Daily Current Capsules 18^th January 2021

Science & Technology
India's first indigenous device for correcting ballooning of brain arteries and healing of heart hole
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Atrial Septal Defect Occluder and an Intracranial Flow Diverter Stents + about TRC + terminologies associated with stent development) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• Indians will soon have access to the country's first indigenous flow diverter stent for diverting blood flow away from localized ballooning of arteries in the brain and a device that promotes better healing of the hole in the heart.

Know! the current status of these stents

• Nitinol-based occluder devices, which are presently used to heal Atrial Septal Defect(ASD) or hole in the heart that affects 8 out of every 1000 living babies born, are currently imported to meet demands.
• India does not manufacture flow diverters stents, which are needed for diverting blood flow away from an intracranial aneurysm or localized ballooning of arteries in the brain, helping reduce chances of its rupture and related stroke.

Know! the recent development

• In order to address the challenges, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India, under the Technical Research Centre (TRC), has entered into Technology Transfer Agreements with Pune based Biorad Medisys for two biomedical implant devices--- an Atrial Septal Defect Occluder and an Intracranial Flow Diverter Stents developed by the institute in collaboration with National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore (CSIR-NAL)using super elastic NiTiNOL alloys.

Novel ASD occlude

• The novel ASD occlude developed by SCTIMST promotes better healing of the hole in the heart and also has softer edge for minimizing the damage to adjacent tissue.
• The delivery system has a novel release mechanism to enable smooth release of the device.
• The device is protected through two Indian patent applications, one international patent application, and design registration.

Flexible flow diverter stent

• The flexible flow diverter stent that allows accurate positioning of the device across the aneurysm developed by SCTIMST is the first one to be manufactured in India.
• It possesses kink resistance and improved radial strength through a novel braiding pattern making the device flexible and adaptable to the distortion of the vessel boundaries.
• The device is also provided with radio-opaque markers for radiographic visibility.
• The associated delivery system allows accurate positioning of the device across the aneurysm.
• These features have been protected through two Indian patent applications, one international patent application, and design registration.

Technical Research Centre (TRC)

• The Technical Research Centre (TRC), funded by Department of Science & Technology and Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India at S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences has been launched in January 2016.
• The aim is to establish an innovation cum incubator centre within the S N Bose Centre that would build harnessable science and technology platforms by leveraging on its existing core strength in materials science and spectroscopic techniques.
• The primary focus will be on health care, environment, and material and alloy industry.

Science & Technology
Heat-tolerant wheat varieties
Relevance IN - Prelims (about the heat tolerant wheat varieties + DNA methylation + epigenomic mapping)
What's the NEWS

• Heat stress causes a dramatic reduction in yield and quality loss of wheat, the food crop that nurtures more than one-third of the world population.

Know! all about the experiment (terminologies associated with the experiment)

• Dr. Vijay Gahlaut, an Inspire Faculty Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is exploring the epigenetic route to modify gene expression in a manner that is stably transmitted but do not involve differences in the underlying DNA sequence, so that the heritable genes do not buckle under heat stress and non-stress conditions during different grain filling stages.
• He will identify the role of DNA methylation (a biological process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule) patterns of heat stress-tolerant and heat stress-sensitive wheat genotypes during different grain filling stages.
• He proposes to carry this out through a process called epigenomic mapping, which will also help in the identification of natural epigenetic variation.
• He has shown that differential expression pattern of C5-MTase genes under heat stress suggesting their role in stress response in wheat. This could give a major clue to producing heat-tolerant productive wheat varieties.
• The utilization of identical genes that differ in the extent of methylation known asepialleles identified through his research could be one of the most promising solutions to improving wheat productivity by engineering elite wheat varieties with enhanced heat stress tolerance and increase grain yield.

Government Schemes
Prarambh: Startup India International Summit

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Prarambh + summit highlights + about Start up India and Startup India seed fund ) + Mains ( GS II government policies and interventions)
What's the NEWS

• The two day ‘Prarambh', Startup India International Summit begin in New Delhi with members of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) countries participating in the inaugural event.
• The Summit is being organizing by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, M/o Commerce & Industry, as a follow up of the announcement made by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the 4^th BIMSTEC Summit held in Kathmandu in August, 2018.
• BIMSTEC, or the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, is a grouping of countries in south Asia and Southeast Asia - Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal. The Summit is a demonstration of neighbourhood first policy which will booster partnership among the member countries.

Know! the summit highlights

• More than 25 countries and 200 global speakers are to participate in the Summit.
• The Summit is having 24 sessions with focus on enhancing multilateral cooperation and engagement with the countries from around the global to collectively develop and strengthen the Startup ecosystem.
• The main objective of the Summit is to focus attention of global capital for startups in India, provide opportunities for accessing International markets to the startups in the country, mobilize domestic capital and evolve enabling policy provisions.The Summit is the largest Startup India International Summit organized by the Government of India since the launch of the Startup India Initiative in 2016.

Know! about Indian startup and steps taken by the government

• Indian startup ecosystem has made big progress in the last five years since the launch of Startup India.
• India has over 41,000 startups registered with the Government but there are many more who are working at the grassroots level and doing a good work.
• India today is one of the biggest nations in the start-up ecosystem with more than 41,000 start-ups who are involved in one mission or the other in the country with nearly 5,700 in the IT sector, 3,600 in the health sector and 1,700 startups in agriculture.

• The Startup India initiative was launched in 2016 to promote and support the startup in India by providing bank finances.

Startup India seed fund

• Prime Minister Narendra announced a seed fund worth Rs 1,000 crore for startups to provide them with initial capital to start and grow their business, and said that guarantees would be given to help them raise debt capital going ahead.
• In order to provide initial capital to startups, the country is launching a Startup India seed fund worth Rs 1,000 crore. This will help to start and grow new startups,
• Through the Fund of Funds, startups are already receiving assistance to raise equity capital and going forward, the government will also help startups to raise debt capital by providing guarantees.
• The government is trying to create a startup system which is based on the mantra 'of the youth, by the youth, for the youth',

Know! about Startup India

• It is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.
• The Government through this initiative aims to empower Startups to grow through innovation and design.
• In order to meet the objectives of the initiative, Government of India Action Plan that addresses all aspects of the Startup ecosystem has been announced.

With this Action Plan the Government hopes to accelerate spreading of the Startup movement:

1. From digital/ technology sector to a wide array of sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, social sector, healthcare, education, etc.; and
2. From existing tier 1 cities to tier 2 and tier 3 cities including semi-urban and rural areas.

The Action Plan is divided across the following areas:

1. Simplification and Handholding
2. Funding Support and Incentives
3. Industry-Academia Partnership and Incubation
4. Highlights of the action plan

Miscellaneous
At 18 million, India has largest diaspora in the world: UN
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about International Migration 2020 Highlights) + Mains ( GS II role of Indian Diaspora)
What's the NEWS

• India has the largest transnational population in the world.
• It has the most migrants abroad -- 18 million, which is a significant number and another feature which is very interesting about the Indian migrant population is that they're really distributed all over the globe
• It has been released by the Population Affairs Officer in the Population Division at UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA)

International Migration 2020 Highlights'

• The report, ‘International Migration 2020 Highlights', by the Population Division of UN DESA, released on Friday said in 2020, 18 million persons from India were living outside of their country of birth.
• The Indian diaspora, one of the most "vibrant and dynamic", is the largest in the world, with 18 million people from the country living outside their homeland in 2020, the UN has said.
• The United Arab Emirates, the US and Saudi Arabia host the largest numbers of migrants from India
• The Indian diaspora is present in all continents and regions -- from the Gulf to Northern America to Australia, UK. It's a very vibrant" and dynamic diaspora in the world, she said.
• The report, ‘International Migration 2020 Highlights', by the Population Division of UN DESA, released said in 2020, 18 million persons from India were living outside of their country of birth.
• Other countries with a large diaspora included Mexico and Russia (11 million each), China (10 million) and Syria (8 million).
• The report said India's large diaspora is distributed across a number of major countries of destination, with the UAE (3.5 million), the US (2.7 million) and Saudi Arabia (2.5 million) hosting the largest numbers of migrants from India.
• Other countries hosting large numbers of migrants from India included Australia, Canada, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and the UK.
• Between 2000 and 2020, the size of the migrant population abroad grew for nearly all countries and areas of the world.
• India experienced the largest gain during that period at nearly 10 million, followed in order of magnitude by Syria, Venezuela, China and the Philippines.
• Migration from India is largely motivated by labour and family reasons
• Forced displacement is a much smaller category (about 10 per cent) in the total.
• The Indian diaspora is comprised predominantly of persons who are working, but also students and people who moved for family reasons.
• The US remained by far the largest country of destination of international migrants with 51 million migrants in 2020, equal to 18 per cent of the world's total.
• Germany hosted the second largest number of migrants worldwide at around 16 million, followed by Saudi Arabia (13 million), Russia (12 million) and the UK (9 million).
• In terms of regional migration corridors, between 2000 and 2020, some regional migration corridors grew very rapidly.
• The corridor Central and Southern Asia to Northern Africa and Western Asia grew the most, with 13 million migrants added between 2000 and 2020; more than tripling in size.
• The majority of that increase resulted from labour migration from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
• The report said according to World Bank projections, the Covid-19 pandemic may reduce the volume of remittances sent to low-and middle-income countries from USD 548 billion in 2019 to USD 470 billion in 2021, a decline of 14 per cent.
• India is the main country of recipient of remittances worldwide and in 2019 received USD 83 billion in remittances from its diaspora.
• The World Bank projects that in 2020, the amount will decline by around 9 per cent to about USD 76 billion.

Bilateral Relations
Cabinet approves MoU between India and UAE for Scientific and Technical Cooperation

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Scientific and Technical Cooperation - highlights) + Mains ( GS II bilateral relations + GS III disaster management) - can be used to substantiate questions related to disaster management and regional collaboration to mitigate the menaces of adverse weather
What's the NEWS

• The Union Cabinet, has given its approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) India.

The MoU provides for sharing of knowledge, data and operational products for meteorological, seismological and oceanic services, such as Radar, Satellite, Tide gauges, seismic and Meteorological stations.

1. Exchange of experience/visits in term of scientists, research scholars and specialists, etc. for the purpose of research, training, consultation, focused on climatic information services, satellite data utilization for now casting and tropical cyclones forecasting.
2. Organization of bilateral scientific and technical seminars/ workshops/ conferences and training courses on problems related to the fields of cooperation mentioned in the MoU and of interest to both countries.
3. Deployment of Meteorological observation networks on mutual agreement over Ocean waters.
4. Cooperation in the development of special capacities of Tsunami models researches for faster and more reliable forecasts of Tsunamis propagating through the Oman Sea and Arabian Sea which affect the coastal areas of India and North East of UAE.
5. Cooperation to support the Tsunami Early Warning Centre (TEWC) in the form of forecast modelling software, specifically designed to support the Tsunami forecasting operations.
6. Sharing the real-time seismic data of some of Seismic stations situated in south and west of India and North of the UAE for monitoring the seismic activities which may generate Tsunami in Arabian Sea and Sea of Oman.
7. Cooperate at the field of Seismology which includes the study of Seismic activities having the potential to generate Tsunami waves in Arabian Sea and Oman Sea.
8. Cooperation in Early warnings of Sand and Dust storms through the exchange of knowledge.

Importance of regional collaboration in understanding changing weather

• Weather services make critical contributions in enhancing efficiency of weather dependent sectors of economy; and in managing risk in weather-dependent economic sectors such as agriculture, transport, water etc. which underpin the economic growth in the region.
• Resilience can be strengthened through regional and global cooperation as countries invest in early warning systems and modernize weather and forecasting services.
• Due to evolutionary nature of weather, regional collaboration can help improve understanding of changing weather patterns, devise effective response strategies, lower investment costs, and foster regionally relevant technological innovation and address challenges related to modernization and sustainability of weather services.
• Collaborative participation within MoES (India) and NCM-UAE in terms of activities related to multi-hazard early warning system and climate resilience can significantly contribute to economic growth in the region.

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