Daily Prelims Notes 26 April 2021

April 26, 2021
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Category: DPN

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Daily Prelims Notes

26 April 2021

Table Of Contents

1. REMDESIVIR

Subject: Science & tech

Context: Gilead to send Remdesivir vials to India, US stands by India to help fight COVID-19 2nd wave.

Concept:

Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) will have to issue an import license to bring the Gilead’s Remdesivir stocks to India. The volume of this is still not known, but it will be in order of a few lakh vials.

Remdesivir

Remdesivir is an injectable anti-virus. It is injected to prevent replication of the virus.
Remdesivir is designed to obstruct the stage of replication, when the virus creates copies of itself, followed endlessly by the copies creating copies of themselves.
Once the virus enters the human cell, it releases its genetic material, which is then copied using the body’s existing mechanism.
At every stage of infection, various human proteins, virus proteins, and their interactions come into play.
At the replication stage, the key viral protein at play is an enzyme called RdRp (an enzyme is a kind of protein that speeds up chemical reactions within a cell).
It is RdRp that makes the copies, by processing components of the RNA of the virus.
University of Alberta researchers called it the “engine” of the virus in a paper last week, in which they described the action of Remdesivir against this “engine”.
In scientific literature, such an enzyme is called a polymerase (the p is RdRp stands for polymerase) or a replica.
In any case, this is the enzyme that is targeted by Remdesivir.

2. NON REFOULEMENT

Subject : International Relations

Context : Supreme Court must rethink its order on deportation of Rohingya refugees.

Concept :

Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law that forbids a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country in which they would be in likely danger of persecution based on “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.
Unlike political asylum, which applies to those who can prove a well-grounded fear of persecution based on certain category of persons, non-refoulement refers to the generic repatriation of people, including refugees into war zones and other disaster locales.
It is a principle of customary international law, as it applies even to states that are not partiesto the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol.
It is also a principle of the Trucial law of nations.

3. CYBERCRIME VOLUNTEER

Subject : Science & tech

Context : The Union Home Ministry has said it does not maintain a centralised list of volunteers enrolled under the cybercrime volunteer programme since the police is a “State subject” under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Concept :

The Ministry, through its cybercrime grievance portal, cybercrime.gov.in, aims to raise a group of “cybercrime volunteers” to flag “unlawful content” on the Internet.
A digital rights group, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), has said the programme enables a culture of surveillance and could create potential social distrust by encouraging civilians to report the online activities of other citizens.
In response to a RTI application on the total number of volunteers who have applied under the Cybercrime Volunteers Programme of the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, the Ministry said the information could be sought directly from the respective States and Union Territories.
The programme was expected to include 500 volunteers, 200 “cyber awareness promoters” and 50 “cyber experts”.
The National Cybercrime Ecosystem Management Unit, of which the Cybercrime Volunteers Programme is a constituent, is part of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) scheme launched by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in January 2020.
The project was approved in October 2018 at an estimated cost of ₹415.86 crore. The I4C scheme that includes other components also has been allocated ₹69.80 crore in the 2021-22 Budget.

Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre

It has been established under the Ministry of Home affairs (MHA) to act as a nodal point at National level in the fight against cybercrime.
The scheme to set up I4C was approved in October 2018, to deal with all types of cybercrimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
This state-of-the-art Centre is located in New Delhi.
Various States and Union Territories have given their consent to set up Regional Cyber Crime Coordination Centres.

4. LIQUID OXYGEN

Subject : Science & tech

Context :Invoking the Disaster Management Act, the Centre ordered States that all liquid oxygen, including the existing stock with private plants, should be made available to the government and will be used for medical purposes only.

Concept :

Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen.
Liquid oxygen has a pale blue color and is strongly paramagnetic: it can be suspended between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet.
Because of its cryogenic nature, liquid oxygen can cause the materials it touches to become extremely brittle.
Liquid oxygen is also a very powerful oxidizing agent: organic materials will burn rapidly and energetically in liquid oxygen.

Uses

It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which has continued to the present.
In commerce, liquid oxygen is classified as an industrial gas and is widely used for industrial and medical purposes. Liquid oxygen is obtained from the oxygen found naturally in air by fractional distillation in a cryogenic air separation plant.
Liquid oxygen is the most common cryogenic liquid oxidizer propellant for spacecraft rocket applications, usually in combination with liquid hydrogen, kerosene or methane.

5. DEEP TIME STUDY

Subject : Science & tech

Context : A group of French volunteers have emerged from a cave after a 40-day study exploring the limits of human adaptability to isolation. The so-called Deep Time experiment came to an end, allowing the eight men and seven women, aged 27 to 50, who took part to leave the cave.

Concept :

The 15 participants lived in the Lombrives cave in south-west France with no phones, clocks or sunlight. They slept in tents, made their own electricity, and had no contact with the outside world.
The project aimed to test how people respond to losing their sense of time and space.
During their isolation, the group had to organise tasks without being able to use a measure of time to create deadlines.
Instead, they had to rely on their body clocks and sleep cycles to structure their days.
In the cave, they had few modern comforts at their disposal. For example, volunteers had to generate their own electricity with a pedal bike and draw water from a well 45 m (146 ft) below the earth.

Significance

The scientists behind the project say it will help them understand how people can adapt to extreme living conditions.
The brain activity and cognitive function of volunteers was analysed before they entered the cave, to gather data for comparative studies after they left.
The purpose of the study has particular relevance during the coronavirus pandemic, a time when lockdown measures have confined millions of people to isolation.

6. OXYGEN EXPRESS

Subject : Governance

Context : In the middle of the second wave of Covid-19, hospitals in India are facing a massive shortage of medical oxygen.

Concept :

In a bid to meet the high demand of the critical gas meant for the treatment of coronavirus patients, the Indian Railways has started “Oxygen Express” trains to ferry oxygen tankers from one region to another.
The Railways are running the “Oxygen Express” train from steel plants that produce oxygen to different parts of the country.
The first Oxygen Express carrying seven tankers filled with liquid medical oxygen from Visakhapatnam reached Maharashtra on April 23.

7. PM CARES FUND

Subject: Governance

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered setting up of 551 oxygen plants inside government hospitals across the country. PM CARES Fund will provide financial aid in setting up these plants.

Concept:

Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund, or the PM CARES Fund, was set up to tackle distress situations such as that posed by the COVID19 pandemic.
The fund receives voluntary contributions from individuals and organisations and does not get any budgetary support. Donations have been made tax exempt, and can be counted against a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR)
It is also exempt from the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, and accepts foreign contributions, although the Centre has previously refused foreign aid to deal with disasters such as the Kerala floods.
The Prime Minister chairs the fund in his official capacity, and can nominate three eminent persons in relevant fields to the Board of Trustees. The Ministers of Defense, Home Affairs and Finance are ex officio Trustees of the Fund.

Concerns

It is not clear whether the fund comes under the ambit of the RTI Act or oversight by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, although independent auditors will audit the fund
The PM CARES web page is opaque regarding the amount of money collected, names of donors, expenditure of the fund so far, or names of beneficiaries. The PMNRF provides annual donation and expenditure information without any detailed breakup.
The PM CARES Fund’s trust deed is not available for public scrutiny.
The decision to allow uncapped corporate donations to the fund to count as CSR expenditure, a facility not provided to PMNRF or the CM’s Relief Funds goes against previous guidelines stating that CSR should not be used to fund government schemes.
A government panel had previously advised against allowing CSR contributions to the PMNRF on the grounds that the double benefit of tax exemption would be a “regressive incentive”

8. RAJAN MISHRA

Subject: Culture

Context : Classical singer Rajan Mishra has died due to Covid-19 related complications.

Concept:

Belonging to the Benarasgharana, PanditRajan Mishra, along with brother Sajan Mishra have performed for both Indian and global audiences for decades now.
Renowned vocalists in the khayal style of Indian classical singing, the brothers have been honoured by the Padma Bhushan award, the SangeetNatakAkademi award and the Gandharva National award in their meritorious career.

Khayal Style

Khayal, also spelled khyal or kayal, in Hindustani music, a musical form based on a Hindi song in two parts that recur between expanding cycles of melodic and rhythmic improvisation.
In a standard performance a slow (vilambit) khayal is followed by a shorter, fast (drut) khayal in the same raga (melodic framework).