Weekly Current Affairs (1st to 7th August 2022) - 1 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Gati Shakti University Bill

Context: The Lok Sabha recently passed a bill that seeks to transform the National Rail and

Transportation University into a central university to be called Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya.

Key Highlights

• The Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, which also seeks to expand the scope of the deemed university from beyond the railways to cover the entire transport sector to support the ambitious growth and modernisation in the field, was passed.
• Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya will be a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional institute.
• The plan is to unify different departments to create a new infrastructure where various transport sector elements — railways, road, waterways, aviation and port along with information and technology — will coordinate with each other on the platform of Gati Shakti Mission.
• Focus of the institute will be on five major aspects — transport focussed courses, skill development, applied research, technology development and transport economics and infrastructure financing.
• The university will also take additional measures for providing high quality teaching, research and skill development in diverse disciplines related to transportation, technology and management including establishing centres in India and abroad.
• The headquarters will be in Vadodara there will be campuses across the country which will be developed as centers of excellence.
• Currently, the National Rail and Transportation University located in Vadodara is a deemed-to-be-institution.
• The university is named after the government’s flagship Rs 100-lakh crore PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity.
• The Gati Shakti Master Plan is essentially a digital platform bringing together 16 ministries, including roadways and railways for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects.

India-Uzbekistan Relations

Context: Recently, the Union Minister for Commerce & Industry attended the 13th Session of the India-Uzbekistan Inter-Governmental Commission. Further, he highlighted India-Uzbekistan relations as key to India’s vision of integrated extended neighbourhood.

Key Highlights of the Session

• That there is a need to take the relationship forward in newer areas like technology, digital payment solutions, and investment in start-ups. The need for an integrated approach for regional connectivity and cooperation.
• Further, there are seven emerging areas of cooperation between both nations namely Digital Payments, Space Cooperation, Agri and Dairy, Pharma, Gems and Jewellery, MSME, and Inter-regional cooperation.

About  India-Uzbekistan Relations

• After Uzbekistan's independence, India was one of the first countries to acknowledge its state sovereignty.
• The first-ever joint military exercise held between India and Uzbekistan was named Dustlik.
• India and Uzbekistan share common perspectives on a number of security issues, including terrorism, trans-national organized crime, illegal trafficking, smuggling, etc.
• The main focus of engagement in this sphere has been to provide assistance to Uzbek security agencies through training and capacity building.
• It has increased from USD 247 million in 2019-20 to USD 342 million in 2021-22, a growth of 38.5%.
• Indian investments by Indian companies include those in the field of pharmaceuticals, amusement parks, automobile components, and the hospitality industry.
• Indian institutions like iCreate are actively cooperating with Uzbek counterparts for promoting a start-up ecosystem in Uzbekistan and training entrepreneurs in setting up incubators.
• There is interest in Indian participation in the development of the solar power sector through competitive bidding.

AlphaFold predicted structure of 200 million proteins

Context: Alphabet’s Deepmind Technologies recently released 3D predicted structures of over 200 million proteins. 

Key Highlights 

• DeepMind, a company based in London and owned by Google, recently announced that it had predicted the three-dimensional structures of more than 200 million proteins using AlphaFold. 
• AlphaFold predicts the 3D shape of proteins based on their amino acid sequences. AlphaFold is an AIbased protein structure prediction tool. It is based on a computer system called deep neural network.
• It uses processes based on “training, learning, retraining and relearning”. 
• By using this method, AlphaFold has now predicted the structures of the entire 214 million unique protein sequences deposited in the Universal Protein Resource(UniProt) database. 
• By understanding the shape which any given protein folds into, scientists can know how that protein operates,thus its role in the cell.
• AlphaFold was designed to accelerate that process, providing in this latest data release more than 200 million predicted structures of proteins found in plants, bacteria, animals, and other organisms.

Aridity Anomaly Outlook Index: IMD

Context:  Recently, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has released the Aridity Anomaly Outlook (AAO) Index of July 2022, which says at least 85% of districts face arid conditions across India.

Key Highlights

• Only 63 of 756 districts are non-arid, while 660 are facing different degrees of aridity — mild, moderate and severe.
• Some 196 districts are in the grip of a ‘severe’ degree of dryness and 65 of these are in Uttar Pradesh (highest)
• Other districts facing ‘severe arid’ conditions are Jharkhand, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Telangana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
• The SPI on the DEWS platform also highlights a persisting rainfall deficit in these areas in the last six months.
• Arid conditions have impacted the ongoing kharif sowing, as the area sown under different kharif crops as of July, 2022, was less by 13.26 million hectares compared to the corresponding period in 2021.

About

• IMD was established in 1875.
• It is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology.
• The SPI is a widely used index to characterize meteorological drought on a range of timescales.
• On short timescales, the SPI is closely related to soil moisture, while at longer timescales, the SPI can be related to groundwater and reservoir storage.
• The SPI on the Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), a real-time drought monitoring platform managed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (IIT-G) platform highlights a persisting rainfall deficit in these areas in the last six months.
• UP, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and some parts of the North East are under extreme drought situation and agriculture of these regions might be affected.

India to participate in Exercise Pitch Balck

Context:  India is one of 17 nations to participate in the Pitch Black air combat exercises.

Key Highlights 

• The exercise is organised by Australia in which different countries (17) participate.
• The biennial exercises are being conducted after a hiatus of four years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The air combat exercises are conducted by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and will see 2,500 personnel from 17 countries that will be engaging in Offensive Counter Air (OCA) and Defensive Counter Air (DCA) combat exercises. 
• Exercise Pitch Black 2022 is the latest iteration of Exercise Pitch Black, a war game or warfare exercise that first started in Australia’s Northern Territories in the 1980s between different RAAF units.
• Since then, Australia has invited international partners to practice combat readiness, interoperability, and new doctrines. 
• The exercise has been held every two years.

Increasing Efficacy of Gene Therapy

Context: Recently, a study titled “Secretion of functional α1-antitrypsin is cell type dependent” has been published, which shows that the Efficacy of Gene Therapy can be increased by changing protein regulation networks in the body, helping treat genetic diseases.

Key Highlights

• Developed a strategy to use a harmless version of an adeno-associated virus as a vehicle to deliver AAT (Alpha-1 Antitrypsin) gene therapies into the body via injection, allowing for sustained release of the protein over several years.
• Adding a molecule called suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, or SAHA, helps muscle cells make AAT at a production level more like that of liver cells.
• Proteostasis is the process that regulates proteins within the cell in order to maintain the health of both the cellular proteome and the organism itself.
• Adding SAHA or similar proteostasis regulators to gene therapies can help increase the effectiveness of these treatments for many genetic diseases.
• Patients are usually treated by receiving AAT via infusion. It requires patients to either make regular trips to the hospital or keep expensive equipment at home for the rest of their lives.
• Replacing the faulty gene that causes AAT shortage in the first place can be a boon for patients.
• Current gene therapies inject the AAT-producing gene into muscle.

About

• Gene therapy is a way to treat genetic diseases by correcting the source of the error in a patient’s DNA (Deoxy-ribo Nucleic Acid).
• Gene therapy techniques allow doctors to treat a disorder by altering a person’s genetic makeup instead of using drugs or surgery.
• A harmless viral or bacterial vector is used to carry a corrective gene into a patient’s cells, where the gene then directs the cell to produce the proteins necessary to treat the disease.
• Muscle cells are a common target because gene therapies injected into the muscle are more accessible than introduction into the body by other routes.
• But muscle cells may not produce the desired protein as efficiently as needed if the job the gene instructs it to do is very different from the one it specialises in.