National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 23rd March 2020

by Mentors4ias · March 23, 2020

Stages of a Pandemic

Topic: Health

In News: Over the past few weeks, the country has been dreading the possibility that the novel coronavirus outbreak will move to the stage of community transmission.

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First Stage:

In the first stage of a disease epidemic that eventually takes the form of a pandemic sweeping the globe, cases are imported into a country in which the infection did not originate. An infection whose spread is contained within the boundaries of one or a few countries is obviously not a pandemic. The first case of COVID-19 outside China was reported in Thailand.

Second Stage:

The second stage is when the virus starts being transmitted locally. Local transmission means that the source of the infection is from within a particular area and the trajectory the virus has taken from one person to the next is clearly established.

Third Stage:

The third stage is that of community transmission. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), community transmission “is evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples (routine systematic testing of respiratory samples from established laboratories)”.
In layman terms, it means that the virus is now circulating in the community, and can infect people with no history either of travel to affected areas or of contact with an infected person.
If and when community transmission happens, there might arise the need for a full lockdown because in that situation it is theoretically possible for every person, regardless of where they are from and who they have been in contact with, to spread the disease.

Fourth Stage:

There is also a fourth stage in every pandemic. It is when the disease, COVID-19 in this case, becomes endemic in some countries. The Indian government’s containment plan takes this possibility into account. Among diseases that are currently endemic in India meaning they occur round the year across the country — are malaria and dengue.

How does categorising an outbreak in this manner help?

The stages of a pandemic are uniform the world over. This is so because in today’s interconnected world, it is important to have a standardised phraseology that conveys the same thing to every person around the world, and helps countries prepare better.
The categorisation helps countries take specific actions that are necessary to target just that particular scenario.
For example, India imposed travel restrictions to China from very early on as the cases then were all imported from China. Later, as cases started being imported from other European countries, flight and visa restrictions were put in place for those countries. India has now shut itself to individuals coming from all countries — this is because the virus is now confirmed as circulating in at least 177 countries and territories.

Source: Hindu

Chennai’s novel waste management Strategy

Topic: Environment and Ecology/Governance

In News: Chennai has initiated a new waste management pilot programme.

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The initiative, in which waste is converted into ash and then this ash is used to make colourful tiles, started as a pilot project at one of the city’s landfill sites, but soon it will be soon replicated at larger landfills in other parts of Chennai.
The advantage of this technology is that it turns a great quantity of waste into a small quantity of ash.
For instance, 10 mt of waste is turned into just 150 kg ash. But waste management doesn’t just stop here. An add on technology converts the ash residue into beautiful tiles and bricks.

Source: Hindu

Quantum Technology

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Indian scientific institutions with some strategic support from Indian industry and philanthropy moving ahead in the quantum technology.

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Background:

Quantum mechanics was developed in the early 20th century to describe nature in the small at the scale of atoms and elementary particles. For over a century it has provided the foundations of our understanding of the physical world, including the interaction of light and matter, and led to ubiquitous inventions such as lasers and semiconductor transistors.
Despite a century of research, the quantum world still remains mysterious and far removed from our experiences based on everyday life.
A second revolution is currently under way with the goal of putting our growing understanding of these mysteries to use by actually controlling nature and harnessing the benefits of the weird and wondrous properties of quantum mechanics.
One of the most striking of these is the tremendous computing power of quantum computers, whose actual experimental realisation is one of the great challenges of our times.
The announcement by Google, in October 2019, where they claimed to have demonstrated the so-called “quantum supremacy”, is one of the first steps towards this goal.

Applications:

Besides computing, exploring the quantum world promises other dramatic applications including the creation of novel materials, enhanced metrology, secure communication, to name just a few.
For example, China recently demonstrated secure quantum communication links between terrestrial stations and satellites.

Where India Stands:

Globally, research in this area is about two decades old, but in India, serious experimental work has been under way for only about five years, and in a handful of locations.

Constraints:

India has been plagued by a lack of sufficient resources, high quality manpower, timeliness and flexibility.

Government Initiatives:

In the Budget 2020 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made announcement of spending ₹8,000 crore (~ $1.2 billion) on a National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications for the next 5 years.
A previous programme called Quantum Enabled Science and Technology has just been fully rolled out, more than two years after the call for proposals. Nevertheless, one has to laud the government’s announcement of this new mission on a massive scale and on a par with similar programmes announced recently by the United States and Europe.

Way Ahead:

There are some limits that come from how the government must do business with public funds. Here, private funding, both via industry and philanthropy, can play an outsized role even with much smaller amounts.
For example, unrestricted funds that can be used to attract and retain high quality manpower and to build international networks all at short notice can and will make an enormous difference to the success of this enterprise.
Further, connections with Indian industry from the start would also help quantum technologies become commercialised successfully, allowing Indian industry to benefit from the quantum revolution.

What is Quantum Technology:

· When you enter the world of atomic and subatomic particles, things begin to behave in unexpected ways. In fact, these particles can exist in more than one state at a time. It’s this ability that quantum computers take advantage of.

· Instead of bits, which conventional computers use, a quantum computer uses quantum bits—known as qubits.

· To illustrate the difference, imagine a sphere. A bit can be at either of the two poles of the sphere, but a qubit can exist at any point on the sphere. So, this means that a computer using qubits can store an enormous amount of information and uses less energy doing so than a classical computer.

· By entering into this quantum area of computing where the traditional laws of physics no longer apply, we will be able to create processors that are significantly faster (a million or more times) than the ones we use today. Sounds fantastic, but the challenge is that quantum computing is also incredibly complex.

· The pressure is on the computer industry to find ways to make computing more efficient, since we reached the limits of energy efficiency using classical methods.

· By 2040, according to a report by the Semiconductor Industry Association, we will no longer have the capability to power all of the machines around the world.

· That’s precisely why the computer industry is racing to make quantum computers work on a commercial scale. No small feat, but one that will pay extraordinary dividends.

Source: Hindu

Fins to Human Hands

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Researchers have revealed new insights into how the human hand evolved from fish fins based on their analysis of an ancient fossil found in Miguasha, Canada.

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The fish specimen has yielded the missing evolutionary link in the transition from fish to four legged animals.
Scientists said this happened during the Late Devonian period, millions of years ago, as fish began to foray in habitats such as shallow water and land.
The 1.57 m long fossil shows the complete arm — pectoral fin — skeleton for the first time in any elpistostegalian fish.
Using high energy X-Ray CT-scans, the scientists assessed the skeleton of the pectoral fin, revealing the presence of a humerus (arm), radius and ulna (forearm), rows of carpus (wrist) and phalanges organized in digits (fingers).
This is the first time that we have unequivocally discovered fingers locked in a fin with fin-rays in any known fish.
The finding pushes back the origin of fingers in vertebrates to the fish level. They said it also reveals that the patterning for the vertebrate hand was first developed deep in evolution, just before fishes left the water.
The evolution of fishes into four-legged vertebrates was one of the most significant events in the history of life.
With this adaptation vertebrates, or back-boned animals, were then able to leave the water and conquer land.

Source: Hindu

Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC2.0) Scheme

Topic: Government Schemes

In News: The Union Cabinet has approved financial assistance to the Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0) Scheme.

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EMC 2.0 is a scheme for development of world class infrastructure along with common facilities and amenities through Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMCs).
It is in line with National Policy for Electronics (NPE), 2019 to make India a global hub for mobile and component manufacturing.
The scheme would support setting up of Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMCs).
The focus is on development of basic infrastructure, amenities and other common facilities for the ESDM sector.
The scheme would also support setting up of Common Facility Centres (CFCs).
They would be set up in an area where a significant number of existing manufacturing units are located.
The focus is on upgrading common technical infrastructure and providing common facilities for the units in EMCs, Industrial Areas/Parks/industrial corridors.

Expected Benefits

A robust infrastructure base for the electronic industry.
New investments in the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector.
Increased employment opportunities in manufacturing units.
Revenue in the form of taxes paid by the manufacturing units.
Help development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Drive innovation and catalyze the economic growth of the country.

Source: PIB

Bailey suspension bridge over Teesta river

Topic: Infrastructure Development

In News: The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has opened a 360 feet long bailey suspension bridge over Teesta river in Munshithang, Sikkim.

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The construction was commenced under Project Swastik.
The bridge will help the state tourism in growing and facilitate the movement of logistics for the Armed Forces deployed in the state.

· Teesta River is a 315 km (196 mi) long river that rises in the eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.

· It forms the border between Sikkim and West Bengal. It joins the Jamuna River at Fulchhari in Bangladesh.

Source: PIB