Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 29 November 2022

::NATIONAL::

Re-Hab Project

• KVIC Chairman recently unveiled the ambitious Re-Hab Project in Nainital.

About:

• It is an initiative by Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC).
• Initiating this project in 7 states of the country, namely in Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam and Orissa.
• Under this project fencing of bee boxes is installed in such areas from where elephants move towards the human settlements and farmers' agriculture.
• Fencing of Bee-boxes on the routes of movement of elephants blocks the path of wild elephants.
• In this way, through honey-bees, elephants can be prevented from attacking humans and destroying farmers' crops.

National Honey Mission:

• Project RE-HAB is a sub-mission of KVIC’s National Honey Mission.
• The Honey Mission is a programme to increase the bee population, honey production and beekeepers’ income by setting up apiaries.

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E-DetectionPortal

• A new portal developed by the Odisha government will keep a tab on vehicles plying the roads without valid documents and issue e-challans.

About:

• This ‘e-detection portal’ will be launched on January 1, 2023 at toll gates on national highways.
• The machines installed will identify vehicles plying without driver’s licence, registration certificate, Pollution Under Control, insurance, fitness certificate or permit.
• The objective of the portal is to collect the data from various toll gates on the national highways. In the first phase, toll gates on NHs have been integrated with the portal. Later, data will be collected from mining and industrial areas as well.
• The data will be collected in accordance with the data fetched through the FASTag and images captured when a vehicle will pass through a toll gate.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Shiveluch volcano

• The Shiveluch volcano in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula may be gearing up for its first powerful eruption in 15 years.

Key highlights:

• Kamchatka is home to 29 active volcanoes, part of a vast belt of Earth known as the “Ring of Fire” which circles the Pacific Ocean and is prone to eruptions and frequent earthquakes.
• Most of the peninsula’s volcanoes are surrounded by sparsely populated forest and tundra, so pose little risk to local people, but big eruptions can spew glass, rock and ash into the sky, threatening aircraft.
• According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), these kinds of eruptions typically happen three or four times a year in Kamchatka, requiring air traffic to be rerouted.
• Six volcanoes in Russia’s northeast are currently showing signs of increased activity, including Eurasia’s highest active volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka, which began erupting last Thursday.
• Shiveluch
• Shiveluch is one of the largest and most active volcanoes in Kamchatka, having erupted at least 60 times in the past 10,000 years.
• It has two main parts: Old Shiveluch, which tops 3,283 metres (10,771 ft), and Young Shiveluch – a smaller, 2,800-metre peak protruding from its side.

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75% with hypertension in India have uncontrolled BP

• As per Lancet study for medical journal in between 2016-20, over 75% with hypertension in India have uncontrolled BP (blood pressure).

About:

• The study reinforces uncontrolled BP as a significant contributor to mortality.
• It follows the Centre’s 2019-20 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) that reported a hypertension prevalence of 24% in men and 21% in women, an increase from 19% and 17% over the 2015-16 survey.
• Patients with readings of systolic <140 mmHg and diastolic <90 mmHg are defined as those with hypertension under control.
• Hypertension control rate is defined as the proportion of patients with BP under control (systolic <140 mmHg and diastolic <90 mmHg).
• The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia study is based on a diversified analysis of studies of BP control rates between 2001 and 2022 in India.
• Despite government efforts, awareness and better access to healthcare facilities, the number of patients able to control hypertension has only grown from 6% to 23% in the past 21 years.
• The Lancet researchers included 51 studies involving 3. 4 lakh patients.
• Of these, 21 studies (41%) reported poorer BP control rates among males than females, and six (12%) poorer rates among rural patients.
• The combined control rate in India in 2001-20 was 18%, with significant increase over the years, reaching 23% in 2016-20.
• The study indicated significantly better control rates in the south and west, and considerably poorer rates among males.

::Economy::

Mudra loan NPAs at just 3.3% in 7 years

• The Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency (MUDRA) was launched on April 8, 2015, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide loans up to Rs 10 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm, small and micro enterprises. 

About:

• Called as Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, loans are given under three categories: 

1.    Shishu up to Rs 50,000, 
2.    Kishore Rs 50,001 to Rs 5 lakh, and 
3.    Tarun from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. 

• Mudra loans do not require any collateral/ security, and hence were perceived to be very risky.

Significance of MUDRA:

• Expand Formal loans to informal micro enterprises;
• Lower Cost of Finance; Employment Generation;
• Special concessions on interest rates for SC/ST entrepreneurs etc.
• More than 68% of the loan accounts have been sanctioned to women.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

FIFA’s Semi-Automated Offside Technology

• FIFA is using its new semi-automated offside technology to help officials make accurate and faster offside calls in World Cup 2022.

About:

• The new technology tracks the ball using 12 dedicated tracking cameras positioned below the stadium's roof and analyses up to 29 data points for each player, 50 times per second, to determine their precise location on the field.
• All limbs and extremities that are important for determining offside are included in the 29 data points.
• The inclusion of an inertial measuring unit (IMU) sensor into the match ball would add another crucial component in making close offside calls at the World Cup.
• The kick point may be identified with extreme precision thanks to this sensor, which is located in the centre of the ball and feeds ball data to the video operation room 500 times per second.
• The innovative system automatically alerts the video match officials inside the video operation room whenever the ball is received by an attacker who was in an offside position when the ball was played by a teammate by merging the limb- and ball-tracking data and applying artificial intelligence.
• The video match officials then personally verify the automatically generated kick point and the automatically generated offside line, which is based on the computed positions of the players' limbs, before advising the on-field referee of the proposed decision.
• Thanks to this technique, offside decisions will be made more quickly and precisely which will takes a few seconds to complete.

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