Daily Current Affairs 23 August 2021 – Gkseries
Current Affairs is the most important area in all competitive exams. But the difficulty level is very high. That’s why; many aspirants get confused, how to select Current Affairs for Preparation of Competitive Examination? In this Post, Daily Current Affairs 23 August 2021, we have tried to cover each and every point and also included all important facts from National/ International news that are useful for upcoming competitive examinations such as UPSC, SSC, Railway, State Govt. etc.
Daily Current Affairs 23 August 2021
Odisha launched smart health cards for cashless treatment
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched smart health cards under the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana to enable around 3.5 crore people to get cashless healthcare services in 200 hospitals in the state and other parts of the country.
Around 3.5 crore people of 96 lakh families will be benefited from the new healthcare initiative as women can avail of cashless treatment up to ₹10 lakh per year and other family members will get the benefit up to ₹ 5 lakh each.
At least 1.55 lakh families will be benefited from the initiative in Malkangriri, a tribal-dominated district.
The initiative can change the face of healthcare services to people in Odisha, he said after launching the programme at a remote place in Malkangiri district.
NTPC commissions 25 MW floating solar PV project at Simhadri
NTPC Ltd has commissioned the largest floating solar PV project of 25MW on the reservoir of its Simhadri thermal power station in Visakhapatnam.
This is also the first solar project to be set up under the Flexibilisation Scheme, notified by the Government of India in 2018.
The floating solar installation which has a unique anchoring design is spread over 75 acres in an RW reservoir. This floating solar project has the potential to generate electricity from more than 1 lakh solar PV modules.
NTPC is also planning to set up a hydrogen-based micro-grid system on a pilot basis at Simhadri.
The 2000MW coal-based Simhadri Station is the first power project to implement an open sea intake from the Bay of Bengal which has been functional for more than 20 years.
Exercise Konkan-2021 held between INS Tabar & HMS Westminster
Exercise Konkan-2021 was held between INS Tabar and HMS Westminster on 16th of this month in the English Channel.
The exercise included the participation of integral helicopters of the two ships and the Falcon Electronic Warfare aircraft.
A wide range of exercises including co-ordinated anti-submarine procedures, firing drills, combined maritime picture compilation, combat formation maneuvering and replenishment at sea were conducted.
Konkan is an annual bilateral maritime exercise between the Indian Navy and the Royal Navy of United Kingdom. The Konkan series of exercises commenced in 2004.
Central Drugs Laboratory for testing and batch release of vaccines
National Institute of Animal Biotechnology, Hyderabad notified as Central Drugs Laboratory for testing and batch release of vaccines.
In public interest it is necessary to establish more facilities to regulate the testing of COVID-19 vaccines for quick release of vaccine batches for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection.
Considering this requirement, the Government of India has identified two Autonomous Institutes of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), viz., National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB), Hyderabad and National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, for upgradation as Central Drug Laboratories (CDLs).
The funding support for the same was provided under the PM-CARES funds.
NIAB has been upgraded as Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) for COVID-19 vaccine testing facility at Hyderabad. The facility at NIAB, Hyderabad, has now been notified as Central Drugs Laboratory for testing and lot release of COVID-19 vaccines vide on 17th August, 2021.
The facility at NCCS, Pune has already been notified as CDL on 28th June 2021.
Former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh passed away
Senior BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh passed away recently.
He served twice as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. He was appointed CM of UP for the first time in 1991, but resigned following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.
He became Chief Minister for a second term in 1997, but was removed by his party in 1999.
Singh was appointed Governor of Rajasthan in 2014. He was given the position of Governor of Himachal Pradesh as an additional charge in January 2015, and relinquished it in August of the same year.
Taliban resistance in the last holdout of Panjshir Valley
The Panjshir Valley is Afghanistan’s last remaining holdout where anti-Taliban forces seem to be working on forming a guerrilla movement to take on the Islamic fundamentalist group.
Panjshir (also spelled as Panjsher and Panjsheer) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country containing the Panjshir Valley.
Bazarak serves as the provincial capital. It is currently controlled by the Second Resistance, and the only province not to be controlled by the Taliban since the 2021 Taliban offensive.
The region, located 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of the capital, Kabul, now hosts some senior members of the ousted government, like the deposed Vice President Amrullah Saleh and ex-Defense Minister Bismillah Mohammadi.
Famed for its natural defenses, the region tucked into the Hindu Kush mountains never fell to the Taliban during the civil war of the 1990s, nor was it conquered by the Soviets a decade earlier. The only access point to the region is through a narrow passage created by the Panjshir River, which can be easily defended militarily.
Most of the valley’s up to 150,000 inhabitants belong to the Tajik ethnic group, while the majority of the Taliban are Pashtuns.
CRED launched new peer-to-peer lending feature
Fintech platform CRED recently announced the launch of a new peer-to-peer lending feature called CRED Mint.
In P2P lending, users sitting on idle money provide loans to potential borrowers identified by the service provider. These lenders then receive payments from the borrowers on a set basis — either one time, or in equated monthly instalments.
P2P lending is not a new feature. Some of the major companies operating in this space include RupeeCircle, Finzy, IndiaMoneyMart, etc. For its P2P lending feature, CRED has tied up with RBI-approved non-banking financial company Liquiloans.
In 2017, the Reserve Bank of India had brought this service under its regulatory purview.
Even at the time, there were more than 20 P2P lending players in the market but RBI’s regulations ensured only the serious ones with watertight business models remained in the sector.
Moderna set to start human trials of experimental mRNA HIV vaccine
Moderna has indicated that it may begin human trials for a vaccine for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in September, employing the same m-RNA platform that it has used in its COVID-19 vaccine.
Formally known as mRNA-1644, it is made in a way to stimulate the B cells of the immune system. These are a class of white blood cells that produce antibodies which can bind to invading bacteria and viruses.
The larger purpose of stimulating the B cells is to generate what are called broadly neutralising antibodies (bnAbs), which are specialised blood proteins that attach to the surface proteins of HIV and disable them by accessing key but hard-to-reach regions on the virus.
Over the last decade, there have been advances in identifying new bnAbs from HIV-infected individuals that were seen to target very specific sites in the outer envelope of the HIV.
Lab-based analysis and tests on animals have improved the understanding of how the knowledge of these sites can be used to make immunogens (or parts of a virus or bacteria that elicit an antibody response from the immune system. In the case of a coronavirus, for instance, the spike protein is an immunogen against which different vaccines elicit antibodies.)
One such immunogen that has been designed in the lab is eOD-GT8 60mer, developed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and its partners.
‘Mermaid’ in Andaman archipelago has Bathinda link
Marine biologists from the Central University of Punjab (CUP) have discovered a new species of marine green algae from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and named the green seaweed Acetabularia jalakanyakae after the goddess of oceans.
It has been named Acetabularia jalakanyakae.
Jalakanyaka in Sanskrit literally means mermaid and a goddess of oceans. The scientists say they were influenced by the fictional character Little Mermaid in the the fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” by Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson.
The main feature of the newly discovered species is that the plant is made up of one gigantic cell with a nucleus.
The colourful molecules of turmeric
The actual turmeric slices or turmeric powder that we use every day in preparing our meals (as Haldi, Manjal, Pasupu, Arishina, Halud) has about 3% of the active component molecule called curcumin, a polyphenol diketone (and not a steroid).
Researchers point out that there is another molecule in turmeric called piperine, which is an alkaloid, responsible for the pungency of pepper that we use every day in our cooking, along with turmeric.
Piperine enhances curcumin absorption in the body. It gives turmeric its multivariate healing and protective power.
DBT-BIRAC supported ZyCoV-D receives emergency use authorization
Zydus Cadila has received approval for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for ZyCoV-D on 20/08/2021.
It is the world’s first and India’s indigenously developed DNA based vaccine for COVID-19 to be administered in humans including Children and adults 12 years and above.
Developed in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India under the ‘Mission COVID Suraksha’ and implemented by BIRAC, ZyCoV-D has been supported under COVID-19 Research Consortia through National Biopharma Mission for Preclinical studies, Phase I and Phase II Clinical Trials and under the Mission COVID Suraksha for Phase III Clinical Trial.
This 3 dose vaccine which when injected produces the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and elicits an immune response, which plays a vital role in protection from disease as well as viral clearance. The plug-and-play technology on which the plasmid DNA platform is based can be easily adapted to deal with mutations in the virus, such as those already occurring.
Nirmala Sitharaman launched National Monetisation Pipeline
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has launched the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) in New Delhi.
It comprises a four-year pipeline of the Central Government’s brownfield infrastructure assets. Besides providing visibility to investors, NMP will also serve as a medium-term road map for the asset monetisation initiative of the government.
Union Budget 2021-22 laid a lot of emphasis on asset monetisation as a means to raise innovative and alternative financing for infrastructure and included a number of key announcements.
World Sanskrit Day 2021
World Sanskrit Day is observed on Sawan Poornima in the Hindu calendar every year. The day also marks the holy festival of Raksha Bandhan.
Being the first spoken and oldest language, Sanskrit holds significance in the ancient history of India. It is also considered as the Dev Vani which translates to the ‘language of Gods.’
Despite all this, Sanskrit is not getting the recognition it deserves. As a result, World Sanskrit Day is celebrated all across the country in order to promote the resurgence and preservation of this language.
In 1969, With the intent of illuminating the next generation about the ancient Indian language, the Government of India decided to celebrate Sanskrit Diwas on the auspicious occasion of Raksha Bandhan.
Zambia’s opposition leader Hichilema wins presidential vote at sixth bid
Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema scored a landslide victory in bitterly-contested presidential elections.
It was the 59-year-old’s sixth bid for the top job and his third against his bitter rival Mr. Lungu (64).
After having contested five previous elections in 2006, 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2016, he won the 2021 presidential election with over 59% of the vote. He has led the United Party for National Development since 2006.
Prior to his election, Hichilema was a major opponent of Edgar Lungu, the President of Zambia from 2015 to 2021.
On 11 April 2017, Hichilema was arrested and charged with treason, a move that was seen as an illegitimate act by Lungu to silence a political rival.
Ismail Sabri Yaakob appointed as new Prime Minister of Malaysia
Former Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob was appointed as the new Prime Minister of Malaysia.
He served as the 13th Deputy Prime Minister from July 2021 to August 2021 as well as the Minister of Defence in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration under former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin from March 2020 to August 2021 and Member of Parliament (MP) for Bera since March 2004.
He is the shortest-serving Deputy Prime Minister by serving for only 40 days. He is a member and Vice-President of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition which is aligned with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.
He was formally appointed and sworn in as Prime Minister on 21 August 2021, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ongoing 2020-21 Malaysian political crisis in the country.
He is the first Prime Minister of Malaysia born after the independence of Malaya in 1957, and the first ever former Leader of the Opposition in Malaysia to become Prime Minister.