Daily current affairs – April 11

Gs – 2

National

Operation SHIELD in 21 Containment Areas against COVID-19

• Delhi Chief Minister(CM) has launched “Operation SHIELD” in 21 identified Containment Areas of the state to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
• It deals with sealing, home quarantine, isolation & tracking, essential supply of commodities, local sanitisation and door-to-door health checkups.
• Acronym of SHIELD:
  S – Sealing of the immediate area/surroundings after geographical marking.
  H – Home quarantine of all the people living in the area.
  I – Isolation and tracing of people who have been first and second contacts.
  E – Essential supply of commodities is ensured.
  L – Local sanitisation of the area by authorities.
  D – Door-to-door health checks of everyone living in the area.
• The government has made it compulsory to wear masks while stepping out of the   houses & also stated that punishment will be given for those who misbehave with healthcare personnel.

Government policies and Interventions

Market Investment Scheme:

• The Central Government has directed all the States and Union Territories to implement the Market Intervention Scheme to ensure remunerative prices to farmers for perishable crops.
• It has also begun a train service to transport perishable agricultural and horticultural commodities to markets due to the obstacles in road transport.
• According to the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare 50 trains have been deployed for this purpose.
• Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) is implemented by the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare.
• The objective of MIS is to provide remunerative prices to the farmers in case of excess of production and fall in prices.
• The MIS is an ad-hoc scheme under which include horticultural commodities and other agricultural commodities.
• These commodities are perishable in nature and which are not covered under the minimum price support scheme.
• Further, the MIS is implemented on the specific requests of the State Government/UT Administrations willing to share the loss with the Central Government on a 50:50 basis (75:25 in case of North-Eastern States).

GS – 3

Science and Technology

Intranasal Vaccine for coronavirus ‘coroFlu’

• Bharat Biotech International Ltd, a leading vaccines & bio-therapeutics manufacturers in India, has joined hands with US (United States) FluGen Inc and virologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Wisconsin,US , to begin the development and testing of a new intranasal vaccine for COVID-19 called ‘CoroFlu’.
• The vaccine is being developed on the basis of  FluGen’s flu vaccine candidate known as M2SR, a self-limited version of influenza virus.
•  It induces an immune response against the flu.
• The vaccine will be built by FluGen’s lab that insert gene sequences from SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, into M2SR so that the novel vaccine will also induce immunity against the coronavirus.
• Different trials of this vaccine may take three to six months. Once prepared, a drop of this vaccine will be administered through the nose to the mucosal layer of the corona patients. The company will produce 300 million doses if the test is successful.
• Pharma majors like Ahmedabad (Gujarat) -based Zydus Cadila and Pune (Maharashtra)-based Serum Institute have already engaged in the process to make vaccines against corona.

Conservation

Asian Elephants:

• Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary is the only sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh with a population of Asian elephants.
• The sanctuary is covered by southern tropical dry deciduous and thorn forests. Some of the important flora consists of Albizia amara, Acacia, Lagerstroemia, Ficus, bamboo, and a species which is a regeneration of Santalum album.
• Apart from some of the animals found in the sanctuary are: sloth bear, panther, cheetal, chowsingha, sambar, porcupine, wild boar, jungle cat, jackal, jungle fowl, starred tortoise and slender loris.
• There are three subspecies of Asian elephant – the Indian, Sumatran and Sri Lankan.
• The Indian has the widest range and accounts for the majority of the remaining elephants on the continent.
• Escalation of poaching, habitat loss,  and mistreatment in captivity are some common threats to both African and Asian elephants.
• African elephants are listed as “vulnerable” and Asian elephants as “endangered” in IUCN Red list of threatened species.
• The elephant has been accorded the highest possible protection under the Indian wildlife law through its listing under Schedule I of the Wild life protection act of 1972
•  Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) status – Appendix I
• Appendix I lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants.
• The Government of India has launched various initiatives for conservation of elephants. Few important initiatives are:
• Project Elephant launched by the Government of India in the year 1992 as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. Elephant census is conducted once in 5 years under the aegis of Project elephant.
• Establishment of elephant reserves and adoption of the “World Elephant Day” (August 12) to help conserve and protect elephants in India and improve their welfare.
• ‘Gaj Yatra’ a nationwide awareness campaign to celebrate elephants and highlight the necessity of securing elephant corridors.
• The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), had come out with a publication on the right of passage in 101 elephant corridors of the country in 2017, stressed on the need for greater surveillance and protection of elephant corridors.
• The Monitoring the Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme launched in 2003 is an international collaboration that tracks trends in information related to the illegal killing of elephants from across Africa and Asia, to monitor effectiveness of field conservation efforts.