Current Affairs 08-07-2020

Border Road Organization (BRO):

What is in news?

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh review the progress of various infrastructure projects under construction in border areas.

About :

• The Border Roads has also inducted latest equipment and machines and has introduced modern construction methods after successful trials to expedite works on surfacing with cementations base, use of plastics, geotextiles, etc and various techniques for slope stabilisation.
• Trials have also been carried out successfully for indigenously produced modular bridges in collaboration with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) under Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.

What is BRO ?

• Functioning under the control of the Ministry of Defence since 2015, the BRO is engaged in road construction to provide connectivity to difficult and inaccessible regions in the border areas of the country.

• It is staffed by officers and troops drawn from the Indian Army’s Corps of Engineers, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Army Service Corps, Military Police and army personnel on extra regimental employment.

• Engineering Service and personnel from the General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF) form the parent cadre of the Border Roads Organisation.

• Currently, the organisation maintains operations in twenty-one states, one UT (Andaman and Nicobar Islands), and neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

• The BRO operates and maintains over 32,885 kilometres of roads and about 12,200 meters of permanent bridges in the country.

SankalpParv

What is in news?

• To commemorate SankalpParv, Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism  Shri Prahlad Singh Patel planted trees in Qila Rai Pithora and the National Archives of India.

• He represent the herbal heritage of our country are the trees such as (i) “Bargad” (ii) “Awla” (iii) “Pepal” (iv) “Ashok” (v) “Bel”.

Additional Info:

• Recently, the government has announced implementation of the Nagar Van (Urban Forest) Scheme which aims to develop 200 Urban Forests across the country in the next five years.

• The Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Act was passed in 2016 to manage the funds collected for compensatory afforestation which till then was managed by Ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).

• Compensatory afforestation means that every time forest land is diverted for non-forest purposes such as mining or industry, the user agency pays for planting forests over an equal area of non-forest land, or when such land is not available, twice the area of degraded forest land.

• The National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB - under the Ministry of AYUSH) intends to establish herbal gardens of various types to popularize the usefulness of commonly available and frequently used medicinal plants among the various stakeholders.

• The Jajpur district administration in Odisha has made plantation a mandatory precondition for granting licenses for eight services including society registration, license for minor minerals, setting up crusher units, purchase of new vehicles, issuance of solvency certificate, etc.

Paris Agreement

What is in news?

The fourth edition of the virtual Ministerial on Climate Action witnessed countries exchanging views on how countries are aligning economic recovery plans with the Paris Agreement and the critical enabling conditions to ensure continued climate action.discussions on the full implementation of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to demonstrate continued political commitment to global climate action.

Paris Agreement:

• Paris Agreement comes under the broad umbrella of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). UNFCCC is a convention held in 1992 to combat climate change. Kyoto Protocol (1997) was another major international commitment under UNFCCC.

• Paris Agreement is an international agreement to combat climate change.

• From 30 November to 11 December 2015, the governments of 195 nations gathered in Paris, France, and discussed a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus reduce the threat of dangerous climate change.

• The 32-page Paris agreement with 29 articles is widely recognized as a historic deal to stop global warming.

India's work:

• India has achieved reduction of 21% in emission intensity of its GDP between 2005 and 2014, thereby achieving its pre-2020 voluntary target.Further, India’s renewable energy installed capacity has increased by 226% in last 5 years and stands more than 87 Gigawatt.“The share of non-fossil sources in installed capacity of electricity generation increased from 30.5% in March 2015 to 37.7% in May 2020 and our Prime Minister has further announced the aspirational target of increasing our renewable energy capacity to 450 GW.”,

• India has also leapfrogged from Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) to Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) emission norms by April 1, 2020 which was earlier to be adopted by 2024.

Golden birdwing

What is in news?

A Himalayan butterfly named golden birdwing is now India’s largest, a record the southern birdwing held for 88 years.

About:

• With a wingspan of 194 mm, the female of the species is marginally larger than the southern birdwing (190 mm). But the male golden birdwing (Troides aeacus) is much smaller at 106 mm.

• While the female golden birdwing was recorded from Didihat in Uttarakhand, the largest male was from the Wankhar Butterfly Museum in Shillong.

• According to the authors of the study, the only measurement used in the study of Lepidoptera is wingspan — a simple concept with various interpretations of the term.

ZyCoV-D

What is in news?

The Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSO), the National regulatory body for Indian Pharmaceuticals and medical devices, has granted approval to Zydus Cadila to initiate phase I and II human clinical trials in India for its potential COVID-19 vaccine ‘ZyCoV-D.’

About:

• The Zydus’ vaccine ZyCoV-D has been developed indigenously at the company's Vaccine Technology Centre in Ahmedabad after completing the pre-clinical phase.

• This is the second potential vaccine after Bharat Biotech COVAXIN which got the approval for human clinical trials.

CogX AWARDS

What is in news?

India’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled MyGov Corona Helpdesk has bagged two awards at the Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI and Emerging Technology, CogX 2020.

About:

• MyGov is the world’s largest citizen engagement platform, which facilitates two-ways communication between the Government and Citizen and facilitates participatory governance in India.

• In the fight against Covid-19, MyGov, JioHaptik Technologies Limited and WhatsApp team collaborated to develop AI enabled MyGov Corona Helpdesk.

• AI enabled MyGov Corona Helpdesk bagged two awards under categories of Best Innovation for Covid-19 - Society and People’s Choice Covid-19 Overall Winner.

What is CogX?

• CogX is a prestigious Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI and Emerging Technology held annually in London. The Cogx Awards are given out to the best-of-the-best in AI and emerging technologies across the world.

ONEWEB

What is in news?

A U.K. government consortium led by Bharti Enterprises has won the bid to acquire bankrupt satellite technology company OneWeb. Bharti’s overseas arm Bharti Global would invest $500 million as part of the acquisition, with the U.K. putting in a similar amount.

About:

• OneWeb is a global communications company founded by Greg Wyler.

• The company is headquartered in London, United Kingdom and McLean, Virginia, United States.

• OneWeb was formed with a mission to offer high speed, low latency wireless broadband access to billions of people across the globe, especially in rural areas through a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit.

T CELL

What is in news?

A new study has found that even the sickest Covid-19 patients produce T cells that help fight the virus.

About:

• A T cell is a type of lymphocyte, which develops in the Thymus gland.

• T cells are a key component of the immune system and their roles include killing infected host cells, activating other immune cells, and regulating the immune response.

Kawasaki disease

What is in news?

In India and elsewhere, a new illness, with some symptoms common with the rare Kawasaki disease, has been affecting children with Covid-19.

Multisystem Inflammatory Disorder

• The first such cases started getting reported since April, from the US and Europe.

• Doctors in India have started seeing such cases over the last few weeks. Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) termed this new illness “multisystem inflammatory disorder”.

Kawasaki disease?

• Kawasaki disease affects children.

• Its symptoms include red eyes, rashes, and a swollen tongue with reddened lips — often termed strawberry tongue — and an inflamed blood vessel system all over the body. There is constant high fever for at least five days. The disease also affects coronary functions in the heart.

• The disease derives its name from a Japanese paediatrician, Tomisaku Kawasaki, who reported the first case in 1961. The doctor, 95, died on June 5 this year in Tokyo.

SEABED 2030 PROJECT

What is in news?

The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project announced that it had finished mapping nearly one-fifth of the world’s ocean floor. Since the launch of the project in 2017, the surveying of the ocean bed as per modern standards has gone up from around 6 per cent to 19 per cent.

About:

• Bodies involved: Seabed 2030 is a collaborative project between the Nippon Foundation of Japan and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO).

• The project was launched at the United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference in 2017.

• It aims to bring together all available bathymetric data to produce the definitive map of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all.

•  Knowing the depth and shape of the seafloor (bathymetry) is fundamental for understanding ocean circulation, fishing resources, sediment transport, environmental change, underwater geo-hazards, mineral extraction, oil and gas exploration etc.

Additional  Info :

• The Nippon Foundation of Japan is a non-profit philanthropic organisation active around the world.

• General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) is an international group of mapping experts which operates under the joint auspices of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). GEBCO is the only intergovernmental organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor.