Centre extends GAGAN compliance for Boeing 787 planes till Dec 2025

• The GPS-aided GEO augmented navigation (GAGAN) is an implementation of a regional satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) by the Government of India.
• GAGAN helps aircraft with guided landing at airports that do not have an instrument landing system.
• It is a system to improve the accuracy of a GNSS receiver by providing reference signals.

India, Bangladesh discuss Ganga, Teesta and Kushiyara in Joint River Commission meeting

• The JRC meeting discussed the whole gamut of the issues related to the common rivers between the two countries, especially the Ganga, Teesta, Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla, Dudkhkumar and Kushiyara,” said an official statement issued by Dhaka after the talks.
• Bangladesh side requested for conclusion of the long-pending Teesta Waters Sharing Treaty at an early date. The Indian side assured of their utmost efforts in concluding the agreement.
• Teesta River is a 414 km long river that rises in the Pauhunri Mountain of eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.

India receives largest share of UK study, work, and visit visas

• As per the data, 1,17,965 students received student visas in the year ending June 2022, up 215% from 2019.
• India has displaced China to become the country with the highest number of sponsored study visas in the U.K. for the first time since the year ending June 2011. Indian and Chinese nationals get just under half of all sponsored study visas.
• Indians received 1,02,981 work visas in the year ending June 2022, an 80% increase compared to the year ending December 2019, just before the pandemic began. Nigeria, the Philippines, Zimbabwe and the United States followed India (in that order) for work visas.
• Forty-six percent of worker (formerly, ‘skilled worker’) visas went to Indians.

‘Arth Ganga’, govt’s new model for the river’s sustainable development

• PM Modi first introduced the concept during the first National Ganga Council meeting in Kanpur in 2019, where he urged for a shift from Namami Gange, the Union Government’s flagship project to clean the Ganga, to the model of Arth Ganga.
• The latter focuses on the sustainable development of the Ganga and its surrounding areas, by focusing on economic activities related to the river.
• At its core, the Arth Ganga model seeks to use economics to bridge people with the river.
• Since 1991, the Stockholm International Water Institute has been organising the World Water Week every year to address global water concerns.

‘Loose’ garments, hosiery no more under provision of rules for packaged commodities

• The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said that the amendment exempts the garment or hosiery industry selling in loose or open from 6 declarations required under the legal metrology (packaged commodities) rules, 2011.
• The notification issued is for ease of doing business by reducing compliance burden to industries without compromising the interest of consumers by declaring the information relevant to consumers.

Government notifies Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022

• New rules will replace Batteries (Management and Handling) Rules, 2001.
• The rules cover all types of batteries, viz. Electric Vehicle batteries, portable batteries, automotive batteries and industrial batteries.
• The rules function based on the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) where the producers (including importers) of batteries are responsible for collection and recycling of waste batteries and use of recovered materials from wastes into new batteries.
• The rules will enable setting up a mechanism and centralized online portal for exchange of EPR certificates between producers and recyclers/refurbishers to fulfil the obligations of producers.
• The rules promote setting up of new industries and entrepreneurship in collection and recycling/refurbishment of waste batteries.
• Prescribing the use of certain amount of recycled materials in making of new batteries will reduce the dependency on new raw materials and save natural resources.
• On the principle of Polluter Pays Principle, environmental compensation will be imposed for non-fulfilment of Extended Producer Responsibility targets, responsibilities and obligations set out in the rules.
• The funds collected under environmental compensation shall be utilised in collection and refurbishing or recycling of uncollected and non-recycled waste batteries.

Newly identified gene could be clue to treatment of fungal infection in immuno-compromised patients

• The gene called CSA6 has been identified in Candida albicans a fungal species infamous for causing high rates of morbidity and mortality under certain immuno-compromised conditions such as AIDS or during cancer treatment.
• The fungal species residing in mucosal linings of the gastrointestinal and urogenital tract of healthy individuals turns into a pathogen under immuno-compromised conditions breaching the host defense causing superficial as well as life-threatening systemic infection.