Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: OPCW
Mains level: Usual turmoil in Syria
The global chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has for the first time explicitly blamed Syria for chemical attacks.
What did the report say?
- President Bashar al-Assad’s air force used the nerve gas sarin and chlorine three times in 2017.
- The findings came in the first report from a new investigative team set up by the OPCW to identify the perpetrators of attacks in Syria’s ongoing nine-year-long civil war.
About OPCW
- The OPCW is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force on 29 April 1997.
- The organisation is not an agency of the United Nations but cooperates both on policy and practical issues.
- The OPCW, with its 193 member states, has its seat in The Hague, Netherlands, and oversees the global endeavour for the permanent and verifiable elimination of chemical weapons.
- It promotes and verifies the adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits the use of chemical weapons and requires their destruction.
- It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its work in Syria and says it has eliminated 97 per cent of the world’s chemical weapons.
- The OPCW has the power to say whether chemical weapons were used in an attack it has investigated. In June 2018, it granted itself new powers to assign blame for attacks.
Back2Basics: Syrian Crisis
- The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Ba’athist Syrian Arab Republic led by Bashar al-Assad and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government.
- Even before the conflict began, many Syrians were complaining about high unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under Assad.
- In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by the “Arab Spring” in neighbouring countries.
- When the government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president’s resignation erupted nationwide. The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified.
- Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. Assad vowed to crush what he called “foreign-backed terrorism”.
- The violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TrueNat
Mains level: Not Much
‘Truenat’, a diagnostic machine used to test drug-resistant TB has now been approved by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for conducting Covid-19 tests.
Truenat
- The Truenat TB test is a new molecular test that can diagnosis TB in one hour as well as testing for resistance to the drug rifampicin.
- This test for TB uses a sputum sample taken from each patient.
- It is a small battery operated device which requires minimal training and is usable even in smaller settings such as the Primary Health Centre.
- It uses a chip-based technology and takes just up to 60 minutes for a test, screening or confirmatory.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Assamese Gamosa
Mains level: Not Much
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the Assamese gamosa, a decorative cotton towel, evolve from memento to mask.
Gamosa
- The Gamosa is an article of significance for the people of Assam.
- It is generally a white rectangular piece of cloth with primarily a red border on three sides and red woven motifs on the fourth (in addition to red, other colors are also used).
- Although cotton yarn is the most common material for making/weaving gamosas, there are special occasion ones made from Pat silk.
Types
- Assam has traditionally had two types of gamosas the uka and the phulam.
- The uka or plain kind is used to wipe sweat or dry the body after a bath.
- The phulam is decorated with floral motifs to be gifted as a memento or during festivals such as Bihu.
Significance
- Cultural historians say the gamosa came to symbolise Assamese nationalism in 1916 when the Asom Chatra Sanmilan, a students’ organisation was formed, followed by the Assam Sahitya Sabha, a literary body.
- Wearing the phulam gamosa around the neck became a standard for cultural identity.
- Thegamosa’s graph as a symbol of protest rose during the anti-foreigners Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985.
- The gamosa staged a comeback as a political statement with the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act from mid-December 2019.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SAMADHAN Challenge
Mains level: NA
A mega online challenge – SAMADHAN – has been launched to test the ability of students to innovate.
“Samadhan” Challenge
- The Innovation Cell of the Ministry of HRD and All India Council for Technical Education in collaboration with Forge and InnovatioCuris has launched this online challenge.
- Under the challenge, the students and faculty will be motivated for doing new experiments and new discoveries and provide them with a strong base leading to spirit of experimentation and discovery.
- The students participating in this challenge will search and develop such measures that can be made available to the government agencies, health services, hospitals and other services for quick solutions to the Coronavirus epidemic and other such calamities.
- Apart from this, through this challenge, work will be done to make citizens aware, to motivate them, to face any challenge, to prevent any crisis and to help people get livelihood.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Coronabonds, Eurozone
Mains level: Not Much
The coronavirus pandemic has revived the acrimonious debate between euro zone countries about jointly issuing debt through instruments called Coronabonds.
Coronabonds
- Coronabonds are proposed debt instruments amongst EU member states, with the aim of providing financial relief to Eurozone countries battered by the coronavirus.
- They aim to meet healthcare needs and address the deep economic downturn that is set to follow.
- The funds would be mutualised and supplied by the European Investment Bank, with the debt taken collectively by all member states of the European Union.
- The euro zone jointly issues debt through its bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, which borrows on the market against the security of its paid-in and callable capital provided by euro zone governments.
Back2Basics
What is Eurozone?
- The Eurozone officially called the euro area is a monetary union of 19 of the 27 European Union (EU) member states which have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender.
- The monetary authority of the Eurozone is the Eurosystem.
- It consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Drive-through Testing
Mains level: Coronovirus outbreak and its mitigation
To work around the challenges of home-based testing in the country, a New Delhi based firm has offered ‘drive-through test’ for COVID-19.
Drive-through Testing
- Those who feel sick drive up to a test centre where nurses wearing protective gear collect a nose or throat sample from the car itself.
- Results are mailed or messaged in a day.
- This method of mass testing has allowed reduced contact between patients and healthcare workers, thereby lessening the chances of transmission.
- South Korea has led the world in the number of tests per million to check for coronavirus infection through this method.
Germany: leading through examples
- Germany is conducting around 3,50,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other country.
- It means that more people with few or no symptoms are reported thereby increasing the number of known cases and adequate quarantines.
Limitations (for India)
- We have seen so far is that many are uncomfortable with the home collection process.
- Some people are worried that lab personnel visiting home in full protective gear would scare the neighbours.
- There are also instances when spouses of some healthcare personnel have separated for a while.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pink Supermoon
Mains level: NA
A supermoon is all scheduled to show up in the sky on April 7. It would be the biggest and brightest full moon of 2020.
Pink Supermoon
- According to NASA, a supermoon takes place when a full moon is at its closest to the Earth.
- When the full moon appears at perigee (closest point from the earth) it is slightly brighter and larger than a regular full moon — and that is what we call a “supermoon.”
- They are called Supermoons because they are 7 per cent bigger and 15 per cent brighter, compared to an average full Moon.
- The moon will not be originally pink in colour. It got its name from the pink wildflowers – Wild Ground Phlox – that bloom in the spring and are native to North America.
- It is also called Paschal moon because, in the Christian calendar, this is used to calculate the date for Easter – the first Sunday after the Paschal Moon is Easter Sunday.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Tropical Butterfly Conservatory
Mains level: Significance of butterflies for ecosystem
The Tropical Butterfly Conservatory Tiruchirappalli (TBCT) has been developed in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchirappalli to create awareness among the public about the importance of the butterfly and its ecology.
Tropical Butterfly Conservatory
- The TBC is located in the Upper Anaicut Reserve Forest, sandwiched between the Cauvery and Kollidam rivers in Tiruchirappalli.
- It was inaugurated during November 2015 at Tiruchirappalli with the objective of propagating the importance of butterflies and conserving the biodiversity of the district through environmental education.
- It is spread over 27 acres and is considered to be Asia’s largest butterfly park.
- The park has an outdoor as well as indoor conservatory, a ‘Nakshatra Vanam’ and a ‘Rasi Vanam’ in addition to a breeding lab for non-scheduled species.
- So far, about 109 butterfly species have been observed here.
Conservation measures
- Eggs of non-scheduled butterfly species are collected and bred in captivity in the in-house incubation laboratory by keeping them in ventilated plastic containers with the leaves of host plants as feed.
- After attaining the transformation of larva (caterpillar) and pupa (transition), the adult butterfly finally comes out with gorgeous colours and at this stage they are released into the natural habitat.
- Non-scheduled butterfly species are bred and released by the park authorities into their natural surroundings.
Significance of butterflies
- Butterflies are known for their intrinsic, aesthetic, educational, scientific, ecological, health and economic values.
- As butterflies form an important part of nature’s food web, it is very essential to protect the species for ecological balance.
- They play a key role in the pollination of plant species, the global food chain depends on their well-being.
Various threats
- The major threats to butterfly diversity are destruction, degradation and fragmentation of their habitats, grazing, fires and application of pesticides and weedicides in agricultural and urban ecosystems.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Operation Sanjeevani
Mains level: India-Maldives Relations
An Indian Air Force (IAF) C-130J transport aircraft o delivered 6.2 tonne of essential medicines and hospital consumables to Maldives under Operation Sanjeevani.
Operation Sanjeevani
- At the request of the govt. of Maldives, the IAF aircraft activated Operation Sanjeevani and lifted these medicines from airports in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Madurai before flying to the Maldives.
- Among other things, these medicines include influenza vaccines, anti-viral drugs such as lopinavir and ritonavir — which have been used to treat patients with COVID-19 in other countries.
- The flights are being operated on commercial basis following demands from pharmaceutical companies and their intermediaries and will carry cargo on inbound as well as outbound flights.
- The cargo operations will help the airline earn some revenue at a time there is a ban on passenger flights and the entire fleet is grounded.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BCG Vaccine
Mains level: Coronovirus and the hunt for its vaccine
According to a US-based research, a combination of reduced morbidity and mortality could make the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination a “game-changer” in the fight against novel coronavirus.
What is BCG Vaccine?
- Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine is a vaccine primarily used against tuberculosis (TB).
- In countries where TB or leprosy is common, one dose is recommended in healthy babies as close to the time of birth as possible.
- In areas where tuberculosis is not common, only children at high risk are typically immunized, while suspected cases of tuberculosis are individually tested for and treated.
How can TB vaccine help fight COVID-19?
- The BCG vaccine contains a live but weakened strain of tuberculosis bacteria that provokes the body to develop antibodies to attack TB bacteria.
- This is called an adaptive immune response, because the body develops a defense against a specific disease-causing microorganism, or pathogen, after encountering it.
- Most vaccines create an adaptive immune response to a single pathogen.
- Unlike other vaccines, the BCG vaccine may also boost the innate immune system, first-line defenses that keep a variety of pathogens from entering the body or from establishing an infection.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CCI Green Channel
Mains level: Not Much
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has received a request for merger of a company following green channel combination route.
What is a Green Channel Route?
- In a bid to facilitate mergers and acquisitions (combination) in the country, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has taken inspiration from the customs department and established a ‘green channel’.
- Every Combination above a certain threshold, seeking to be sanctioned has to necessarily pass the CCI scanner in order to be approved.
- The CCI characterizes the ‘green channel’ as an automatic system of approval for Combinations wherein the Combination is deemed to be approved upon filing the notice in the format prescribed.
- The ‘green channel automatic approval upon notification route’ is a right step by CCI towards the propaganda of ease of doing business in India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Countercyclical Capital Buffers (CCyB)
Mains level: Various minimum capital requirements measures
The RBI has announced that banks need not activate countercyclical capital buffers (CCyB) amid slowdown due to COVID-19 outbreak.
What is Countercyclical Capital Buffer (CCyB)?
- A capital buffer is a mandatory capital that financial institutions are required to hold in addition to other minimum capital requirements.
- CCyB is the capital to be kept by a bank to meet business cycle related risks. It is aimed to protect the banking sector against losses from changes in economic conditions.
- Banks may face difficulties in phases like recession when the loan amount doesn’t return.
- To meet such situations, banks should have own additional capital. This is an important theme of the Basel III norms.
CCyB framework in India
- The framework on CCyB was put in place by the RBI in terms of guidelines issued in 2015 wherein it was advised that the CCyB would be activated as and when the circumstances warranted.
- The framework envisages the credit-to-GDP gap as the main indicator, which is used in conjunction with other supplementary indicators.
- It requires banks to build up a buffer of capital in good times, which may be used to maintain flow of credit to the real sector in difficult times.
- The buffer was also meant to restrict the banking sector from indiscriminate lending in the periods of excess credit growth, which have often been associated with the building up of system-wide risk.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: WMA
Mains level: Tools for countering cash-flow mismatches
The RBI has raised the Ways and Means Advances, or WMA, limit by 30% for all States and UTs to enable them to tide over the crisis caused by COVID-19 outbreak.
What are Ways and Means Advances?
- The RBI gives temporary loan facilities to the centre and state governments as a banker to the government. This temporary loan facility is called WMA.
- It is a mechanism to provide to States to help them tide over temporary mismatches in the cash flow of their receipts and payments.
- It was introduced on April 1, 1997, after putting an end to the four-decade-old system of adhoc (temporary) Treasury Bills to finance the Central Government deficit.
- Under Section 17(5) of RBI Act, 1934, the RBI provides Ways and Means Advances (WMA) to the central and State/UT governments.
How is WMA availed?
- This facility can be availed by the government if it needs immediate cash from the RBI.
- The WMA is to be vacated after 90 days.
- The interest rate for WMA is currently charged at the repo rate.
- The limits for WMA are mutually decided by the RBI and the Government of India.
Types of WMA
There are two types of WMA — (1) Normal and (2) Special :
- Special WMA or Special Drawing Facility is provided against the collateral of the government securities held by the state.
- After the state has exhausted the limit of SDF, it gets normal WMA. The interest rate for SDF is one percentage point less than the repo rate.
- The number of loans under normal WMA is based on a three-year average of actual revenue and capital expenditure of the state.
Back2Basics
How the govt. meets temporary cash needs?
The fund deficit or cash-flow mismatches of the Government are largely managed through:
- Issuance of Treasury Bills
- Getting temporary loans from the RBI called Ways and Means Advances (WMA) and
- Issuance of Cash Management Bills (CMBs)
- Treasury Bills are short term (up to one year) borrowing instruments of the Government of India which enable investors to park their short term surplus funds while reducing their market risk.
- CMBs are short term bills issued by the central government to meet its immediate cash needs. The bills are issued by the RBI on behalf of the government having a maturity of less than 90 days.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Price Monitoring and Research Unit (PMRU)
Mains level: Drug prices monotoring mechanisms in India
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has set up price monitoring and resource unit (PMRU) in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. With this J&K has become the 12th State/UT where the PMRU has been set up.
Price Monitoring and Research Unit (PMRU)
- It is a registered society set up for drug price monitoring.
- PMRUs have already been set up by the drug price regulator NPPA in 11 states such as Kerala, Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Nagaland, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Mizoram.
Its composition
- The State Health Secretary would be the Chairman of the society and the Drugs Controller would be its member secretary.
- Its members include a State government representative, representatives of private pharmaceutical companies, and those from consumer rights protection fora.
- The society would also have an executive committee headed by the Drugs Controller.
Terms of reference
PMRU offers technical help to the State Drug Controllers and the NPPA to:
- Monitor notified prices of medicines
- Detect violation of the provisions of the DPCO
- Look at price compliance
- Collect test samples of medicines, and
- Collect and compile market-based data of scheduled as well as non-scheduled formulations.
Why need PMRU?
- Pharma companies have been accused of overcharging prices of drugs in the scheduled category fixed by the DPCO and those outside its ambit too.
- The suggestion to set up PMRUs was made against the backdrop of the lack of a field-level link between the NPPA and the State Drugs Controllers and State Drug Inspectors to monitor drug prices.
Expected outcomes
- The NPPA had fixed the prices of around 1,000 drugs and the unit would track if buyers were being overcharged.
- It would also check if pharma companies were hiking the prices of non-scheduled drugs by more than 10% a year.
- It will check if there is any shortage of essential medicines.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Voluntary Retention Route (VRR), Fully Accessible Route (FAR)
Mains level: Not Much
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced a separate channel, namely ‘Fully Accessible Route’ (FAR), to enable non-residents to invest in specified government bonds with effect from April 1.
Fully Accessible Route (FAR)
- The move follows the Union Budget announcement that certain specified categories of government bonds would be opened fully for non-resident investors without any restrictions.
- Under FAR, eligible investors can invest in specified government securities without being subject to any investment ceilings.
- This scheme shall operate along with the two existing routes, viz., the Medium Term Framework (MTF) and the Voluntary Retention Route (VRR).
Benefits
- This will substantially ease access of non-residents to Indian government securities markets and facilitate inclusion in global bond indices.
- This would facilitate inflow of stable foreign investment in government bonds.
Back2Basics
Voluntary Retention Route (VRR)
- RBI had announced a separate scheme called VRR to encourage Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) to undertake long-term investments in Indian debt markets.
- Under this scheme, FPIs have been given greater operational flexibility in terms of instrument choices besides exemptions from certain regulatory requirements.
- The details are as under:
- The aggregate investment limit shall be ₹ 40,000 crores for VRR-Govt and ₹ 35,000 crores for VRR-Corp.
- The minimum retention period shall be three years. During this period, FPIs shall maintain a minimum of 75% of the allocated amount in India.
- Investment limits shall be available on tap for investments and shall be allotted by Clearing Corporation of India Ltd. (CCIL) on ‘first come first served’ basis.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sodium hypochlorite, Bleaching Powder
Mains level: Coronovirus outbreak and its mitigation
In Uttar Pradesh, migrant workers travelling to their home states, or their belongings, were sprayed with a disinfectant, apparently to sanitise them. The chemical in the spray was a sodium hypochlorite solution.
Sodium hypochlorite
- Sodium hypochlorite is commonly used as a bleaching agent, and also to sanitise swimming pools.
- As a common bleaching agent, sodium hypochlorite is used for a variety of cleaning and disinfecting purposes.
- It releases chlorine, which is a disinfectant. Large quantities of chlorine can be harmful.
- The concentration of the chemical in the solution varies according to the purpose it is meant for.
- A normal household bleach usually is a 2-10% sodium hypochlorite solution.
- At a much lower 0.25-0.5%, this chemical is used to treat skin wounds like cuts or scrapes. An even weaker solution (0.05%) is sometimes used as a handwash.
Note: The common bleaching powder is chemically referred to as Calcium hypochlorite and not Sodium hypochlorite.
Is the chemical safe?
- Sodium hypochlorite is corrosive and is meant largely to clean hard surfaces.
- It is not recommended to be used on human beings, certainly not as a spray or shower. Even a 0.05% solution could be very harmful for the eyes.
- A 1% solution can cause damage to the skin of anyone who comes in contact with it.
- If it gets inside the body, it can cause serious harm to lungs.
Does the chemical get rid of the novel coronavirus?
- The WHO recommends homemade bleach solutions of about 2-10% concentration to clean hard surfaces to clear them of any presence of the novel coronavirus.
- Cleaning hard surfaces with this solution can disinfect them not just from novel coronavirus but also help prevent flu, food born illnesses, and more.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Moratorium Option
Mains level: Not Much
The RBI has permitted banks to allow moratorium of three months on payment of instalments in respect of all loans including home, car and personal loan among others.
What exactly this moratorium means?
- Both the loan principal and interest are covered under the moratorium. This applies to all loans outstanding on March 1.
- We must note that this is a postponement, not a waiver.
- RBI’s wordings clearly say that the tenor for term loans across the board may be shifted by three months. This essentially means the loan will end 3 months later than was originally slated.
- Essentially, it means that payees won’t be treated as a defaulter even if you don’t pay your EMI till May 2020, and your CIBIL score won’t be affected.
- This moratorium period will not come free, and since the interest will continue to accrue on the outstanding portion of the loan during the moratorium period, it may increase the customers’ burden significantly.
The installments include:
- principal and/or interest components;
- bullet repayments;
- Equated Monthly installments;
- credit card dues
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Earth Hour
Mains level: Climate activism
The Earth Hour, observed annually on the last Saturday of March, was recently celebrated.
Earth Hour
- Earth Hour is a worldwide movement organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
- It is held annually encouraging individuals, communities, and businesses to turn off non-essential electric lights, for one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on a specific day towards the end of March as a symbol of commitment to the planet.
- It was started as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia, in 2007.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PM-CARES Fund
Mains level: Not Much
Our PM has called for donations to the newly instituted PM-CARES Fund which has been formed on popular demand to help fight the novel coronavirus.
PM-CARES Fund
- The fund will be a public charitable trust under the name of ‘Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund’.
- The PM is Chairman of this trust and members include the Defence Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister.
- Contributions to the fund will qualify as corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending that companies are mandated to make.
- The Fund accepts micro-donations as well.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Indian Scientists’ Response to CoViD-19 (ISRC)
Mains level: Not Much
Several Indian scientists have come together to form a Google group to address some of the concerns that the COVID-19 outbreak has thrown up.
Indian Scientists’ Response to CoViD-19 (ISRC)
- It is a voluntary group of scientists who regularly discuss the rapidly evolving situation with its dire need for science communication.
- With nearly 200 members, the group has scientists from institutions such as the NCBS, the IISc, the TIFR, the IITs, the IISERs and many others.
- The group aims to study existing and available data to bring out analyses that will support the Central, State and local governments in carrying out their tasks.
Self-assigned tasks
- Several working groups have been formed by scientists.
- They include one on hoax busting to address disinformation spreading with respect to the coronavirus and one on science popularization to develop material that explains concepts such as home quarantine.
- Other groups work on resources in Indian languages, mathematical models and apps.
Why such a group?
- The scientific community has realized their social and democratic responsibility in the current situation, both in terms of analysing the situation and reaching out to the public.
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