Current Affairs | National | International | SSC | UPSC 3rd August 2024

 

1. 32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE) inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi on 3 August. 

• On August 2, this triennial conference began and will conclude on 7 August. 
• After 65 years, the International Association of Agricultural Economists (ICAE) is being held in India. 
• This year, the theme of conference is "Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems." 
• The aim of this conference is to address the urgent need for sustainable agriculture in the face of global challenges such as climate change, depletion of natural resources, rising production costs and conflict. 
• ICAE 2024 will serve as a platform for young researchers and leading professionals to present their work and network with global peers. 
• It aims to enhance research collaborations, shape policy, and highlight India’s agricultural advancements, including digital and sustainable practices.
• About a thousand delegates from around 75 countries are participating in the conference. 

2.Indian Naval Ship Tabar conducted Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX) with the Russian naval ship. 

• SeIndian Navy’s frontline frigate INS Tabar reached in St. Petersburg, Russia on 25 Jul 24 for a four-day visit to participate in 328th Russian Navy Day Parade celebrations.
•  INS Tabar participated in the Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX) with the Russian Navy Ship Soobrazitelny on 30 Jul 2024. 
• The Maritime Partnership Exercise included a series of complex naval manoeuvers, including communication drills, Search & Rescue tactics and Replenishment at Sea serials. 
• Ships from both sides demonstrated high levels of professionalism and interoperability.
• The Indian Navy is committed to fostering partnerships with navies across the world. 
• The MPX with the Russian Navy reinforced the strong bilateral naval ties. It will enhance cooperation in the maritime domain. 

3. India is the 2nd largest aluminum Producer in the World.

 

• India is the 2nd largest aluminum producer, 3rd largest lime producer and 4th largest iron ore producer in the world
• .As per the data, primary aluminium production in FY 2024–25 (April-June) registered a growth of 1.2% over the corresponding period last year. 
•  The production of iron ore has increased from 72 MMT in FY 2023–24 (April-June) to 79 MMT in FY 2024–25 (April-June).
• Limestone production increased from 114 MMT in FY 2023–24 (April-June) to 116 MMT in FY 2024–25 (April-June). 
• The production of manganese ore has increased by 11% to 1.0 MMT in FY 2024–25 (April-June).
• Iron ore and limestone account for about 80% of the total MCDR mineral production by value. 
• In FY 2023–24, Production of iron ore was 275 million metric tons (MMT) and limestone was 450 MMT.

 4. First offshore mineral auctions 

• 10 blocks located in India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are available for auction for grant of composite license. 
• Of these, 7 blocks of poly-metallic nodules and crusts are located in Andaman Sea, 3 blocks of lime-mud are located off the Gujarat coast. 
• The auctions will be conducted under the Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act (OAMDR), 2002. 

5. Integrated Disease Surveillance Program

 

• A total of 1,862 disease outbreaks were reported to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme last year. 
• The highest number is being reported from Kerala. 
• Kerala reported 253 outbreaks followed by Karnataka at 223, Maharashtra at 208 and Madhya Pradesh at 140. 
• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched the portal of Integrated Health Information Platform on April 5, 2021.

6. Jabiluka uranium site – Australia 

• Australia took steps to ban mining at an Indigenous site surrounded by Kakadu National Park. 
• It is home to one of the world’s largest deposits of high-grade uranium. 
• The uranium deposit was discovered there in the early 1970s. 
• The Jabiluka site became the focus of intense legal wrangling between the Mirarr people and mining companies.

 7. GROWTH-India telescope 

• The GROWTH-India telescope caught the building-sized asteroid on its closest approach to Earth. 
• The telescope is stationed at the Indian Astronomical Observatory site at Hanle, Ladakh. 
• This is 116m, building-sized asteroid on its closest approach to earth at just 10x lunar distance. 
• GROWTH-India is India's first fully robotic optical research telescope. 
• It is one of the world’s highest Astronomical observatories at 4,500 meters. 

8. Adolescents in a Changing World 

• The report, released at the 77th World Health Assembly, was commissioned by PMNCH - The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health. 
• The failure by all stakeholders to substantially increase investment in programmes are targeted at improving adolescent well-being would result in a staggering economic cost. 
• It led to global losses amounting to an estimated $110 trillion (benefits foregone) from 2024 to 2050. 
• This equates to $4.1 trillion per year, or 7.7 per cent of the GDP of the countries included. 
• This report covers about 80 per cent of the world’s population. 
• It is estimated that a broad package of health services for adolescents is likely to yield a return of $9.6 for every dollar invested.
• While investing in education and training for adolescents is likely to yield a return of $28.6 for every dollar invested. 

9. Time's World Greatest Places of 2024

•  The TIME magazine recently published its prestigious list of the 'World's Greatest Places' for 2024.
•  It comprises 100 extraordinary establishments "that stand out in their field and the world."
•  Two Indian destinations have been featured on this list: o Manam Chocolate in Hyderabad Naar in Himachal Pradesh o The Museum of Solutions (MuSo) in Mumbai. 

10. Rock Varnish Layers in Ladakh 

• Researchers have spotted Magnetofossils, in rock varnish layers in India's Ladakh. 
• It is the fossil remains of magnetic particles produced by magneto tactic bacteria. 
• This biotic processes in the formation of rock varnish indicate how life can exist in extreme environments. 

11. Six new lineages of bent-toed geckos have been discovered from the Northeast. 

• Scientists from India and the United Kingdom have discovered six new species of bent-toed geckos from Northeast India.
• Researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE) and Natural History Museum London (NHM) have discovered two species from Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland each. 
•  The other two species have been discovered in Manipur and Mizoram. 
• Bent-toed geckos have about 346 species across different biogeographic zones in Peninsular India. 
• The Namdapha bent-toed gecko has been discovered from the Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh. 
• Scientists have discovered the Ngengpui bent-toed gecko from the Ngengpui Wildlife Sanctuary of Lawngtlai district in Mizoram. 
• Scientists have collected species samples from 22 locations between 2018 and 2022. 

12. Indian scientists have developed an enhanced genome-editing system. 

• CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi, Scientists have developed an enhanced genome-editing system that can modify DNA more precisely and efficiently. 
• This is more efficient than the existing CRISPR-based technologies.
• As a part of the immune system, CRISPR occurs naturally in some bacteria that limit infection by recognising and destroying viral DNA. 
• Scientists have developed an approach for editing the genomes of higher-order organisms.
•  With the help of CRISPR-Cas9, researchers can add, remove or alter specific DNA sequences in the genome of animals. 
• This system has been used in various fields, including in agriculture and healthcare. 
• The CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool uses a guide-RNA (gRNA) designed to find and bind to a specific part of the target genome. 
• Cas9 recognizes and binds to the PAM sequence, and acts as a molecular scissor that snips some damaged DNA. 
• Cas9, called FnCas9, is highly precise, it has a low efficiency as well. 

13. Version 4.0 of Price Monitoring System (PMS) Mobile App launched by the Minister of Food and Consumer Affairs, Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi.

 

• Shri Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi said that the Department of Consumer Affairs of the Government has included 16 additional items under price monitoring from August 1, 2024. 
• Already 22 commodities are covered under daily price monitoring. Now prices of total 38 commodities will be monitored. 
• The Department is monitoring daily prices from 550 centres across 34 States/UTs. 
• The price data monitored by the department provides advance information to the government, RBI and analysts for policy decision on CPI inflation. 
• 38 items have a share of about 31% in the total CPI weight, while 22 items have a CPI weight of 26.5%. 
• The 16 newly added items include bajra, jowar, ragi, semolina (wheat), maida (wheat), gram flour, ghee, butter, brinjal, egg, black pepper, coriander, cumin, red chilli, turmeric powder and banana. 
• Increasing the coverage of food items under daily price monitoring will play a vital role in policy measures to stabilise price volatility in food items and control overall inflation. 
• This initiative reflects the Government's commitment to address the issues of availability and affordability of essential commodities for consumers. 

14. India selects 2 crew members for Axiom-4 mission to ISS 

• Indian astronaut-desig nates Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and Group Captain Pra- santh Balakrishnan Nair have been shortlisted to go to the U.S. to train for the Axiom-4 mission to the In- ternational Space Station (ISS). 
• The National Mission Assignment Board has re commended them as prime and back-up mission pilots for the mission. Group Captain Shukla will be the prime mission pilot and Group Captain Nair will be the back-up. 
• The Axiom-4 mission is the fourth private astro- naut mission to the Inter- national Space Station.
•  The India-US. joint statement during the state visit of Prime Minister Na- rendra Modi to the U.S. in June 2023 envisioned a joint ISRO-NASA effort to the ISS. 
• the goal of mounting a joint ISRO-NA- SA effort, the Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) of the ISRO has entered in to a Space Flight Agreement with the NASA-identi- fied service provider Axiom Space Inc., U.S., for its upcoming Axiom-4 mis sion to the ISS, the ISRO said. 
• Scientific research The agency added that the assigned crew members will be finally approved to fly to the International Space Station by the Multi- lateral Crew Operations Pa nel. They will commence training for the mission from the first week of Au gust, it said. "During the mission, 
• the Gaganyatri will under- take selected scientific re- search and technology de monstration experiments on board the ISS as well as engage in space outreach activities. The experiences gained during this mission will be beneficial for the Indian Human Space Pro gram and it will also streng then human space flight cooperation between ISRO and NASA," the ISRO said.
•  Group Captain Shukla and Group Captain Nair are among the four select ed for India's Gaganyaan mission.Group Captain Shukla is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and was commissioned on June 17, 2006 in the fighter stream of the IAF. He is a fighter combat leader and a test pilot with approximately 2,000 hours of flying expe rience. He has flown a va riety of aircraft, including Su-30 MKI, MIG-21, MIG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, and An-32. 
• Group Captain Nair is an alumnus of the NDA and recipient of the Sword of Honour at the Air Force Academy. 
• He was commissioned on December 19, 1998 in the fighter stream of the IAF. He is a Cat A flying in structor and a test pilot with approximately 3,000 hours of flying experience. He has flown a variety of aircraft, including Su-30 
• MKI, MIG-21, MIG-29, Hawk, Dornier, and An-32. He is also an alumnus of the United States Staff Col- lege and a DS at the De- fence Services Staff Col- lege, Wellington, and the Flying Instructors School, Tambaram. He has com manded a premier fighter Su-30 squadron. 

15. ICMR got 172 cr. from Bharat Biotech for Covaxin: Nadda

•  The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has received 172 crore as royalty from Bharat Bio- tech International Ltd. for jointly developing in, an indigenously deve loped vaccine for CO- VID-19, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda said during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha on Friday. 
• The Minister said that af- ter the Union government objected to the failure to list ICMR as a co-owner and co-inventor during the filing of the patent for Co- vaxin, Biotech had its mistake and rectified it. "Now ICMR, National Institute of Virolo- gy, along with three scien- tists are co-owners and co- inventors of Covaxin," Mr. Nadda 
• He informed the House that India had given Covax in supplies to seven other countries under the Vac cine Maitri programme.covaxin was jointly de- veloped by the ICMR, Na- tional Institute of Virology (NIV) and Bharat Biotech in two phases. The first was to isolate the virus, and study the challenges and related issues, and these were done by the ICMR and the NIV.
• Then, the development of the vaccine was done by Bharat Biotech, which spent around 60 crore to that end, the Minister said. 
• The ICMR spent around 35 crore on the develop ment of Covaxin, including 
• 120 crore towards the Phase 3 clinical trial which involved funding 25 sites for screening and recruit- ing 25,800 participants. 

Patent application

• Responding to Trinamool Congress member Sougata Roy, who had asked wheth- er the government took any punitive action against Bharat Biotech for not mentioning the names of ICMR and NIV in the patent application, the Minister noted that there had been a joint memorandum of understanding between the ICMR, the NIV and Bharat Biotech for the vac- cine's development.
•  Initially, when Bharat Biotech filed the patent ap plication, it only included its own name. As soon as the government and the ICMR came to know about it, "we questioned them", Mr. Nadda said and added that after the objection was raised, the application was corrected by Bharat Bio- tech. 

16. Lakshya Sen became the first male Indian shuttler who qualified for the semi-finals of an Olympics. 

• In the 2024 Paris Olympics quarterfinals, he defeated Chou Tien-chen of Chinese Taipei to reach this historic milestone. 
• The two Indian male shuttlers who have historically had the best results in the Olympic men's singles badminton competition are Parupalli Kashyap (London 2012) and Kidambi Srikanth (Rio 2016). 
• Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap reached to the quarterfinals. 
• On August 4, Sen will play against either Singapore's Loh Kean Yew or Denmark's Viktor Axelsen in the semifinals. 
• Lakshya Sen is an Indian badminton player from Uttarakhand. He is a former world junior No. 
• Increasing the coverage of food items under daily price monitoringwill play a vital role in policy measures to stabilise price volatility in food items and control overall inflation. 
• This initiative reflects the Government's commitment to address the issues of availability and affordability of essential commodities for consumers.