Daily current affairs -16 July, 2020 | The Hindu |

 The Hindu newspaper analysis-16 July,2020

     1- Jio offers 5G tech, to develop cheap smartphone with Google :-

               • Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Jio Platforms unit has developed a 5G technology which will be deployed in India next year.        .To aid mass adoption of the technology and to enable millions of 2G feature phone users to graduate to smart-phones, Jio and Google would partner to develop an entry level 4G or even 5G smartphone with Android operating system.

• Google also announced that it had agreed to invest ₹ 33,737 crore to acquire a 7.7 % stake in jio platform.

“This Made­in­India 5G solution will be ready for

trials as soon as 5G spectrum is available and can be ready for field development next year's.

  2- India and European Union push trade talks:-

           • India and the European Union. (European Union) committed to a framework for strategic cooperation until 2025, and vowed to cooperate on their response to the

coronavirus pandemic and at the United Nations Security Council.

• In a new initiative to revive talks on a free trade agreement that have been

suspended since 2013, the two sides announced a “high­level dialogue” bet-

ween Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan

to try and take the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) forward.

• “India and the EU are natural partners,” said Mr. Modi in his opening remarks.

• “Our partnership is important for global peace and stability, and this reality is clearer given the situation around the world,” he added. He also referred to shared “universal values” of

democracy, pluralism,  respect for international institutions and multilateralism between India and the EU.

       

        3-  Affordable covid -19 diagnostic kit launched:-

              • An RT­PCR based COVID­19 diagnostic kit ‘Corosure’,developed by IIT­Delhi and approved by the ICMR and DCGI, was launched by Union Human Resource Development. 

• The kit was developed indigenously. The

base price of the RT­PCR assay is ₹399 and will bring down the cost of covid-19 RT-PCR testing.

       4- Child rights body to form health, nutrition division:-

 

             • The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) on Wednesday de-

cided to constitute a ‘health & nutrition’ division within the commission to ensure accessibility, availability,and adequacy of health and nutrition to every child in the city.

• The division will ensure adequate steps that shall be taken to monitor, review and take action on the implementation of mid­day

meal scheme in schools, provision of supplements for children (0­6 years), pro-

vision of supplements for pregnant and  lactating women under Integrated Child

Development Services (ICDS), neonatal care and screening in hospitals and immunisation of children •

      5- Govt. nod for urgent defence procurements:-

         

             • The Defence Ministry onWednesday once again gave emergency powers to the

armed forces to procure weapons systems at costs up to ₹ 300 crore on an urgent basis, without any further clearances, to cut short the

procurement cycle, the Defence Ministry said. Similar powers were given to the services after the Balakot air strike in February 2019.

• The decision was taken at a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

• “The DAC delegated thevpowers for processing urgent capital acquisition cases up to ₹300 crore to the armed forces to meet their

emergent operational requirements. This will shrink the procurement timelines and ensure placement of orders within six months and

commencement of deliveries within one year,”•

• The Army has already taken a decision to place repeat orders for 72,400 SIG­716 assault rifle from Sig Sauer of the U.S. and 12 launchers and around 250 missiles of the Spike AntiTank Guided Missiles (ATGM) from Israel.

      6- Modi exhorts youth to skill, reskill and upskill :-

        √ Skill is self-reliance,it not only makes

one employable,but also self-employable.

      Narendra Modi, Prime Minister

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the youth should skill, reskill and upskill themselves to remain relevant in the rapidly

changing business environment and market conditions, which were impacted by the COVID­19 crisis. 

• Speaking on the occasion of the World Youth Skills Day and the fifth anniversary of “Skill India Mission”, Mr.Modi said the mission —

launched exactly five years ago — had led to the creation of vast infrastructure for skilling, reskilling and upskilling and enhancing op-

portunities for access to employment, both locally and globally.

• Kaushal Kendras- Under the programme, hun-

dreds of PM Kaushal Kendras had been set up and capacity of the ITI ecosystem increased. More than five crore youth were skilled. Referring to a portal launched recently for map-

ping the skilled employees and employers•

• it would help the skilled workers, includ-

ing the migrant workers who had returned to their homes, to access jobs easily and the employers to contact skilled employees at the

click of a mouse. Skills of migrant workers would also help in changing the local

economy.

• “Skill is something which we gift to ourselves, which grows with experience. Skill is timeless, it keeps getting better with time. Skill is unique, it makes you different from other Skill is a treasure that nobody can take away. And, skill is self­reliance, it not only makes one employable but also self-­employable•

• Distinguishing between “knowledge” and “skill”, the Prime Minister said knowing

how a cycle ran was “knowledge”, while actually being able to ride a cycle was a

“skill”•

      7- Ashok Lavasa appointed V-P of ADB:-

          • The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday announced that it had appointed Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, who

was next in line to become the Chief Election Commissioner in 2021, as its vice-president (V­P) for private sector operations and public­private partnerships.

      8- Indigenous vaccine for pneumonia gets nod:-

          • The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved the first fully indigenously developed conjugate vaccine for pneumonia developed by the Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd, Pune. 

• The Serum Institute first obtained the DGCI approval to conduct Phase I, Phase II and Phase III clinical trials of Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Conjugate Vaccine in India.

• This vaccine is used for  active immunisation against invasive disease and pneumonia caused by “streptococcus pneumonia” in in-

fants. 

• The vaccine is administered intramuscularly.

   9- India’s population may peak by 2047:-

          • When this century ends, India may no longer be a country of a billion, says projection that appears in the online edition of the Lancet.

• At the current rate of growth, India's population is likely to peak by 2047 at

about 1.61 billion and then decline to 1.03 billion by 2100. However, were it to meet UN Sustainable Goal Development targets, the

peak would be earlier and see a population decline to 929 million.

     10- Fight against hunger disrupted by slowdown:-

            • The world is not on track to meet the goal of zero hunger by 2030, says food security report.

• Between 8.3 crore and 13 crore people globally are likely to go hungry this year

due to the economic recession triggered by COVID­19, warns the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2020 report.

• Estimates drawn from data available till March 2020 show that almost 69 crore people went hungry in 2019— up by 1 crore in 2018.

• The SOFI report was released on Monday in New York on the sidelines of the High­Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

which tracks the progress of nations towards achieving Sustainable DevelopmentGoals 2030. It is produced jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme(WFP) and the World Health

Organisation (WHO).

• Asia remains home to the greatest number of under-nourished (38 crore). Africa is second (25 crore), followed by Latin America and

the Caribbean (4.8 crore).

• According to current estimates, in 2019, 21.3% (14.4.crore) of children under 5 years were stunted,6.9% (4.7 crore) wasted and

5.6% (3.8 million) overweight.

• The report highlights that a healthy diet costs more than ₹413 ( $ 1.90 per/ day), which is the international poverty threshold. The num-ber of people globally who can’t afford a healthy diet is at 300 crore people, or more than the combined population of China and India.

    11- Zydus starts human trials for COVID­19 vaccine:-

        • Pharmaceutical major Zydus said on Wednesday it had started human studies for its

potential COVID­19 vaccine, as coronavirus infections continue to surge in India, the third worst­hit nation. ZyCoV­D, its plasmid DNA

vaccine, was found to be safe, immunogenic and well­tolerated in the pre-clinical toxicity studies, Zydus said. In the human trials,

Zydus will enrol more than1,000 subjects across multiple clinical study sites in

India.

  

       12- PSBs buy ₹14,667 cr in NBFC bonds and paper:-

           • Public sector banks (PSBs) have purchased bonds and commercial papers worth ₹14,667 cr. Issued by 67 NBFCs under the revamped Partial Credit Guarantee

Scheme (PCGS).

• As part of the nearly ₹ 21 lakh crore special economic package amid the COVID­19 crisis, Ms. Sitharaman announced Partial Credit Gua-

rantee Scheme (PCGS) 2.0 worth ₹   45,000 crore from non­banking financial companies and micro finance institute (MFI).

    13- U.S. govt. rescinds restrictive rule on international students:-

            • The U.S. government has rescinded its policy that foreign (F­1 and M­1 visa categories)

students taking all their courses online would have to depart the country. This order, issued on July 6 by the Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (ICE), encountered strong opposition from voices in academia, industry

and politics after it left many of the more than 1 million foreign students in the U.S in a

precarious situation. It is,however, unclear what the status of students waiting abroad is and whether they will get visas in time for the

fall semester given the U.S.missions abroad are not functioning at full capacity.

• A number of U.S. lawmakers had written to the administration since July 6, asking ,it to rescind the order. The issue of foreign visas had  been raised by India last week at virtual Foreign Office consultation led by foreign

Secretary Harsh Shringla and U.S. Undersecretary of State David Hale. There

are some  2,00,000 Indian students in the U.S.

• “There is still uncertainty for new students who may still end up stuck abroad if their schools remain online.That group was not covered under the March 2020 guidance and we knew that was a problem for them,” Mr. Siskind said. “Perhaps the administration will decide it’s easier to treat all the students the same and walk away from this unpopular,

counterproductive policy.

       13- ‘Pacific a pivot for ties with Moscow’:-

  

                  • India wants Russia to be more involved in the Indo-Pacific and Moscow should look to its own interests in the region and that will create a mutual basis for

cooperation and dialogue,said Indian envoy to Russia D.B. Venkatesh Varma on Wednesday while referring to Indian and Russian invest-

ments in Vietnam’s oil and gas sector as one of the areas of cooperation.

• He was speaking at a webinar, jointly organised by the Russian International Affairs council and the Indian council of world affairs.

•Common interests- In this direction, he referred to investments by both India

and Russia in the oil and gas sector of Vietnam. If there was a challenge to well esta-

blished principles of international law, norms and contracts, Indian interests were

as much effected as much as Russian interests. “This is an area we need to work together. There is already a lot of common ground.”

         Thank you, have a good day 👍

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