Daily Current Affairs – April 17/2020

GS – 2

National

BRICS meeting on COVID – 19:

• India is to attend BRICS foreign ministers meet by the end of April 2020. The members will discuss economic fallout due to the spread of COVID-19.
• It is essential to conduct more of such meeting as the global economic growth is declining at its highest.
•  The International Monetary Fund has projected the global growth rate to be -3% in the year 2020 – 21.
• India’s role: The strategy and protocols of Russia, China and South Africa is completely different from that of the USA. India can act as a bridge at this situation.

International

WWF ambassador – Vishwanathan Anand:

• The Chess legend Viswanathan Anand was named the ambassador of World Wide Fund India. He has joined the organization for its environment education programme.
• The main aim of the programme is to create problem solvers, critical thinkers and environmentally conscious individuals.
• It reaches out to 5 lakh children and 2000 schools.
• WWF Fund: The WWF is an international NGO that was founded in 1961.
• It is the largest conservation organization in the world with more than 5 million supporters.
• The organization has so far invested 1 billion USD in more than 12,000 conservation initiatives.

GS – 3

Economic

RBI Launches OBICUS:

• The Reserve Bank of India launched OBICUS. This is the 49th round of survey by the apex bank for the period January to March.

What is OBICUS survey?

• OBICUS is Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilization Survey (OBICUS).
• The survey provides an insight into the demands of the Indian manufacturing sector.
• The survey is conducted quarterly (4 times a year). It is being conducted since 2008.
• The survey covers 2,500 companies both in public and private sector.
• The survey also provides ratio of total inventories to sales.
• Also, the survey provides ratio of raw materials to finished goods. It helps to measure economic activity in the country.
• The data collected in the survey includes quantitative data, pending orders, work in progress, backlog of orders and finished goods.

Science and Technology

Portable sensor to detect heavy metal ions in water:

• Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) has developed a compact solid-state sensor that can detect the heavy metal ions in water. 

Why sensor is needed?

• Heavy metal ions like mercury, lead, and cadmium show severe potential threats to living beings. 
• These metal ions can easily be accumulated in the human body. It cannot be detoxified by any chemical or biological processes.
• The health hazards associated with heavy metal ions in water demands the development of efficient and portable sensors for rapid onsite detection of these ions.
• This need led to the development of visual sensors, which can effectively detect heavy metal ions rapidly (within seconds) under ambient conditions.

Compact solid-state sensor:

• Compact solid-state sensor is a portable device as the quantum dots can be excited with handheld UV light of 254 nm. It can help onsite detection in remote areas. 
• The sensor film was prepared by forming a composite between manganese doped zinc sulfide quantum dots and reduced graphene oxide on a glass substrate.
• These particular quantum dots are water-soluble and have high photoluminescence (~30 %) quantum yield, making them suitable for luminescence-based sensing.