Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 13 August 2017

::National::

UP government hospital tragedy is monitored by PMO

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in touch with Central and State authorities following the death of at least 30 children at a government hospital in Uttar Pradesh, a statement from his office said.
• “Prime Minister Modi is being regularly updated on the situation,” said an official from the Prime Minister’s Office.
• Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel and the Union Health Secretary have been asked to take stock of the situation in Gorakhpur, the PMO said.
• The deaths of the children is a black mark against the State government, led by Yogi Adityanath, especially since he has represented Gorakhpur in the Lok Sabha for nearly two decades.
• This is the third instance of the Prime Minister’s intervention in crises in BJP-ruled States.
• Mr. Modi intervened after the Patidar agitation broke out in Gujarat in 2015, broadcasting an appeal for peace, and in the farmer’s agitation in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh earlier this year, holding extensive meetings with Union Ministers and dispatching Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to ease matters.
• Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan meanwhile expressed shock over the death of infants in Gorakhpur.

Scientists repaired a mutation in human embryos by using a gene-editing tool

• In a first, researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University along with colleagues in California, China and South Korea repaired a mutation in human embryos by using a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9.
• The mutation seen in the MYBPC3 gene causes a common heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is marked by thickening of the heart muscle.
• The mutation is seen in about one in 500 people and can lead to sudden death later in life. It is an inherited cardiac disease and the presence of even one copy of the gene can cause symptoms, which usually manifest as heart failure.
• Correcting the mutation in the embryo ensures that the child is born healthy and the defective gene is not passed on to future generations. There is currently no cure for the condition.
• CRISPR-Cas9 is a system used by bacterial cells to recognise and destroy viral DNA as a form of adaptive immunity. Using components of the CRISPR system, researchers can remove, add or alter specific DNA sequences in the genome of higher organisms.
• The gene editing tool has two components — a single-guide RNA (sgRNA) that contains a sequence that can bind to DNA, and the Cas9 enzyme which acts as a molecular scissor that can cleave DNA.
• The genetic sequence of the sgRNA matches the target sequence of the DNA that has to be edited. In order to selectively edit a desired sequence in DNA, the sgRNA is designed to find and bind to the target.
• But the CRISPR-Cas9 system can also recognise and cleave different regions of the genome than the one that was intended to be edited.

Bombay HC says Govt should come up with guidelines for organ donations

• Expressing concern over the inability to transfer organs of cadaver donors, the Bombay High Court recently directed the Maharashtra government to come up with guidelines to save lives.
• A Division Bench of Justice Anoop Mohta and Justice Bharati Dangre was hearing a plea filed by Swapnil Raut, 43, who needs an organ transplant.
• Mr. Raut sought an authoritative pronouncement from the court to retrieve organs and tissues from the body of Mahesh Mehta, 71, a cadaver donor whose body was with the Dr L.H. Hiranandani Hospital, Powai.
• The cadaver donor was certified by medical practitioners as brain-stem dead and his family had consented to donate organs and tissues for therapeutic use.
• However, because the hospital’s licence had been suspended, hospital authorities did not permit the retrieval of organs and tissues, and family members did not wish to go through the ordeal of shifting the body to another hospital.

::International::

Israel is building another wall to protect itself

• Israel is building another wall to protect itself from its enemies. But rather than a major eyesore, much of this one will be invisible.
• In the coming months the army will be accelerating construction of a subterranean barrier around the Gaza Strip, designed to cut off tunnels running beneath the border into Israel.
• Challenged by hostile forces on most of its fronts, Israel is already pretty much walled in. Aboveground fences and sections of concrete wall run along and through parts of the West Bank, a legacy of Palestinian suicide bombings during the second intifada .
• Formidable steel fences also stretch along the northern frontiers with Lebanon and Syria, the southern borders with Jordan and the Egyptian Sinai, and around Gaza, the isolated Palestinian coastal enclave controlled for the last decade by Hamas, the Islamic militant group.
• The cost is expected to be about 4 billion shekels (more than $1 billion), according to Israeli news reports, which suggest it will plunge to a depth of about 130 feet.
• In the meantime, the Israeli military is working to ensure that the project does not prompt the next war.
• Israel’s technologically advanced army invested heavily to combat Hamas’ lower-tech weapons. Israel developed the Iron Dome air defence system to knock out the crude rockets Hamas and other militant groups fired at its cities.
• Faced with the precision of Iron Dome, Hamas went underground and focused on building tunnels.

::Business and Economy::

United States remains one of the most popular countries for travel

• The United States remains one of the most popular countries for business travel from India, even as the debate on the impact of ‘protectionism’ by America on the Indian IT sector continues.
• While London tops the list for international business travel, Delhi remains the top destination for domestic business travel.
• Seemingly reflective of softening business sentiment locally, Singapore has dropped from number two to number four in annual rankings.
• The rise of New York and San Francisco in India’s business travel rankings appears to be a result of growing links between India and the U.S.’s technology and engineering industries.
• The top 10 international destinations for Indian business travellers are London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Amsterdam, Seattle, Dubai, Chicago, Bangkok and Hong Kong, driven largely by the technology sector.
• The report highlighted that if only travel outside APAC (Asia Pacific Region) is considered, seven of the top 10 destinations for India’s business travellers are U.S. cities, with Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles finding a place in the list.
• India’s thriving start-up culture is driving many innovative technologies. “This is evident in Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs of Indian origin now make up a significant percentage of the community.”

::Science and Tech::

Diagnosing kidney and liver disorders with the help of ultrasound scanning devices

• A team of researchers from IIT Hyderabad has been working to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to accurately diagnose kidney and liver disorders with the help of ultrasound scanning devices.
• What started off as a project to develop a system that will validate the data and do a preliminary scanning of the organ — whether the organ is normal or not — has now developed into technology that can identify kidney stones and cysts and also grade a “fatty liver” classification.
• Diagnosing problems using Internet-enabled scanning systems is fraught with many disadvantages.
• In the traditional way of processing data, after the patient is scanned, a radiologist usually picks out the most relevant portions or even captures screenshots and makes these available for diagnosis by the specialist.
• In the IoT-enabled remote scanning, if the scans are uploaded to the cloud without being first analysed, there is a possibility that the doctor sees a huge amount of data, which they may find difficult to interpret.
• Therefore, it is crucial that internet-enabled scanning devices must work more intelligently and do a preliminary classification of images.This was the starting point of the research in 2014.

Click Here for Daily Current Affairs Archive

Click Here for Study Material for SSC CGL Exam

Click Here to Join Online Course for SSC CGL Exam