Daily current Affairs – April 12

GS – 2

Health and Welfare

Seagull Bio Solutions for vaccine production 

• The Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the Ministry of Science & Technology, is to fund Seagull BioSolutions Pvt. Ltd. (SBPL) to undertake the development of Active Virosome (AV) Vaccine and Immunodiagnostic kits for COVID-19 emergency.

Active Virosome Technology (AVT):

• AVT developed by Seagull Bio can be used for the production of vaccines and immunotherapeutic agents.
• The AVT platform produces novel, non-hazardous and economical Active Virosome agents expressing desired antigens from the target pathogen.
• These will be used to develop a novel vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 infection and also immunodiagnostic ELISA kits for COVID-19.
•  SBPL has planned to produce two types of AV agents, one that expresses S protein of COVID-19 (AV-S) and another that expresses structural proteins of COVID-19 (AV-SPs). 
•  It is expected that the Immunodiagnostic kits will be ready for field trials by August 2020 and approved by the end of 10-11 months. The development of the AV vaccine is expected to take a longer time.

Wormivet:

• The National Innovation foundation India has developed an indigenous herbal medicine called Wormivet. It is an alternative to chemical methods that are currently being used to treat worms.
• Internal Parasite in worms leads to loss in body weight, anemia, loss in reproductive health. It limits growth and productivity. On the other hand, inappropriate use of chemical dewormers creates resistance.

National Innovation Foundation:

• The National Innovation Foundation operates under Department of Science and Technology. It works to provide support to grass root innovations. Also, it organizes an annual competition called IGNITE along with CBSE board.

Grass root Innovations:

• The Intellectual Property Rights of India recognizes grassroot innovations and also traditional knowledge practices.
• This is more common in the fields of agriculture, veterinary science and human health. The Grass root level innovations are inventions made by common people.

GS – 3

Government policies

Benefits under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package:

• Ministry of Finance has announced around Rs.14,000 crore to 7 crore farmers under PM-KISAN. The fund has been directly transferred to approximately.
• Ministry of Finance has announced around Rs.14,000 crore to 7 crore farmers under PM-KISAN. The fund has been directly transferred to approximately.
• GoI has also given around Rs.10,000 crore to over 19 crore Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) women account holders and Rs.3,000 crore to 2 crore building and other construction workers so far. 
• Also, over Rs.1400 crore has been transferred in the accounts of around three crore divyangs, senior citizens and aged widows in the country.

Bharat Padhe Online Campaign

• The Ministry of Human Resources Development has launched a week long campaign called “Bharat Padhe Online Campaign”.
•  This campaign aims to improve online education in India.
• Though there are several other initiatives to promote online education in India, this campaign is launched to bring in all the experts of different fields to share their knowledge during lock down.
• Other e-education initiatives Swayam is a massive online course that hosts all courses taught from 9th class. Swayam Prabha is another initiative of GoI that provides educational contents developed by experts through DTH television channels. National Digital Library consists of more than 6.5 million books and can be accessed for free.

Environment

 Anak Krakatau volcano eruption:

• Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano erupted on 11 April. It spewed a column of ash 500 meters into the sky. It last erupted in 2018

Anak Krakatau:

• Anak Krakatau means the child of Kratakau, is the offspring of the famous Krakatau volcano. The volcano first erupted in 1883 triggered a period of global cooling.
•  The island is located in a caldera in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung.
• The island is one of several in the area which is of considerable interest to volcanologists and the subject of extensive study.

Science and Technology

 NIPER – G designs innovative 3D products:

• NIPER-G developed two products, namely 3D-printed hands-free object and 3D-printed antimicrobial face-shield in an effort to control the spread of novel coronavirus, to fight COVID-19 outbreak.

3D-printed hands-free object:

• The 3D-printed hands-free object could be used to help open or close doors, windows, drawers, and refrigerator handle, or press elevator buttons, and laptop/desktop keyboards, including turning the switch buttons on/off.
• It is expected that it might play a key role in preventing transmission of infection from one person to another through bare hand contacts or contaminated surface sources.

3D-printed antimicrobial face-shield:

• The 3D-printed antimicrobial face-shield was designed after a thorough study to understand the spread of the virus through oral, ophthalmic, olfactory and other body cavities.
•  It is also low cost, easy to wear, has good chemical stability, non-fragile and is easy to clean with the existing sanitizers or any alcoholic disinfectant.