Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 February 2015

: National ::

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J. P. Nadda will launch a National Deworming Day which will be followed by administering deworming tablets to over 140 million school children across the country.
Worms negatively impact millions of at-risk children in India. Soil transmitted helminthes (STH) are a significant public health concern for the country, with the World Health Organisation estimating 241 million - 68 per cent - children between the ages of 1-14 years to be at risk of parasitic intestinal worm infections.
The burden of the disease from STH is mainly attributed to their chronic and insidious impact on the health and quality of life of those infected rather than to the mortality they cause.
Infections of heavy intensity impair physical growth and cognitive development and are a cause of micronutrient deficiencies leading to poor school performance, cognitive development and absenteeism in children.

Nearly 20 governments, including India, have developed or are in the process of creating their versions of the Global Calculator, which was launched in London and Beijing to calculate climate impact scenarios in their countries.
Showcasing the Calculator at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, Laura Aylett, of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), said the Global Calculator was an open source, free and interactive tool which can help you assess climate change scenarios over a period of time and make changes in lifestyle. It can illustrate climate impacts based on different choices and is linked to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

North Korea said that it has test-fired a new anti-ship cruise missile, a move experts in Seoul viewed as an attempt to raise tensions ahead of joint military drills between the United States and South Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was on-site to observe the successful testing of the “ultra-precision” rocket conducted by the country’s East Sea fleet, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published front-page photos of Kim watching a missile being fired off a naval vessel, although the state media outlets did not mention the time or location of the exercise.
Yang Uk, a Seoul-based security expert and an adviser to South Korea’s Navy, said the North Korean missile looked similar to Russia’s KH-35 anti-ship missile, which has a range of about 130-140 kilometres (81-87 miles) and is capable of travelling at high speeds while staying close to the sea’s surface.

Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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