Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2019

Notes:
On 22nd August 2019, Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Yesso Naik inaugurated the two-day National Conference on Varmam Science in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. ‘Varmam’ is a constituent of the Siddha system of medicine, that also doubles up as a martial art. The national conference is being organized by the National Institute of Siddha in Chennai.

Notes:
The flagship scheme of Rajasthan government has topped the 16-state chart detailing implementation of the free medicine scheme i.e. run under the National Health Mission (NHM). The NHM assessed the performance of the states on the basis of effective implementation of Drugs and Vaccine Distribution Management System (DVDMS), stock of essential drugs, value of drugs about to expire along with other such parameters. According to an NHM letter, the DVDMSA (coverage in Rajasthan is 77.26% and proportion of online drug distribution counters – 96.03%. The expired quantity proportion viz. breakage, wastage and loss are just 7.43%.

Notes:
In Madhya Pradesh, the Banjari village of Katni district has become an integral part of the digital map of the country. It is the first village in the state to be associated with the Prime Minister’s ambitious project – Digital India. In line with Digital India campaign, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEiTY) has envisaged the Digital Village Project. It has plans to build 1000 digital villages across the country. The digital village will not only help in providing connectivity in every village but it will also help in bridging the digital divide between rural and urban areas. This will also open new jobs and employment. Akodara village of Sabarkantha district of Gujarat is the first digital village in the country.

Notes:
In Badminton, ace Indian shuttler PV Sindhu has become the first Indian to book a gold medal at the World Championships at Basel in Switzerland. In the final, she defeated her Japanese opponent Nozomi Okuhara by 21-7, 21-7. This was Sindhu’s third straight World Championships final. Sindhu is also the second women shuttler to have five medals and the third to have medals in all three colours.

Notes:
The researchers at IIT-Guwahati have developed a novel technique for production of meat which is completely natural. The lab-grown meat is nutritious and will be a step towards cruelty-free food. The taste of the final meat product will remain similar as raw meat but with improvised nutritional values as per customer needs. The product can be printed in varying shapes and sizes using a 3D bioprinter with the edible components and preserved for future use. According to researchers, the meat industry has been facing immense pressure in keeping up with the food requirements due to rapid increase in population. Citing predictions from the UN population prospects, Dr Biman B Mandal stated that the current meat industry will not be able to meet the global needs by 2050. Around 4,000 litres of water are required to produce one kg chicken meat and more than 8,000 litres of water are required to produce one kg of mutton. Hence, the lab grown meat made will have immense value in the Indian as well as the foreign market as it is nutritious and can be tuned for the high in demand needs of fast-food joints.

Notes:
The Tamil Nadu government has recently launched its exclusive education TV channel – Kalvi Tholaikkatchi – to benefit students of classes I to XII. The content will include shows aimed at school children, besides those on jobs and related issues. The Education TV will telecast programmes from 6 am to 9.30 pm every day. The programmes will be based on board exam preparation for students, employment news and opportunities for the youth and career-guidance information. The content for the channel has been prepared by a group of 25 teachers and the programmes will also have guest speakers like authors and subject experts. The State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has also contributed towards content development for the channel. The TN SCERT has a channel on YouTube already with around 2.5 lakh subscribers and more than 3,000 videos. The videos range from chapter-wise tutorials on subjects to easy science experiments conducted by middle school students.

Notes:
Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar has inaugurated the National Centre for Avian Ecotoxicology at Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural Sciences (SACON) in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The purpose of the center is to explore the impact of chemical contaminants on individual species of birds and, where possible, link them to population and communities. The centre would study the movement of environmental contaminants such as pesticides, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls and drugs through the food chain, and their harmful effects on birds. The Union Ministry allocated Rs 4 crore for the centre, which contains instruments such as High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC), Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAC) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS).

Notes:
The researchers at the IIT-Hyderabad have derived collagen from discarded skin of eel (a snake like fish) by treating it with acetic acid, common salt and pepsin. It then combined the collagen with alginate hydrogel and used a 3D printing process to obtain scaffolds. They shown that tissue scaffolds built using such collagen allow growth and proliferation of stem cells. Thus, eel-skin derived collagen is a promising biomaterial for tissue engineering applications. The research was funded by the Central government’s Department of Science and Technology-Science and Engineering Research Board (DST-SERB) through the National Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme (N-PDF). The practical applications of this research can lead to utilizing eel fish skin-derived collagen as a promising alternative to animal derived collagen, which are expensive and are associated with pathological diseases. Collagen is a protein found especially in the joints of humans and animals.

Notes:
The 4th edition of the Internet of Things (IoT) India Congress 2019 held in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The theme of Edition is ‘Mainstreaming the Internet of Things’. It is the India’s largest confluence of digital technology. The 2-day session focused on 10 tracks viz. Energy, Healthcare, Defence, Standards and Regulatory, Retail, Digital Communication, Skills and Development, Agriculture, Manufacturing and Smart Cities.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) under its National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) has launched the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) project to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility. Till date, there are more than 3 crore digital resources available through the National Digital Library (NDL). The contents cover almost all major domains of education and all major levels of learners. More than 50 lakh students have registered themselves in the National Digital Library with about 20 lakh active users. The NDL has been integrated with UMANG App and users can register through www.ndl.gov.in or through the mobile app.