Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 18th Feb 2022

NEWS

Karnataka Health Department has relaunched its cochlear implant programme that had come to a standstill since 2018-2019.

COCHLEAR IMPLANT SCHEME

• Under the original programme titled “Shravanadosha Mukta Karnataka” (Deafness Free Karnataka) started in 2016-2017, a hundred cochlear implant surgeries had been done for children under the age of six years
• However, the programme came to a halt in 2018 due to lack of funds
• Recently , under the programme, a three-year-old male child from Ramanagaram underwent the surgery at the State-run K C General Hospital
• State was using funds from the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), a centrally-funded scheme, for the implants
• Programme was implemented through the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST). However, the State stopped receiving funds for this scheme in 2018 on the grounds of duplication of schemes

COCHLEAR IMPLANT

• WHAT - Implanted electronic hearing device, designed to produce useful hearing sensations to a person with severe to profound nerve deafness by electrically stimulating nerves inside the inner ear.

These implants usually consist of 2 main components:

• The externally worn microphone, sound processor and transmitter system.
• The implanted receiver and electrode system, which contains the electronic circuits that receive signals from the external system and send electrical currents to the inner ear.

NEWS

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has relaxed the eligibility criteria for accreditation of higher educational institutions.

ACCREDITATION

• Quality check exercise
• Through a multi-layered process steered by the NAAC, a higher education institution gets to know whether it meets certain standards of quality
• Set by the evaluator in terms of curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, research and financial well-being among others
• NAAC gives institutions grades ranging from A++ to C
• If an institution is graded D, it means it is not accredited
• Apart from recognition, being accredited also helps institutions attract capital as funding agencies look for objective data for performance funding
• Helps students going for higher education abroad as many global higher education authorities insist on recognition and accreditation of the institution where the student has studied

HOW MANY INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA ARE ACCREDITED?

• There are 1,043 universities and 42,343 colleges listed on the portal of the All India Survey on Higher Education
• As of February 8, there were 392 universities and 8,483 colleges that were NAAC-accredited.
• Among the states, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of accredited colleges at 1,796, which is more than twice as many as the Karnataka’s 864, the next highest. Tamil Nadu has the most accredited universities at 43.

WHAT ARE THE CURRENT RULES FOR ACCREDITATION?

• Under the rules before the new guidelines were issued, only higher education institutions that are at least six years old, or from where at least two batches of students have graduated, could apply for accreditation with NAAC
• Accreditation is valid for five years
• Aspiring institutes need to be recognised by the UGC and have regular students enrolled into their full-time teaching and research programmes
• There are only 12 universities and 64 colleges that have been reviewed by the NAAC four times, with a gap of five years between each grading
• When an institution undergoes the accreditation process for the first time it is referred to as Cycle 1, and the subsequent five-year periods as Cycles 2, 3 and so on
• Distance education units and offshore campuses are not covered under the accreditation process.

AND WHAT WILL THE NEW GUIDELINES CHANGE?

• Under the new manual, colleges and universities that have completed even one academic year will be eligible to apply for a newly created category of ‘Provisional Accreditation for Colleges’ or PAC.
• NAAC believes PAC will help realise the goal of the National Education Policy, 2020 to accredit all higher education institutes in India in a phased manner.
• National Education Policy envisages a National Accreditation Council under which many independent accreditation bodies will function other than NAAC. The PAC, which will not offer any grading, will be valid for two years, and institutions cannot get it more than two times.

 NEWS

Tamil Nadu has made it clear to the Supreme Court that it does not want the Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO) to be set up in a sensitive ecological zone in the Western Ghats at a great cost to wildlife and biodiversity, and by ignoring the local opposition to the project.

INDIAN NEUTRINO OBSERVATORY

• Multi-institutional effort
• Aimed at building a world-class underground laboratory with a rock cover of approx.1200 m
• For non-accelerator based high energy and nuclear physics research in India
• Initial goal of INO is to study neutrinos
• Jointly funded by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST)

WHAT IT INCLUDES

• Construction of an underground laboratory and associated surface facilities at Pottipuram in Bodi West hills of Theni District of Tamil Nadu
• Construction of an Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector for studying neutrinos
• Setting up of National Centre for High Energy Physics at Madurai, for the operation and maintenance of the underground laboratory, human resource development and detector R&D along with its applications
• Operation of INO will have no release of radioactive or toxic substances. It is not a weapons laboratory and will have no strategic or defence applications

NEUTRINOS

Proton, neutron, and electron are tiny particles that make up atoms

WHAT -

• Tiny elementary particle
• Not part of the atom
• Has a very tiny mass and no charge
• Interacts very weakly with other matter particles
• Come from the sun (solar neutrinos) and other stars, cosmic rays that come from beyond the solar system, and from the Big Bang from which our Universe originated
• Can also be produced in the lab.
• INO will study atmospheric neutrinos only
• Solar neutrinos have much lower energy than the detector can detect.

APPLICATIONS OF NEUTRINO SCIENCE

• Properties of the sun: The visible light is emitted from the surface of the sun and neutrinos, which travel close to the speed of light, are produced in the core of the sun. Studying these neutrinos can help us understand what goes on in the interior of the sun.
• Constituents of the Universe: Light coming from distant stars can be studied by astronomers, for example, to detect new planets. Likewise, if the properties of neutrinos are understood better, they can be used in astronomy to discover what the universe is made up of.
• Probing early Universe: Neutrinos interact very little with the matter around them, so they travel long distances uninterrupted. The extragalactic (originating outside the Milky Way galaxy) neutrinos we observe may be coming from the distant past. These undamaged messengers can give us a clue about the origin of the universe and the early stages of the infant universe, soon after the Big Bang.
• Medical Imaging: Apart from direct future uses of neutrinos, there are technological applications of the detectors that will be used to study them. For instance, X-ray machines, MRI scans, etc., all came out of research into particle detectors. Hence the INO detectors may have applications in medical imaging.

NEWS

India’s first water taxi service was inaugurated in Maharashtra recently, that connects the Navi Mumbai area to mainland Mumbai

DETAILS

WHAT - small boat on a river or other area of water, operated by a person who you pay to take you where you want to go

WHO IS IMPLEMENTING - Joint initiative of Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) and Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB)

BENEFIT –

• Long drive or the commute time between Navi Mumbai to Mumbai will be cut down by 75 percent.
• This will provide an alternative mode of travel for commuters moving between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, besides road and rail.
• The water taxis will take about 30 minutes to complete a single journey, which will significantly lower the commute time between Mumbai and its satellite township.

NEWS

National Institute of Animal Biotechnology, Hyderabad developed Fluorine Doped Tin Oxide (FTO) electrode fabricated with reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) for as an electrochemical based immunosensor for the rapid, sensitive and specific detection of the Non-Structural 1 (NS1) secretory protein, which is suitable biomarker for Japanese encephalitis virus found circulating in the blood and has been reported to elicit an immune response.

DETAILS

• NS1 protein was expressed in E. coli, characterised, and immunized in rabbits to raise the polyclonal antibodies
• NS1 Antibodies were purified from serum, characterized, and used as the bioreceptor to fabricate the electrode with reduced graphene oxide as a conductivity enhancing nanomaterial for the detection of JEV NS1 antigen (Ag)
• The fabricated immunosensor was also specific towards JEV NS1Ag as compared to other flaviviral NS1Ag. Therefore, the proposed immunosensor could be a promising candidate for the development of an accurate, and rapid, diagnosis for specific and sensitive detection of JEV from clinical samples

JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS VIRUS

• Most common encephalitides worldwide
• Caused by a mosquito-borne flavivirus and is found across south and east areas of Asia
• Zoonosis – an animal disease that can spread to humans
• Transmitted to humans through the bite of infected Culex mosquitoes, which lay their eggs in irrigated rice paddies and other pools of stagnant water
• Pigs and birds serve as amplifying vertebrate hosts
• Humans are believed to be dead-end hosts
• The disease outbreak usually occurs during the rainy season
• Case-fatality rate in severe clinical cases is estimated to be 20–30%, with young children (< 10 years) having a greater risk of severe disease and death.

BIOMARKERS

• Short for biological marker
• Refers to a measurable indicator of some biological state or condition
• Often measured and evaluated to examine normal biological processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention.

Application:

• Biochemical biomarkers are often used in clinical trials, where they are derived from bodily fluids that are easily available to the early phase researchers.
• They are also used in pre-clinical work to identify compounds that appear to modulate disease in in vivo models and therefore might be tried in human clinical trials.
• Disease-related biomarkers give an indication of the probable effect of treatment on patients.

NEWS

Inviting Taiwanese companies to make more investments in Karnataka, Large and Medium Industries Minister promised to extend support and cooperation of the state government

INDIA – TAIWAN RELATIONS

ECONOMIC TIES

• India’s huge market provides Taiwan with investment opportunities. Taiwan’s reputation as the world leader in semiconductor and electronics complements India’s leadership in ITES (Information Technology-Enabled Services).
• India’s recent strides in the ease of business ranking not only provide Taiwan with lucrative business opportunities but also help it mitigate its over-dependence on one country for investment opportunities.

Tourism

• India and Taiwan need to deepen people-to-people connect.
• Tourism is the key tool in this exchange.
• The Buddhist pilgrimage tour needs better connectivity and visibility, in addition to showcasing incredible India’s diversity. This will accelerate the flow of Taiwanese tourists.
• With the Taiwan Tourism Bureau partnering with Mumbai Metro, Taiwan is trying to raise awareness about the country and increase the inflow of Indian tourists.

Air Pollution

• Taiwan could be a valuable partner in dealing with this challenge through its bio-friendly technologies.
• Such methods are applied to convert agricultural waste into value-added and environmentally beneficial renewable energy or biochemicals.
• This will be a win-win situation as it will help in dealing with air pollution and also enhance farmers’ income.
• Further, New Delhi and Taipei can also undertake joint research and development initiatives in the field of organic farming.

TAIWAN

• Taiwan - the Republic of China (ROC)
• Island off the southern coast of China that has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949
• Neighbours include China (officially the People’s Republic of China, PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south.
• Most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations and the largest economy outside the UN.
• 5th largest economy in Asia’s
• Global leader in chip manufacture and the second-largest manufacturer of IT hardware, etc.

• Actor Darshan appointed as ambassador of Zoo Authority of Karnataka
• The Supreme Court set aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court order staying a controversial State law which provides 75% reservation for local youth in private sector jobs paying less than ₹30,000 a month.
• Kuwait’s constitutional court has struck down a contentious law long used to criminalise transgender people by forbidding the “imitation of the opposite sex.” The law had set the maximum penalty for cross-dressing at one-year in prison or a fine of USD 3,300.