Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 October 2022

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 31 October 2022

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022, which will pave the way for setting up of grievance appellate panels.

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Grievance Appellate Committees (GAC): The Central Government shall establish one or more Grievance Appellate Committees(GAC) within three months.
Each GAC will consist of a chairperson and two whole timemembers appointed by the Central government.
The GAC will hear appeals by social media users againstdecisions of grievance officers appointed by the intermediary.
Dispute Resolution Mechanism: Online dispute resolutionmechanism, i.e. digital mode of the entire appeal process, from filingof appeal to the decision.

Recently, The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi dedicated Maze Garden and Miyawaki Forest in Ekta Nagar, Gujarat.

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According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the Maze Garden is spread over three acres of land and is the largest such garden in the country.
The Miyawaki Forest has been developed in an area of about two acres and has been developed using a technique pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki.

Maze Garden:

The Maze Garden is spread over three acres of land, making it the largest such garden in India.The garden has a pathway of about 2.1 kilometres.
It has been designed in the shape of a ‘Shriyantra’, which is believed to bring positive energy to the place.
As many as 1.8 lakh saplings have been planted in the garden, “which has added to the aesthetic beauty of the landscape, the PMO statement added. The saplings include Orange Gemin, Madhu Kamini, Glory Bovar and Mehndi.

Miyawaki Forest:

The forest has been developed using the technique pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, which helps build dense, native forests in a short span of time.
Through the Miyawaki method, a forest can be developed in just two to three years while it takes at least 20 to 30 years through the traditional method.
The growth of plants is ten times faster using this method and as a result, the forest developed is thirty times denser.

World Health Organisation (WHO)releases first-ever list of fungal infections-- “priority pathogens”.

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The fungal priority pathogens list (FPPL) includes 19 fungi that represent the greatest threat to human health.
The UN body warned that some strains are increasingly drug-resistant and are growing at an alarming rate.

Fungal pathogens are a major threat to public health as:

Most fungal pathogens lack rapid, sensitive and affordable diagnostics andonly four classes of antifungal medicines (azoles, echinocandins,pyrimidines and polyenes) currently available.
The incidence and geographic range of fungal diseases are expandingworldwide due to global warming and the increase of international travel andtrade.

American rapper Kanye West lost lucrative partnerships with the likes of Balenciaga, Adidas and Gap after he posted an anti-Semitic message on social media.

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Anti-Semitism refers to any form of prejudice against the Jewish people. However, the term itself is a misnomer as Semitic designates a language group, not a race.
Though anti-Semitism can linguistically be used to describe a prejudice against speakers of the Semitic languages (including Arabs and Ethiopians,) in practical terms, it is commonly used specifically to pertain to Jews.

Types of Anti-Semitism

Racial anti-Semitism, most commonly associated with the Nazis, stems from a belief that Jews are a distinct, inferior race with inherent genetic traits. This form usually manifests in the belief that Jews need to be exterminated altogether.
Religious anti-Semitism traces its roots to the early days of Christianity and is accompanied by a notion that Jews should be converted to other faiths.
Social anti-Semitism is a form of exclusion of Jews from social situations. For example, a practice was reported in 1959 which claimed that Jews in America were routinely excluded from golf and sports clubs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced that the country has now set a target of “doubling the production capacity of crude steel” in about a decade's time.
He was addressing the gathering on the occasion of Rs 60000 crore expansion of ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India Hazira plant in Gujarat.

Government Initiatives to Promote Steel Production:

National Steel Policy (NSP) of 2017 tocreate a technologically advanced andglobally competitive steel industry thatpromotes economic growth.
Production-linked Incentive (PLI) Schemefor Specialty Steel to increase production ofvalue added steel.
Steel scrap policy - To ensure adequateavailability of scrap for steel manufacturerswhich will reduce imports and improvecompetitiveness of the Indian steel sector.

A recent study published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, the emergence of multi-drug resistant Salmonella tphimurium DT104 that causes infections in humans and cattle.

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The rapid and unselective use of traditional antibiotics gives rise to the emergence of drug resistant phenotype in typhoidal and non-typhoidal Salmonella serovars.
It has increased the difficulties in curing Salmonella-induced food-borne illnesses (majorly typhoid or paratyphoid fever, gastroenteritis, and diarrhoea) worldwide.
Salmonella typhimurium ST313 is an invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella serovar, causes bloodstream infection in the malnourished and immunocompromised population of sub-Saharan Africa.
The MDR phenotype in this pathogen was provided by Salmonella Genomic Island-1 (SGI-1), which confers protection against a wide range of antibiotics, including ampicillin (pse-1), chloramphenicol/florfenicol (floR), streptomycin/spectinomycin (aadA2), sulphonamides (sul1), and tetracycline (tetG) (ACSSuT).
Recent studies reported an annual incidence of as many as 360 cases of typhoid fever per 1,00,000 people, with an annual estimate of 4.5 million cases and 8,930 deaths (0.2% fatality rate) in India.