Daily Current affairs: 02 Nov2020

Tables of contents

1.Strategic Policy & Facilitation Bureau (SPFB)

2.D614G Mutation

3.Roshni Act

4.Spiral Galaxy Bars

1.Strategic Policy & Facilitation Bureau (SPFB)

Recently, the Ministry of Ayush released the 'Strategic Policy & Facilitation Bureau (SPFB)'.

About Strategic Policy & Facilitation Bureau (SPFB)

• It is a strategy policy unit of Ministry of AYUSH and M/s Invest India.

• The objective of SPFB is to facilitate planned and systematic growth of the Ayush Sector.

• The bureau will support the Ministry in strategic and policy making initiatives that shall help pave the way to reach the full potential of the Sector and stimulate growth and investment.

• The M/S Invest India would collaborate extensively with the Ministry to frame the work plan of the Bureau and define its short-and long-term targets.

• The activities to be undertaken by the SPFB would include:

  • Knowledge Creation and Management,

  • Strategic & Policy-Making Support,

  • State Policy Bench marking: Undertaking State Policy bench marking to formulate uniform guidelines/regulations regarding AYUSH sector in India,

  • Investment Facilitation: Follow up and facilitation of investment cases and MoUs, and coordination among different Department, organisations and States.

  • Issue Resolution: Invest India would work with companies and other institutions on issue resolution across States and among various sub-sectors.

• The Ministry of AYUSH would assist the Bureau in responding to investment proposal, issue and queries and fund Invest India for undertaking activities assigned.

• The Ministry will also support the Bureau in building links with various stakeholders such as industry associations, affiliate bodies of Ministry and Industry representation.

Source: PIB

2.D614G Mutation

According to a study, one particular mutation called D614G has become the dominant variant in the global COVID-19 pandemic.

About D614G Mutation

• Mutation is a process when the virus enters an individual’s body as it aims at creating copies of itself and makes an error in this copying process.

• Under D614G mutation, the virus replaced the aspartic acid (D) in the 614th position of the amino acid with glycine (G).

• The mutated form of the virus was first identified in China and then in Europe.

• The D614G mutation is situated in the spike protein of the virus.

• The D614G mutation is present in the sub-unit S1 of the protein and is also close to the S2 sub-unit.

• The D614G mutation, which is the defining mutation for clade A2 of the virus, is prevalent in India.

Source: The Hindu

3.Roshni Act

Recently, the J&K government has decided to declare all the actions taken under the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001, also known as the Roshni Act.

Key Highlights of Roshni Act

• The Roshni Act was targeted to earn ₹25,000 crore by transferring 20 lakh kanals of State land to existing occupants against payment at market rates.

• It was implemented with the aim of boosting the farming sector and "generating substantial revenue" for funding power projects.

• The land-related law, popularly known as the Roshni Act, was brought into force in 2001.

• The law aimed to grant ownership rights of public land to occupants.

• The Act also sought the conferment of proprietary rights of around 20.55 lakh kanals of land (1,2,50 hectares) to the occupants.

• The law initially set 1990 as the cut-off year for encroachment on State land, based on which ownership would be granted.

Controversy with Roshni Act

• The Roshni Act declared "unconstitutional" by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court which fell prey to corruption over the course of the last decade.

• The CAG report pointed to irregularities in the implementation of the Act as the cause of its failure to generate the expected revenue.

• The report listed irregularities such as "arbitrary" reduction in prices of the land and said that the reduction was aimed to benefit politicians and other affluent people.

• In the past, politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats have been accused of misusing the Act by transferring public land under their name and that of their family members.

• In 2009, the Jammu and Kashmir vigilance organisation registered an FIR against public officials for "alleged criminal conspiracy to illegally possess and vest ownership of state land to occupants who didn't satisfy the criteria under the Roshni Act.

• The details of the applications received under the Act, the valuation of land, amounts paid by the beneficiary, the orders passed under the act, and the persons in whose favour the vesting was done.

Source: The Hindu

4.Spiral Galaxy Bars

Recently, a researcher from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany has co-authored a paper on barred galaxies.

Key Highlights

• The stars are fundamental building blocks of galaxies and the seeds of these stars are clouds of cosmic dust and gas.

• The stars are scattered all around the galaxies, and the galaxies themselves are of different types i.e. star-forming spiral galaxies and non-star-forming lenticular and elliptical galaxies.

• The Stellar bars in galaxies are clearly visible in early images taken by photographic plates and are known to exist in galaxies from early observations of galaxies.

• The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy and not all spiral galaxies have bars.

• Some of the barred galaxies have shown a higher concentration of newly formed stars which suggests that the bar nurtures star formation.

• The barred spiral galaxies are the one which have a bright line, or bar, running through them.

Spiral Galaxy Formation

• The astronomers have identified the three key processes involved in the formation of galaxies:

  • primordial collapse: the collapse of individual gas clouds early in the history of the Universe.

  • hierarchical clustering: the formation of large galaxies through the merging of many smaller ones.

  • secular evolution: formation as a result of internal processes, such as the actions of spiral arms and bars.

• The formation of spiral galaxies is thought to be a complex process in which the stellar halo, bulge and disks are formed at different times and through different mechanisms.

• The bulge and halo of the Milky Way are composed mostly of old stars which indicate that the bulges and halos of spiral galaxies probably formed through the primordial collapse of individual gas clouds.

• The stars in the disks of spiral galaxies are generally younger than the majority of stars found in the bulge and halo.

• The disks are thought to form after the primordial collapse event responsible for the formation of the spheroidal bulge and halo.

Elliptical Galaxies

 

The elliptical galaxies consist almost entirely of old stars and have shapes that are spheres or ellipsoids.

 

They contain no trace of spiral arms.

 

Their light is dominated by older reddish stars.

 

In the larger nearby ellipticals, many globular clusters can be identified.

 

The dust and emission nebulae are not conspicuous in elliptical galaxies, but many do contain a small amount of interstellar matter.

 

Although individual stars orbit the center of an elliptical galaxy, the orbits are not all in the same direction, as occurs in spirals.

 

Source: The Hindu

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