Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 February 2023

::NATIONAL::

PM rolls out E20 fuel in 15 cities

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching E20 fuel and flagging off Green Mobility Rally on the occasion of India Energy Week 2023 in Bengaluru.

About:

• E20 fuel, a blend of 20% ethanol and 80% petrol, was launched 2 year ahead of target and will be rolled out across country in a phased manner.
• IEW, under Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, aims to showcase India’s rising prowess as an energy transition powerhouse.
• An ethanol blend is a blended motor fuel containing ethyl alcohol that is at least 99% pure, derived from agricultural products, and blended exclusively with gasoline.
• Apart from sugarcane-based raw materials, ethanol production from surplus rice with Food Corporation of India and Maize is also allowed.
• Government has been implementing Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme wherein OMCs sell petrol blended with ethanol up to 10%.
• Target of achieving average 10% blending was achieved in June, 2022 and target of 20% ethanol blending was advanced to 2025 (from 2030).

Significance:

• Less polluting fuel and offers equivalent efficiency at lower cost than petrol.
• Achieving energy security, lowering crude oil import bill and transitioning to a lowcarbon economy.
• Enable local enterprises and farmers to participate in energy economy.

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Yuva Sangam Portal

• TheYuva Sangam registration portal was launched in New Delhi. 
• The Yuva Sangam is an initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build close ties between the youth of the North East Region and rest of India under the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
• Under the initiative over 20 thousand youth will travel across the country and gain a unique opportunity of cross-cultural learning.

About:

• It is an initiative of the Prime Minister of India.
• The main aim of this portal is to build close ties between the youth of the North East Region and the rest of India under the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
• Over 20000 youth will travel across India and gain a unique opportunity for cross-cultural learning.
• This Cultural Exchange Program will also allow youth to celebrate the ancient culture and natural diversity of India.
• The youth of 18 years to 30 years will get an opportunity to see different states of the country, to understand their art, culture and languages.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Turkey, Syria earthquake highlights

• A major earthquake struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, killing more than 3,800 people and flattening thousands of buildings as rescuers dug with bare hands for survivors.
• Dozens of nations pledged aid after the 7.8-magnitude quake, which hit as people were still sleeping and amid freezing weather that has hampered emergency efforts.

About:

• Magnitude is related to amount of seismic energy released at hypocenter of earthquake.
• Richter Scale, Moment Magnitude scale etc are used to measure magnitude.
• Region where earthquake has struck lies along a seismic fault line called Anatolia tectonic block that runs through northern,central, and eastern Turkey.
• Seismicity in this region is a result of interactions between African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates.
• Arabian plate is known to be pushing northward, which results in a slight westward movement for Anatolian plate, whereTurkey is located.
• One of the largest strike-slip earthquakes to occur in recent times, it struckalong East Anatolian Fault Zone.
• Strike-slip faults are vertical (or nearly vertical) fractures where blocks have mostly moved horizontally.
• In these faults, two plates move parallel but in opposite direction from oneanother.

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Cytotoxins 

• Recently, scientists have traced the mechanisms of the toxic action of cobra venom.

Key highlights:

• The Cytotoxins (CTXs) are an essential class of the non-enzymatic three-finger toxin family and are ubiquitously present in cobra venoms.
• These low-molecular-mass toxins, contributing to about 40 to 60% of the cobra venom proteome, play a significant role in cobra venom-induced toxicity, more prominently in dermonecrosis (local effects).
• Some CTXs are also responsible for depolarizing neurons and heart muscle membranes, thereby contributing to cardiac failures frequently observed in cobra-envenomed victims. Consequently, they are also known as cardiotoxins (CdTx).
• Interestingly, the proportion of cobra venom CTXs varies dramatically across different cobra species.
• Usually, venoms from African spitting cobras have a higher proportion of CTXs than the Asiatic cobra ones, indicating geographical variation in snake venom composition.

::Economy::

Primary Agricultural Credit Societies

• The Union Budget has announced Rs 2,516 crore for computerisation of 63,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) over the next five years, with the aim of bringing greater transparency and accountability in their operations and enabling them to diversify their business and undertake more activities.

Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS):

• PACS are village level cooperative credit societies that serve as the last link in a three-tier cooperative credit structure headed by the State Cooperative Banks (SCB) at the state level. Credit from the SCBs is transferred to the district central cooperative banks, or DCCBs, that operate at the district level. 
• The DCCBs work with PACS, which deal directly with farmers.
• Since these are cooperative bodies, individual farmers are members of the PACS, and office-bearers are elected from within them. A village can have multiple PACS.
• PACS are involved in short term lending — or what is known as crop loan. At the start of the cropping cycle, farmers avail credit to finance their requirement of seeds, fertilisers etc. 
• Banks extend this credit at 7 per cent interest, of which 3 per cent is subsidised by the Centre, and 2 per cent by the state government. Effectively, farmers avail the crop loans at 2 per cent interest only.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

NISAR Mission 

• An Earth-observation satellite, called NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), got a send-off ceremony at the American space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
• The SUV-size satellite will be shipped to India in a special cargo container flight later this month for a possible launch in 2024 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh.

About:

• NISAR is a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) observatory jointly developed by NASA and ISRO. 
• It is an SUV-size satellite weighing 2,800 kilograms.
• It consists of both L-band and S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments, which makes it a dual-frequency imaging radar satellite.
• NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface.
• SAR is capable of penetrating clouds and can collect data day and night regardless of the weather conditions.
• NASA has provided the L-band radar, GPS, a high-capacity solid-state recorder to store data, and a payload data subsystem. ISRO has provided the S-band radar, the GSLV launch system, and spacecraft.
• It also consists of a large 39-foot stationary antenna reflector made of a gold-plated wire mesh which will be used to focus “the radar signals emitted and received by the upward-facing feed on the instrument structure.

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