Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 03 December 2020

::NATIONAL::

US drugmakerModerna said it was applying for emergency use authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine. In India, Serum Institute of India, which is trialling a version of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, has informed that, it expects to seek emergency use authorisation within the next two weeks.
Vaccines require approval of a regulatory authority before they can be administered. However, in emergencysituations like COVID-19, regulatory authorities have developed mechanisms to grant interim approvals tovaccines and medicines.Till the completion of final trials EUA allows medicine or vaccine to be used on public.
India’s drug regulations do not have provisions for an EUA, and process for receiving one is not clearly definedor consistent.
In India, regulatory authority concerned for this is Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation.

There are allegations related to irregularities in the implementation of Jammu and Kashmir States Land(vesting of ownership to the occupants) Act, also known as Roshini Act, which has now been declared null andvoid.

About the Act

It envisaged the transfer of ownership rights of state land to its occupants, subject to the payment of acost, as determined by the government.
Revenue generated was to be spent on commissioning hydroelectric power projects, hence the nameRoshni.

The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) has got membership of International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS).
With this membership IFSCA would have access to IAIS’s global network and would be able to exchange ideas and information with other global regulators.
This membership would go a long way in connecting IFSC with global insurance institutions and would facilitate IFSCA in the joint development of global insurance business with other global centres.
It was established in 1994, the IAIS headquartered in Switzerland.
It is a voluntary membership organisation of insurance supervisors and regulators from more than 200 jurisdictions, constituting 97 per cent of the world’s insurance premiums.

It is a high-level dialogue among media organisations from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa thataims to establish an efficient coordination mechanism among BRICS media and advanceinnovation-driven media development.
Representatives called for the five nations to work together to jointly combat fake news in the pandemic era.

Solution proposed:

Rigorous fact-checking and investigation by well-trained teams of journalists.
Deployment of technologies like Artificial Intelligence, in fight against disinformation, especially large-scaleonline harms.

It is aimed at revitalizing Iran’s nuclear activities.
This bill was passed after failure of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to fulfill Iran’s interestsand in the wake of assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group — U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany.
It was signed to stop Iran from producing its own nuclear weapons, and set up a framework to which Iranwas allowed to enrich uranium.

IIT Kanpur researchers have demonstrated how with the use of a micro-structured hour-glass shaped metastructure in the lattice unit, one can get a wider variation of propagation and stop bands. The hour-glasses are developed in the SmartMaterials Laboratory of IIT Kanpur using additive manufacturing.
Lattice based meta-structures have shown tremendous application in electro-magnetic and sonic wave absorption which could in principle create ‘invisibility’ of an object either in optical or in acoustic domain.
Existing lattice and crystal based phononic materials have however, practical limitations in terms of customizability and hence, they can be generally used in a narrow band of frequency.

India captain Virat Kohli on Wednesday became the fastest cricketer to score 12,000 ODI runs, breaking a record held by legendary compatriot Sachin Tendulkar.
Kohli reached the milestone during the third and final match against Australia here.
Kohli, who needed 23 runs for the landmark coming into the match, touched the figure in his 242nd innings when he took a single off Sean Abbott in the 13th over of the India innings.
In comparison, it took Tendulkar 300 games to get there.
The 32-year-old Indian captain was playing in his 251st ODI and averages close to 60 in the format with 43 hundreds and 59 half centuries. He made his debut in 2008.
Tendulkar scored 18426 runs from 463 ODIs between 1989 and 2012 at an average of 44.83 with the help of 49 hundreds and 96 half centuries.