Relevance IN- Prelims (about the Invest India Business Immunity Platform + about Invest India
What's the NEWS

• Invest India, India's national Investment Promotion & Facilitation Agency, under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has launched The Invest India Business Immunity Platform.

• The platform, hosted on the Invest India website, is designed as a comprehensive resource to help businesses and investors get real-time updates on India's active response to COVID-19 (Coronavirus).
• The Business Immunity Platform (BIP) is the active platform for business issue redressal, operating 24/7, with a team of dedicated sector experts and responding to queries at the earliest.
• Invest India has also announced a partnership with SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank of India) for responding and resolving queries for MSMEs.

• Invest India is India's official agency dedicated to investment promotion and facilitation.
• It is a single window facilitator, set up in 2010 for prospective overseas investors and to those aspiring Indian investors desiring to invest in foreign locations, and acts as a structured mechanism to attract investment.
• Invest India is essentially an Investment Promotion Agency in India.
• It is a non-profit venture under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India

• ICAR has launched a flagship network project National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA).

• The NICRA aims at strategic research on adaptation and mitigation, demonstration of technologies on farmers' fields and creating awareness among farmers and other stakeholders to minimise the impacts of global warming on agriculture.
• Under this project, large number of indigenous genetic resources and improved crop varieties of pulses (black gram, green gram, pigeonpea, chickpea) and cereals (rice and wheat) are screened for major abiotic stresses like drought and heat to identify superior cultivars for large scale adoption in farmers' fields genetic materials for cultivation at farmers field.
• In the process number of genetic materials including improved varieties were identified, some of which are already in the farmers' fields.
• Besides, location specific natural resource management (NRM) technologies are being demonstrated under Technology Demonstration Component of NICRA in 151 climatically vulnerable districts to achieve climate resilient agriculture.

• National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) is a network project of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) launched in February, 2011.
• The project aims to enhance resilience of Indian agriculture to climate change and climate vulnerability through strategic research and technology demonstration.
• The research on adaptation and mitigation covers crops, livestock, fisheries and natural resource management.
• The project consists of four components viz. Strategic Research, Technology Demonstration, Capacity Building and Sponsored/Competitive Grants.

• National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the missions under National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) aims to evolve and implement strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the changing climate.
• National Food Security Mission (NFSM) programme is implemented in the identified districts across the country with the objective of increasing foodgrain production through area expansion and productivity enhancement, restoring soil fertility and productivity at individual farm level and enhancing farm level economy.

• Global warming associated with the increase in concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is one of the reasons for the increase in extreme weather events.
• Due to global warming, agriculture sector is likely to be affected and climate change is expected to impact yields of agriculture crops.
• Climate change has become an important area of concern for India to ensure food and nutritional security for growing population.
• The impacts of climate change are global, but countries like India are more vulnerable in view of the high population depending on agriculture.

• Amid rising coronavirus cases in the country, the national task force for COVID-19 constituted by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has recommended hydroxy-chloroquine as a preventive medication for high-risk population.
• This procedure has been okayed by Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for "restricted use in emergency situations".

• Hydroxy-chloroquine is recommended only for preventive treatment of healthcare workers and individuals in close contact of coronavirus patients
• Researchers at a US lab work with coronavirus samples as a trial begins to see whether malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine can prevent or reduce the severity of COVID-19.
• Hydroxy-chloroquine is found to be effective against coronavirus in laboratory studies and in-vivo studies.
• Its use in prophylaxis is derived from the available evidence of benefit as treatment and supported by preclinical data
• The drug is usually prescribed to malaria patients
• The drug is not recommended for prophylaxis in children under 15 years of age.

Relevance IN -Prelims(World Tuberculosis (TB) Day + about TB)
What's the NEWS

• Each year, World Health Organisation commemorate World Tuberculosis (TB) Day on March 24 to raise public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of TB, and to step up efforts to end the global TB epidemic.

• The date marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease.
• TB remains the world's deadliest infectious killer. Each day, over 4000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease.
• The theme of World TB Day 2020 - ‘It's time'
• The "It's Time" theme highlights that now is the time to scale up access to prevention and treatment, to ensure sustainable resources are dedicated to TB research, and to ramp up an equitable global strategy to control an infectious disease that is responsible for immense social burdens.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a joint initiative "Find. Treat. All. #EndTB" with the Global Fund and Stop TB Partnership, with the aim of accelerating the TB response and ensuring access to care, in line with WHO's overall drive towards Universal Health Coverage.

• TB is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable.
• TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected.

• Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a form of TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to isoniazid and rifampicin, the 2 most powerful first-line anti-TB drugs.
• MDR-TB is treatable and curable by using second-line drugs. However, second-line treatment options are limited and require extensive chemotherapy (up to 2 years of treatment) with medicines that are expensive and toxic.
• In some cases, more severe drug resistance can develop. Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is a more serious form of MDR-TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to the most effective second-line anti-TB drugs, often leaving patients without any further treatment options.

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