Current Affairs for IAS Exams -14 January 2023

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 14 January 2023

::NATIONAL::

Ram Setu

• The Supreme Court granted four weeks to the Union government to respond to MP Subramanian Swamy’s plea seeking national heritage status for Ram Setu.

About Ram Setu:

• Ram Setu, also known as Adam’s bridge, is a chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island or Rameswaram Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.
• Recently, Tamil Nadu assembly also passed a resolution urging Centre to resume work on Sethusamudram Ship Canal project (SSCP).
• National heritage status is sought in the backdrop of SSCP that envisages dredging of a ship channel across the Palk Straits between India and Sri Lanka.
• Two channels were suggested - one across Adam’s Bridge and another through Palk Bay.
• SC, in 2007, had stayed the work for project and Centre was also willing to explore another route to SSCP without damaging Ram Setu.

Significance:

• Reduce steaming distances between east and west coasts of India.
• Strengthen national security by improving navigation for Indian coast guards and naval ships.

Concerns:

• Would destroy natural barrier between Bay of Bengal and Palk Bay.
• Oil and marine pollution associated with shipping traffic will aggravate ecological stress in region.

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National Company Law Tribunal 

• National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) allows ownership transfer of Jet Airways to Jalan-Kalrock consortium recently. 

About:

• It is a quasi-judicial authority incorporated for dealing with corporate disputes that are of civil nature arising under the Companies Act,2013.
• It was established on 1 June 2016 under the Companies Act,2013.
• NCLT was formed based on the recommendation of the Balakrishna Eradi committee on law relating to the insolvency and the winding up of companies.
• The NCLT shall consist of a President and such number of Judicial and Technical Members as may be required.
• It is not limited or bound by the rules laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure and is guided by the principles of natural justice, subject to the other provisions of this Act and of any rules that are made by the Central Government.
• The NCLT can enforce any order that it gives in the same manner as a court would enforce it.
• NCLT has the power to scrutinize its own orders.
• The tribunal has the power to regulate their own procedure.
• National Company Law Tribunal is the adjudicating authority for the insolvency resolution process of companies and limited liability partnerships under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Sweden discovers biggest rare earths deposit in EU

• Sweden’s state-owned mining company LKAB has said it has discovered Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth elements (REE). The discovery bolsters the continent’s ambition to rely less on imported raw materials needed for the green transition.

About:

• REE are a set of seventeen metallic elements - fifteen lanthanides on periodic table plus scandium and yttrium.
• They are necessary components for critical sectors, like, cellular telephones, electric vehicles, defense applications like guidance systems, lasers, etc.
• REE shares some common properties such as high luster, high electrical conductivity etc. as well as some distinguishing properties, present in few REE, such as luminescence, magnetism etc.
• Also, Heavy REE (higher atomic weights) are less common as compared to Light REE.
• Although REE are fairly distributed across different geographies, the extraction of REE is most challenging part, because of complex processing and intensive environmental effects.
• At present more than 80% of the world’s rare earths processing capacity is in China.
• India produces only 1% of global output despite having around 6% of world’s reserves

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Astronomers discover Milky Way galaxy’s most-distant stars

• Astronomers have detected in the stellar halo that represents the Milky Way’s outer limits a group of stars more distant from Earth than any known within our own galaxy - almost halfway to a neighbouring galaxy.

About:

• The researchers said these 208 stars inhabit the most remote reaches of the Milky Way’s halo, a spherical stellar cloud dominated by the mysterious invisible substance called dark matter that makes itself known only through its gravitational influence. 
• The furthest of them is 1.08 million light years from Earth. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
• The stars that populate the outskirts of the galactic halo can be viewed as stellar orphans, probably originating in smaller galaxies that later collided with the larger Milky Way.

Galactic halo:

• Galactic halo is a nearly spherical volume of thinly scattered stars, globular clusters of stars, and tenuous gas observed surrounding spiral galaxies, including the Milky Way.
• Galactic halo is dominated by invisible dark matter, whose presence is only measurable through the gravity that it exerts.
• Only about 1% of a galaxy’s stellar mass resides in its halo, and due to this low luminosity, the observation of halos in other galaxies is extremely difficult.

Stellar halo:

• It is the visible portion of a galactic halo.
• It is composed of globular clusters and field stars which have high space velocities that can take them far out of the galactic disk.
• Stellar halos may hold some of the best preserved fossils of the formation history of galaxies.

::Economy::

Credit Default Swaps

• Regulator SEBI allowed alternative investment funds (AIFs) to participate in the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) market as protection buyers and sellers in a bid to facilitate deepening of the domestic corporate bond segment.     

About: 

• The new norms, which will come into force with immediate effect, allow business entities to hedge risks associated with the bonds market.       
• CDS is a specific kind of counter-party agreement which allows the transfer of third party credit risk from one party to another.      
• Under the new norm, Category-I and Category-II AIFs can buy CDS on underlying investment in debt securities only for the purpose of hedging, while Category-III AIFs can purchase CDS for hedging or otherwise, within permissible leverage, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
• AIF refers to any privately pooled investment fund, (whether from Indian or foreign sources), in form of a trust or a company or a body corporate or a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP).
• CDS is a financial derivative that allows an investor to swap or offset their credit risk with that of another investor.
• In this buyer pays an ongoing premium. In exchange, seller agrees to pay security’s value and interest payments if a default occurs.
• CDS is used for speculation, hedging or as a form of arbitrage.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Novel spray that could prevent COVID-19 infection developed

• Researchers have created new molecules that can be sprayed into the nose to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering the lungs and causing infection.
• The COVID-19 virus enters the body through the lungs when people breathe, resulting in illness.

Key findings:

• Researchers have created thin, thread-like strands of molecules called supramolecular filaments capable of blocking the virus in its tracks.
• The key to this approach is the way that the filaments carry a receptor called angiotensin converting enzyme-2, or ACE2.
• ACE2 provides the entry point for the coronavirus to hook into and infect a wide range of human cells.
• The team’s newly developed filament, called fACE2, serves as a decoy binding site for the virus, with each filament offering several receptors for the COVID-19 spike protein to attach to, and silences ACE2’s biological functions to avoid potential side effects 

ACE2 protein:

• It is a protein on the surface of many cell types and tissues including the lungs, heart, blood vessels, kidneys, liver and gastrointestinal tract.
• It is an enzyme that generates small proteins – by cutting up the larger protein angiotensinogen – that then go on to regulate functions in the cell.
• ACE2 is present in all people but the quantity can vary among individuals and in different tissues and cells.
• It is present in epithelial cells, which line certain tissues and create protective barriers.

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