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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 09 December 2021

::NATIONAL::

NITI aayog has released a resource book for Springshed Management in the Indian HimalayanRegion.
Springshed management (SM) deals with revival and conservation of Himalayan Mountainsprings as they play a key role in providing water security to mountain communities.

Key highlights:

A National Springs Mission (NSM) will facilitate the improved coordination, efficient execution, and scaling up of springshed management initiatives in India.
It can consolidate, converge and synergize the learnings and experiences of state government agencies, CSOs, and other stakeholders under one umbrella and help develop national or regional-level decision support systems for existing and upcoming practitioners.
Creating a national digital database on spring-related data collected by various agencies will improve ease of access and academic research.
In addition, the data can be integrated into an online portal and facilitate open access sharing for all stakeholders, including the local communities.

The government proposes to amend the Notaries Act to restrict the number of terms a personcan practise as a notary to allow more young legal practitioners enter the field.

Other provisions include:

Power to suspend the certificate of practicein cases of professional misconduct by the appropriategovernment for conduct of inquiry
Digitise notarial work undertaken by notaries.
The Notaries Act, 1952 was enacted to regulate the profession of notaries.
It empowers the Central government as well as State governments to appoint notaries whopossess the prescribed qualifications.

A Curtain Raiser Event for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief exercise, PANEX-21, for the member nations of BIMSTEC countries, was held at Kothari Auditorium DRDO Bhawan, New Delhi on 07 Dec 2021.

About:

The exercise is planned to be conducted from 20-22 Dec 21 at Pune and will witness participation from subject matter experts and delegates from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
It aims to all the delegates of the member states to the event and urged them to utilize this opportunity to develop mechanisms for close transnational coordination to combat contingencies like the Pandemic in the future.
It is also highlighted the importance of drawing Common Legal Frameworks and setting up Information Sharing Mechanism to facilitate defence cooperation between security and judicial agencies of the member nations.

Advantages of Laser communication:

It uses infrared light and has a shorter wavelength than radio waves which helps in the transmission of more data in a short time.
With current radio frequency systems, it takes roughly nine weeks to transmit a completed map of Mars back to Earth. Lasers can accelerate it to about nine days.

The government said that for higher supply of coking coal in the country and to ensure that it is provided at a cheaper rate, it is considering measures like linking the price of domestic coking coal to the imported dry fuel.
The development assumes significance in the wake of an inter-ministerial panel suggesting formulating an import parity-based pricing mechanism for domestic coking coal factoring the quality parameters.

To prepare an action plan to increaseproduction and utilisation of domesticcoking coal.
Adoption of new technologies.
Allocation of coking coal blocks for privatesector development.
Setting up of new coking coal washeries,enhanced R&D activities and improvementof quality parameters.

According to research by Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), Increased H2S was found to have a directeffect on reducing the rate at which virus multiplies in HIV-infected human immune cells.

About:

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system. If HIV isnot treated, it can lead to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).
Presently, current state-of-the-art combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) is used as a therapy,but it has the following disadvantages.
Build-up of toxic molecules leading to oxidative stress’ and loss of function in themitochondria.
It can fail even when patients fully follow their drug regimen.