Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- Maharaja Ranjit Singh
- One Nation One Ration Card
- National mission on natural language translation soon
- L98 59 B
- Diphtheria
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1 . Maharaja Ranjit Singh
Context : A statue of Ranjit Singh, who ruled Punjab for almost four decades (1801-39), was inaugurated in Lahore
About Ranjit Singh
- Ranjit Singh was born on November 13, 1780 in Gujranwala, now in Pakistan. At that time, Punjab was ruled by powerful chieftains who had divided the territory into Misls.
- Ranjit Singh overthrew the warring Misls and established a unified Sikh empire after he conquered Lahore in 1799.
- He was given the title Lion of Punjab (Sher-e-Punjab) because he stemmed the tide of Afghan invaders in Lahore, which remained his capital until his death.
- His general Hari Singh Nalwa built the Fort of Jamrud at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, the route the foreign rulers took to invade India.
- Maharaja Ranjit Singh is remembered for the possession of the Koh-i-Noor diamond which he left to Jagannath Temple in Odisha and was given to him by Shuja Shah Durrani of Afghanistan.
- At the time of his death, he was the only sovereign leader left in India, all others having come under the control of the East India Company in some way or the other.
Details of his administration and Military
- The maharaja was known for his just and secular rule; both Hindus and Muslims were given powerful positions in his darbar.
- The Sikhs take pride in him for he turned Harimandir Sahib at Amritsar into the Golden Temple by covering it with gold. Right at the doorstep of the sanctum sanctorum of the temple is a plaque that details how in 1830 AD, the maharaja did sewa over 10 years.
- He is also credited with funding Hazoor Sahib gurudwara at the final resting place of Guru Gobind Singh in Nanded, Maharashtra.
- He combined the strong points of the traditional Khalsa army with western advances in warfare to raise Asia’s most powerful indigenous army of that time. He also employed a large number of European officers, especially French, to train his troops.
- He appointed French General Jean Franquis Allard to modernise his army. In 2016, the town of St Tropez unveiled the maharaja’s bronze statue as a mark of respect.
- Today, his throne is displayed prominently at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Exhibitions on his rule are frequent in western countries home to the Punjabi diaspora. Last year, London hosted an exhibition that focused on the history of the Sikh Empire and the international relations forged by the maharaja
2 . One Nation One Ration Card
Context : The central government is working on a plan to launch a “One Nation One Ration Card” scheme for beneficiaries, especially migrant workers, to access the Public Distribution System from any PDS shop across the country.
About the Scheme
- The Scheme will ensure all beneficiaries especially migrants can access PDS across the nation from any PDS shop of their own choice.
- This will provide freedom to the beneficiaries as they will not be tied to any one PDS shop and reduce their dependence on shop owners and curtail instances of corruption.
- Integrated Management of PDS (IMPDS) is a system that is already operational in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura wherein a beneficiary can avail his share of food grain from any district in the State
3 . National mission on natural language translation
Context : The Ministry of Electronics and IT will soon place before the Union Cabinet a ₹450 crore proposal for Natural Language Translation — one of the key missions identified by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC).
About the Mission
- The national mission on natural language translation aims to make science and technology accessible to all by facilitating access to teaching and researching material bilingually — in English and in one’s native Indian language.
- To achieve this, the government plans to leverage a combination of machine translation and human translation ie speech-to-speech machine translation as well as text-to-text machine translation additionally, human translation will also be used.
Importance
- It will enable availability of learning, teaching and reasearch material available in English and in ones native language
- Translation activities can also help generate employment for educated unemployed, he pointed out, adding that the mission would help not just students but also teachers, authors, publishers, translation software developers and general readers.
4 . L9859B
Context : NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a new planet, L 98-59b the tiniest of its finds so far. It is between the sizes of Mars and Earth and orbits a bright, cool, nearby star.
About the TESS Mission
- The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space telescope for NASA’s Explorers program, designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method in an area 400 times larger than that covered by the Kepler mission
- One of TESS’s goals is to build a catalogue of small, rocky planets on short orbits around very bright, nearby stars for atmospheric study.
About the Discovery
- Apart from L 98-59b, two other worlds orbit the same star. While all three planets’ sizes are known, further study with other telescopes will be needed to determine if they have atmospheres and, if so, which gases are present.
- L 98-59b is around 80% Earth’s size. The two other worlds in the system, L 98-59c and L 98-59d, are respectively around 1.4 and 1.6 times Earth’s size.
- Their host star, L 98-59, is about one-third the mass of the Sun and lies about 35 light-years away.
5 . Diphtheria
Context : Diphtheria vaccine is among the oldest vaccines in India’s Universal Immunisation Programme, yet cases in the country have been going up over the last few years after showing a remarkable reduction in 2015.
About the disease
- Diphtheria is an infectious disease caused by Corynebacterium diphtheria, a bacterium. The primary infection is in the throat and upper airways.
- Diphtheria particularly affects children aged 1 to 5 years.
- In temperate climates diphtheria tends to occur during the colder months.
Types
- According to the National Health Portal, one type of diphtheria affects the throat and sometimes the tonsils.
- Another type causes ulcers on the skin; these are more common in the tropics (places where all 12 months have mean temperatures of at least 18 °C).
Vaccine
- In 1978, India launched the Expanded Programme on Immunisation. The first three vaccines in the programme were BCG (against TB). DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) and cholera.
- In 1985, the programme was converted to the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
- DPT continues to be a part of UIP, which now includes 12 vaccines. It is now incorporated as a pentavalent vaccine, (containing vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus [DPT], Hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type B).
- UIP aims at giving all children born in India all these 12 vaccines free.
- The vintage and coverage of the diphtheria vaccine is also why the government, after the last outbreak in Delhi, decided to commission a study on vaccine hesitancy and ways to deal with it.
- Vaccine hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services.