Daily Current Affairs 8 December 2019

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Measles outbreaks continue: WHO

Children under the age of five accounted for most of the 1,40,000 people who died from measles in 2018, according to new estimates released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) on behalf of the Measles and Rubella Initiative

About Measles

Measles is a highly­contagious virus and spreads rapidly in unvaccinated children, causing symptoms from rash to blindness, pneumonia to death. Rubella virus is the primary cause of congenital rubella syndrome leading to abortions and children born with birth defects of heart, eye, and brain. Both measles and rubella can be prevented by a highly-­effective Measles­Rubella (MR) vaccine.

India initiated one of the world’s largest measles­-rubella

India initiated one of the world’s largest measles­-rubella campaign to eliminate measles and control rubella in the country. By November 2019, more than 324 million children and adolescent between 9 months to 15 years of age have been vaccinated with one dose of MR vaccine

Data released by WHO has noted that measles cases more than doubled in 2018 compared to 2017. While final data for 2019 is not yet available,  reports indicate that the number of measles cases continues to be dangerously high. 

2) Odisha reduces farmers scheme assistance 

• The Odisha government has reduced the financial assistance given to farmers under the KALIA scheme to ₹4,000 per annum from ₹10,000
• The decision to reduce the assistance was taken after the Odisha government merged the KALIA scheme with the Centre’s PM-­KISAN
• Keeping the parity of both the schemes, the small/ marginal farmers may be given with ₹5,000 for 2019­-20 and ₹4,000 per year from 2020­-21, so that they will get ₹10,000 annually i.e ₹6,000 from PM­-KISAN and ₹4,000 from KALIA
• As all eligible farmers will get assistance from PM­KISAN from 2019­20, no assistance for Rabi­2019 will be given under the KALIA scheme
• The actual cultivators (sharecroppers) who are landless, if any, will continue to get assistance from KALIA i.e ₹10,000 annually since they are not considered under PM­-KISAN

3) The personal income tax rate may be cut 

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government is working on more steps, including rationalization of personal income tax rates, to revive the sagging economy
• The GDP growth slowed to more than a six­year low of 4.5% in the second quarter of the current fiscal from the 5% recorded in the first quarter
• The government is considering rationalization of the personal income tax rate for putting more money in the hands of people
• In the biggest reduction in 28 years, the government in September slashed corporate tax rates by up to 10 percentage points as it looked to pull the economy out of a six-year low growth, with a ₹1.45­lakh crore tax break.

4) A typhoid vaccine manufactured in India offers 82% protection

• A typhoid vaccine (Typbar TCV) developed by the Hyderabad­based Bharat Biotech has shown 81.6% efficacy in preventing typhoid fever at 12 months in a phase­3 clinical trial. The trial was carried out in Nepal in over 10,000 children who received the vaccine.
• Typhoid fever is caused by highly contagious Salmonella Typhi bacteria. Nearly 11 million fall sick due to typhoid and about 1,17,000 deaths are reported each year. The bacteria spread through contaminated food and water.
• A single dose of the vaccine was found to be effective in preventing typhoid in children aged nine months to 16 years. The vaccine confers protection two-three weeks after vaccination. The duration of protection is currently not known. The results of the trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The Typbar TCV vaccine was recommended by WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (WHO­SAGE) in December 2017. The WHO prequalified the vaccine in January 2018. 
• Typhoid bacteria can be treated with antibiotics, the microbes have developed resistance against multiple antibiotics. Multidrug­resistant typhoid bacteria are seen in south Asia including India. Since 2016, extensively drug­resistant (XDR) typhoid outbreaks have been reported from Sindh province in Pakistan. According to an editorial accompanying the paper, XDR typhoid has been found in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan
• The Typbar TCV typhoid vaccine tested in Nepal is a conjugate vaccine. A conjugate vaccine is one in which the antigen (which is a polysaccharide in this case) is chemically linked to a carrier protein.

5) Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG)

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) 10th Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) Meeting was held recently at Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia.
• More than 130 elephant conservationists, partner organizations and experts gathered at the meeting.
• Issues discussed included national action plans for elephant conservation by Asian elephant range states, best practices in managing human-elephant conflict, mechanisms to involve group members in monitoring the illegal killing of elephants, issues related to captive elephant welfare and sharing and learning from the African experience.
• The IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) is a global network of specialists (both scientists and non-scientists) concerned with the study, monitoring, management, and conservation of Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus).
• Aim To promote the long-term conservation of Asia’s elephants and, where possible, the recovery of their populations to viable levels.
• It shall provide the best available scientifically grounded evidence to the abundance, distribution, and demographic status of Asian elephant populations in all 13 range states.
• Gajah is the bi-annual journal of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG).

6) Dutch, Danish heritage in Hooghly gets an ASI push 

The western banks of the Hooghly [Ganga] had anchored different colonial settlements, including the French, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch and British. While many heritage enthusiasts visiting these places located almost 30 to 40 km from Kolkata are fascinated mostly by the French architecture in

Chandannagar and the Portuguese structures at Bandel, the Danish and Dutch cemeteries remain forgotten

The Dutch settlement

• The Dutch settlement in the area started as early as 1656, a couple of years before the Mughal king Aurangzeb ascended the throne. They started the trade of cotton, indigo, and spices. Not many of the Dutch monuments are found today as they were demolished after the British took control of the region
• The Dutch cemetery is a reminder of the golden days of their legacy in Chinsurah. The graves at the cemetery are scattered under the shade of old trees and surrounded by a high wall
• The cemetery, which reflects a distinct architectural style prevalent in those times and similar to the Dutch cemeteries in south India, has about 45 graves of Dutch citizens who died between 1743 and 1846
• The oldest tomb belongs to Sir Cornelius Jonge who died at Chinsurah in 1743. The tombs include, among others, the grave of Daniel Anthony Overbeck, the Dutch Governor of Chinsurah, who stayed at the town even after it was handed over to the British authority in 1825. He died in 1840
• The other beautiful Dutch monument, located in Chandannagar, which the ASI wants to bring back in focus is a memorial of a Dutch lady, Susenne Anne Maria, who first married Peter Bruys, the Dutch director of Bengal and later Thomas Yeats, a well­todo English businessman

The Danish settlement

• The Danish cemetery is located at Srirampur and has two separate plots one for the Roman Catholics and the other for the Protestants. The earliest of these graves date back to 1787
• The cemetery also includes a tomb of Col. Krefling, the Danish chief and director, who died in 1828. The Danish Governor, Hohlenburg, after his death in 1833, was buried in this cemetery
• After the restoration of more than 230­year­old Danish tavern in Srirampur with the support of a private organization in Denmark, interest in the Danish architecture in the region has been rekindled. St. Olav’s Church, also a Danish structure located about 100 meters from the tavern, has also been restored and gets a steady flow of visitors

A publication released by the ASI to mark the World Heritage Week celebrations November 19 to 24. 

7) Railways 'RailWire' Wi-Fi goes Live in 5500 Railway Stations

Railways have successfully completed the work of providing free public Wi-Fi at 5500 stations across the country. Mahua Milan Railway Station of East Central Railway zone became the 5500th station in the country to have free public Wi-Fi. This is a unique initiative as this Wi-Fi network is one of the largest Wi-Fi networks in the world.

The RailWire

To transform the Railway stations into the hub of Digital inclusion, Indian Railways mandated RailTel, a Miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, to provide free high-speed Wi-Fi at the Railway stations. The journey started in January 2016 from the financial capital of India - Mumbai Central station and in a span of 46 months Railways has successfully provided Wi-Fi at 5500 stations across the country. The mission is to provide Wi-Fi at all Railway stations (except the halt ones). Along the journey, RailTel has roped in partners like Google, Tata Trust, PGCIL for some parts of the project and also got funding from the Department of Telecom USOF for 200 stations. The Wi-Fi is being provided under the brand name of RailWire.

The month of October 2019 saw a total of 1.5 crores of user logins in ‘RailWire’ Wi-Fi services across all stations consuming 10242 TB of data. Free access to high-speed Wi-Fi will help in bridging the digital divide between rural and urban India. Students using their waiting time to download study materials, vendors using the service for digital payment transactions, daily passengers using their time at stations learning a new skill or surfing net- the free Wi-Fi has been a boon to these people who otherwise suffer from poor connectivity issues.

8) 8th National Photography Awards

• Photo Division, Press Information Bureau, under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, has invited entries for the 8th National Photography Awards.
• The Division confers these Awards every year, to promote various facets of the country such as art, culture, development, heritage, history, life, people, society, and tradition through the medium of photography, and to encourage professional and amateur photographers across the country.
• The National Photography Awards are conferred under three categories - Lifetime Achievement Award, Award for Professional Photographers, and Award for Amateur Photographers.
• The Lifetime Achievement Award carries a Cash Prize of Rs. 3,00,000/-.
• This year's theme for Professional Photographers is 'Life and Water.' The awards under the Category for Professionals are one ‘Professional Photographer of the year’ award with a Cash Prize of Rs. 1,00,000/- and five Special Mention Awards with a cash prize of Rs. 50,000/- each.
• This year's theme for the Amateur Photographers is 'Cultural Heritage of India.' The awards under the Category for Amateurs are one ‘Amateur Photographer of the year’ award with a cash prize of Rs.75,000/- and five Special Mention Awards with a cash prize of Rs.30,000/- each.