Daily Current Capsules

19th November 2020

Science & Technology
Param Siddhi

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Param Siddhi Supercomputer + about NKM) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)

What's the NEWS

• Param Siddhi, the high performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at C-DAC has achieved global ranking of 63 in TOP 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems in the world

Know! more about the supercomputer

• Param Siddhi Supercomputer is built on the NVIDIA DGX Super POD reference architecture networking along with C-DAC's indigenously developed HPC-AI engine, software frameworks and cloud platform and will help deep learning, visual computing, virtual reality, accelerated computing, as well as graphics virtualization.
• Param Siddhi has got the recognition among non-distributed computer systems. A non-distributed computer system has all its components at a single location. In this case, Param Siddhi is in Pune.

• The supercomputer with Rpeak of 5.267 Petaflops and 4.6 Petaflops Rmax (Sustained) was conceived by C-DAC and developed jointly with support of Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under NSM.
• 
  Param Siddhi-AI will empower the national academic and R&D institutions as well as industries and start-ups spread over the country networked on the national supercomputer grid over the National Knowledge Network (NKN)

Know! the benefits of AI System

• The AI system will strengthen application development of packages in areas such as advanced materials, computational chemistry & astrophysics
• This will accelerate R&D in war against COVID-19 through faster simulations, medical imaging, genome sequencing and forecasting
• It is a boon for application developers and will help testing of weather forecasting, geo-exploration packages for oil and gas recovery; packages for aero-design studies

Additional Info

National Knowledge Network (NKN)

• The Government's decision to set up National Knowledge Network was announced in the Budget Speech, 2008-09.
• An initial amount of Rs. 100 crore for FY 2008-09 was allocated to the Department for establishing the National Knowledge Network.
• A High Level Committee (HLC) was set up under the Chairmanship of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India to coordinate and monitor the establishment of the National Knowledge Network.
• Government has approved the project on Establishment of National Knowledge Network in March, 2010 with an outlay of Rs. 5990 Cr. over a period of 10 years. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the implementing agency.
• The objective of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) is to interconnect all institutions of higher learning and research with a high speed data communication network to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative research.
• NKN will facilitate advanced distance education in specialized fields like engineering, science, medicine etc. as well as enable an ultra-high speed eGovernance backbone.
• It will bridge the existing knowledge gap in the country and help the country evolve as a Knowledge Society and also spur economic activities in the Knowledge domain.

The application areas envisaged under the National Knowledge Network cover
Agriculture

• Education
• Health
• e-governance
• Grid Computing (High Performance Computing)
  

Science & Technology

Swarnajayanti Fellowship

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Swarnajayanti Fellowship + Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy)
What's the NEWS

• Swarnajayanti Fellow may provide new genetic treatment for thalassemia, duchenne muscular dystrophy, haemophilia

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

• Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a severe type of muscle weakness that usually begins at an early age and worsens quickly, may soon have a new strategy of treatment through genetic regulation.
• There is no known cure for duchenne muscular dystrophy. Treatments usually aim to control symptoms to improve quality of life.
• Sandeep Eswarappa, Assistant Professor Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru one of the 21 recipients of this year's Swarnajayanti Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), proposes to suppress the disease-causing premature stop codon or the genetic process that initiates these diseases.

Know! about the new genetic treatment

• In case of any protein formation genetic information present in the genome is first transcribed into an mRNA, which in turn is translated into a protein.
• Protein synthesis or translation is executed by macromolecular machinery called ribosomes.
• Ribosomes start this process at a specific location on an mRNA called ‘start codon' and terminate at a stop signal called ‘stop codon'.
• In case of diseases with nonsense mutations, such mutations result in premature stop signal in mRNA often resulting in non-functional truncated protein

Know! about the Swarnajayanti Fellowships

• Govt. of India had instituted a scheme "The Swarnajayanti Fellowships" to commemorate India's fiftieth year of Independence.
• Under this scheme a selected number of young scientists, with proven track record, are provided special assistance and support to enable them to pursue basic research in frontier areas of science and technology.
• The fellowships are scientist specific and not institution specific, very selective and have close academic monitoring..
• The award consists of a Fellowship of Rs 25000/- per month in addition to the salary drawn from the parent Institute along with a Research Grant of Rs 5 lakh per annum by Department of Science and Technology for a period of 5 years, while the project submitted by the selected Fellows will be considered for funding by the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB)
• Scientists selected for the award will be allowed to pursue unfettered research with a freedom and flexibility in terms of expenditure as approved in the research plan.
• The project should contain innovative research idea and it should have a potential of making impact on R&D in the discipline.
• The duration of the fellowship will be for a period not exceeding five years.

Health
Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV PreventionRelevance IN -

Prelims ( about GPC and steps taken by India for HIV Prevention)
What's the NEWS

• The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare digitally addressed the Ministerial meeting of the Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention
  
  

Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC)

• Hosted by UNAIDS and UNFPA on behalf of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC),the conference this year holds significance in achieving the 2016 UNGA commitment to end AIDS by 2030.

• Member States of GPC had agreed to reduce new adult HIV infections by 75% at the end of 2020 from 2010 levels.

• Global AIDS response has shown remarkable success in reducing new infections, improving access to prevention services for key population and treatment services for People living with HIV (PLHIV), reducing AIDS related mortality
  

HIV epidemic prevention - steps taken by India

• The provision of generic Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARV) from India to the world has had a critical impact in controlling the HIV epidemic.
• India's unique HIV prevention model which is centered around the concept of ‘Social Contracting' through which the Targeted Interventions (TI) programme is implemented
• With support from Non-Government Organizations, the programme is aimed at providing outreach, service delivery, counselling & testing and ensuring linkages to HIV care.
• India had revamped its Targeted Intervention (TI) programme to focus on hard-to-reach populations to keep its commitments- People living in prisons and other closed settings were considered as priority populations and interventions launched were gradually scaled up since 2016
• The HIV Counselling & Testing Services (HCTS), Community based Screening of HIV for improving early diagnosis were also ramped up; the coverage of testing for HIV across the country was increased to achieve the Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV.
• Under the Test and Treat Policy, approximately 50,000 PLHIV who were lost to follow-upwere linked back to Anti-Retroviral Treatment services through ‘Mission SAMPARK', whileViral Load Testing facilities have been scaled up from the existing ten public sector labs to 64 labs across the country.

Know! more about Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC)

• In 2017, a global coalition of United Nations Member States, donors, civil society organizations and implementers was established to support global efforts to accelerate HIV prevention.
• Membership includes the 25 highest HIV burden countries, UNAIDS Cosponsors, donors, and civil society and private sector organizations.
  The overarching goal of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition is to strengthen and sustain political commitment for primary prevention by setting a common agenda among key policy-makers, funders and programme implementers.
• It seeks to ensure accountability for delivering prevention services at scale in order to achieve the targets of the 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, including a 75% reduction in HIV infections towards fewer than 500 000 infections by 2020, and to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
  

Prelims Factoids
WORLD TOILET DAY 2020: SUSTAINABLE SANITATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about World toilet day + about SBMG)

What's the NEWS

• Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), Ministry of Jal Shakti will be celebrating 'World Toilet Day' tomorrow i.e. November 19, 2020 under 'Swachh Bharat Mission - Grameen (SBMG)' for promoting awareness on access to Safe Sanitation and felicitating districts/states for making significant contribution towards Swachhata.
• Phase 2 of SBMG has been launched early this year for sustaining the gains made under Phase 1 (2014-19) with focus on ODF Sustainability and Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM).
• Various campaigns focusing on construction and beautification of Community Sanitary Complexes (CSCs) have been undertaken countrywide over past one year like Swachh Sunder Samudayik Sauchalay (SSSS) and Samudayik Sauchalay Abhiyan (SSA).

World Toilet Day

• It is a United Nations Observance that celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation.
• It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.

• World Toilet Organization was founded on 19 November 2001 and the inaugural World Toilet Summit was held on the same day, the first global summit of its kind.
  

• NGOs, the private sector, civil society organisations and the international community joined in to mark the global day.

• In 2013, a joint initiative between the Government of Singapore and World Toilet Organization led to Singapore's first UN resolution, entitled "Sanitation for All", calling for collective action to address the global sanitation crisis through the commemoration of World Toilet Day.

• The resolution was co-sponsored and adopted by 122 countries at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
  

• On July 24, 2013, World Toilet Day on 19 November became an official UN day.

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