20 September 2021 Current Affairs Quiz

Answer : c
The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Government of India has recently issued Gazette notification making it mandatory for all States/UTs to grant certificate of disability through online mode only using UDID portal.

UDID Portal
• Unique ID for Persons with Disabilities project is being implemented since 2016 with a view of creating a National Database for PwDs, and to issue a Unique Disability Identity Card to each person with disabilities.
• The project will not only encourage transparency, efficiency and ease of delivering the government benefits to the person with disabilities, but also ensure uniformity.
• The project will also help in stream-lining the tracking of physical and financial progress of beneficiary at all levels of hierarchy of implementation – from village level, block level, District level , State level and National level.

Answer : c
• India has recently welcomed the US support for relaxation in the norms of the agreement on TRIPS to ensure quick and affordable access to COVID vaccines and medicines for developing countries.
• In October last year, in view of COVID-19 pandemic, India and South Africa had proposed in WTO for temporary waiver from certain provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement.
• As a result of proactive outreach by India and other like-minded countries, the proposal has received the support of more than 120 countries.

TRIPS Agreement
• The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
• It sets down minimum standards for the regulation by national governments of many forms of intellectual property (IP) as applied to nationals of other WTO member nations.
• TRIPS was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990 and is administered by the WTO.
• The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the multilateral trading system for the first time and remains the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property to date.

TRIPS requires WTO members to
• Provide copyright rights, covering authors and other copyright holders, as well as holders of related rights, namely performers, sound recording producers and broadcasting organizations; geographical indications;
• Industrial designs;
• Integrated circuit layout-designs;
• Patents;
• New plant varieties;
• Trademarks;
• Trade names and undisclosed or confidential information.
• TRIPS also specifies enforcement procedures, remedies, and dispute resolution procedures.
• All the WTO agreements (except for a couple of “plurilateral” agreements) apply to all WTO members.
• The members each accepted all the agreements as a single package with a single signature — making it, in the jargon, a “single undertaking”.
• The TRIPS Agreement is part of that package. Therefore it applies to all WTO members.
• Article 31 allows compulsory licensing and government use of a patent without the authorization of its owner.
• But this can only be done under a number of conditions aimed at protecting the legitimate interests of the right holder.

Answer : b
• In a concerted response to the second surge of COVID-19 infection in the country, the Ministry of Ayush is launching a massive nationwide campaign recently to distribute its proven poly herbal Ayurvedic drugs AYUSH 64 and Sidha drug Kabasura Kudineer.
• Kabasura Kudineer is included in the Guidelines for Siddha Practitioners for COVID 19 by the AYUSH Ministry.

Kabasura kudineer
1. It is an herbal concoction, comprising dry ingredients of ginger, pippali, clove, cirukancori root, mulli root, kadukkai, ajwain and many other herbs.
2. The ingredients are powdered and mixed with water, then boiled to make a decoction of one-fourth of its initial volume.

Answer : c
CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) has recently transferred its Oxygen Concentrator Technology and High Flow Rate Iron Removal Plant Technology virtually.

Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI)
• It is a public engineering research and development institution in Durgapur, West Bengal, India.
• It is a constituent laboratory of the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
• This institute is the only national level research institute in the field of mechanical engineering in India.
CMERI is mandated to serve industry and develop mechanical engineering technology so that India’s dependence on foreign collaboration is substantially reduced in strategic and economy sectors.

Answer : c
Red Sea Corals
• The corals in the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, have been known to be resistant to higher temperatures.
• By studying them at the laboratory, researchers have now decoded the full molecular mechanism behind this resistance.
• The coral Stylophora pistillata has a rapid gene expression response and recovery pattern when exposed to heat stress.
• The team noted that the algae and bacteria they live in symbiosis with the coral can also withstand average temperatures 5°C higher than what they typically experience.