Culture
UNESCO world heritage sites

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about UNESCO world heritage sites )
What's the NEWS

• Six sites, including the Ganga ghats in Varanasi, temples of Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu and the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, have been added to India's tentative list of UNESCO world heritage sites
• Siix of the nine sites submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India had been accepted by UNESCO for inclusion in the tentative list, which is a requirement before the final nomination of any site.
• The recently-included proposals are the Maratha military architecture in Maharashtra, the Hire Bengal megalithic site in Karnataka and Bhedaghat-Lametaghat of Narmada Valley in Madhya Pradesh.
• The six proposals were included in the list on April 13, taking the total number of proposals from India to 48, according to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
• The final nomination for a site could be submitted after the proposal had been on the tentative list for a year, so the time would be used to prepare the dossier.

World Heritage Site ( Present Status)

• At present, India has 42 sites listed under Tentative List which is a pre-requisite condition for inscription as World Heritage Site.
• ‘Dholavira: A Harappan City' has been submitted for nomination of World Heritage Site in 2019-2020.
• Nomination dossiers of ‘Santiniketan, India' and ‘Sacred Ensemble of Hoysalas' have been submitted to UNESCO for the year 2021-22 cycle.
• Augmentation of sites on the World Heritage List/Tentative List is a continuous process and sites are selected on the basis of their potential for fulfilling criteria under Operational Guidelines and demonstration of Outstanding Universal Value.
• At present, India has 38 World Heritage Properties. All the sites under the Ministry are conserved as per ASI's Conservation Policy and are in good shape.

WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN INDIA (38)
CULTURAL SITES:
Under Protection of Archaeological Survey of India (22)

Defence
S-400 missiles

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about S-400 anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile + about CAATSA) + Mains ( GS II bilateral relations)
What's the NEWS

• India will receive S-400 anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile system from Russia in October-December this year

• India will receive the first batch of the sophisticated S-400 anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile system from Russia in October-December this year
• The first deliveries of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems to India will take place in October-December this year

Know! all about S-400

• The S-400 is known as Russia's most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defence system.
• The 'Triumf' interceptor-based missile system can destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km.
• Indian specialists have arrived in Russia and began training with the S-400 in January 2021
• In October 2018, India had signed a USD 5 billion deal with Russia to buy five units of the S-400 air defence missile systems, notwithstanding warning from the then Trump administration that going ahead with the contract may trigger US sanctions under CAATSA.
• Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act or CAATSA is a tough US law which authorises the administration to impose sanctions on countries that purchase major defence hardware from Russia in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections.

• In 2019, India made the first tranche of payment of around USD 800 million to Russia for the missile systems.
  The S-400 is known as Russia's most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defence system.
  In December, Russia had said that implementation of its ongoing defence deals with India including the supply of a batch of S-400 missile systems is advancing well notwithstanding the threat of US sanctions.

Prelims Factoids
DIPCOVAN kit

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about DIPCOVAN kit)

What's the NEWS

• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in collaboration with a company, developed an antibody detection kit for spotting SARS-CoV-2 virus with a high sensitivity of 97% and specificity of 99%.

Know! about DIPCOVAN kit

• The DIPCOVAN kit was developed indigenously by the scientists, followed by extensive validation on more than 1,000 patient samples at various COVID designated hospitals in Delhi.
• Three batches of the product were validated during last one year.
• The antibody detection kit is approved by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in April 2021
• In May 2021, the product received the regulatory approval of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, for manufacture, sale and distribution.
• The Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), a laboratory of the DRDO, developed the kit in association with Vanguard Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd., a development and manufacturing diagnostics company based in New Delhi.
• DIPCOVAN was intended for the qualitative detection of IgG antibodies in human serum or plasma, targeting SARS-CoV-2 related antigens and offering a significantly faster turnaround time as it required just 75 minutes to conduct the test without any cross-reactivity with other diseases. "The kit has a shelf life of 18 months
• Vanguard Diagnostics would commercially launch the product in June first week
• The kit would be very useful for understanding COVID‐19 epidemiology and assessing an individual's previous SARS‐CoV‐2 exposure

Prelims Factoids
Fake Buster
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Fake Buster)
What's the NEWS

• The Indian Institute of Technology in Punjab's Ropar along with Australia based Monash University has developed a unique detector named ‘FakeBuster' to detect imposters attending a virtual conference without anybody's knowledge.
• The detector can also find out faces manipulated on social media to defame or make joke of someone.
• This standalone solution enables a user to detect if another person's video is manipulated or spoofed during a video conferencing
• A paper on this technique - FakeBuster: A DeepFakes Detection Tool for Video Conferencing Scenarios - was presented in the 26th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, in USA, last month.
• The deepfake detection tool ‘FakeBuster' works in both online and offline modes.
• Since the device can presently be attached with laptops and desktops only "we are aiming to make the network smaller and lighter to enable it to run on mobile phones-devices as well
• The IIT team asserted that ‘FakeBuster' is one of the first tools to detect imposters during video conferencing using DeepFake detection technology.

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