19th April 2020 Current Affairs in English

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19th April 2020 Current Affairs in English

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Exams ( UPSC, TNPSC, SSC)

19th  APRIL 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Nod mandatory for FDI from neighbouring countries
  2. Most online content on child sexual abuse from India
  3. The COVID-19 virus and its polyproteins
  4. Festivals, turbans and rice beer are all part of an exhaustive cultural heritage list
  5. Will convalescent plasma help COVID-19 patients?
  6. Prelims Fact in News
  7. Extra Information

1. Nod mandatory for FDI from neighbouring countries

  • In a move that will restrict Chinese investments, the Centre has made prior government approval mandatory for foreign direct investments from countries which share a land border with India.
  • Previously, only investments from Pakistan and Bangladesh faced such restrictions.
  • The revised FDI policy is aimed at “curbing opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic,” said a press release from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade on Saturday.
  • The new policy says, A non-resident entity can invest in India, subject to the FDI Policy except in those sectors/activities which are prohibited.
  • However, an entity of a country, which shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the Government route.
  • Pakistani investors face further restrictions in requiring government approval for FDI in defence, space and atomic energy sectors as well.
  • India shares land borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
  • Investors from countries not covered by the new policy only have to inform the RBI after a transaction rather than asking for prior permission from the relevant government department.

Critics

  • With many Indian businesses coming to a halt due to the lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and valuations plummeting, a number of domestic firms may be vulnerable to “opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions” from foreign players.
  • The official statement added that a transfer of ownership of any existing or future FDI in an Indian entity to those in the restricted countries would also need government approval. The decisions will become effective from the date of the Foreign Exchange Management Act notification.
  • Given the macro situation, it is a measure to protect vulnerable companies, with possibly low valuations, from unwelcome takeovers

2. Most online content on child sexual abuse from India

Information in News

  • In a global compilation of reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) found online, India stands right on top of the list, with 11.7% of the total reports or at 19.87 lakh reports, followed by Pakistan, which contributes 6.8% of all reports (11.5 lakh reports). Bangladesh comes in fourth with 5.5 lakh reports and a share of 3.3%.
  • The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) urges people to report CSAM found online across the world annually, on their online platform CyberTipline.

National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)

  • The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization and established in 1984 by the United States Congress.
  • NCMEC handles cases of missing or exploited children from infancy to young adults through age 20.
  • NCMEC proactively provides assistance to victims, families, law enforcement, social service agencies, mental health agencies and others when they need help with a missing, exploited, or recovered child.
  • The Center provides information to help locate children reported missing (by parental abduction, child abduction, or running away from home) and to assist physically and sexually abused children.
  • The Center not only specializes in locating missing children, but identifying the deceased. There are a number of unidentified decedents in the country, some of which are children, teenagers and young adults.
  • NCMEC’s CyberTipline is the nation’s centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children.

3. The COVID-19 virus and its polyproteins

Information in News

Why treating people with antibacterial drugs may not help wipe this out. What then is the difference between a virus and a bacterium?

Bacteria

  • Bacteria are alive.
  • Each bacterial cell has its own machinery to reproduce itself.
  • Take a bacterial cell, and put it in a solution containing nutrients, it grows itself and multiplies in millions.
  • The genes in the cells (genome, made up of DNA molecules, the information contained in which is transcribed as a message to the messenger molecules called RNA), and the message therein is translated into action molecules called proteins, which are the foot-soldiers that help the growth and multiplication of the bacterium.

Coronaviruses

  • Coronaviruses do not have DNA as their genome.
  • But RNA; in other words, they can only translate and not transcribe. Thus, they are ‘dead’, unable to renew and grow themselves.
  • They need help. This they achieve by infecting ‘host cells’ which they bind to, and multiply by the millions.
  • With no host cell to help, a virus is simply a dead storage box.

The polyprotein strategy

  • Upon infection, the entire RNA with its 33,000 bases is translated in one shot as a long tape of amino acid sequences.
  • Since this long chain contains several proteins within it, it is called a “polyprotein” sequence containing several ‘open reading frames’, namely those that contain a start code and end with a stop code, each containing the relevant protein to be expressed by the host cell).
    • This strategy allows the viral genome to be compact, and express the protein when the need arises.
    • This is somewhat like a thrifty individual who keeps his money in a fixed deposit in a bank, and withdraws chosen amounts as the demand arises.
    • For the virus, the demand is to multiply upon infecting the host. No demand, no withdrawal, no infection, no multiplication.

    As the recent review by Yu Chen and colleagues from China in the Journal of Medical Virology points out

    • COVID19 has RNA-based genomes and subgenomes in its polyprotein sequence, that code for the spike protein (S), the membrane protein (M), the envelope protein (E), and the nucleocapsidprotein (N, which covers the viral cell nuclear material) – all of which are needed for the architecture of the virus. In addition to these, there are special structural and accessory proteins, called non-structural proteins (NSP), indeed 16 of them, which serve specific purposes for infection and viral multiplication.

    How the drugs work

    • We thus have a large set of proteins in the virus, against which a number of potential molecules and drugs can be tried to interfere and stop the production of these viral proteins. Examples,
      • One of them has attempted to target the translation of the key enzyme RDRp in the virus, whose production was stopped by the drug Remdesavir.
      • To stop the production of the enzyme (called CL3pro, also called as Mpro) which is needed to make the spike (S protein).

4. Festivals, turbans and rice beer are all part of an exhaustive               cultural heritage list

Information in News

Culture Ministry publishes a draft list of more than 100 practices and seeks public comment about intangible elements that enrich India’s social history.

  • 13 traditions of Indian intangible cultural heritage were already recognised by UNESCO
  • The national list was an attempt to further awareness and protection to more such elements. The initiative is a part of the ministry’s Vision 2024 programme.
  • As per the 2003 UNESCO Convention for Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the list has five broad categories —
    1. oral traditions,
    2. performing arts,
    3. social practices,
    4. knowledge and
    5. practices related to nature and traditional craftsmanship,

106 items listed as intangible cultural heritage in a draft released

  • Manipur’s tradition of making rice beer.
  • the practice of tying turbans in Rajasthan.
  • The devotional music of Qawwali.
  • The music of the oldest instrument in the country, the Veena.
  • The Kumbh Mela and Ramlila traditions of different States.
  • The traditional folk festival of Pachoti in Assam, where the birth of a baby, particularly a male infant as the tradition “relates to the birth of Krishna”, is celebrated with relatives and neighbours.
  • The oral traditions of the transgender community called Kinnar Kanthgeet.
  • Compositions of Ameer Khusro are among the entries from Delhi.
  • Gujarat’s Patola silk textiles from Patan with its geometric and figurative patterns also made it to the list.
  • The practice of tying a turban or safa across Rajasthan was a part of the list.
  • From Jammu and Kashmir, the Kalam Bhat or Qalambaft gharana of Sufiana music in Budgam district.
  • From Ladakh, the Buddhist chanting across both Leh and Kargil districts.
  • The making of khor, a rice beer, by the Tangkhul community in Manipur as well as other crafts associated with it, like making gourd vessels and wicker baskets, were also on the list.
  • Kerala’s martial art form,
  • The practice of making designs at the entrance of homes and temples called kolam in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh were also included in the list.
  • Different forms of shadow puppet theatre — Chamadyacha Bahulya in Maharashtra, Tolu Bommalatta in Andhra Pradesh, Togalu Gombeyatta in Karnataka, Tolu Bommalattam in Tamil Nadu, Tolpava Kuthu in Kerala and Ravanchhaya in Orissa — have also been included.

5. Will convalescent plasma help COVID-19 patients?

Information in News

What is convalescent plasma? How does it work?

  • People who have recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies to the disease in their blood is called convalescent plasma.
  • This convalescent plasma can be given to people with severe COVID-19 to boost their ability to fight the virus.
  • The blood about 800 ml or so is collected from the donor through the regular withdrawal process, tested for other pathogens, and if safe, the plasma component is extracted and subsequently used for transfusion on to patients.
  • Everyone who has suffered from a disease possibly carries what are called neutralising antibodies that when extracted via plasma and transfused on to others with the infection can help their immune system fight it off.
  • Whether it works or not depends on whether the disease produced a lot of antibodies in people or not.
  • The body needs more cellular immunity to fight the infection, while for others, the body needs more antibodies. Most diseases, however, require a combination of both these mechanisms.
  • Whole plasma to an individual may even overload the system since it might be a large volume. There are no commercially available assays in the market that could measure the antibody level in the plasma.
  • Rapid serological antibody tests have only recently become available for testing in some nations.

6. Prelims Fact in News

Information in News

  1. A huge crack has developed on the eastern part of Ambukuthi hills, on which the Edakkal caves are situated.
  2. Indian Tricolour of more than 1,000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID-19.Switzerland has expressed solidarity with India in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic by projecting the tricolour on the famous Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps to give “hope and strength” to all Indians.

7. Extra Information

  1. Present Covid-19 testing kit
  • ICMR approved RT- PCR test for diagnosis and confirmatory test, and also using Rapid anti body test for containment zone and is supplementary tool only. The rapid antibody test will be used for surveillance and monitoring whether COVID-19 hotspots in the country are increasing or decreasing, and not for diagnosis.
  • We are currently using RT-PCR test largely and it is approved and consider as a confirmatory test to detect Covid-19 at present. In this test, two types of gene is used for detecting the presence of virus – E gene and RdRp gene. E gene for screening and RdRp gene for confirmation.
  • The RT PCR machine costs anywhere between Rs 15-40 lakh and the PCR kit costs Rs 2000-Rs 2500 per test.

Chitra GeneLAMP-N gene

  • Chitra GeneLAMP-N gene testing will confirm the result in one test without any need for a screening test and at much lower costs. Chitra GeneLAMP-N uses the reverse transcriptase loop-mediated amplification of viral nucleic acid (RT-LAMP) for testing.
  • The test kit is made especially for SARS-CoV-2 N-gene and can detect two regions of the gene, which will ensure that the test does not fail even if one region of the viral gene undergoes mutation during its current spread, ensuring a high possibility of accurate test results.
  • The cost of testing with this new device RT- LAMP will be less than Rs 1,000 per test for the laboratory
  • The LAMP testing devices costs Rs 2.5 lakhs and the test kit for two regions of N gene costs less than Rs 1000 per test.
  • It can deliver COVID-19testing results in just two hours at a low cost of Rs 1,000.
  • It can take a total of 30 samples in a single batch in a single machine allowing a large number of samples to be tested each day.
  • The testing facility can be easily set up even in the laboratories of district hospitals with limited facilities and trained laboratory technicians.
  • The WHO recommends a E and RdRP test.
  • If ICMR approves, this may create a big change in our early detection.
  • But some critics said N-gene encodes a nucleocapsid, a site that is highly mutated due to its structural properties. For this reason, targeting the N gene could fail to detect COVID-19 if the N gene was mutated.
  • For that reason, they (RT- LAMP) might used to analyse the Two region to confirm the identity of the virus.

 

 

 

 

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