DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

By admin: Jan. 5, 2022

ICMR approves indigenous kit to detect Omicron

Tags: National News

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved an indigenous testing kit for detecting the Omicron variant of SARS­CoV­2.

• The kit is manufactured by Tata Medical and Diagnostics and is named 'OmiSure'.
• The kit can detect the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 as well as other variants of SARS-CoV2 in nasopharyngeal / oropharyngeal specimens during the RT-PCR tests.
• The test kit is compatible with all standard Real-Time PCR Machines. The first target is based on S-gene dropout or S-gene target failure (SGTF), and the second target is based on S-gene mutation amplification (SGMA).
• The company has applied for a license with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), once the license is approved by the CDSCO, the kit will be manufactured by TATA MD at its Sriperumbudur facility in Tamil Nadu.

Currently the kit that is being used to detect the Omicron variant in India is developed by US-based scientific instrumentation company Thermo Fisher. It uses the S Gene Target Failure (SGTF) strategy to detect the variant.

Centre ask States to share intelligence on a common grid

Tags: National News

In a recent high-level meet with the Directors­ General of Police(DGP) of all states, chaired by Union Minister of Home Affairs Mr. Amit Shah, the central government has asked the States to share more intelligence inputs through the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC).

• The Multi Agency Centre (MAC), is a common counter­-terrorism grid under the Intelligence Bureau that was made operational in 2001 following the Kargil War as per suggestions of Kargil Review Committee Report and Group of Ministers (GoM) Report.
• The Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) functions under Intelligence Bureau(IB) and is headquartered in New Delhi.
• The state offices have been designated as subsidiary MACs (SMACs).
• As many as 28 organizations, including the  Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), armed forces, and State police, are part of the platform. 
• Various security agencies share real­time intelligence inputs on the MAC
• At the MAC level, the meeting of all these agencies is convened almost every day where the intelligence of the last 24 hours is brought on to the table, discussed and follow­up action is devised or agreed upon
• As per the parliamentary standing committee report in 2020, one of the major hurdles in the functioning of MAC is that states are often reluctant to share information on the platform, thus creating several gaps in sharing critical information at the right time.
• The Union Home Ministry, along with the IB, was contemplating to extend the connectivity of SMAC to the districts in a phased manner.

27th Edition of Kolkata film festival temporarily postponed due to surge in covid cases

Tags: State News

27th Kolkata International Film Festival which was scheduled from January 7-14, 2022 got temporarily postponed amid Surge in Covid-19 Cases

• The inaugural film will be Satyajit Ray’s 1970 classic Aranyer Din Ratri. 

• The festival will offer a centenary tribute to filmmaker Satyajit Ray, film critic Chidananda Dasgupta and Hungarian filmmaker Miklós Jancsó.

• Finland is the theme country for the 27th edition of the festival.

The Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) is an annual film festival held in Kolkata, India. Founded in 1995, it is the third-oldest international film festival in India. The festival is organized by the West Bengal Film Centre under the West Bengal Government.

Award - Golden / Silver Royal Bengal Tiger

Sri Lanka Cabinet clears Trincomalee oil tank farm deal with India

Tags: International News

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government in Colombo has approved a proposed deal with India to develop and modernize most of its strategic petroleum storehouses from the World-War-II-era in Trincomalee on the north-east coast of the island nation. 

• The pre-WWII era oil storage facility covers an area of 850 acres and has a capacity of nearly 1 million tonnes, which far outstrips the demand in Sri Lanka. Trincomalee is also the nearest port to Chennai and can be used for developing it as a refueling facility for small ships.
• The Sri Lankan Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal to allocate 14 oil tanks of the Lower Oil Tank Complex already in use by the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation, a subsidiary of the Indian Oil Corporation, for the company's business activities. 
• It also approved the allocation of the 61 tanks to joint venture company, Trinco Petroleum Terminal Private Limited, with 51% stakes to be owned by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and 49% by the Lanka IOC. The arrangement is for the next 50 years.
• Talks were being held intermittently since the agreement between then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J R Jayewarndene as part of the annexure to the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 29, 1987 — that the tank farm would be developed jointly.
• India was initially reluctant to heavily invest in Trincomalee. India's interest in Trincomalee got boosted after China heavily invested in Hambantota port.

India spent record $55.7 bn on gold imports in 2021

Tags: Economics/Business

India splurged a record $55.7 billion on gold imports in 2021, buying more than double the previous year’s total weightage.

• India is the world's second ­biggest gold consuming nation after China.
• India imports most of its gold from Switzerland followed by the UAE.
• This is majorly due to the price drop which favoured retail buyers and also due to increased demand for weddings that were delayed when the pandemic first hit.
• The 2021 gold import bill easily doubled the $22 billion spent in 2020, and surpassed the previous high, set in 2011, of $53.9 billion.
• In volume, India imported 1,050 tonnes in 2021 compared to the 430 tonnes imported in 2020. This amount is the highest in the last decade.

Ambassador Atul Keshap appointed as head of US-India Business Council

Tags: Person in news

The  U.S Chamber of Commerce has appointed ambassador Atul Keshap  as the President of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC).

• He will replace Nisha Desai Biswal, who has been appointed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Senior Vice President of International Strategy and Global Initiatives and South Asia.
• Mr. Keshap was also previously the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives as well as Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

The U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) represents top global companies operating across the United States, India, and the Indo-Pacific.

• Founded in 1975.
• Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States

Social worker Sindhutai Sapkal passes away

Tags: Person in news

 Noted social activist and Padma Shri winner Sindhutai Sapkal who was also known as Orphan  Children Mothers passed away in Pune at the age of 74 on 4 January 2021 .

• She was a social worker and social activist known particularly for her work in raising orphaned children in India. She nurtured over 1,500 orphaned children and through them had a grand family of 382 sons-in-law and 49 daughters-in-law. 
• She received Padma Shri in 2021 in the Social Work category.
• In 2017, she received Nari Shakti Puraskar from the President Of India
• The 2010 Marathi film Mee Sindhutai Sapkal by Anant Mahadevan is a biopic inspired by the true story of Sindhutai Sapkal. The film was selected for world premiere at the 54th London Film Festival.

Apple becomes first company to hit $3 trillion market value

Tags: Economics/Business

Apple Inc became the first company in the world to have a $3 trillion stock market value.

• Investors believe that the consumers will continue to purchase Apple's  iPhones, MacBooks and services such as Apple TV and Apple Music.
• Apple shared the $2 trillion market value club with Microsoft Corp, which is now worth about $2.5 trillion. Alphabet, Amazon.com Inc and Tesla have market values above $1 trillion.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple is: Tim Cook

The Headquarters of Apple:  Cupertino, California, United States

Airtel Payment Bank becomes a Scheduled Bank

Tags: Economics/Business

Reserve Bank of India has accorded a scheduled bank status to the Airtel Payment Bank in India.

•  It means that the Airtel Payment Bank can now participate in the Central government and State government business, participate in the auctioning of government bonds in the primary market,besides participating in government-operated welfare schemes.

Airtel Payment Bank 

• It is the first Payment bank to be set up in India in 2017. 
• The headquarters of the Airtel Payment Bank: New Delhi.

Other Payment banks in India are India Post Payment Banks, Fino Payment Bank, NSDL payment Bank, Jio Payment Bank ,Paytm Payment Bank .