Daily Current Affairs Quiz: 19 May 2021

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The US scientists have invented a new COVID-19 Saliva Testing method called SPOT. SPOT is Scalable and Portable Testing.

About:

• SPOT was invented by a research team from the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. The SPOT gives COVID-19 test results in thirty minutes. The cost of the device is 78 USD. Apart from these the reagents and other testing devices are estimated to cost 6 to 7 USD. The device can be operated by anyone with minimal training.
• The test is very much similar to that of the RT-PCR. But it uses Reverse Transcriptase Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP). However, it does not need complex machinery or expertise. It can be completed quickly and is more accurate.

RT-Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification

• RT-LAMP is a one-step nucleic acid amplification method. It is used to multiply specific sequences of RNA. This technology is considered as an alternate to RT-PCR as it is much cheaper and easier. RT-LAMP test first makes DNA from the RNA samples. This conversion is made by reverse transcriptase enzyme. This DNA is called cDNA. Now this cDNA will be amplified for virus detection.
• The only difference between RT-PCR and RT-LAMP is that RT-LAMP uses four LAMP Primers. Primers are short fragments of nucleic acids.

Outcome

• The researchers tested 104 clinical samples using SPOT. Of these it accurately identified twenty eight of thirty COVID-19 positive samples and 73 out of 74 COVID-19 negative samples.

About new COVID-19 tests

• Every day ten to fifteen new COVID-19 tests are launched in the market. These tests claim to be quick. However, none of these quick antigen tests are reliable as that of RT-PCR.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Biological E is to produce Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine along with its own vaccine. This is to boost the overall vaccine production of the country.

About:

• A new Vaccine partnership was unveiled at the first Quad Summit. The four Quad countries namely India, Australia, US and Japan decided to pool their resources. They also decided to roll out 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines by 2022.  According to the plan, the United States International Development Finance Corporation is to assist the Biological E.

What is the plan?

• The Biological E of India is to produce 600 million Johnson and Johnson Vaccine doses annually. It is to produce the Johnson and Johnson Vaccine along with its own vaccine. However, the manufacturing units of the vaccines will be different. Also, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine production is to be funded by the US.
• Biological E has plans to produce 75 million to 80 million doses of its own vaccine in Hyderabad. The drug was developed by Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Johnson and Johnson Vaccine

• It has been approved by United States Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organisation. In India, Johnson and Johnson have sought for permission to conduct clinical trials.
• It is an adeno virus vector based COVID-19 vaccine. It is a single dose vaccine. The other adeno virus based vaccines such as Moderna and Pfizer are two dose vaccines

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The United Launch Alliance launched the Atlas V Rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Atlas V rocket carried SBRIS Geo-5 Missile Warning Satellite.

SBRIS Geo-5 Missile Warning Satellite

• The satellite will provide key capabilities in missile warning, battle space, missile defence. It weighs 4,850 kilograms. As of 2018, ten SBRIS satellites were launched.

Atlas V

• Atlas V is a two-stage rocket. It is fuelled with rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen in its first stage and hydrogen and liquid oxygen in the second stage. The rocket put SBRIS at a height of 35,753 kilo metres.

SBRIS

• The full form of SBRIS is Space Based Infrared System. It is designed for missile warning, missile battlespace and defence characterization. SBRIS is basically a Space Tracking and Surveillance System. SBRIS was designed to meet the Infrared Space Surveillance of United States Space Force System. In 2020 alone, the SBRIS satellites detected more than thousand missiles.

United States Space Force

• It is a branch of US Armed Forces. It is first independent space force. Also, it is the only space force in the world. It is operated by Department of Air Force which is one of the three civilian led military departments in Department of Defence.

United Launch Alliance 

• It is an American Spacecraft company that manufactures and operates number of rocket vehicles. It also provides launch services. The Atlas V rockets are operated by the company. Vulcan Centaur is the successor to Atlas V and is under design.
• In future, ULA is to launch Boeing Star liner Crew Capsule to the International Space Station. The mission is called OFT-2, that is, Orbital Flight Test. In 2019, it failed to reach the space station due to software issue.

ANSWER: B 

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, IDAHOTB is observed on May 17 every year. The day is marked to increase awareness about LGBT rights violations. Also, it aims to stimulate interest in LGBT rights work world-wide.

What is Transphobia, Homophobia and Biphobia?

• Homophobia: It is dislike against gay people
• Transphobia: It is the dislike against the transgender people
• Biphobia: It is the dislike against the bisexual people

IDAHOTB

• It was originally called the International Day against Homophobia.
• It was first observed in 2005.
• Louis-Georges Tin is the founder of International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.
• The Declaration of Montreal was adopted in 2006. It demanded the United Nations to recognise IDAHOTB.

Why was May 17 chosen?

It was on May 17, 1990, homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of World Health Organisation. International Classification of Diseases is a classification of health care system. It provides diagnostic codes to classify a disease. This includes symptoms, signs, abnormal findings, external causes.

Goals

The day aims to increase awareness against discrimination, violence and repression of LGBT communities worldwide.

Around the world

• Taiwan was the first country in Asia to legally recognise same-sex marriage.
• IDAHOTB has been recognised in very few countries such as Spain, European Union Parliament, Portugal, Belgium, Mexico, UK, Netherlands, Venezuela, Luxembourg, Croatia, Costa Rica.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture and NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) recently launched the first Agricultural Export Facilitation Centre.

About the Centre

• The Centre will aid in boosting the agricultural and food exports of the state of Maharashtra.
• The centre will act as a one-stop shop to export agricultural food productions.
• The centre is open to anyone who is involved in agricultural exports.
• It will provide guidance in areas such as Minimum residue level, orchard management, branding and marketing, country-wise protocols, special export treatments and government export schemes.
• Also, the centre will organise awareness programmes, workshops and training programmes.

Why is the Agricultural Export Facilitation Centre important?

In 2018, India launched Agri Export Policy. The policy aims to double the agricultural exports, that is, to increase the agricultural exports to 60 billion USD by 2022. The Agriculture Export Facilitation Centre will help India achieve this target.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The World Wildlife Fund recently claimed that more than 70% of snow Leopard habitats are unexplored. The organisation recently released its report “A spatially explicit review of the state of knowledge in the snow leopard range”

• Key Findings of the report

• Most of the snow leopard researches have been conducted by Nepal, India and China followed by Mongolia and Pakistan. There could be only four thousand snow leopards left in the world. They are facing continuous threats due to increased habitat loss and degradation, conflict with communities and poaching.

Why only 70%? Why is 100% Exploration not possible?

• As snow leopards live in rugged terrain, it is highly difficult to conduct researches on snow leopard and their habitat. That is why, till date their entire habitat remains unexplored.

First Snow Leopard Survey

• On the International Snow Leopard Day (October 24), India launched the Snow Leopard Population Assessment in 2019. However, the survey is yet to be launched. Several state governments have launched local surveys such as Uttarkhand.

Snow Leopard conservation

• IUCN: Vulnerable
• Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I
• CITES: Appendix I

Conservation of Snow Leopard

GSLEP: GSLEP is Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Programme. It was launched by twelve snow leopard range countries such as India, Nepal, China, Bhutan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Russia.

SECURE Himalaya: It is a Global Environment Facility-United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) funded project.

Snow Leopards in India

• In India, snow leopards are found in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir. These regions contribute to 5% of global snow leopard range. Government is running Project Snow Leopard since 2009.

ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Recently, the Telangana government has selected 16 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) for pilot testing the ambitious ‘Medicine from the sky’, the first-of- its-kind project.

About:

• The project involves delivery of medicines through multiple drones.
• The project is being launched following the approval granted by the Civil Aviation Ministry.
• The Ministry has granted conditional exemption to the Telangana Government from the Unmanned Aircraft System Rules 2021 for conducting experimental Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone flights for delivery of vaccines.
• The project would be launched in three waves starting with a pilot followed by mapping the route network for operation of drones for delivering vaccine/medicine in the desired community health centres and PHCs.

Collaborators:

• Telangana government, World Economic Forum and Health Net Global.
• HealthNet Global is a private limited company which provides quality affordable health plans for individuals, families, Medicare and businesses.

Aim:

• To assess alternative logistics routes in providing safe, accurate and reliable pick-up and delivery of health care items like medicines, Covid-19 vaccines, units of blood and other lifesaving equipment from the distribution centre to specific locations and back.
• To ensure healthcare equity for rural areas.

Significance:

• The model, once successful, would enable deliveries from district medical stores and blood banks to PHCs, Community Healthcare Centres (CHCs) and further from PHCs/CHCs to central diagnostic laboratories.
• It has the potential to disrupt the healthcare industry and save many lives during emergencies and in less accessible geographies.

ANSWER: D

WHY IN NEWS ?

• A new Australian study has suggested that climate change may be accelerating the degradation of Pleistocene-era rock paintings located in the Sulawesi Island of Indonesia. It is the world’s oldest cave art.

About:

• The study was conducted by Australian and Indonesian archaeological scientists.
• The scientists examined around 11 caves and rock-shelters in the Maros-Pangkep region in Sulawesi Island of Indonesia.
• These are Pleistocene-era rock paintings dating back to 45,000-20,000 years ago.

Which are those ancient cave arts of Indonesia? 

Some important artworks include:

• Firstly, the world’s oldest hand stencil (almost 40,000 years ago): It was created by pressing the hand on a cave wall and spraying wet red-mulberry pigments over it.
• Secondly, the world’s oldest depiction of an animal (almost 45,500 years ago): The animal depicted is a warty pig painted on the wall.
• Lastly, one of the caves contains what researchers describe as possibly the earliest known narrative scene in prehistoric art depicting a hunting scene.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report on unemployment in India has been released. As per the report Unemployment Rate in India is increasing.

Key Findings of the Report:

• Increase in Unemployment rate: The Unemployment rate in India has increased to 8% in April 2021 from 6.5% in March 2021.

• Unemployment Rate (UER) is the percentage of the labor force who are willing to work and are actively looking for a job but are unemployed.

• The labour participation rate(LPR) was 40% in April 2021. It is the worst since the national lockdown was imposed in May 2020.

• LPR is the ratio of the working age population greater than 15 years of age to labor force either working or looking for work. In other words, it measures the number of persons engaging in the labour force as a percentage of the working-age population.

• Salaried Class: The size of the salaried class has also decreased in India. During 2019-20, there were 85.9 million salaried jobs. As of April 2021, there were just 73.3 million. This may impact the domestic consumption of the country.
• Lack of Demand: Lack of demand is hampering further growth due to the impact on income and consumer sentiment. Income is lower than it was a year earlier. 90% of families have seen income shrinkage.
• Migration of workers: Migration from urban areas to rural areas due to loss of jobs in cities has also increased the burden on the agriculture sector and rural India.

About CMIE:

• CMIE is a privately owned and professionally managed company headquartered in Mumbai. It was established in 1976 primarily as an independent think tank.
• Purpose: It produces economic and business databases and develops specialized analytical tools to deliver these to its customers for decision-making and for research