• The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) has launched the Mission Solar Charkha in 2018-19 for implementation of 50 Solar Charkha Clusters across the country.

The aims and objectives of Mission Solar Charkha are:-

1. To ensure inclusive growth by generation of employment, especially for women and youth and sustainable development through solar charkha cluster in rural areas.
2. To boost rural economy and help in arresting migration from rural to urban areas.
3. To leverage low-cost, innovative technologies and processes for substance.

• The Lok Sabha is discussing supplementary demands for grants for 2019-20.
• This includes 78 grants and four appropriations. The proposal involves net cash outgo aggregate to around 54 thousand crore rupees.

Background

• In addition to the budget that contains the ordinary estimates of income and expenditure for one financial year, various other grants are made by the Parliament under extraordinary or special circumstances:

Supplementary Grant

• It is granted when the amount authorised by the Parliament through the appropriation act for a particular service for the current financial year is found to be insufficient for that year.

Additional Grant

• It is granted when a need has arisen during the current financial year for additional expenditure upon some new service not contemplated in the budget for that year.

Excess Grant

• It is granted when money has been spent on any service during a financial year in excess of the amount granted for that service in the budget for that year.
• It is voted by the Lok Sabha after the financial year. Before the demands for excess grants are submitted to the Lok Sabha for voting, they must be approved by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

Vote of Credit

• It is granted for meeting an unexpected demand upon the resources of India, when on account of the magnitude or the indefinite character of the service, the demand cannot be stated with the details ordinarily given in a budget. Hence, it is like a blank cheque given to the Executive by the Lok Sabha.

Exceptional Grant

• It is granted for a special purpose and forms no part of the current service of any financial year.

Token Grant

• It is granted when funds to meet the proposed expenditure on a new service can be made available by reappropriation.
• A demand for the grant of a token sum (of Re 1) is submitted to the vote of the Lok Sabha and if assented, funds are made available.
• Reappropriation involves transfer of funds from one head to another.
• It does not involve any additional expenditure.
• Supplementary, additional, excess and exceptional grants and vote of credit are regulated by the same procedure which is applicable in the case of a regular budget.

Herd Immunity

• It refers to preventing an infectious disease from spreading by immunising a certain percentage of the population.
• While the concept is most commonly used in the context of vaccination, herd community can also be achieved after enough people have become immune after being infected.
• The premise is that if a certain percentage of the population is immune, members of that group can no longer infect another person.
• This breaks the chain of infection through the community (“herd”), and prevents it from reaching those who are the most vulnerable.

How does herd immunity work?

• The scientific principle is that the presence of a large number of immune persons in the community, who will interrupt the transmission, provides indirect protection to those who are not immune.

• Environmental organisations from across central and eastern Europe have criticised a major project intending to link three rivers and provide seamless navigation between three of Europe’s peripheral seas.

About the project:

• The Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal intends to connect the Danube, Oder and Elbe rivers and thus provide another navigable link from the Black Sea to the North and Baltic Seas.
• Environmental organisations from Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria, wrote a joint letter to the European Union’s Commissioners for Environment.
• This major project, costing at least 23 billion euros, fundamentally violates EU environmental and nature conservation directives and must not be allowed to become a reality,” the letter noted.
• They called on the European Commission to ensure that the project be excluded from EU funding, and not be included as part of the Trans-European Transport Network.

• The sudden surge in numbers of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases has caused the nations across the globe to take steps to stop the spread.
• Ever since the outbreak of the deadly disease, there has been a need to routinely check temperatures.
• The temperature in such cases is not checked using a mercury thermometer.
• To do this, offices, airports, malls and hotels are using forehead thermometers, also known as an Infrared Thermometer.
• These thermometers check the human temperature by sensing the infrared energy radiated by the body.
• The infrared thermometers are used to detect the body temperature in case of fever, one of the symptoms of coronavirus.
• However, this is not a 100% accurate way of detecting COVID-19 cases.
• While the advantage of using an infrared thermometer is its ‘no contact’ process, the temperature can get affected by various factors such as wind and water.
• It can take from 2 to 10 days for a person to show the symptoms of coronavirus.
• If a person is affected by the virus and has not started to show symptoms yet, the infrared thermometer would not be able to detect.
• So, infrared thermometers might not provide an accurate estimation of the infected people.

• GEMINI (GAGAN Enabled Mariner’s Instrument for Navigation and Information) is a marine information dissemination system.
• It is to provide disaster warnings to fishermen by utilizing GAGAN (GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation) satellite systems of the AAI and ISRO.
• It is a portable device which receives data from the GAGAN satellites and sends it to the user’s cellphone App, which decode the alerts.
• It is developed by INCOIS under Ministry of Earth Sciences and Airport Authority of India.
• INCOIS regularly provides information, advisories, ocean data, weather forecasts, potential fishing zones data to beneficiaries like fishermen, Indian Navy, marine industries, shipping etc.
• But due to the limited range of mobile networks, the disaster warning couldn’t reach beyond 10-12km of the coastline which was acutely felt during 2017 Ockhi cyclone.
• The data coverage of GEMINI covers the entire India Ocean full-time, which will help in information transmission to the fishermen far away from coastal areas.

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued revised guidelines on the ‘Clinical Management of COVID-19’.
• The Ministry has recommended use of drug combinations Lopinavir and Ritonavir (sold under the brand name Kaletra) depending upon the severity of the condition of a person having coronavirus infection.
• The use of this drug combination is suggested by an expert committee comprising doctors from the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), experts from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and World Health Organization (WHO).
• Lopinavir-Ritonavir is recommended for high-risk groups of patients aged above 60 who are suffering from diabetes mellitus, renal failure, chronic lung disease and are immuno-compromised.
• Lopinavir-Ritonavir is used widely for controlling Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection.
• However, the use of Lopinavir-Ritonavir is also associated with significant adverse events which many times have led to discontinuation of therapy.
• There is no current evidence from randomized controlled trials to recommend any specific treatment for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients.
• No specific antivirals are recommended for treatment of those suffering from respiratory ailment due to lack of adequate evidence from medical literature.

National Backward Classes Finance & Development Corporation (NBCFDC)

• It is a Government of India Undertaking under the aegis of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
• It was incorporated under Section 25 of the Companies Act 1956 in 1992 as a Company not for profit.
• Its objective is to promote economic and developmental activities for the benefit of Backward Classes and to assist the poorer section of these classes in skill development and self-employment ventures.

• Like in any other federation, the Centre and the states also have their separate public services called as the Central Services and the State Services respectively.
• In addition, there are all-India services namely Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Forest Service.
• These services are controlled jointly by the Centre and the states.
• The ultimate control lies with the Central government while the immediate control vests with the state governments.

• Article 326 of the Constitution states that ‘The elections to the House of the People and to the Legislative Assembly of every State shall be on the basis of adult suffrage; that is to say, every person who is a citizen of India and who is not less than eighteen years of age on such date as may be fixed in that behalf by or under any law made by the appropriate Legislature and is not otherwise disqualified under this Constitution or any law made by the appropriate Legislature on the ground of non- residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt or illegal practice, shall be entitled to be registered as a voter at any such election’.
• The concept of universal adult franchise empowers all the citizens to exercise their political right irrespective of their differences in race, caste, sex, religion etc... without any restrictions.