Junior Digest

June 25,2020: IN-SPACe, the newly-announced body under the Department of Space, will be the nodal national entity to drive building of satellites, rockets, or launch services through Indian industry.

IN-SPACe is the acronym for Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, which was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, as part of reforms in the sector that is growing fast in the world.

The new vertical with its own chairman and board will function autonomously and parallel to ISRO “without taking away anything from it,” according to K.Sivan, Secretary, Department of Space and ISRO Chairman.

It will be powerful enough to promote and regulate all space-related activities of private industries. The year-old NSIL NewSpace India Ltd will have a larger role and be the industry front of IN-SPACe, he said.

ISRO and its centres will focus on developing advanced technologies, human space flights, and the like. It will share its technical expertise with IN-SPACe.

IN-SPACe will be in place in three to six months. Meanwhile DoS will immediately start receiving and processing applications from private sector industries.

In a televised address on Thursday, Dr. Sivan outlined some of these major reforms in the national space sector.

The aim is to tap the potential in the Indian industry, startups and non-government players and put them on the global map, he said.

Islamabad, June 26,2020: PML-N senior leader Khawaja Asif on Friday lambasted Prime Minister Imran Khan over his speech in the National Assembly in which the premier referred to slain Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as “martyr”.
“Imran Khan called Osama bin Laden shaheed(martyr). Bin Laden brought terrorism to our land, he was a terrorist through and through and he [premier] calls him shaheed?” said Asif.
Reacting to the prime minister’s speech, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said that Imran’s remarks were consistent with “his history of appeasement to violent extremism”.
Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, the spokesperson for the PPP chairman, also released a statement in which he called Imran a “national security threat” because of his remarks.
PPP Senator Sherry Rehman said that Pakistan was still a victim of terrorist attacks due to Osama Bin Laden.
“Because of him the country is in such a state and you are presenting him as a hero on the assembly floor?”
She added that Imran’s words will go down in history. “Remember that Osama Bin Laden can be the PM’s hero but not the nation’s. He was and will remain a criminal of the state and the people.”
Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces who raided his compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan in 2011.

New Delhi, Jun 25,2020: Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay will go completely online next semester and not call students for face to face lectures in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, its director said on Thursday.

The decision, the first by any IIT, followed deliberations that went on till late night Wednesday.

“After a long deliberation in the Senate, we have decided that the next semester will be run purely in the online mode so that there is no compromise on the safety and well being of the students. The COVID pandemic has made us rethink the way we impart education to our students, IIT-Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri said in a statement to the media.

“To ensure that our students begin the academic year without further delay, we are planning on extensive online classes details of which will be informed to all students in due course of time,” he added.

Other IITs are also likely to follow suit. However, no final decision has been taken yet.

Jun 29,2020:The gunmen attacked the building with grenades and guns, media reported.

Four gunmen attacked the Pakistani Stock Exchange building in the city of Karachi on Monday but security forces soon killed them all, police said.

Two other people were also killed, the military said.

The gunmen attacked the building, which is in a high security zone that also houses the head offices of many private banks, with grenades and guns, Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon told Reuters.

“Four attackers have been killed, they had come in a silver Corolla car,” Mr. Memon said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Pakistan has long been plagued by Islamist militant violence but attacks have become less frequent in recent years.

The gunmen initially threw a grenade then opened fire on a security post outside the building. The four were killed when security forces posted there responded.

“The situation is still unfolding and management, with the help of security forces, is managing the security and controlling the situation,” the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) said on Twitter.

Washington , June 28,2020: Despite suffering multiple casualties in a violent faceoff with India in Galway Valley area, China has still not disclosed how many of its soldiers were killed in the incident.
This decision of the Chinese Communist Party has upset Chinese families who lost their loved ones in the incident, US-based Breitbart News has reported.
According to Breitbart, the Chinese government is struggling to silence the families of soldiers who are using Weibo and other platforms to vent their anger and frustration.
Following the June 15 incident, the Indian government had acknowledged that 20 of its soldiers were killed in the brawl with the Chinese troops.
The Chinese government has acknowledged the deaths of only a few officers so far. Indian intercepts have revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including the dead and seriously injured.
Although the Chinese government is mum regarding the casualties, its state-media editor-in-chief had revealed that the Chinese side has also suffered casualties during the June 15 face-off with Indian troops in Ladakh.
“Based on what I know, the Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash,” Hu Xijin, Editor-in-Chief of Chinese state-run media said in a tweet.
According to multiple reports, Chinese families are using Weibo to express their frustration over the secrecy of their government
The June 15 violent face-off occurred after China attempted to unilaterally change the status quo during de-escalation in eastern Ladakh. India has said that the situation could have been avoided if the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side.

NEW DELHI:June 26, 2020: The Supreme Court accepted a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) scheme where students of class 10 and 12 will be assessed for the exams cancelled due to the pandemic by taking an average of their best performance in the papers they have already taken.
The cancelled exams were originally scheduled between July 1 and 15. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for CBSE, said the assessment scheme is available on the official website.

“Assessment of the performance of students in the cancelled examinations will be done based on the assessment scheme,” a three-judge Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar referred to the CBSE notification in a 10-page order.

The Bench said its order and the notification will govern “any petition pending in this court or any other court concerning the subject of conducting examinations for classes 10 and 12 by the CBSE scheduled from July 1 to July 15”.
ICSE Plan

The ICSE, represented by senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, said it will have a “slightly different” assessment scheme from that of the CBSE. The ICSE had also cancelled its exams scheduled between July 1 and 14. Mr. Gupta informed the court that its scheme would be available on its website in a week.

According to the CBSE scheme, students of Class X and XII who have completed their exams would be assessed on their performance. Those who have taken the exam in more than three subjects will be assessed after the average in their three best performing subjects is taken to assess their scores for the cancelled papers. If students have appeared for only three exams so far, the average of the best two subjects would be taken as their scores in the cancelled papers. In a few cases such as Delhi, if students have appeared in one or two subjects, the average of these marks along with their internal and practical scores would be used for assessment. Assessment results would be out by July 15.

The assessment results would be treated as final for class 10. However, class 12 students can choose to appear for “optional examinations” to be held in future for the exams that were cancelled. These optional exams would be held when the health situation is “more conducive”.

However, unlike CBSE, Mr. Gupta said the ICSE may allow its class 10 students to appear for an optional exams like their class 12 counterparts.

Parents, who are the petitioners in this case and represented by advocate Rishi Malhotra, said a time limit should be specified for the class 12 CBSE students to decide whether they want to appear in the optional exams.

Mr. Malhotra suggested that students should specify within 15 days of the declaration of the assessment results whether they want to appear in the optional examinations.

“The option has to be exercised by the student within 15 days, otherwise this will lead to further litigation They have to conduct the exam within a certain period, say within 15 days of declaration of results. This would be bind the students to take a call within a period,” Mr. Malhotra submitted.

To this, Mr. Mehta countered, “suppose the situation gets conducive in October. Then, let the students decide in September. Why 15 days? Why put pressure on them to take a decision… What we do must be pro student”.

The court agreed with the Solicitor General, saying “whenever the CBSE decides to conduct the optional exam, it will be notified and the dates will come in that notification”.

Hyderabad (Telangana), June 30,2020: Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech announced that it has successfully developed Covaxin, India’s first vaccine candidate for Covid-19, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).
The Drug Controller General of India – CDSCO, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare granted permission to initiate Phase I & II Human clinical trials after the company submitted results generated from preclinical studies, demonstrating safety and immune response. Human clinical trials are scheduled to start across India in July 2020.
The SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech.
The indigenous, inactivated vaccine developed and manufactured in the company’s Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) High Containment facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.
Announcing the vaccine development milestone, Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director said: “We are proud to announce COVAXIN, India’s first indigenous vaccine against COVID-19. The collaboration with ICMR and NIV was instrumental in the development of this vaccine.”
Dr Ella added, “The proactive support and guidance from CDSCO has enabled approvals to this project. Our R&D and Manufacturing teams worked tirelessly to deploy our proprietary technologies towards this platform.”
Expedited through national regulatory protocols, the company accelerated its objective in completing the comprehensive pre-clinical studies. Results from these studies have been promising and show extensive safety and effective immune responses.
Speaking about Bharat Biotech’s prowess, Suchitra Ella, Joint Managing Director said, “Our ongoing research and expertise in forecasting epidemics has enabled us to successfully manufacture a vaccine for the H1N1 pandemic.”
“Continuing our focus on creating the only BSL-3 containment facilities for manufacturing and testing in India, Bharat Biotech is committed to advancing vaccine development as a matter of national importance to demonstrate India’s strength in handling future pandemics,” she added.
Bharat Biotech’s track record in developing vero cell culture platform technologies has been proven in several vaccines for Polio, Rabies, Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Chikungunya and Zika.

Barcelona [Spain], June 28 ,2020: Exposure to smoking (both maternal smoking during pregnancy and second-hand smoking during childhood), air pollution, as well as certain characteristics of the built environment may be associated with a higher development of obesity in children, according to a recent study.
The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, and the University of Southern California led the first major study to investigate the associations between many pollutants and environmental factors
The new study, which forms a part of the HELIX project and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, used data on more than 1,300 children aged 6 to 11 years from birth cohort studies in six European countries: France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The authors used data on body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, skinfold thickness and body fat mass to determine the children’s overweight and obesity status. Blood and urine samples from the children and their mothers during pregnancy were also analysed.
In total, 77 pregnancy and 96 childhood exposures were assessed, including air pollutants, built environment, green spaces, smoking, and chemical pollutants (persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, phthalates, phenols and pesticides).
ISGlobal researcher Martine Vrijheid, who coordinates the HELIX project and was the first author of the study, commented: “The prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing at alarming rates across the globe and may have increased even more than usual during the COVID-19 lockdown period.”
The findings of the study, which used data collected before anti-COVID-19 measures were introduced, were in line with global trends: the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity was 29% for the study population as a whole, with higher percentages for the cohorts from Spain (43 per cent) and Greece (37 per cent).
The results showed that exposure to smoking (both maternal smoking during pregnancy and second-hand smoking during childhood), air pollution (PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, indoor and outdoor) as well as certain characteristics of the built environment were associated with a higher childhood BMI. Differences in socioeconomic status did not explain these findings.
Associations with chemical pollutants were less consistent, with some chemicals measured in child blood (heavy metals copper and cesium) showing higher BMI, and others (persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs and DDE pesticides) showing lower BMI.
This may be explained by the fact that chemicals were measured at the same time as obesity in the children, and obesity status may have influenced chemical blood levels. A longitudinal follow-up of the cohort is needed to establish this.
“The children who live in densely populated areas and go to schools in areas with few services and facilities were more likely to be obese,” commented Leda Chatzi, Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California and the last author of the study.
The relationship between obesity and the characteristics of the built environment “is in line with the findings of previous research and could be explained by a lack of opportunities for children to walk or engage in other outdoor physical activities,” she added.
“These findings provide further evidence that modifying environmental exposures early in life can limit the risk of obesity and associated complications,” commented Martine Vrijheid.
“The implications for public health are important since these results may help to identify obesity-related exposures that could be targeted for prevention and intervention early in life,” Vrijheid added.

Jun 28,2020:The Madhya Pradesh government will launch a ‘Kill Corona’ campaign from July 1 to control the spread of coronavirus in the State.

Under the campaign, door-to-door survey will be conducted and tests would also be done on citizens for other diseases, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said during a virtual review meeting on the COVID-19 pandemic on Saturday.

Mr. Chouhan said during the 15-day campaign, 2.5 lakh tests will be carried out and 15,000 to 20,000 samples would be collected daily, according to a press release.
He said the testing capacity will be doubled from 4,000 per 10 lakh people to 8,000 per 10 lakh people.

Washington, June 26,2020: The United States Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can deport some people seeking asylum without allowing them to make their case to a federal judge.
The court’s 7-2 ruling applies to people who fail their initial asylum screenings, making them eligible for quick deportation, or expedited removal, an Al Jazeera report said.
The judges ruling came with regards to a Sri Lankan man who said he fled persecution as a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, but failed to persuade immigration officials that he faced harm if he returned to Sri Lanka. The man was arrested soon after he slipped across the US border from Mexico.
The high court reversed a lower court ruling in favour of the man, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, who was placed in expedited removal proceedings that prohibit people who fail initial interviews from asking federal courts for much help.
Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles (160km) of the US border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the US and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court threw out a trial judge’s ruling that had blocked the expanded policy. Other legal issues remain to be resolved in the case.

June 25, 2020: The Central Board of Secondary Education and Union government on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that board examinations for Class X and XII will be cancelled in view of COVID-19 pandemic. The examinations were scheduled to be held between July 1 and 15.

The Class XII students can opt for assessment scheme to be notified by CBSE shortly or they can opt to appear in exams when conditions become conducive, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed a Supreme Court Bench.

Delhi, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had conveyed their inability to conduct CBSE exams.

CBSE will conduct exam when condition becomes conducive, Mr. Mehta told the Bench. When asked who will decide if the condition is conducive, he replied Central government will decide.

Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) also agreed with the government’s decision to cancel remaining exams. The Bombay High Court had raised concerns over the conduct of the exams in the midst of rising COVID-19 cases and deaths. It asked the ICSE authorities to make their stand clear on the exams.

A bunch of parents approached the apex court urging it to cancel the board exams in the wake of the coronavirus disease.
Seeing that any improvement in the situation was difficult to predict, Punjab, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have cancelled class 10 exams for their students this year.

The petition filed in the Supreme Court by the parents of class 12 students has sought a direction to CBSE to declare results on the basis of tests already conducted, and calculate the total on average basis with internal assessment marks of the remaining subjects.

Jun26,2020: A landslip, induced by heavy rainfall, killed a minor in Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar on Thursday while a woman drowned in twin city Naharlagun. Another person drowned in Assam’s Dhemaji district as the death toll in floods and landslips since mid-May rose to 36.

Officials in Itanagar said the body of the minor was retrieved from under the debris at the city’s Doni Colony after 8 a.m on Thursday. Around the same time, a woman’s body was retrieved from the Lagun River near Naharlagun.

“Heavy rainfall for three days has added to our problem of combating COVID-19,” Chief Minister Pema Khandu said, announcing an immediate release of Rs. 4 lakh to the next of kin of each victim.

On May 23, a 27-year-old woman and her two children were buried alive in a landslip at Arzoo village in Dibang Valley district.

The flood situation in Assam worsened, with the number of affected people jumping from 37,675 to 1,89,314 across nine districts in less than 24 hours. The number of affected districts on Wednesday was five.

“A person drowned in Dhemaji’s Sisiborgaon area today. So far, 15 people have died by drowning in two waves of floods while landslips claimed 21 others’ lives,” a spokesperson of Assam State Disaster Management Authority said.

Of the displaced people, 11,468 have moved into relief camps across four districts, most of them in Tinsukia, which overnight became the third most affected district after Dhemaji and Majuli. The other affected districts are Biswanath, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Lakhimpur, Jorhat and Sivasagar.
Blowout capping hit

Floodwaters inundated the Baghjan site in Tinsukia district where a natural gas wells caught fire almost a fortnight after a blowout on May 27, hampering Oil India Limited’s capping operations. A concrete bridge on the road to the site was also damaged, preventing movement of men and material.

“Clearing of debris, crucial for the operation, has also been hit due to the flooding of the site,” an OIL spokesperson said.

In the adjoining Dibrugarh district, heavy rainfall resulted in water-logging in several areas of district headquarters Dibrugarh. The worst affected was the All India Radio station, where a short-circuit due to flooding led to the suspension of all broadcast services from the studios.

“We are broadcasting from an emergency transmitter at Lepetkata, 18 km away. The entire complex is inundated because of faulty drainage system,” said AIR programme executive Lohit Deka.

AIR Dibrugarh is among India’s 13 most sophisticate stations with high-power transmitter and has been broadcasting programmes in 12 languages and dialects – six in Assam and six in Arunachal Pradesh. It is also among the most awarded, having received 27 national awards for innovative programmes.

Dibrugarh’s Deputy Commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha said a series of protests and COVID-19 lockdown affected a drainage project. “But 1,000 mm of rainfall for two consecutive days is a huge quantity and difficult to control for any urban set-up,” he pointed out.

JUNE 25,2020: Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Wednesday it will automatically delete some location history after 18 months for new users and make it easier for everyone to access its search, Maps and YouTube apps without being tracked.

The updates to Google’s privacy controls arrive as the world’s largest search engine faces heightened scrutiny on its data collection practices. New privacy laws in California and Europe have prompted internet companies to adjust practices over the last two years. Several lawsuits by consumers and U.S. state attorneys general in the last few months have accused Google of deception in data gathering.

Under Google’s updated settings, YouTube’s viewing history of new users will disappear after 36 months and location tracking and web browsing history will get dropped after 18 months. Users have the option of choosing shorter or longer timeframes.

However, Google may still be able to access and store location details in other ways.

Users can more easily search in what Google calls “incognito mode,” by just holding down their profile picture at the top of the search, Maps or YouTube apps. Previously, an additional click in the apps’ menu was required.

Google does not keep a log of users’ activity when they are in incognito.

The company derives most of its revenue from ads, which are typically based on data about what users are watching and reading and where they are located. Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai last year acknowledged that the company gathers more data than necessary for ads and committed to minimise its collection.

Washington, Jun 30 ,2020: The United States is ending defence exports to Hong Kong and is considering further restrictions on trade with the territory, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday.

China recently moved to impose new security legislation that has raised concerns among Hong Kong democracy activists that Beijing is further eroding the extensive autonomy promised when Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.
The announcements come at a time of intensified US rhetoric against Beijing as President Donald Trump campaigns for re-election. Opinion polls have shown voters increasingly embittered toward China, especially over the coronavirus, which began there.

SRINAGAR, Jun 30,2020: A veteran separatist politician in Kashmir quit his hardline faction within an umbrella alliance of secessionists on Monday.

The decision of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, 90, could further weaken the separatist cause after India last August scrapped a decades-old constitutional provision giving Jammu and Kashmir state special rights.

Geelani, who has been under house arrest in the region’s largest city Srinagar for several years, accused the faction he led within the umbrella Hurriyat Conference, of inaction over New Delhi’s move in a two-page letter and short audio message.

“Keeping in view the present situation in Hurriyat Conference, I announce my decision to part ways with it,” he said, accusing members of the grouping of conspiring against him and saying it lacked discipline and accountability.

Hurriyat Conference was formed by various separatist groups in Kashmir in 1993 to provide a political platform for seceding from India in the wake of an armed revolt against New Delhi.

NEW DELHI 26,2020: Lightning strikes killed 83 people across nearly two dozen districts in Bihar, the chief minister’s office said on Thursday.

Lightning and thunderstorms are common as the rainy season kicks off in India with the seasonal monsoon winds covering most of the country’s northern region.

Bihar has announced compensation of 400,000 rupees ($5,294.45) for the next of kin of each victim of the lightning strikes, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s office said in a statement, adding: “Stay at home in bad weather and stay safe.”

A government spokesman said so far there was no information on the number of injuries.
A change in meteorological patterns that has seen longer gaps of dry weather between bouts of torrential rain has made lightning strikes common, the Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council said in a report last year.
Bihar reported 225,508 instances of lightning strikes that killed 170 people between April 1 and July 31, 2019, it said.

New Delhi , June 28,2020: The Supreme Court on Sunday dismissed the plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court decision upholding the conduct of two remaining State Board Examinations for Class 10 on June 29 and 30.
A three-judge bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar dismissed the plea. The apex court stated that Rajasthan High Court order under challenge was passed a month back i.e. on May 29 and since then there has been no COVID-19 positive cases located in the examination centres. The top court said that state government is taking precautions.
Earlier also, the top court had passed similar order for Karnataka State Board exams.
The plea, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation, stated that the decision of the state board of conducting the Secondary examination of the remaining two papers of Class 10 to be conducted on June 29 and 30 is “erroneous” and deserves to be set aside.
The plea filed by the parent of a Class 10 student who had appeared for four exams conducted by the board, stated that the decision to conduct the remaining examinations during the midst of COVID-19 is arbitrary and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.
“About 120 schools which are designated examination centres were used to quarantine people for shelter labourers in transit and that the conducting of examinations is wrong, illegal and discriminatory for the reason that it jeopardises the health of the students undertaking the exams and thus, amounting to violation of Article 21 and 14 of the constitution,” stated the plea.
“The High Court failed to appreciate that the state board has not given any solution to the practical problems such as the movements of the students residing in the containment zones and the unavailability of private vehicles for all students, thereby restricting the movement,” the petition read.
It also said that recently the Supreme Court accepted the decision of the CBSE and ICSE to cancel the remaining exams of Class 10 and 12 scheduled from July 1 to 15 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the board of secondary education in Rajasthan, which had conducted the last exam on March 18 directed that remaining two exams will be conducted in June 29 and 30 and 11,86,418 students of Class 10 would be giving exams, plea said.