Sports

• The Sports Ministry budget got a substantial hike of Rs. 350 crore (Free Available)
• Ashwin quickest to reach 250 wickets (Only for Online Coaching Members)

The Sports Ministry budget got a substantial hike of Rs. 350 crore

• The Sports Ministry budget got a substantial hike of Rs. 350 crore in the Union Budget for 2017-18, presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Parliament.
• Jaitley allocated a total of Rs. 1,943 crore, compared to Rs. 1,592 crore earmarked last year.
• The steep increase in the budgetary allocation comes at a time when Indian athletes are preparing for the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games in 2018.
• The Sports Authority of India, entrusted with the task of organising National camps, has been granted a total of Rs. 481 crore, compared to Rs. 416 crore it received last year.
• What is striking is that the allocation for sports promotion among disabled has been reduced to just Rs. one lakh, a heavy reduction from Rs. 4 crore allocated last year.
• The assistance to national sports federations has been increased to Rs. 302 crore from Rs. 185 crore.
• The allocation for the scheme for the Benefit of North Eastern Area has been revised to Rs 148.4 crore this year as compared to Rs 131.33 crore last year.
• No change has been made in the allocation for sports in the Jammu and Kashmir and it stays at Rs 75 crore.

Government Plan Programme Policies for UPSC Exam

:: NATIONAL BIOTECHNOLOGY MISSION ::

The National Biotechnology Development Strategy-2015-2020 is the direct result of formal and informal consultations over the past two years with over 300 stakeholders including scientists, educators, policy makers, leaders of industry and civil society, voluntary and non-government organizations, regulators and international experts. The consultations offered an opportunity to discuss and evaluate technological, societal and policy aspirations, critical success factors as well as barriers that will impede growth and put them in newer and broader perspective and action plan.

The envisaged mission of the strategy is:

• Provide impetus to utilising the knowledge and tools to the advantage of Humanity.
• Launch a major well directed mission backed with significant investment for generation of new Biotech Products.
• Empower scientifically and technologically India’s incomparable Human Resource.
• Create a strong Infrastructure for R&D and Commercialisation.
• Establish India as a world class Bio-manufacturing Hub

CRISPR: Important Topics for UPSC Exams​

What?

• CRISPR is a genome editing tool which is faster, cheaper and more accurate than previous DNA editing techniques.

Why?

But scientists have been tinkering with genomes for decades. Why is CRISPR suddenly such a big deal?

• CRISPR allows scientists to edit genomes with unprecedented precision, efficiency, and flexibility.
• The past few years have seen a flurry of “firsts” with CRISPR, from creating monkeys with targeted mutations to preventing HIV infection in human cells.
• Some Chinese scientists have announced that they applied the technique to nonviable human embryos, hinting at CRISPR’s potential to cure any genetic disease.

The Gist of Science Reporter: March 2017

• World's Largest Solar Power Plant (Free Available)
• Making Money in Space (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Scent Sense (Only For The Subscribed Members)

World's Largest Solar Power Plant

India now has the world's largest solar power plant with the completion of the sola; power giant in Tamil Nadu. The solar power plant in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu takes the title of the world's largest solar power plant. The plant has the capacity to generate 648 MW of electricity at a single location and was completed in just eight months. As per the Solar Energy Policy unveiled by the Government, the country appears to be on schedule to reduce its dependency on fossil fuels to power homes and industries by 2030.

Prior to this, Topaz Farm in California was the largest solar power plant at a single location with a capacity of 550 MW. The Kamuthi solar plant comprises 2.5 million individual solar modules and covers an area of 10 sq km. The plant is cleaned every day by a robotic system and charged by its own solar panels.

The plant will provide power for about 150,000 homes in the region and contribute to the country's goal of powering 60 million homes with solar energy by 2022. With this plant, India's total installed capacity of solar plants has touched the 10 GW mark.

Making Money in Space

Until recently all investments in space technologies and the output from the missions have principally being used by governments. The utilization involves R&D, defence and telecommunication services, weather forecasts, etc., the benefits being harnessed entirely for technological growth, military applications and prestige of a nation.

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

• Devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics (Free Available)
• Solar-powered purifier developed by researchers (Free Available)
• Anticancer agent promotes regeneration of damaged heart muscle (Free Available)
• Decades old radioactive glass used to examine the Moon’s formation theory (Free Available)
• Comet hunters have a chance to spot comet 45P (Free Available)
• First indigenously built AEW&C, Netra, inducted in IAF (Free Available)
• ISRO to create history with launch (Free Available)
• 1.1 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution in India (Free Available)
• UAE looks to transport people to the Red Planet (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Google a step closer to rolling out a network of balloons to provide Internet (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• First DNA computer capable of detecting several antibodies in the blood (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Scientists have 3D-printed small, soft bio-bots with living tissues (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Scientists have discovered why the crystallised iron core of the Earth remains solid (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• The risk of running out of rare earth metals led to deep sea mining (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Scientists have spotted seven Earth-sized planets (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• African black rhinoceros face risk of extincti on (Only for Online Coaching Members)

Devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics

• A researcher from India has taken the first definitive step to produce high-speed electronic devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics.
• The electrons were found to be moving at a speed (frequency) close to 1,015 (one million billion) hertz; the best achievable speed in modern transistors is only 109 (one billion) hertz. The results were published in Nature .
• Conventionally, the motion of electrons (conductivity) is achieved by applying voltage. But Dr. Garg and others controlled the motion of electrons inside the solid material by using laser pulses.
• Light waves are electromagnetic in nature and have very high oscillation frequency of electric and magnetic fields. This ultra-high frequency of light waves can be used to drive and control electron motion in semiconductors.
• The performance of high-speed circuits rely on how quickly electric current can be turned on and off inside a material.
• The very short time interval needed to turn silicon dioxide from an insulator to a conductor was possible as the team used high-intensity and extremely short laser pulses and silicon dioxide in the form of a nanofilm. In the bulk form.
• Silicon dioxide tends to get damaged by high-intensity laser as the material tends to accumulate heat produced by the laser pulse.
• But as a nanofilm, silicon dioxide becomes nearly transparent to laser and absorbs less heat and therefore gets less damaged.