National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 27th March 2020

States asked to use cess fund to help construction workers

Topic: Economy

In News: India rolled out a ₹1.7 trillion relief package, amounting to about 1% of its gross domestic product to limit the economic damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak and tackle the loss of livelihood of millions of poor hit by an unprecedented 21-day nationwide lockdown.

More on the Topic:

• The relief package, under a newly framed Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Yojana, aims to alleviate the financial pain faced by migrant workers, farmers, urban and rural poor and women.

The scheme comprises the following components:

• Health care Workers: The Centre would provide Rs. 50 lakh medical insurance cover for the next three months for about 22 lakh health workers in government hospitals fighting the spread of the virus at personal risk.
• The health workers include ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers, medical sanitary workers in government hospitals, paramedics, nurses and doctors.
• Food Security (PM Gareeb Kalyan Ann Yojana): Each person who is covered under the National Food Security Act would get an additional food gain and pulses through the Public Distribution System (PDS). This is expected to benefit about 80 crore people.
• Cash Transfers and Other Benefits over Next Three Months: About 3 crore poor pensioners above 60 years, widows and disabled people would be given ₹1000 in two instalments. The 20 crore women holding Jan Dhan Yojana accounts would get ₹500 a month. The 8.3 crore poor households, which received cooking gas connections under the Ujjwala scheme, would get free gas cylinders.
• Workers: Wages are being hiked under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme, from ₹182 to ₹202 a day.
• The Centre is directing the States to use the ₹31,000 crore held by Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Boards to provide support to the 3.5 crore registered workers.
• The States can also use the money available under District Mineral Funds for medical screening, testing and treatment.
• Land-owning Farmers: The first instalment of ₹2000 due to them under the PM-KISAN income support scheme will be paid promptly in April, the first month of the financial year.
• Companies & SHGs: For small companies with 100 employees or less, of whom 90% earn less than ₹15,000 a month, the Centre will bear the cost of both employer and employee contribution (a total of 24%) to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) for the next three months. This will benefit 80 lakh employees, and incentivise 4 lakh establishments.
• Collateral free loans provided for women self-help groups under the National Rural Livelihood Mission are being doubled to ₹20 lakh, potentially benefiting seven crore households.

Concerns:

• Farmers are facing both lower crop prices due to a coronavirus-induced market collapse, and higher harvesting costs on account of labour shortages from the lockdown, no new benefit has been announced for them in the package.
• Another challenge for the government will be to locate and deliver support to the migrant workers, many of whom are trekking hundreds of kilometres to their homes or lining up at shelters for a meal.
• Corporate sector and middle class people not being beneficiaries.
• When daily wage earners are supposed to remain at their homes (lockdown), the only way to compensate them under MNREGA is through unemployment allowance.

Way Ahead:

• Globally, many countries had announced stimulus packages involving 10-12% fiscal expansions. In comparison, this package is only about 0.75% of India’s GDP, which is marginal.
• The Government should now turn its focus towards businesses that are running out of cash and may soon default on even salaries and statutory commitments if relief is not given.
• Next phase of stimulus should not be delayed beyond the next couple of days.

Source: Livemint

Bio fortified crops

Topic: Agriculture

In News: Scientists from Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune have developed a biofortified durum wheat variety MACS 4028, which shows high protein content.

More on the Topic:

• The wheat variety has high protein content of about 14.7%, better nutritional quality having zinc 40.3 ppm, and iron content of 40.3ppm and 46.1ppm respectively, good milling quality and overall acceptability.
• It is a semi-dwarf variety, which matures in 102 days and has shown the superior and stable yielding ability. It is resistant to stem rust, leaf rust, foliar aphids, root aphids, and brown wheat mite.

About Bio Fortification:

• Biofortification is the idea of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding, or through genetic engineering.
• Biofortification differs from ordinary fortification because it focuses on making plant foods more nutritious as the plants are growing, rather than having nutrients added to the foods when they are being processed.
• This is an important improvement on ordinary fortification when it comes to providing nutrients for the rural poor, who rarely have access to commercially fortified foods.
• As such, biofortification is seen as an upcoming strategy for dealing with deficiencies of micronutrients in low and middle-income countries. In the case of iron, WHO estimated that biofortification could help curing the 2 billion people suffering from iron deficiency-induced anemia

Wheat Cultivation in India – New Developments: ·         Wheat crop in India is grown under six diverse agroclimatic zones. In the peninsular zone of India (Maharashtra and Karnataka states), wheat cultivation is majorly done under rainfed and limited irrigation conditions. Under such conditions, the crop experiences moisture stress. ·         Hence, there is a high demand for drought-tolerant varieties. Efforts for the development of high yielding, early maturing varieties with good quality and disease resistance for rainfed conditions are carried out under All India coordinated Wheat and Barley improvement programme, governed by the Indian Council of Agriculture Research. ·         The MACS 4028 is an outcome of such intervention for the farmers.

Source: PIB

Government hospital tests humanoid robot

Topic: Health

In News: Humanoid robot trials were carried out by Government hospital Jaipur to check whether robot could be used for delivering medicines and food to the COVID-19 patients admitted.

More on the topic:

• The robot at SMS Hospital uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) to do its job. It doesn’t need to follow lines on the floor and can navigate its own way.
• It can supposedly use the lift and reach a particular bed in a specific ward. When it starts running out of power, it heads towards the charging point.
• If approved, the robot would help in keeping the doctors and nursing staff at a safe distance to protect them against the dreaded coronavirus.
• The medicos and paramedical staff are at higher risk of being infected with the virus despite wearing protective gear.

Humanoid Robot: A humanoid robot is a robot with its body shape built to resemble the human body. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other purposes.

Source: Hindu

Legacy Waste

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: A report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on legacy waste management with reference to three dumpsites in New Delhi was made public recently.

More on the Topic:

• Legacy wastes are the wastes that have been collected and kept for years at some barren land or a place dedicated for Landfill (an area to dump solid waste).
• Legacy wastes not only occupy large space, but also become a breeding ground for pathogens, flies, malodours and generation of leachate, which may lead to water contamination.
• They also contribute to generation of greenhouse gases and pose risk of uncontrollable fire.

This waste can be roughly grouped into four categories:

• Contained and/or stored waste (contained or stored waste are wastes in tanks, canisters, and stainless steel bins).
• Buried waste.
• Contaminated soil and groundwater
• Contaminated building materials and structures.
• Bio-mining method has been proposed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for the effective disposal of legacy wastes.

Bio Mining: ·         Biomining is a technique of extracting metals from ores and other solid materials typically using prokaryotes or fungi. These organisms secrete different organic compounds that chelate metals from the environment and bring it back to the cell where they are typically used to coordinate electrons. ·         Some microbes can use stable metals such as iron, copper, zinc, and gold as well as unstable atoms such as uranium and thorium. Companies can now grow large chemostats of microbes that are leaching metals from their media, these vats of culture can then be transformed into many marketable metal compounds. ·          Biomining is an environmentally friendly technique compared to typical mining. Mining releases many pollutants while the only chemicals released from biomining is any metabolites or gasses that the bacteria secrete. ·         The same concept can be used for bioremediation models. Bacteria can be inoculated into environments contaminated with metals, oils, or other toxic compounds. The bacteria can clean the environment by absorbing these toxic compounds to create energy in the cell. ·         Microbes can achieve things at a chemical level that could never be done by humans. Bacteria can mine for metals, clean oil spills, purify gold, and use radioactive elements for energy.

Source: Down to Earth

Invest India Business Immunity Platform

Topic: Economy

In News: India’s national investment promotion and facilitation agency, Invest India, has launched the Business Immunity Platform (BIP) to match the demand and supply of medical necessities during the time of coronavirus pandemic.

More on the Topic:

• The platform, hosted on the Invest India website, is designed as a comprehensive resource to help businesses and investors get real-time updates on India’s active response to COVID-19 (Coronavirus).
• Invest India has also announced a partnership with SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank of India) for responding and resolving queries for MSMEs.

About Invest India: ·         Invest India is the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency of India and acts as the first point of reference for investors in India. ·         It is set up as a nonprofit venture under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Government of India. ·         Operationalized in early 2010, Invest India is set up as a joint venture company between the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry (35% equity), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) (51% equity), and State Governments of India (0.5% each). ·         Thus, essentially, Invest India is a private company, unlike India Brand Equity Foundation – another investment promotion agency in India set up by the same Ministry – Ministry of Commerce & Industry. Functions: ·         The core mandate of Invest India is investment promotion and facilitation. ·         It provides sector-specific and state-specific information to a foreign investor, assists in expediting regulatory approvals, and offers hand-holding services. ·         Its mandate also includes assisting Indian investors to make informed choices about investment opportunities overseas. ·         Its experts, specializing across different countries, Indian states and sectors, handhold investors through their investment lifecycle ⎯ from pre-investment to after-care.

 Source: Indian Express

DRDO Develops Ventilators

Topic: Health/ Science and Technology

In News: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a ventilator and plans to produce 5,000 of them per month to treat COVID-19 patients.

More on the Topic:

• DRDO developed a ventilator along with the Society for Biomedical technology (SBMT), its technology has been transferred to the industry. An industry in Mysuru is producing the secondary version of that ventilator.
• A ventilator is a machine designed to provide mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently.

Source: Hindu