Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Beti Bachao scheme extended to 10 districts in Tamil Nadu

News

• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), a Central scheme aimed at arresting and reversing the decline in Child Sex Ratio (CSR), has been extended to 10 more districts in Tamil Nadu.

Beyond News

• Launched in January 2015, the scheme, at present, covers only Cuddalore.
• These10 districts districts, which will see multi-sectoral intervention in the coming months, will get ₹50 lakh each for the implementation of the scheme.
• Even though the State average of CSR of 943 girl children to 1000 boy children at the age group of 0 to 6 is higher than the all-India figure of 918 as per the 2011 Census, six districts have figures below the national average.
• With the extension of the scheme to 10 districts, all the six have been covered. The Central government has advised the State to conduct media advocacy and outreach in the remaining 21 districts also.
• The BBBP scheme, essentially envisaging awareness generation, has stipulated targets that can be monitored.
• Among the targets of relevance to Tamil Nadu are improvement in the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) by two points in a year; increase in the nutrition status of girls by reducing the number of underweight and anaemic girls under 5 years of age; training elected representatives/ grassroots functionaries as community champions to mobilise communities to improve CSR; and providing functional toilets for girls in every school in selected districts.
• The scheme has to be carried out through the involvement of other departments and agencies such as health, school education and local bodies. A task force, which consists of government officials without any non-official representative, is in place to monitor the progress of the scheme.

Nepal tops in India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy: Modi

News

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured Nepal that it is at the top of India’s ”Neighbourhood First” policy as he announced a  ₹ 100 crore package to develop Janakpur – a sacred city for Hindus – while invoking mythological links between the two countries.

Beyond News

• Janakpur is believed to be the birth place of Sita, Lord Rama’s consort.
• Modi, who earlier with his Nepalese counterpart K.P. Sharma Oli jointly inaugurated a direct bus service between Janakpur and Ayodhya — the two sacred cities for Hindus, said he was happy to link Janakpur with the Ramayan Circuit.
• This circuit will develop religious tourism. It also will strengthen connectivity between the two nations.
• Prime Minister announced that two other circuits would also be developed for the promotion of the areas related to Buddhism and Jain religion in both Nepal and India, which would be instrumental in generating employment for the youths.
• Prime Minister also said Nepal and India could benefit if they cooperated and worked together for the promotion of five Ts: Tradition, Trade, Tourism, Technology and Transport. He underlined the need for linking Nepal and India through highway, I- way or Information, Railway, Trans way or electric connectivity, waterway and airway.
• Prime Minister said India would build a railway link between Raxaul in Bihar and Kathmandu to facilitate people-to-people contact and movement of goods.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Navy to opt for Big Data, AI in operational functioning

News

• At the biannual Naval Commanders’ Conference, the Navy has finalised plans to incorporate Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence into its operational functioning.

Beyond News

• The conference also saw the inauguration of a new digital library available across the Navy for “knowledge management and retrieval including archiving of critical data and information.”
• Besides, senior Admirals also discussed the issues of “security and hardening of naval data networks in keeping with contemporary cybersecurity practices.”
• The conference was inaugurated by Defence Minister, who said the Indian Navy was a “force to reckon with in the Indo-Pacific region.”
• Defence Minister also assured the naval leadership that efforts to bridge critical capability gaps in ship-borne helicopters, fleet support ships and submarines would be progressed by the government.
• The spokesperson said the need for approval of the second indigenous aircraft carrier for the Navy was discussed at the conference.
• This project, along with the other shipbuilding projects already under way or in the pipeline including mine counter measure vessels, landing platform dock, anti-submarine shallow water craft, diving support vessels and survey vessels, are expected to provide a major thrust to the ‘Make-in-India’ initiative of the government, the Navy said.

Machine to keep harvested liver alive longer

News

• Replacing the cold preservation technique and keeping the organ (liver) alive up to 24 hours after it has been removed from the donor, OrganOx, a company spun out of the University of Oxford and its partner in India, Duraent Lifesciences have come up with a new state-of-the-art liver transplant technology.

Beyond News

• The procedure is called Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP), which pumps oxygenated blood and nutrients into the liver and helps in overcoming the risk of graft injuries associated with preservation in ice.
• Being deployed for the first time in India and Asia, the machine will help livers donated by brain-dead people survive longer and enable doctors to test how well they function while on the machine prior to transplant, thereby boosting the chances of successful transplantations.
• The first transplant in India took place last month at Aster CMI Hospital, Bengaluru. The patient (56) made a quick recovery and was discharged in a couple of weeks.
• Earlier, the harvested livers were flushed with preservation fluid and then stored on ice, at times resulting in damage of the cells, especially when preserved for more than 10-12 hours.
• With this new technology doctors will get livers for transplantation without damage [of cells].

Cyber security tools developer to hire 500

News

• Cyber security tools developer BluSapphire set up an Advanced Threat Research Centre (ATRC) and Security Operation Centre (SOC) facility in Hyderabad.

Beyond News

• The ATRC and SOC facility would “actively test latest malware techniques used by attackers and develop defence techniques using Advanced Machine Learning models”.
• The company, with offices in the U.S. and Hyderabad, has a headcount of 40 at present in India, which includes 10 at the new facility.
• With the new facility’s opening, the company is well placed to consolidate its technological capabilities and build more vertical-based research teams to augment product development for companies in the fields of defence, finance, manufacturing, pharma and education as well as for SMEs.

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