Current Affairs Apr 24 – GES Reporter

SWAMITVA scheme

Why in News?

Prime Minister will launch the distribution of e-property cards under the SWAMITVA scheme on 24th April 2021 (National Panchayati Raj Day).
Prime Minister will also confer the National Panchayat Awards 2021 on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj day.
The National Panchayat Awards 2021 are being conferred under the following categories:
- - Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar (to 224 Panchayats),
  - Nanaji Deshmukh Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar (to 30 Gram Panchayats),
  - Gram Panchayat Development Plan Award (to 29 Gram Panchayats),
  - Child-friendly Gram Panchayat Award (to 30 Gram Panchayats) and
  - e-Panchayat Puraskar (to 12 States).

About SWAMITVA scheme

SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas) was launched by Prime Minister on 24th April 2020 as a Central Sector Scheme to promote a socio-economically empowered and self-reliant rural India.
The Scheme has the potential to transform rural India using modern technical tools of mapping and surveying. It paves the way for using the property as a financial asset by villagers for availing loans and other financial benefits.
The Scheme will cover around 6.62 Lakh villages of the entire country during 2021-2025.
The pilot phase of the Scheme was implemented during 2020–2021 in the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and select villages of Punjab and Rajasthan.

PIB

Summer Crops

Why in News?

For the second successive year, as a result of meticulous planning and concerted efforts of the States and the Central government, along with the hard work of the farmers, the area under summer crops has shown an increasing trend in the country.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has taken new initiatives for the scientific cultivation of summer crops such as pulses, coarse cereals, Nutri-cereals and oilseeds.
Summer sowing in the country is 21.5% higher than it was last year during the corresponding period.
A noteworthy increase has been seen in the area of pulses. The increased area is mainly reported from the states of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka etc.
Summer sowing is likely to be completed by the first week of May and the area has increased significantly.
Summer crops not only provide extra income but also create employment opportunities.
A major gain by the cultivation of summer crops is the improvement in soil health, particularly through the pulses crop.
Growing summer/Zaid crops based on the availability of soil moisture and other climatic conditions is an old practice in India, particularly for meeting the additional domestic requirement of food grains and feeding livestock. Farmers also cultivate summer paddy crops in some states for their domestic use based on water availability.
By using scientific cultivation practices, farmers have started sowing summer crops through seed drill/zero till after treating the seeds.

PIB

Oxygen Generation Plants

Why in News?

Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) has decided to import oxygen generation plants and containers from Germany, amid shortage of oxygen in the hospitals during the second wave of Covid-19 across the country.
Twenty-three mobile oxygen generation plants are being airlifted from Germany that will be deployed in AFMS hospitals catering to the COVID patients.
Each plant has a capacity to produce 40 litres of oxygen per minute and 2,400 litres an hour.
The advantage of these plants is that they are easily portable.

PIB

National Panchayati Raj Day

The first National Panchayati Raj Day was celebrated in 2010. Since then, the National Panchayati Raj Day is celebrated on April 24 every year in India.
The word Panchayat is made up of two words – “Panch”, meaning five, and “Ayat”, meaning assembly.
So, Panchayati Raj traditionally refers to a form of local governance in India by five, or more, elders of an area to usually settle disputes between individuals or villages. The leader of the group is called a Mukhiya, Sarpanch or a Pradhan.
In 1992, a legislation passed by the Parliament gave the institutional backing to the system. With the Panchayati Raj Act (73rd Amendment) coming into force on April 24, 1993, states were allowed to take steps to organize village panchayats and give them necessary powers to function as units of self-government.
The first National Panchayati Raj Day was celebrated in 2010 on this day and since then, it is an annual affair. On this day, gram panchayats are awarded by the Union government on the basis of their performance on several parameters in the preceding year.
The Village Panchayat is the lowest unit and it primarily consists of five representatives, including the Sarpanch, elected by the people of the village for a fixed five-year term. It is answerable to the general body of villagers, known as the Gram Sabha.
The second-tier Panchayat Samiti, having about 20 members, is elected by the members of panchayats and takes charge of all development work under its jurisdiction, usually covering 20-60 villages depending on the population of the area. The president of the Panchayat Samiti is called Pradhan and his/her deputy is known as the Up-pradhan.
And finally, the top-most tier of the Panchayati Raj system is called the Zilla Parishad. It consists of representatives of the Panchayat Samiti and district-level officers from various wings of the government.
The Zilla Parishad mostly coordinates and supervises the development work already underway or proposed in the district by the Panchayat Samitis. The chairperson of the Zilla Parishad is elected from among its members.

NEWS18

Zydus Cadila’s antiviral drug

The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) granted emergency use approval for pharma major Zydus Cadila’s antiviral drug ‘Virafin’, to treat moderate COVID-19 disease in adults.
A single dose subcutaneous regimen of the antiviral Virafin [a pegylated interferon alpha-2b (PegIFN)] will make the treatment more convenient for the patients.
When administered early on during COVID, Virafin will help patients recover faster and avoid much of the complications.
It is used in treating people with chronic hepatitis B and C.
The antiviral was able to control respiratory distress and failure which has been one of the major challenges in treating COVID-19.
According to the release, type I interferons are the body’s first line of defence against many viral infections.
In old people, the ability to produce interferon alpha in response to viral infections gets reduced, which might be the reason for higher mortality. The drug when administered early during the disease can replace this deficiency and help in the recovery process.

THE HINDU

International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is a landmark of international cooperation. For over 20 years, it has seen intense collaboration between the U.S., Russia, the EU, Japan and Canada, and has played host to people from 19 countries since its launch in 1998.
This scenario appears to be coming to an end, as Russian space agency Roscosmos’s chief has declared that Russia is ready to build its own space station and launch it by 2030 if President Vladimir Putin would give the go ahead.
The idea of the ISS was born in 1984 by Ronald Reagan, then the US President.
Since then, the ISS project saw a collaboration grow between several countries, mainly the following space agencies: NASA (U.S.), Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan) and CSA (Canada). Though the programme began in 1993, the construction of the station started only in 1998.
The ISS has been assembled section by section over several years. The first segment was launched on November 20, 1998 in a Russian proton rocket named Zarya (which means ‘sunrise’).
The first human expedition to the station was launched in a Soyuz TM 31 rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The ISS, at a height of about 402 km above the Earth, orbits it 16 times every day, once every 90 minutes. Over a period of 24 hours, the people inhabiting the ISS see 16 sunrises and sunsets.
The first experiments were those that studied the dynamics of cells under microgravity. Some of the experiments being conducted by the latest expeditions include a study of how muscles work under long-term stay under low-gravity conditions.

THE HINDU

Groundwater depletion

Why in News?

India is the second-largest producer of wheat in the world, with over 30 million hectares in the country dedicated to producing this crop.
But with severe groundwater depletion, the cropping intensity or the amount of land planted in the winter season may decrease by up to 20% by 2025.
Some of the important winter crops are wheat, barley, mustard and peas.
The international team studied India’s three main irrigation types on winter cropped areas: dug wells, tube wells, canals, and also analysed the groundwater data from the Central Ground Water Board.
They found that 13% of the villages in which farmers plant a winter crop are located in critically water-depleted regions.
The team writes that these villages may lose 68% of their cropped area in future if access to all groundwater irrigation is lost. The results suggest that these losses will largely occur in northwest and central India.
Switching to canal irrigation has limited adaptation potential at the national scale. Finding says even if all regions that are currently using depleted groundwater for irrigation will switch to using canal irrigation, cropping intensity may decline by 7% nationally.
Adoption of water-saving technologies like a sprinkler, drip irrigation and maybe switching to less water-intensive crops may help use the limited groundwater resources more effectively.
In the green revolution era, policy-supported environment led to a large increase in rice cultivation in northwestern India mainly in Punjab and Haryana which are ecologically less suitable for rice cultivation due to predominantly light soils.
This policy-supported intensive agriculture led to unsustainable groundwater use for irrigation and in turn groundwater scarcity. There was also post-harvest residue burning to make way for the timely sowing of wheat.

THE HINDU

Nitric oxide fight coronavirus

Why in News?

A multinational collaboration has recently announced results of phase 2 clinical trials indicating that a nitric oxide nasal spray can be an effective viral treatment. It is not, however, the first time nitric oxide has been studied as a therapy for infection or other illnesses.

What is this therapy?

Nitric oxide is known to have a broad antimicrobial effect against bacteria, fungi, helminths, protozoa and viruses.
To assess the potential of NO as a treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection, researchers evaluated its vitro antiviral effect on SARS-CoV-2 replication and published their findings.
Nitric oxide is the only substance shown so far to have a direct effect on SARS-CoV-2.

And what is this spray?

The spray releases a small, topical amount of nitric oxide that is well known to kill viruses including SARS-CoV-2. It is non-specific and thus kills any virus.
Patients treated with the spray saw an average reduction of around 95% in viral load in the first 24 hours, and more than 99% within 72 hours. No side effects or adverse events were observed.

A molecule that can help virus evade antibodies

Why in News?

A new study has found that a natural molecule can effectively block the binding of a subset of human antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. The discovery may help explain why some Covid-19 patients can become severely ill despite having high levels of antibodies against the virus.
Biliverdin and bilirubin — natural molecules present in the body — can suppress the binding of antibodies to the coronavirus spike protein.
The ability of the immune system to control the infection, and the quality of the antibody response, are highly variable between individuals.
The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein strongly binds to biliverdin, a molecule which was giving these proteins an unusual green colouration.
On the other hand, they found, the same natural molecule reduced antibody binding to the spike.
They used blood sera and antibodies from people who were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and found that biliverdin could suppress the binding of human antibodies to the spike by as much as 30-50%, with some antibodies becoming ineffective at neutralising the virus.
Biliverdin attaches to the spike N-terminal domain and stabilises it, so that the spike is not able to open up and expose parts of its structure. This means that some antibodies are not able to access their target sites and so cannot bind to and neutralise the virus.
When SARS-CoV-2 infects a patient’s lungs it damages blood vessels and causes a rise in the number immune cells. Both of these effects may contribute to increasing the levels of biliverdin and bilirubin in the surrounding tissues.
And with more of these molecules available, the virus has more opportunity to hide from certain antibodies. This is a really striking process, as the virus may be benefiting from a side-effect of the damage it has already caused.