CoWIN vaccination data out, govt. denies breach

• The Health Ministry issued a press release where it essentially ruled out CoWIN’s APIs being used by the Telegram bot.
• As per reports, the data breach is possible if the mobile number of a person is entered — details such as the identification number of the document submitted (Aadhaar, passport, PAN and so forth), gender, date of birth, and the centre where the vaccine was administered, are provided as reply in an instant by the messenger bot in question.
• These details could be accessed even if the Aadhaar number was entered instead of the phone number. The passport numbers of those who had updated the CoWIN portal for travel abroad were also leaked.

The Ministry of Health press release first lays out the three ways in which data on CoWIN can be accessed:

1. a user can access their data on the portal through a one time password (OTP) sent to their mobile number,

2. a vaccinator can access data of a person, and the CoWIN system tracks and records each time an “authorised” user accesses the system, and

3. third party applications that have been provided authorised access of CoWIN APIs can access personal level data of vaccinated people after OTP authentication.

• Worrying is the fact that CoWIN, which serves the functions of registration, appointment scheduling, identity verification, vaccination, and certification of each vaccinated member, has also been integrated in the Aarogya Setu and UMANG Apps.
• UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD) to drive mobile governance in India. UMANG provides a single platform for all Indian citizens to access pan India e-Gov services.
• Critics argue that the purpose for which CoWIN was created is over, and there is no need for the government to maintain this health data anymore. Ideally, under the Right to Privacy judgement, we should be allowed to demand data deletions.

UMANG

• The UMANG mobile app is a Government of India all-in-one single, unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app.
• It provides access to high impact services of various organizations of Centre and States. Presently it has 2000+ services.
  • The aim of UMANG is to fast-track mobile governance in India.
• UMANG enables ‘Ease of Living’ for Citizens by providing easy access to a plethora of Indian government services ranging from – Healthcare, Finance, Education, Housing, Energy, Agriculture, Transport to even Utility and Employment and Skills.
• The key partners of UMANG are Employee Provident Fund Organization, Direct Benefit Transfer scheme departments, Employee State Insurance Corporation, Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Staff Selection Commission (SSC).
• UMANG was developed by the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Ministry of Electronics & IT.
  • It is a ‘Digital India’ initiative.
• The international version called ‘UMANG International’ was launched in 2020 to mark three years of UMANG.
  • The international version is for select countries that include USA, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
  • It will help Indian international students, NRIs and Indian tourists abroad, to avail Government of India services, anytime.
  • It will also help in taking India to the world through ‘Indian Culture’ services available on UMANG and create interest amongst foreign tourists to visit India.
• UMANG attained ‘Best m-Government service’ award at the 6 World Government Summit held at Dubai, UAE in February 2018.

Right to life includes the right not to be tied down by casteism, says HC

• The High Court has directed the CBSE to comply with the request of two brothers belonging to the Scheduled Caste community to update their father’s surname in their Class 10 and 12 certificates. In a plea before the court, the siblings said their father had decided to change his surname from ‘Mochi’ to ‘Nayak’ due to caste atrocities suffered by him.
• While the petitioners were successful in getting their father’s name changed on his Aadhaar and PAN cards, the CBSE had denied their request for the name change. “The right to life includes the right to live with dignity, which includes [the right] not to be tied down by casteism,”

Farmers block NH 44 in Haryana over sunflower MSP

Farmers in Haryana’s Kurukshetra blocked National Highway 44, demanding purchase of sunflower crop at Minimum Support Price (MSP), among other demands.

Farmers, members of ‘khaps’ and sportspersons gathered for a mahapanchayat, called by the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Charuni) at Pipli town, near NH 44. After the mahapanchayat, the farmers gathered on the highway and blocked it.

Crops under MSP

• The Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP) recommends MSPs for 22 mandated crops and fair and remunerative price (FRP) for sugarcane.
  • CACP is an attached office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
• The mandated crops include 14 crops of the kharif season, 6 rabi crops and 2 other commercial crops.
• In addition, the MSPs of toria and de-husked coconut are fixed on the basis of the MSPs of rapeseed/mustard and copra, respectively.
• The list of crops are as follows:
  • Cereals (7): Paddy, wheat, barley, jowar, bajra, maize and ragi,
  • Pulses (5): Gram, arhar/tur, moong, urad and lentil,
  • Oilseeds (8): Groundnut, rapeseed/mustard, toria, soyabean, sunflower seed, sesamum, safflower seed and niger seed,
  • Raw cotton, Raw jute, Copra, De-husked coconut, and
  • Sugarcane (Fair and remunerative price).
• The CACP considered various factors while recommending the MSP for a commodity, including cost of cultivation.
  • It also took into account the supply and demand situation for the commodity, market price trends (domestic and global) and parity vis-à-vis other crops, and implications for consumers (inflation), environment (soil and water use) and terms of trade between agriculture and non-agriculture sectors.

Sunflower

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), popularly known as “Surajmukhi” (it follows the sun by day) is an annual flowering plant, native to North and Central America but is now cultivated worldwide for its versatile uses. It is known for its large, bright yellow flowers.

Sunflowers are relatively easy to grow and are adaptable to different climates and soil types. They require full sun exposure and well-drained soil. They are known for their ability to extract heavy metals from the soil, making them useful in phytoremediation efforts to clean up polluted areas.

ISRO, Norway and the ‘Svalbard mission’

• Rohini RH-300 Mk-II sounding rocket rose to the skies from Svalbard, Norway, operationalising a new rocket launching range there. The solid propellant-powered rocket was shipped from India for the launch.
• The resolve to deepen space sector ties between India and Norway following Norwegian Ambassador Hans Jacob Frydenlund’s visit to the ISRO headquarters last week offers an occasion to recall this challenging mission which took place 26 years ago at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.
• “The RH-300 Mk-II was given a new name by the NSC (Norwegian Space Centre): Isbjorn-1, which translates literally as ‘Polar Bear-I.’
• On the technical side, the Norway mission presented unique challenges for ISRO. The Rohini rockets had till then flown only in the tropical hot and humid conditions in India. The Svalbard archipelago, on the other hand, sits in the Arctic Ocean and temperatures were on the extremely low side

Older people exhale more aerosol particles, says study

• Scientists have reported that healthy people emit exponentially more aerosol particles from their lungs as they age, both at rest and during exercise.
• An aerosol consists of very fine solid or liquid particles suspended in a fluid. Air that contains PM2.5 particulate matter can be considered an aerosol.
• The team found that older people, aged 60-70 years, emitted twice as many aerosol particles and five-times as much dry volume i.e., the volume of dried aerosol particles, as those aged 20-39, both at rest and during exercise.
• They also found that a small fraction of air that they had sampled had a higher concentration of aerosol particles from both old and young people at rest than when they were exercising.
• During exercise, both older and younger people had particles of size 0.4 micrometre, but the older people also had a significant number of particles larger than 0.4 micrometre.
• In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was considerable debate over whether aerosols helped the virus move through the air. The new findings suggest disease-transmission models may have to account differently for younger and older people.
• Higher aerosol emissions by older people could potentially correlate with a higher infection risk for others when an older infected person is present compared to a younger infected person