UPSC Prelims News 2 January 2023

UPSC Prelims News of 2 January 2023

Vibrant Villages Programme

Context: Union Home Minister has asked border-guarding forces to use the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) to populate border villages.

More on the News:

• The minister said that boots on the ground and fencing were necessary but borders can be truly secured if villages are populated with people who are concerned for the country.
• The VVP was announced by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her Union Budget speech.

About VVP:

• The VVP was cover border villages on Northern border having sparse population, limited connectivity and infrastructure.
• Under VVP, existing schemes will be converged to ensure that border villages are always populated.
• Features:
  • Residential and tourist centres will be constructed.
  • Improvement in road connectivity and development of decentralized renewable energy sources.
  • Direct access of Doordarshan and education related channels will be provided. Support will be provided for livelihood of the villagers.
• Need for such scheme:
  • The VVP aims to counter China’s model villages, which are being developed along LAC.
  • It will halt the out-migration which has been continuously occurring at the villages on the Indian side.

UPSC Prelims News 31 December 2022

Lumpi-ProVac^ind

Context: A MoU for production of Goat Pox vaccine and “Lumpi-ProVac” vaccine has been signed.

About Lumpi-ProVac^ind:

• Lumpi-ProVac^ind is a homologous live-attenuated vaccine for the Lumpy Skin Disease and has been
• Working: Lumpi-ProVac^ind is safe in animals and induces LSDV-specific antibody-and cell-mediated immune response, besides providing complete protection against lethal LSDV challenge.
• Strain: A dose of the vaccine contains live-attenuated LSDV (Ranchi strain). The vaccine is stored at 4°C.
• Challenges: The vaccine has to be shipped on ice and must be used within a few hours after reconstitution.

Lumpy Skin Disease:

• Cause: The disease is caused by the lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), which belongs to the genus capripoxvirus.
• Symptoms: Reduced appetite, depression, excessive salivation, swelling of lymph nodes and fever etc.
• Spread: The virus is shed by animals through oral and nasal secretions which may contaminate common feeding and water areas.
  • The disease can spread either through direct contact with the vectors or through contaminated fodder and water.
  • It can also spread through artificial insemination.
• Impact: Reduced milk production, inability to work, affects pregnancy and also insemination process.
• Human spread: It is a zoonotic disease and does not spread to humans.

GNB1 Encephalopathy

Context: Researchers at IIT, Madras, Tel Aviv University and Columbia University are studying a rare genetic brain disease called “GNB1 Encephalopathy” and trying to develop a drug to treat it effectively.

About GNB1 Encephalopathy

• GNB1 Encephalopathy is a kind of brain disease or neurological disorder which affects individuals in the foetus stage.
• Causes: Mutations in GNB1 gene cause the neurological disorder (GNB1 Encephalopathy).
• A single nucleotide mutation in the GNB1 gene that makes one of the G-proteins, the “Gβ1 protein,” causes this disease.
• Symptoms: Mental delay, epileptiform activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and seizures of several types, intellectual disabilities, muscle hypotonia or hypertonia, and additional variable symptoms.
• Impact: To date, less than a hundred cases have been documented worldwide.
  • However, the actual number of affected children is probably much greater as diagnosis is not widely available since it requires a sophisticated and expensive procedure.

Tidal Disruption Event

Context: Telescopes operated by NASA recently observed a massive black hole devouring a star, formally called a tidal disruption event (TDE).

More on the News

• The event is formally called AT2021ehb, and took place in a galaxy with a central black hole about 10 million times the mass of our sun.
• NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array (NuSTAR) was used to observe the event.

About Tidal Disruption Event (TDE):

• TDEs are astronomical phenomena that occur when a star passes close enough to a supermassive black hole and is pulled apart by the black hole’s tidal forces, causing the process of disruption.
• Mechanism:
  • A tidal force is the difference in the strength of gravity between two points.
  • If the tidal force exerted on a body is greater than the intermolecular force that keeps it together, the body will get disrupted.
  • During a TDE, the tidal force of a black hole disrupts the star in vicinity.
  • While about half of the star’s debris continues on its original path, the other half is attracted by the black hole’s gravitational pull.
  • The gradual growth of this material bound to the black hole produces a short-lived flare of emission, known as a tidal disruption event.
• Significance:
  • TDEs are potentially important probes of strong gravity and accretion physics.
  • TDEs provide answers about the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes.

About Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array (NuSTAR)

• It is NASA’s most sensitive space telescope capable of observing high-energy X-rays.
• NuSTAR was successfully launched on 13 June 2012 and is the eleventh mission of NASA’s Small Explorer (SMEX-11) satellite program.
• It is the first space-based direct-imaging X-ray telescope at energies beyond those of the Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton.
• Objectives of the mission:
  • To conduct a deep survey for black holes a billion times more massive than the Sun,
  • To investigate how particles are accelerated to very high energy in active galaxies, and
  • To understand how the elements are created in the explosions of massive stars by imaging supernova remnants.

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