India is facing a severe coal shortage. Background: India is the second-largest importer, consumer and producer of coal, and has the world’s fifth-largest reserves. It mainly imports from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa. How bad is the situation? The situation is “touch and go”, and could...
The National Health Authority (NHA), the apex body for implementing the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna(AB-PMJAY), has revised the Health Benefit Package (HBP) Master under the scheme. In the revised version of Health Benefit Package (HBP 2.2): Rates of some packages have been increased by 20% to...
The 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistrywas awarded to Benjamin List and David W C MacMillan “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis”. Firstly, what is a catalyst? And what is catalysis? A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without taking part in the reaction,...
RTS, S/ASO1 (RTS.S), trade name Mosquirix was recently endorsed by the world health organatision (WHO). It is the first and, to date only, vaccine shown to have the capability of significantly reducing malaria, and life-threatening severe malaria, in tests on young African children. About Mosquirix: The vaccine acts against falciparum the most...
The Union Government has proposed certain amendments to the existing Forest Conservation Act. Proposed changes: Absolve agencies involved in national security projects and border infrastructure projectsfrom obtaining prior forest clearance from the Centre. Such a permission is necessary under the Forest Conservation Act (FCA). Exempt land acquired before 1980— before...
Three scientists — Syukuro Manabe (90) and Klaus Hasselmann (89) and Giorgio Parisi (73) — have been awarded the Nobel Prize for physics 2021. This is the first time climate scientists have been awarded the Physics Nobel. Manabe and Hasselmann were awarded for their work...
A total of 845 COVID-19 orphans have so far been identified and approved for receiving benefits under the PM CARES Fund. About the Scheme: Launched in May 2021. The scheme has been launched for support & empowerment of Covid affected children. Eligibility: All children who have lost both parents...
Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has launched a Drone-Based vaccine delivery model named, Drone Response and Outreach in North East (i-Drone). Drone is a layman terminology for Unmanned Aircraft (UA). There are three subsets of Unmanned Aircraft- Remotely Piloted Aircraft, Autonomous Aircraft and...
Recently, Amazon has unveiled its ‘Astro’ home robot, which is designed to help customers with a range of tasks like home monitoring and keeping in touch with family. However, civil society has highlighted the concerns of privacy issues of 24×7 surveillance. About Astro Robot: Astro is primed to be a home security...
Recently, several prominent Indian names have been included in the Pandora Papers leak. There are over 300 Indian names in the leak, including over 60 prominent ones. Pandora Papers are 9 million leaked files from 14 global corporate services firms which set up about 29,000...
