18-04-2020 Daily Current Affairs & News Analysis
Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced NBFCs get â‚ą50,000-cr. liquidity booster The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced a host of measures to provide liquidity support to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), apart from giving them certain benefits for loans extended to the commercial real estate sector. About: Banks have to invest the funds availed under targeted long-term repo operation (TLTRO), in investment grade bonds, commercial paper, and non-convertible debentures of NBFCs. Small and mid-sized NBFCs and micro-finance institutions (MFIs) should receive at least 50% of these funds. Banks can avail â‚ą50,000 crore through the targeted long-term repo operation. The first auction of TLTRO for â‚ą25,000 crore will be conducted on April 23. The RBI has also decided to provide special refinance facility of â‚ą50,000 crore to NABARD, SIDBI and NHB to enable them to meet sectoral credit needs. The regulator has also allowed non-banking institutions to extend the date for commencement for commercial operations (DCCO) by an additional one year, without treating the same as restructuring, if the project is delayed due to reasons beyond the control of the promoter. Source :Â The Hindu (Economy) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy The scientist who visualised the first human coronavirus was virologist June Almeida
The scientist who visualised the first human coronavirus was virologist June Almeida. She pioneered the technique of electron microscopy, used for viral diagnosis, and became the first individual to see the human coronavirus in 1965. About: June Dalziel Almeida (1930 – 2007) was a Scottish virologist who, with little formal education, became a Doctor of Science and a pioneer in virus imaging, identification and diagnosis. She discovered a new type of coronavirus. She published Manual for rapid laboratory viral diagnosis in 1979. Almeida produced the first images of the rubella virus using immune-electronmicroscopy. David Tyrrell and Almeida worked on characterising a new type of coronavirus. This family includes the SARS virus and the SARS-CoV2 virus that causes COVID-19. Source : Indian Express (Science & Technology) The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines for people who are at increased risk of getting severely ill from Covid-19
About: These include those who are 65 years or older, people with chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma, those with heart disease and immunocompromised people. in some people, the immune system is weakened, which means that their immune systems cannot function efficiently and therefore, make it difficult to recover or in some cases, may lead to more severe outcomes. Such people are said to be immunocompromised and there can be various reasons for this, such as cancer treatment, existing comorbidities, age and genetics among other. Important Info : Cytokine Storm? Conversely, reports have indicated that in some Covid-19 patients, even seemingly healthy ones, death has occurred probably due to a cytokine storm.This is when the immune system goes into overdrive, thereby damaging even healthy tissue, leading to multiple organ failure, sepsis and potentially, even death.Essentially this means that the immune system needs to be working in a controlled manner to be efficient in fighting off infection. Source :Â Indian Express (Science & Technology) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Union Agriculture Minister launched Kisan Rath Mobile App to facilitate transportation of foodgrains and perishables during lockdown
About: This mobile application is developed by the National Informatics Centre to facilitate farmers and traders in searching transport vehicles for movement of Agriculture and Horticulture produce. Transportation will become easier with this app as it will help farmers and traders for transporting produce from farm gate to mandi and mandi to mandi all over the country. The App will also facilitates traders in transportation of perishable commodities by Refrigerated vehicles. This Mobile App will be made available in eight languages in Android version initially, and is ready for pan-India use. Source : All India Radio (Economy) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Centre for Fire Explosive & Environment Safety (CFEES), Delhi along with HPO 1, using its expertise in mist technology for fire suppression, has developed automatic mist based sanitiser dispensing unit
About: It is a contactless sanitiser dispenser which sprays alcohol based hand rub sanitiser solution for sanitisation of hands while entering the buildings/office complexes, etc. It is based on water mist aerator technology, which was developed for water conservation. The unit operates without contact and is activated through an ultrasonic sensor. A single fluid nozzle with low flow rate is used to generate aerated mist to dispense the hand rub sanitiser. This sanitises the hands with minimum wastage. Using atomiser, only 5-6 ml sanitiser is released for 12 seconds in one operation and it gives the full cone spray over both palms so that disinfection operation of hands is complete. Source : All India Radio (Science & Technology) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences (DIPAS) and Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences (INMAS), DRDO laboratories in Delhi have designed & developed Ultraviolet C Light based sanitisation box and hand held UV-C (ultraviolet light with wavelength 254 nanometres) device
About: The UV-C consists of a shorter, more energetic wavelength of light. It is particularly good at destroying genetic material in COVID-19. The radiation warps the structure RNA which prevents the viral particles from making more copies of themselves. The UV-C kills microbes quickly. Sanitisation of the items by employing UV-C light avoids the harmful effects of the chemicals used for the disinfection. This is environment friendly and is a contact free effective sanitisation method. The UV-C box is designed for disinfecting personal belongings like mobile phone, tablets, purse, currency, cover of office files, etc. COVID-19 virus will be deactivated by using UVC lamps in one minute placed equi-distantly in a box with UV dose of 100 mJ/cm2. Source : All India Radio (Science & Technology) One more institute of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has started whole-genome sequencing of novel coronavirus
About: Chandigarh-based Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTech) has taken up the task of large-scale genome sequencing of the virus. Earlier, the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and the Institute of Genomic and Integrated Biology had started working on it. The whole-genome sequencing is a method used to determine the complete DNA sequence of a specific organism’s genome. The complete genome sequence information will enable researchers to gain insights about the origins of the virus, the different types of strains circulating in India and how it has spread across the length and breadth of the country. The genomic resource obtained from this sequencing will also allow identification of new targets for diagnosis and drugs for COVID-19. Important Info : So far, 9000 samples have been sequenced internationally as per Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) - a public platform started by the WHO in 2008 for countries to share genome sequences. Source : All India Radio (Science & Technology) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy INST have developed a stable material for pseudocapacitors or supercapacitors which store electrical energy by electron charge transfer About: The material can offer a low-cost scalable energy storage solution as an alternative to batteries. Pseudocapacitors are a type of supercapacitors which store electrical energy by electron charge transfer. The team has developed the pseudocapacitive material, a hybrid xerogel structure (a solid formed from a gel by drying with unhindered shrinkage), for the very first time. The hybrid material was fabricated by the integration of a well-known organic molecule, dopamine onto a conductive matrix, like graphene. This class of xerogel architectures, although reported in the literature as alternatives to conventional pseudocapacitors, lack sufficient cycling stability to replace batteries in the consumer market. Source : All India Radio (Science & Technology) Over 10 crore people have been excluded from the Public Distribution System (PDS) because outdated 2011 census Over 10 crore people have been excluded from the Public Distribution System (PDS) because outdated 2011 census data is being used to calculate State-wise National Food Security Act (NFSA) coverage, according to economists Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera About: Under the NFSA, the PDS is supposed to cover 75% of the population in rural areas and 50% of the population in urban areas, which works out to 67% of the total population, using the rural-urban population ratio in 2011. India’s population was about 121 crore in 2011 and so PDS covered approximately 80 crore people. However, applying the 67% ratio to a projected population of 137 crore for 2020, PDS coverage today should be around 92 crore. Even taking into account growing urbanisation, the shortfall would be around 10 crore people. With the 2021 census process being delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis, any proposed revision of PDS coverage using that data could now take several years. Source : The Hindu (Economy) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Amidst the steep fall in the rupee and the continuing volatility in other segments of the financial market, Reserve Bank of India announced several regulatory measures About: RBI Governor announced to slash the reverse repo rate from 4 per cent to 3.75 per cent while keeping the repo rate unchanged. He also announced 50,000 crore rupees booster package for small and medium-sized industries to recover from the lockdown. The period of resolution plan for NPAs will be extended by 90 days and the loans given by NBFCs to real estate companies will get similar benefit as given by the scheduled commercial banks. These measures will help to maintain liquidity in the system, facilitate and incentivize bank credit flows, ease financial stress and enable formal working of markets. Source : All India Radio (Economy) Daily Current affairs and News Analysis Read more and Latest Current affairs Contact Vignan IAS Academy Enroll For IAS Foundation Course from Best IAS Academy in Bangalore Read the full article
