CURRENT AFFAIRS 17 MAY 2021

1. PLACENTA

A new study in pregnant women who received the Covid-19 vaccine found no evidence of injury in the placenta. The finding adds to growing literature that Covid-19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy.

About:

Placenta is a key organ in pregnancy. The placenta is the first organ that forms during pregnancy.
It performs duties for most of the foetus’s organs while they are still forming, such as providing oxygen while the lungs develop and nutrition while the gut is forming.
Additionally, the placenta manages hormones and the immune system, and tells the mother’s body to welcome and nurture the foetus rather than reject it as a foreign intruder.

Important Info :

The safety of administering Covid-19 vaccines to women during pregnancy remains the subject of study. While India’s vaccination protocol recommends against pregnant and lactating women taking the vaccine, some countries such as the US and Brazil does not bar such women.

Source : Indian Express

2. WINCHCOMBE METEORITE

A piece of the Winchcombe meteorite that touched down in the town of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire in the UK in February 2021 will be displayed at the National History Museum.

What is a meteorite?

Meteoroids are objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids.
But when meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere they are called meteors.
But if a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and hits the ground, it is called a meteorite.

How was the meteorite discovered?

The piece of meteorite, which is a 103 gram fragment of black rock resembling coal, was found in a field by one Mira Ihasz and a team from the University of Glasgow.
The meteorite landed in the driveway of a house located in Gloucestershire in February and considered “astonishingly rare”.

What is the significance of this meteorite?

It dates back to the birth of the solar system nearly 4.5 billion years ago and therefore examining it may offer scientists clues about the beginning of the solar system and maybe even the Earth.
Winchcombe is also significant because it is the meteorite to have fallen and recovered from the UK in about 30 years.
Further, this type of meteorite is known as a carbonaceous meteorite and out of about 65,000 known meteorite types, only about 1,000 are of this particular type.

Source : Indian Express

3. LIGHTNING AND ANIMAL DEATHS

Recently, 18 elephants died on a hilltop in Assam. The preliminary post-mortem report indicates they had been struck by lightning.

How does lightning kill animals?

Lightning may injure or kill animals in a number of ways such as:

Direct Flash: An animal in an open field may be struck directly by lightning if part of its body protrudes over other objects in the vicinity. Taller animals are more vulnerable.
Side Flash: When lightning strikes a tall object such as a tree, it may generate a side flash that can strike an animal standing underneath the tree.
Touch Potential: If one part of a tall animal’s body is in contact with the ground while another part, at a higher elevation, comes in contact with a lightning-struck object, a partial current may pass through its body.
Step Potential: The most common lightning hazard among four-legged animals. When an animal’s front and hind feet are far enough apart, a partial current may pass through the body in certain circumstances.

Important Info :

Are elephants particularly vulnerable? Since an elephant’s front and hind feet are wide apart, it would appear to make it more vulnerable than a smaller animal, such as a rat.
The Bamuni Hill in Assam, where the elephants died, has no tall trees that could have taken the brunt of the lightning strike.

Source : Indian Express

4. COMMON CRANE

More than three centuries after it disappeared from Ireland, the common crane, a bird that is part of its folklore and was a popular pet during medieval times, has returned to the island nation.

About:

A pair of cranes was spotted last year on a restored peat bog –a type of wetland that is mostly found in northern latitude countries. The birds are in Ireland’s Midlands region, but their exact location has been kept secret to protect them.
Cranes stand at 4 feet tall with a wingspan of over 7 feet, and used to be the largest birds in Ireland. Although they were once common, the destruction of their habitat saw them disappear around the 16th and 17th century.

Why is bog restoration important?

Bogs (also called quagmires) are soft, spongy wetlands that accumulate peat– a fossil fuel that is used for heating homes and businesses in northern Europe. They are formed in northern climates, and take thousands of years to develop.
Bogs also act as carbon sinks, sequestering around 200 million tons of carbon from the environment in Siberia and Scandinavia.
For centuries, however, they have been drained for extracting peat or for development, leading to the destruction of their delicate ecosystems, including damage to species such as cranes that breed here.

Source : Indian Express

5. M. S. NARASIMHAN

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has expressed grief over the demise of Professor M. S. Narasimhan.

About:

Mudumbai Seshachalu Narasimhan (1932 – 2021) was an Indian mathematician.
He is known, along with C. S. Seshadri, for their proof of the Narasimhan–Seshadri theorem, which says that a holomorphic vector bundle over a Riemann surface is stable if and only if it comes from an irreducible projective unitary representation of the fundamental group.
He headed the research group in Mathematics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. He was a honorary fellow at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Awards

He has been the only Indian to receive the King Faisal International Prize in the field of science.
Spirit of Salam award (2020)
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1975)
Padma Bhushan (1990)

Source : PIB

6. URVI

The tunneling work gets completed by Tunnel Boring Machine [TBM ] in East West Metro Corridor with the breakthrough of “Urvi“ at Bowbazar, Kolkata on 15.05.2021.

About:

With this breakthrough the entire TBM tunneling for the Kolkata East-West Metro Project is completed.
The Tunnel Boring Machine ‘Urvi’ which had earlier completed East Bound tunnel from Esplanade to Sealdah on 09.10.2020 was relaunched from Sealdah after necessary refurbishment and inspection on 09.01.2021 to complete the balance 800 m tunneling work in West Bound tunnel from Sealdah to Bowbazar.

Source : PIB

7. ARTICLE 311

Suspended police officer Sachin Waze, arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the Mukesh Ambani terror scare case, was dismissed from service by Mumbai Police Commissioner under Article 311 (2) (b) of the Indian Constitution without a departmental enquiry.

What are the safeguards that article 311 provides civil servants?

Article 311 says that no government employee either of an all India service or a state government shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to the own that appointed him/her.
Section 2 of the article says that no civil servant shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank except after an inquiry in which s/he has been informed of the charges and given a reasonable opportunity of being heard in respect of those charges.

What is the process of a departmental enquiry?

In a departmental enquiry, after an enquiry officer is appointed, the civil servant is given a formal chargesheet of the charges. The civil servant can represent himself/herself or choose to have a lawyer.
Witnesses can be called during the departmental enquiry following which the enquiry officer can prepare a report and submit it to the government for further action.

Are there other exceptions where a person can be dismissed without departmental enquiry?

As per Article 311 subclause 2 provision a, if a government employee is convicted in a criminal case, he can be dismissed without DE.
Apart from this, under 311 (2) (c), a government employee can be dismissed when the President or the Governor, as the case may be, is satisfied that in the interest of the security of state it is not expedient to hold such an enquiry, the employee can be dismissed without DE.

Source : Indian Express

8. HELMAND

Fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces resumed in the restive southern province of Helmand, ending a three-day ceasefire agreed by the warring sides to mark the Id-ul-Fitr holiday.

About:

Helmand is also known as Hillmand or Helman and, in ancient times, as Hermand and Hethumand.
It is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, in the south of the country.
It is the largest province by area. The province contains 13 districts.
Lashkargah serves as the provincial capital. The Helmand River flows through the mainly desert region of the province, providing water used for irrigation. The Kajaki Dam, which is one of Afghanistan's major reservoirs, is located in the Kajaki district.
Helmand is believed to be one of the world's largest opium-producing regions, responsible for around 42% of the world's total production.
Since the 2001 War in Afghanistan, Helmand Province has been a hotbed of insurgent activities. It has been considered to be Afghanistan's "most dangerous" province.

Source : The Hindu

9. DOOMSDAY SCROLLING

As Covid-19 has struck back to ravage our surroundings, most of us find ourselves continuously scrolling through pandemic-related news and social media feed — almost compulsively. That is what is called “doomscrolling” or “doomsday scrolling”.

About:

Doomsday Surfing refers to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening or depressing.
Many people are finding themselves continuously reading bad news about Covid-19 without being able to stop, even sacrificing their crucial sleep time or working hours in the process.
while it may keep us updated and also help us mobilise resources, it also nudges us towards an exaggerated sense of gloom and doom.
The term has been gaining momentum lately.

Source : Indian Express

17 MAY 2021 CURRENT AFFAIRS | UPSC CDS CAPF NDA AFCAT SSB

CURRENT AFFAIRS 17 MAY 2021

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