India and UN to sign pact for use of ''way finding app''

• The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), consisting of five buildings and 21 floors, is housed at the historic Palais des Nations. Large number of delegates, members of civil society and general public visit UNOG to participate in various meetings and conventions.
• Keeping in view the complexity of buildings and huge participation, there was a requirement of a navigational application which can help the visitors and other delegates in finding their way inside the premises while adhering to all security perspectives.
• While the Global Positioning System (GPS) based Apps function in open space, a more precise in-building navigational App will assist the visitors in locating the room and offices.
• The project of development of ‘Way Finding Application’ has been conceptualized as donation from the Government of India to UN on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 2020.
• The project consists of development deployment and maintenance of a software-based ‘Way Finding Application’ to facilitate navigation in the Palais des Nations premises of UNLG.
• The development of the App has been entrusted to Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), an autonomous telecom Research & Development centre of Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Government of India.

G33 Ministerial Meet: Goyal concerned over stalemate on public stockholding

• The G33 Ministerial Meeting was held on the sidelines of the 12th World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in the Swiss town of Geneva.
• The G33 (or the Friends of Special Products in agriculture) is a coalition of developing and least developed countries. Despite the name, there are currently 48 member nations including China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan etc.
• It was established prior to the 2003 Cancun ministerial conference, that have coordinated during the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations, specifically in regard to agriculture.
• Dominated by India, The group has "defensive" concerns regarding agriculture in relation to World Trade Organization negotiations, and seeks to limit the degree of market opening required of developing countries.

Cabinet approves 3-year loan repayment moratorium for Cochin Port Authority

• Cochin Port has been brought under the Major Port Authorities Act, 2021 with effect from November 2021.
• Cochin Port or Kochi Port is a major port in the city of Kochi, Kerala. It was established in 1928.
• The port lies on two islands in the Lake of Kochi: Willingdon Island and Vallarpadam, towards the Fort Kochi river mouth opening onto the Laccadive Sea.
• It is also the first trans-shipment port in India. The International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT), part of the Cochin Port, is the largest container trans-shipment facility in India.

Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences recommended that newborns be given a mixture of ghee and honey, a paste of gold, and several herbs.

• The guidelines recommend just honey and butter with some herbs on the first day of birth, ghee with herbs on the second day, and colostrum (mother’s first milk) with ghee and honey only on the third day of birth.
• Several doctors have called out these guidelines for contradicting the proven benefits of breastfeeding. Some have noted that feeding newborns honey could lead to a rare but serious infection called botulism.
• Doctors say breastfeeding should start as soon as possible, preferably within one hour of birth, and babies should be exclusively breastfed for six months.

Why babies must only be breastfed for 6 months?

• Breast milk contains adequate calories needed for up to six months.
• Semi-solid food should be introduced after six months. It is only after six months, when the infant’s weight doubles, that breastmilk isn’t enough and they need complementary nutrition in the form of semi-solid foods.

Haryana govt plans 11 fuel stations outside state jails to be run by jail inmates

• The state will set up these jail filling stations in association with the Indian Oil Corporation Limited. As a pilot project, a fuel station at the Kurukshetra jail started functioning from May 31.
• After Kurukshetra, similar fuel stations will be operated from the jails of Ambala (two fuel stations), Yamunanagar, Karnal, Jhajjar, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Bhiwani, Jind and Hisar.
• Only convicted prisoners with good conduct who have already spent a considerable period in the jails in proportionate to their jail term will be allowed to work at the fuel stations. Undertrials are not allowed to work here.
• For working at the fuel stations, the prisoners will get wages in accordance with the jail manual.
• The profit from these fuel stations will be deposited in the Prison Welfare Industrial Fund to use the same for the welfare of prisoners.
• The objective of the scheme is to make prisoners a part of the society.

Medical trial shows rare result as cancer vanishes in all patients

• The trial used a monoclonal antibody called dostarlimab every three weeks for six months for the treatment of a particular kind of stage two or three rectal cancer.
• The trial showed that immunotherapy alone – without any chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or surgery that have been staples of cancer treatment – could completely cure the patients with a particular kind of rectal cancer called ‘mismatch repair deficient’ cancer.
• ‘Mismatch repair deficient’ cancer is most common among colorectal, gastrointestinal, and endometrial cancers. Patients suffering from this condition lack the genes to correct typos in the DNA that occur naturally while cells make copies.

PD1 blockades

• The immunotherapy belongs to a category called PD1 blockades that are now recommended for the treatment of such cancers rather than chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
• PD1 is a type of protein that regulates certain functions of the immune system, including by suppressing T cell activity, and PD1 blockade therapy looks to release the T cells from this suppression.

India approves procurement of Next Generation Corvettes

• A Corvette is the smallest class of naval ships and it falls below the warship class of a frigate.
• These are highly agile ships and are categorised as missile boats, anti-submarine ships, coastal patrol crafts and fast attack naval vessels.
• Modern Corvettes can go up to 2,000 tons in displacement which helps in keeping them agile.
• The Indian Navy at present has the Kamorta Class Corvettes, which are also known as Project 28.
• These ships have an anti-submarine role and are manufactured at Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers in Kolkata.
• These vessels also have the ‘Sanket’ electronic warfare systems and ‘Kavach’ decoy launchers.
• The four Kamorta Class Corvettes that the Indian Navy possesses are named INS Kamorta, INS Kadmatt, INS Kiltan and INS Kavaratti. The first of these was commissioned in 2014 and the last one in 2020.
• The next-generation Corvettes will be manufactured for various roles like surveillance missions, escort operations, deterrence, surface action group operations, search and attack and coastal defence. These roles will be in addition to the anti-submarine roles being already performed by the existing Corvettes in the Navy.