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Gist of The Hindu : AUGUST 2024

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National Geoscience Awards

The President of India will confer the prestigious National Geoscience Awards - 2023 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, New Delhi.

About National Geoscience Awards:

It is one of the oldest and most prestigious national awards in the field of geosciences.
This award was instituted by the Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India in the year 1966.
Before the year 2009, these awards were called National Mineral Awards.
Objective: The objective of these Awards is to honour individuals and teams for extraordinary achievements and outstanding contributions in various fields of geosciences i.e. mineral discovery & exploration, Mining Technology & Mineral Beneficiation, fundamental/ applied geosciences.
Eligibility: Any citizen of India with significant contribution in any field of geosciences is eligible for the award.
The Ministry of Mines confers National Geoscience Awards every year in three categories:
National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement
National Geoscience Award
National Young Geoscientist Award

Purandar Figs

The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) recently facilitated the export of India's first ready-to-drink fig juice, made from geographical indication (GI)-tagged Purandar figs, to Poland.

About Purandar figs:

Purandar’s figs, known to be one of India’s finest figs, are a GI commodity, known for their sweet taste, size, and nutritional benefits.
It is cultivated in many villages of Purandar taluk in Pune district, Maharashtra.
The agro-climatic factors such as dry weather, hilly slopes, well drained medium land are essential for Purandar Fig cultivation.
Purandar has red and black soil that has high Calcium and Potassium content, which is responsible for the violet colour and size of the fig.
It was awarded the GI Tag in 2016.

Features:

Purandar fig is bell-shaped, larger in size than other varieties, and has a distinctive violet skin colour that differentiates itself from other varieties.
It has more than 80 percent pulp or edible part.
The pulp colour is pinkish red and is highly nutritious.
It is a rich source of vitamins and minerals.

Gre en Tug Transition Program

Recently, the Union Minister of Port Shipping and Waterways officially launched the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Green Tug Transition Program (GTTP).

About Green Tug Transition Program:

GTTP was launched on May 22, 2023, is a key initiative under the ‘Panch Karma Sankalp’.
It is designed to phase out conventional fuel-based harbour tugs operating in Indian Major Ports and replace them with green tugs powered by cleaner and more sustainable alternative fuels.

Implementation phases

Phase 1 of the GTTP will begin on October 1, 2024, and continue until December 31, 2027.
During this phase, four Major Ports—Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority, Deendayal Port Authority, Paradip Port Authority, and O. Chidambaranar Port Authority will procure or charter at least two green tugs each, based on standardized designs and specifications issued by the Standing Specification Committee (SSC).
Nodal Agency: National Centre of Excellence in Green Port & Shipping (NCoEGPS) will act as the nodal entity for this programme.
India aims at becoming a ‘Global Hub for Green Ship’ building by 2030 with the launch of the Green Tug Transition Programme (GTTP).
‘Green Hybrid Tugs’ will be powered by Green Hybrid Propulsion systems. These Green hybrid tugs will subsequently adopt non-fossil fuel solutions like (Methanol, Ammonia, and Hydrogen).

Bhavishya Software

Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DOPPW) introduced a unique innovative centralized pension processing software called ‘Bhavishya’ for all central government Ministries/Departments.

About Bhavishya Software:

It is an online Pension Sanction & Payment Tracking System launched by the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare.
It was made mandatory for all central civil Ministries and Departments w.e.f 01.01.2017.
It was launched to address the problems of delay & clerical errors in processing the pension cases, as well as financial loss and harassment to the pensioners,

Features:

Auto Registration of Retirees: It is integrated with payroll packages and would auto fill in basic data of the retiring employees and provide the necessary MIS to the various departments as well as to the DOPPW the number of employees due to retire in the next 15 months.
Strict timelines: The software has laid down strict timelines for various stages of pension processing across all stakeholders involved. The process starts online 15 months prior to retirement and the pensioner has to fill up a single form once.
The system on its own keeps throwing up alerts to the pensioner as well as to the stakeholder for meeting out the deadlines prescribed for various stages.
Transparency and Accountability: There is complete transparency and accountability in processing of a pension case and due to this system, it becomes very easy to identify the delay points if any, and fix responsibility.
e-PPO (Electronic Pension Payment Order): It has also been integrated with the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) module of Central Pension Accounting Office (CGA) and e-PPO is transmitted by the concerned Ministry/Department’s PAO to CPAO from where it goes to the Bank.

Aarogya Maitri Health Cube

The Indian Army and Air Force recently conducted a first-of-its-kind paradrop of the Aarogya Maitri Health Cube, the indigenously-made world's first portable hospital, at 15,000 feet elevation.

About Aarogya Maitri Health Cube:

It is the world’s first portable hospital.
It was designed indigenously under Project BHISHM (Bharat Health Initiative for Sahyog Hita and Maitri),
It contains medical equipment and supplies such as a mini-ICU, an operation theatre, a cooking station, food, water, a power generator, blood test equipment, power generator, an X-ray machine, and more.

Design:

The ‘Aarogya Maitri Cube Cage’ includes three frames, each accommodating 12 mini-cubes.
The cage can fit in 36 mini-cubes, including almost everything that can be packed for survival for a period of 48 hours for 100 survivors.
The design allows joining two cages–master cube one and master cube two, including 72 cubes in total–with damage control capabilities for 200 survivors.
Mini cubes are durable and waterproof and are designed to open “in different configurations”.
These cubes are light and portable and can be carried by a single person–a messenger bag, as a strolley or as a briefcase–or even transported through a drone.
The cubes can handle several severe injuries, including 40 bullet injuries, 25 major bleeds, 25 major burns, around 10 head injuries, long limb fractures, spinal injuries, chest injuries, and spinal fractures.
The structure will also contain a tablet-based application which can operate all 72 cubes.

Hayflick limit

Biomedical researcher Leonard Hayflick, who discovered that normal somatic cells can divide (and thus reproduce) only a certain number of times, died recently.

About Hayflick limit:

It refers to the maximum number of times a cell can divide.
It's named after scientist Leonard Hayflick, who discovered this phenomenon.
The limit plays a crucial role in aging and the development of age-related diseases.
Hayflick found that cells go through three phases.
The first is rapid, healthy cell division.
In the second phase, mitosis slows. In the third stage, senescence, cells stop dividing entirely.
They remain alive for a time after they stop dividing, but sometime after cellular division ends, cells do a particularly disturbing thing: Essentially, they commit suicide.
Once a cell reaches the end of its life span, it undergoes a programmed cellular death called apoptosis.
Hayflick’s discovery got further weight after researchers in the 1970s discovered Telomeres.
Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences at the very end of these strands, meant to protect the chromosome.
Crucially, with each cell division, these telomeres get slightly shorter. Eventually, the telomere loss reaches a critical point at which cell division ends.
That said, while shortening telomeres is related to aging, the exact relationship between telomere length and lifespan remains unclear.