, free and secure”, it could not serve as a safe haven for terrorists.

Beyond News

• In a statement after the Osaka summit,the leaders said they were committed to protecting people from violent extremism conducive to terrorism, or VECT, through the exploitation of the Internet.
• The G-20 leaders said the live-streamed Christchurch terrorist attacks in New Zealand that killed 51 people, and other recent atrocities, demonstrated the urgency with which they must fully implement relevant UN resolutions, the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy and other instruments, including the 2017 Hamburg G-20 Leaders’ Statement on Countering Terrorism.

The leaders agreed that such efforts must respect human rights and the freedom of expression and access to information. The Internet must not be a safe haven for terrorists to recruit, incite or prepare terrorist acts.

‘One nation one ration card’ scheme from July 1, 2020

News

• ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme, which will allow portability of food security benefits, will be available across the country from July 1, 2020.
• This means poor migrant workers will be able to buy subsidised rice and wheat from any ration shop in the country, so long as their ration cards are linked to Aadhaar.

Beyond News

• All the States have been given one more year to use point of sale (PoS) machines in the ration shops and implement the scheme.
• Already, 77% % of the ration shops across the country have PoS machines and more than 85% of people covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) have their cards linked to Aadhaar.
• While Aadhaar linkage is not necessary to access NFSA benefits in a beneficiary’s local registered ration shop, located closest to her home address, it will be necessary to access the portability scheme.
• Ten States Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura already offer this portability.
• Delhi had also begun implementing portability, though it was later stopped for technical reasons. Other States, including Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, could easily implement the scheme, as they had PoS machines in all the ration shops.
• This scheme will ensure that no poor person is deprived of subsidised grains.
• Migrants would only be eligible for the subsidies supported by the Centre, which include rice sold at Rs. 3/kg and wheat at Rs. 2/kg. Even if a beneficiary moved to a State where grains were given for free, that person would not be able to access those benefits, as they were funded by the State exchequer.
• In a bid to reduce nutrition deficiencies among beneficiaries, the Centre would roll out a pilot project in 15 districts to fortify rice grains with iron, folic acid, Vitamin A and Vitamin B12. The first fortified grains would be available in ration shops from this November.
• The State governments have also been given a six-month deadline to bring the operations of their depots and warehouses online.
• Ultimately, it would be possible to monitor the entire network of state-owned grain storage facilities, including Central warehouses that were already computerised, using an integrated dashboard. 

Nipah virus: Experimental antiviral drug shows promise

News

• In a new study, researchers have shown that Remdesivir was able to treat four African green monkeys which were given a lethal dose of Nipah virus.

Findings

• Remdesivir is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug which is currently in phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of Ebola.
• Eight monkeys were inoculated with a lethal dose of Nipah virus Bangladesh strain, and, 24 hours later, four of them were treated intravenously with the drug for 12 consecutive days.
• The four animals which were treated with the drug survived. They did not show any clinical signs up to 92 days and the experiment was terminated.
• Though parameters such as body weight and temperature remained unchanged in the two groups, an increased respiration rate and decreased oxygen saturation (oxygen-saturated haemoglobin versus total haemoglobin in the blood) were seen in the non-drug group.
• Remdesivir can stop the virus from making new copies of its genome. Because the genome is an essential part of the virus, the virus cannot replicate itself very well in the presence of the drug, and there is less damage to organs and thus less severe disease.
• Right now, there are two promising antiviral treatments against Nipah virus that could be used in humans soon. The first is a monoclonal antibody developed by Chris Broder and colleagues at the Uniformed Services University in the U.S. The second promising treatment is Remdesivir.
• Both treatments are available as clinical grade material and have been safety tested in humans. These two treatments could thus be tested in Nipah virus patients in the context of a clinical trial.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Indian scientist to be Co-I for NASA’s PUNCH mission

News

• NASA has selected Texas-based Southwest Research Institute to lead its PUNCH mission which will image the Sun.
• This is a landmark mission that will image regions beyond the Sun’s outer corona.

Beyond News

• PUNCH, which stands for “Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere,” is focused on understanding the transition of particles from the Sun’s outer corona to the solar wind that fills interplanetary space.
• The Sun and the solar wind are one interconnected system, but these have until recently been studied using entirely different technologies and scientific approaches.
• The team also plans to observe the Sun using joint observations from PUNCH and Indian mission Aditya, which is underway.
• India is planning to send up its own satellite Aditya-L1, a mission to study the Sun’s corona, and Prof. Banerjee is the co-Chair of the Science Working Group.
• PUNCH will consist of a ‘constellation’ of four suitcase-sized microsats that will orbit the Earth in formation and study how the corona, which is the atmosphere of the Sun, connects with the interplanetary medium. The mission is expected to be launched in 2022.
• The mission will image and track the solar wind and also the coronal mass ejections which are huge masses of plasma that get thrown out of the Sun’s atmosphere. The coronal mass ejections can affect and drive space weather events near the Earth.
• Other missions such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and the ESA-NASA joint project, Solar Orbiter, which is due to be launched in 2020, can study the structures of the Sun’s atmosphere.
• The PUNCH mission enhances these by tracking these structures in real time. Since the Sun’s corona is much fainter than its surface layers, it cannot be viewed by the instruments directly. So PUNCH will block out the light from the Sun to view its corona and the structures in it.

Only 20% of Nirbhaya Fund has been used by States until 2018

News

• The States and Union Territories have utilised less than 20% of the budget allocated to them under the Nirbhaya Fund for safety of women by the Central government between 2015 and 2018, according to official data.

Beyond News

• A sum of ₹1,813 crore has been disbursed by the Centre from 2015 to 2019. Of this, analysed details of ₹854.66 crore disbursed until 2018, for which utilisation details were made available by the Minister of Women and Child Development to the Lok Sabha.
• As per the data, of the ₹854.66 crore released by the Centre, a mere ₹165.48 crore has been spent by various States and UTs on different schemes launched by the Centre as well as other schemes for which the local governments sought funds.
• The Nirbhaya Fund was set up by the UPA-II in the aftermath of the gangrape of a paramedical student in a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012 with an initial corpus of ₹1,000 crore. The Fund supports schemes for safety of women, and over the past six years it has swelled to ₹3,600 crore through allocation in the Finance Budgets. Though the Fund was instituted in 2013, its disbursement gathered pace only from 2015.
• The key schemes under which the States have been allocated money include Emergency Response Support System, Central Victim Compensation Fund, Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children, One Stop Scheme, Mahila Police Volunteer, and Universalisation of Women Helpline Scheme.
• The top five States ranked in terms of utilisation of money across various schemes under the Nirbhaya Fund were Chandigarh (59.83%), Mizoram (56.32%), Uttarakhand (51.68%), Andhra Pradesh (43.23%) and Nagaland (38.17%).
• However, the government data shows more money was utilised by Chandigarh than what was allocated to it under Central Victim Compensation Fund as well as Women Helpline Scheme.
• The worst five States include Manipur, Maharashtra, Lakshadweep which didn’t spend even a single penny and were followed by West Bengal (0.76%) and Delhi (0.84%).
• An analysis of how much the various schemes have taken off in different States shows that none of the 36 States and UTs have spent any money on the Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children programme. The Centre disbursed ₹93.12 crore for this scheme in 2017.
• As many 21 States have not used any money under the Central Victim Compensation Fund for providing support to victims of rape, acid attacks, human trafficking and women killed or injured in cross border firing; ₹200 crore was allocated to 36 States and UTs for the programme with the aim to supplement State governments’ funds as well as to reduce disparity in quantum of compensation.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-04

India abstains from voting on UNGA resolution on goods used for capital punishment, torture

News

• India has abstained from voting on a General Assembly resolution aimed at examining options to end trade in goods used for capital punishment and torture, saying it is unacceptable to place death penalty on par with torture.

Beyond News

• The 193-member UN General Assembly adopted the resolution ‘Towards torture-free trade: examining the feasibility, scope and parameters for possible common international standards’ by a recorded vote of 81 in favour to 20 against, with 44 abstentions.
• By the draft’s terms, the Assembly requested the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States on the feasibility and possible scope of a range of options to establish common international standards for the import, export and transfer of goods used for “capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
• India abstained from voting on the resolution, with First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN Paulomi Tripathi, in the explanation of vote, saying that incorporating capital punishment into the scope of this resolution raises concerns that it may be an attempt to place it on par with torture.
• First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN stressed that India remains firmly committed to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
• First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN told the General Assembly that in India, acts of torture are punishable offence under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Indian judiciary also serves as a bulwark against any such violations of human rights.
• First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN further added that the present draft resolution seeks to establish a link between trade in goods and the criminal acts of torture.
• The subject matter of torture will be given full consideration by UN Member States in the forthcoming GA session and this will include a range of appropriate measures to be taken to prevent and prohibit the production, trade, export, import and use of equipment that has no practical use other than for the purpose of torture.

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