Marburg Virus: The first two cases of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious Ebola-like disease, have been confirmed officially by Ghana after test results were verified by a Senegal laboratory. This outbreak is only the second time that the disease has been detected in West Africa. Marburg virus disease (MVD), earlier known as Marburg haemorrhagic […]
Category: Current Affairs
e-Shram Portal
e-Shram Portal: The government said around 28 crore unorganised workers have been registered on e-Shram Portal. In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Labour and Employment Rameswar Teli said the government had launched e-Shram portal in August last year with an objective to create a national Database of unorganised workers. It […]
Decline In Immunisation Coverage
Decline In Immunisation Coverage: A report by World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlighted the impact of covid-19 pandemic on immunisation programs globally and in India as well. DPT vaccine is considered a marker for immunization coverage across countries. Key Highlights of the Report: Three million children have not received the […]
Forex Reserve
Forex Reserve: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has undertaken measures to enhance forex inflows, amid Depreciation of Indian rupee. The rupee has depreciated by 4.1 % against the US dollar during the current financial year (2022-23) so far amid the ongoing geopolitical tensions. Indian Rupee has depreciated 4.1 % to 79.30 against the US dollar […]
What Is Kill Switch?
What Is Kill Switch? The recent ‘Uber Files’ reveal that the company had deployed kill switches, purportedly to destroy sensitive data that could have been legitimately accessed by police and officials. A kill switch is a mechanism used to shut down or disable a device or program. In the manufacturing sector, they are deployed to […]
Data Localization
Data Localization: Many Indian start-ups have complained that the provision of the personal data protection Bill is too “compliance intensive” and could hamper the ease of doing business. Data localisation is the practice of storing data on any device that is physically present within the borders of the country where the data is generated. As […]
Forest Fires
Forest Fires: In France, Greece, Portugal and Spain, wildfire destroys thousands of hectares of land, forces thousands from their homes and kills several emergency personnel. A wildfire is a major fire that breaks out unpredictably in combustible environments such as dry forests or bush and often burns uncontrollably over a large area and length of […]
Goods And Services Tax
Goods And Services Tax: Customers will have to pay a 5% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on pre-packed, labelled food items such as atta, paneer and curd, besides hospital rooms with rents above ₹5,000, starting from 18 July 2022. Hotel rooms with tariffs of up to ₹1,000 a day, maps and charts, including atlases, will […]
Farm Loan Waivers Scheme
Farm Loan Waivers Scheme: Only about half of the intended beneficiaries of farm loan waivers announced by nine States since 2014 have actually received debt write-offs, shows a study by State Bank of India researchers. As of March 2022, the poorest implementation of farm loan waiver schemes in terms of proportion of eligible farmers who […]
INS Sindhudhvaj
INS Sindhudhvaj: The Navy’s Kilo class submarine INS Sindhudhvaj was decommissioned from service at Visakhapatnam after 35 years in service. With this, the Navy now has 15 conventional submarines in service. She had many a firsts to her credit, including operationalisation of the indigenised sonar USHUS, indigenised satellite communication system Rukmani and MSS, inertial navigation […]
