Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams -04 August 2022

SSC CGL Current Affairs

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 04 August 2022

::NATIONAL::

CoWIN to be used for Universal Immunization Program

The Union government is planning to repurpose the Co-WIN platform for India’s Universal Immunisation Programme and other national health programmes while continuing with its current function of recording COVID-19 vaccination and issuing certificates.
The vaccination record under the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) is now maintained manually.
“Once Co-WIN is repurposed to include the UIP, the entire vaccination system will become digitised, thus easing tracking beneficiaries and facilitating real-time monitoring,” Co-WIN chief and CEO of the National Health Authority Dr R S Sharma told PTI.
“It will do away with the hassle of keeping a physical record. Once the immunization programme is digitised, beneficiaries will get certificates on the spot. They can also download it. These certificates will be stored in Digi-lockers,” he explained.
Dr Sharma said efficient record-keeping helps create an evidence-base that helps in planning effective interventions.
The Universal Immunisation Programme is one of the largest vaccination projects in the world aimed at protecting children and pregnant mothers from preventable diseases.
Stressing the importance of an integrated immunisation information system, an official said it helps in the effective management of vaccination programmes at national, state and district levels.
The data available at the individual level can be collated at the population level for making them available for those involved in framing public health policies, the official said.
“Since Co-WIN has proved its worth in COVID-19 vaccination, a decision has been taken to bring UIP under the ambit of this platform even as recording Covid vaccination on the portal will continue,” the official stated.

::INTERNATIONAL::

The United Nations General Assembly recognized a healthy environment as a human right

The resolution, based on a similar text adopted last year by the Human Rights Council, calls upon States, international organisations, and business enterprises to scale up efforts to ensure a healthy environment for all.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, welcomed the 'historic' decision and said the landmark development demonstrates that Member States can come together in the collective fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
“The resolution will help reduce environmental injustices, close protection gaps and empower people, especially those that are in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous peoples”, he said in a statement released by his Spokesperson’s Office.
He added that the decision will also help States accelerate the implementation of their environmental and human rights obligations and commitments.
“The international community has given universal recognition to this right and brought us closer to making it a reality for all”, he said.
Guterres underscored that however, the adoption of the resolution 'is only the beginning' and urged nations to make this newly recognised right ‘a reality for everyone, everywhere’.
It also recognises that the impact of climate change, the unsustainable management and use of natural resources, the pollution of air, land and water, the unsound management of chemicals and waste, and the resulting loss in biodiversity interfere with the enjoyment of this right - and that environmental damage has negative implications, both direct and indirect, for the effective enjoyment of all human rights.
According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, Mr. David Boyd, the Assembly’s decision will change the very nature of international human rights law.

::ECONOMY::

Enforcement Directorate seals office of Young India at Herald House in New Delhi

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) sealed the office of Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YI), at Herald House on Delhi’s Bahadur Shah ZafarMarg in its ongoing money laundering probe linked with the National Herald newspaper, people familiar with the matter said.
The “temporary seal”, officers said, has been put at YI office to preserve the evidence that could not be collected during Tuesday’s raids due to non-availability of the authorised representative of the company.
An ED officer said that Congress leader MallikarjunKharge, who is the principal officer of YI, came to Herald House on Tuesday, when raids were going on the premises, but left before the evidence could be collected. “Summons have been sent to him (Kharge) to get the search conducted. Till then, the premises has been sealed. Once the evidence is collected, the seal will be lifted,” said this officer.
As news about ED sealing parts of Herald House spread, security was increased at the Congress headquarters on 24, Akbar Road and outside party chief Sonia Gandhi’s residence at 10, Janpath. Delhi Police officers deployed at the spot -- their arrangement included a large bus normally used for detentions -- said this was in anticipation of Congress workers launching a protest.
Congress leaders condemned the deployment.
“Delhi police blocking the road to AICC headquarters has become a norm rather than an exception! Why have they just done so is mysterious…” former Union minister Jairam Ramesh tweeted.
He and two other senior Congress leaders, Ajay Maken and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, later addressed a press conference slamming the Centre for trying to create an “environment of fear”, and stressed that their party would not back down from raising issues in public interest as any responsible Opposition should.

::Science and tech::

AlphaFold: Tool capable of predicting protein structures developed

An artificial intelligence (AI) network developed by Google AI offshoot DeepMind has made a gargantuan leap in solving one of biology’s grandest challenges — determining a protein’s 3D shape from its amino-acid sequence.
DeepMind’s program, called AlphaFold, outperformed around 100 other teams in a biennial protein-structure prediction challenge called CASP, short for Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction. The results were announced on 30 November, at the start of the conference — held virtually this year — that takes stock of the exercise.
“This is a big deal,” says John Moult, a computational biologist at the University of Maryland in College Park, who co-founded CASP in 1994 to improve computational methods for accurately predicting protein structures. “In some sense the problem is solved.”
Alpha Fold came top of the table at the last CASP — in 2018, the first year that London-based Deep Mind participated. But, this year, the outfit’s deep-learning network was head-and-shoulders above other teams and, say scientists, performed so mind-bogglingly well that it could herald a revolution in biology.
“It’s a game changer,” says Andrei Lupas, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, who assessed the performance of different teams in CASP. AlphaFold has already helped him find the structure of a protein that has vexed his lab for a decade, and he expects it will alter how he works and the questions he tackles. “This will change medicine. It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything,” Lupas adds.
In some cases, AlphaFold’s structure predictions were indistinguishable from those determined using ‘gold standard’ experimental methods such as X-ray crystallography and, in recent years, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). AlphaFold might not obviate the need for these laborious and expensive methods — yet — say scientists, but the AI will make it possible to study living things in new ways.

::Sports::

Birmingham Commonwealth Games: Malaysia beat India 3-1 in final to win gold in mixed team badminton

Malaysia beat India in a reverse of the mixed team event final result from four years ago to win gold at Birmingham 2022.
In a fierce contest that lasted almost exactly four hours, Malaysia came through to seal a 3-1 win as Pearly Tan Koong Lee and ThinaahMuralitharan clinched the gold with women's doubles victory.
A win in the men's doubles put Malaysia ahead, but PusarlaVenkataSindhulevelled the scores for India in a hard-fought 2-0 women's singles win.
NG Tze Yong put Malaysia back in front before the women's doubles finished the job.