Daily Current Affairs : 26th, 27th and 28th December 2020

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

  1. Dry Run for COVID Vaccine
  2. Gene that green Plants
  3. Madhya Pradesh Anti conversion Bill
  4. PM-KISAN
  5. Neighbourhood First Policy during COVID
  6. Nanomicelles
  7. Inner Line Permit
  8. Governor’s Role in holding an Assembly Session
  9. Facts for Prelims

1 . Dry Run for COVID Vaccine


Context : The dry run to test preparedness for the nationwide roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine kicked off in four States — Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab.

What is dry run

  • Dry run to test preparedness of roll out of vaccine is the dummy vaccination exercise
  • It will be carried out in two districts each of four states at the four corners of the nation — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Assam

The dry run will proceed through four key steps, which will be monitored closely by the central government:

  • Each district will receive the dummy vaccine for 100 beneficiaries from the nearest depot;
  • Temperature will be tracked through the vaccine’s journey from the depot to the vaccination site;
  • An SMS will be sent in advance to the beneficiaries with the name of the vaccinator, and the time of the vaccination;
  • Each beneficiary will be made to sit for 30 minutes after being administered the shot; if an adverse event occurs, its management will be tracked through the central server.

Benefits

  •  Since people have already been trained, we want to know before the actual rollout [of the vaccination programme] how effective this training has been.
  • The dry run is intended to test the country’s flagship vaccine delivery IT platform, Co-Win, at every stage
  •  It would also provide a hands-on experience to programme managers at various levels.

2 . Gene that green Plants


Context : Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) have identified a gene ‘BBX11’ that facilitates in the greening of plants by playing a crucial role in regulating the levels of protochlorophyllide — an intermediate in the biosynthesis of the green pigment chlorophyll.

Details of the Research

  • The synthesis of chlorophyll in plants is a lengthy, multi-step process. When a seedling emerges from under the soil it must quickly synthesise chlorophyll to start supporting its own growth.
  • In order to facilitate quick synthesis of chlorophyll, plants make a precursor of chlorophyll called ‘protochlorophyllide’ in the dark, which glows red when blue light is shone on the plant.
  • As soon as the plant comes out into the light from under the soil, light-dependent enzymes convert protochlorophyllide to chlorophyll
  • Using genetic, molecular and biochemical techniques, the duo found a mechanism where two proteins oppositely regulate the ‘BBX11’ gene to maintain optimum levels of ‘BBX11’. Dr. Datta said that the amount of protochlorophyllide synthesised needed to be proportional to the number of enzymes available to convert them to chlorophyll.
  • “If there is excess of free protochlorophyllide, then exposure to light converts it into molecules that cause ‘photobleaching’. Thus, it is very important to regulate the amount of protochlorophyllide synthesized by the plant and here comes the vital plant played by the ‘BBX11’ gene.
  • If it is less, plants are unable to efficiently ‘green’ in order to harvest sunlight. If the amount of protochlorophyllide is more, then plants bleach under the light

Importance

  • Study could have tremendous implications in the agriculture sector in tropical countries like India and can help provide leads to optimise plant growth under stressful and rapidly changing climatic conditions. Due to the rapidly changing climatic conditions, farmers in several states in India, especially in Maharashtra, are suffering huge losses in crop yields.
  • Severe drought, high temperature and high light are some of the major reasons for crop failure. Young seedlings emerging out of the soil are extremely sensitive to high irradiance of light. This study can provide leads to optimise plant growth under these stressful conditions

3 . Madhya Pradesh Anti conversion Bill


Context : The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Bill, 2020 got the State Cabinet’s approval. The Bill, which seeks to replace the Religious Freedom Act of 1968

Key Provisions of the Bill

  • Bill provides for a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of ₹1 lakh for conversion through “marriage or by any other fraudulent means. Offences under the proposed law would be cognisable and non-bailable.
  • “The new legislation will prohibit religious conversion or such efforts by misrepresentation, allurement, force, undue influence, coercion, marriage or any other fraudulent means. Abetment and conspiracy for religious conversion will also be prohibited under it
  • Any marriage solemnised in violation of the proposed law would be considered null and void.
  • Those willing to convert would need to apply to the district administration 60 days in advance. The religious leaders facilitating the conversion would also have to inform about it 60 days in advance. Violation of these provisions would attract a jail term of three to five years and a fine of ₹50,000.
  • In cases of religious conversion of members of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and minors, a provision has been made for imprisonment of two to 10 years and ₹50,000 fine
  • There is provision of three to 10 years of imprisonment and fine of ₹50,000 in cases of marriage carried out by hiding religion, misrepresentation or impersonation.
  • In case of mass conversions (of two or more persons), a provision of five to 10 years of imprisonment and a minimum fine of ₹1 lakh has been made
  • Repeat offenders would face five to 10 years of imprisonment and the registration of any organisation involved in such violation would be cancelled.
  • Religious conversion in violation of this law would be considered null and void, he said.
  • Parents, legal guardian or custodian and brothers and sisters of the converted person can lodge a complaint.
  • Offences would be investigated by an officer not lower than sub-inspector’s rank, and it would be the responsibility of the accused to prove his innocence
  • A child born to the victim women will be entitled to get maintenance under the proposed law. Such children would be entitled to inherit the father’s properties too

4 . Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN)


About Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PIV-KISAN)

  • Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PIV-KISAN) is a new Central Sector Scheme to provide income support to all landholding farmers’ families in the country to supplement their financial needs for procuring various inputs related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs.
  • Under the Scheme, the entire financial liability towards transfer of benefit to targeted beneficiaries will be borne by Government of India.
  • ln the beginning when the PM-Kisan Scheme was launched, its benefits were admissible only to Small & Marginal Farmers’ (SMF) families, with combined landholding upto 2 hectare. The Scheme was later on revised w.e.f. 1 .6.2019 and extended to all farmer families irrespective of the size of their landholdings
  • Under the PM-KISAN scheme, all landholding farmers’ families shall be provided the financial benefit of Rs.6000 per annum per family payable in three equal installments of Rs.2000 each, every four months.
  • All landholding farmers’ families, which have cultivable landholding in their names are eligible to get benefit under the scheme

5 . Neighbourhood First Policy during COVID


Context : India faced a trifecta of challenges in its neighbourhood from China: the COVID-19 pandemic, the growing competition for influence in South Asia, and aggressive actions at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

How has India helped tackle the regional COVID-19 challenge?

  • In March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a special virtual summit of eight SAARC nations and proposed a COVID-19 package, for which India provided about half of the $20 million funding for relief.
  • India’s military ran a series of missions to SAARC countries and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with supplies of food and medicines, and India’s ‘Vande Bharat’ mission flew home nationals from neighbouring countries, along with lakhs of Indians who had been stranded during the lockdown.
  • India was not the only country in the region providing help. China, too, stepped up efforts to extend its influence in the South Asian region through COVID-19 relief. China also shipped relief to South Asia, sending out PPE suits and other medical equipment. Given that all SAARC countries except India and Bhutan are part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and owe different amounts of debts to Chinese banks, Beijing stepped in to provide partial debt waivers to the Maldives and Sri Lanka. It also extended a massive $1.4-billion Line of Credit to Pakistan.

Did the military standoff impact regional ties?

  • China doubled down on territorial claims and its transgressions along its borders with South Asia: from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, PLA soldiers amassed along various sectors of the LAC, leading to violent clashes.
  • The deaths of 20 Indian soldiers at the Galwan valley was the first such casualty in 45 years. China also laid claim to Bhutan’s Sakteng natural reserves and pushed along the boundary lines with Nepal, all of which changed India’s strategic calculations along its Himalayan frontiers. That India and Nepal saw their worst tensions in decades over the construction of a road to Lipulekh, leading to Nepal amending its constitution and map to claim Indian territory, added to the already fraught situation. Meanwhile, a new defence pact this year between China and Pakistan vis-à-vis a sharp rise in ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan to the highest levels since 2003, has made it clear that India must factor in among its military challenges at the LAC the possibility of a two-front war.

How has India dealt with a three-pronged challenge?

  • The government’s response to the challenges has been to assert its Neighbourhood First and SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) strategies as foreign policy priorities.
  • Apart from the COVID-19 relief and neighbourhood visits, Mr. Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar have been in frequent touch with their counterparts in the region.
  • India has also upped its game on infrastructure delivery, particularly for regional connectivity in the past year, including completing railway lines to Bangladesh and Nepal, riverine projects, ferry service to the Maldives, identifying other services to Sri Lanka and IOR islands, while also considering debt waiver requests from its neighbours.
  • Unlike in the past, India has also become more flexible about the entry of other powers to help counter China’s influence in the region — it recently welcomed the U.S.’s new military dialogue with the Maldives. America’s Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) projects in Afghanistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh are also finding more space.
  • As part of its Indo-Pacific policy, New Delhi is also encouraging its Quad partners — the U.S., Japan and Australia — to collaborate on security and infrastructure initiatives in the neighbourhood, along with promoting forays by other partners like the U.K., France and Germany in the region. It is also significant that despite considerable security challenges from China, India has not sought to elicit support from its neighbours, which might have put them in a difficult position. Thus, the Modi government has made it clear that despite the provocations, it intends to resolve the nearly ten-month-long military standoff diplomatically and bilaterally.

6 . Nanomicelles


Context : With the advance in nanotechnology, researchers across the globe have been exploring how to use Nanomicelles for efficient drug delivery.

About Nanomicelles

  • Similar to nanoshells and nanovesicles, nanomicelles are extremely small structures and have been noted as an emerging platform in targeted therapy.
  • Nanomicelles are globe-like structures with a hydrophilic outer shell and a hydrophobic interior. This dual property makes them a perfect carrier for delivering drug molecules.

Use of Nanomicells in Drug delivery

  • A multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team has created a nanomicelle that can be used to deliver a drug named docetaxel, which is commonly used to treat various cancers including breast, colon and lung cancer.

Importance

  • The ideal goal for cancer therapy is destroying the cancer cells without harming healthy cells of the body, and chemotherapeutics approved for treatment of cancer are highly toxic. The currently used docetaxel is a highly hydrophobic drug, and is dissolved in a chemical mixture (polysorbate-80 and alcohol). This aggravates its toxic effects on liver, blood cells, and lungs.
  • So, there was an urgent and unmet need to develop effective drug delivery vehicles for docetaxel without these side effects

How it will be used in Drug Delivery

  • The nanomicelles are less than 100nm in size and are stable at room temperature.
  • Once injected intravenously these nanomicelles can easily escape the circulation and enter the solid tumours where the blood vessels are found to be leaky.
  • These leaky blood vessels are absent in the healthy organs. Chemical conjugation would render the phospholipid-docetaxel prodrug to be silent in the circulation and healthy organs.
  • But once it enters the cancer cells, the enzymes will cleave the bond to activate the drug, and kill the cancer cells
  • The team tested the effectiveness of the nanomicelles in a mice breast tumour model and was found to help in tumour regression
  • The team further studied the mode of action of the nanomicelles and found that they work by enhancing the expression of tumour suppressor genes.

7 . Inner Line Permit


Context : Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said the Inner-Line Permit (ILP) had been the Centre’s biggest gift to Manipur since its statehood. ILP was implemented in Manipur in last December.

What is Inner Line Permit system?

  • Inner Line Permit (ILP) is an official travel document required by Indian citizens residing outside certain “protected” states while entering them.
  • The ILP is issued by the Government of India and is obligatory for all those who reside outside the protected states. With the ILP, the government aims to regulate movement to certain areas located near the international border of India.
  • The system is in force today in Northeastern states of Arunachal PradeshNagaland, Manipur and Mizoram— and no Indian citizen can visit any of these states unless he or she belongs to that state, nor can he or she overstay beyond the period specified in the ILP.

Origin of Inner Line Permit

  • During the British rule they framed Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act, 1873, for restricting the entry and regulating the stay of outsiders in designated areas. This was to protect the Crown’s own commercial interests by preventing “British subjects” (Indians) from trading within these regions. 
  • -In 1950, the Indian government replaced “British subjects” with “Citizen of India”. This was to address concerns about protecting the interests of the indigenous people from outsiders belonging to other Indian states.

How is ILP issued?

  • An ILP is issued by the state government concerned. It can be obtained after applying either online or physically. It states the dates of travel and also specifies the particular areas in the state which the ILP holder can travel to.

8 . Governor’s Role in Holding an Assembly Session


Context : In yet another tug-of-war between Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Governor has turned down a request to summon a special sitting of the Assembly to debate the new three central farm laws.

Who can summon a session of the Assembly?

  • “The Governor shall from time to time summon the House or each House of the Legislature of the State to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit…” says Article 174 of the Constitution.
  • The provision also puts on the Governor the responsibility of ensuring that the House is summoned at least once every six months.
  • Although it is the Governor’s prerogative to summon the House, according to Article 163, the Governor is required to act on the “aid and advice” of the Cabinet. So when the Governor summons the House under Article 174, this is not of his or her own will but on the aid and advice of the Cabinet.

Can the Governor refuse the aid and advice of the Cabinet?

  • There are a few instances where the Governor can summon the House despite the refusal of the Chief Minister who heads the Cabinet.
  • When the Chief Minister appears to have lost the majority and the legislative members of the House propose a no-confidence motion against the Chief Minister, then the Governor can decide on his or her own on summoning the House.
  • But the actions of the Governor, when using his discretionary powers can be challenged in court.

How have the courts ruled?

  • A number of rulings by the Supreme Court has settled the position that the Governor cannot refuse the request of a Cabinet that enjoys majority in the House unless it is patently unconstitutional. The latest in the line of rulings is the landmark 2016 Constitution Bench ruling in which the Supreme Court looked into the constitutional crisis in Arunachal Pradesh after the Governor had imposed President’s Rule in the state.
  • “In ordinary circumstances during the period when the Chief Minister and his council of ministers enjoy the confidence of the majority of the House, the power vested with the Governor under Article 174 to summon, prorogue and dissolve the house(s) must be exercised in consonance with the aid and advice of the chief minister and his council of ministers. In the above situation, he is precluded [from taking] an individual call on the issue at his own will, or in his own discretion,” the verdict said. The court read the power to summon the House as a “function” of the Governor and not a “power” he enjoys.
  • Even the Sarkaria Commission of 1983, which reviewed the arrangements between the Centre and the states, had said that “so long as the Council of Ministers enjoys the confidence of the Assembly, its advice in these matters, unless patently unconstitutional must be deemed as binding on the Governor. It is only where such advice, if acted upon, would lead to an infringement of a constitutional provision, or where the Council of Ministers has ceased to enjoy the confidence of the Assembly, that the question arises whether the Governor may act in the exercise of his discretion”

What happens if the Kerala government insists on holding the special session?

  • Since the Governor’s powers are limited with regard to summoning the House, there can be no legal ground to deny a request for summoning the session.
  • The political nature of the office of the Governor, especially in Opposition-ruled states, has been underlined in several instances by courts.
  • The constitutional checks and balances and landmark court rulings account for this and limit the discretionary powers of the Governor.

9 . Facts for Prelims


e-Sampada Portal

  • e-Sampada portal is the portal for booking and applying for government homes and offices

Portulaca laljii,

  • Botanists have discovered a new species of the wild sun rose from the Eastern Ghats in India. The new species, named Portulaca laljii, discovered from Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh

Flashpoints between India and China in eastern Ladakh,

  • Galwan’, ‘Pangong’, and ‘Finger 5’ continue to remain flashpoints between India and China in eastern Ladakh,

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