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17th July 2021
IIT-HYDERABAD DEVELOPS CHEAPER COVID-19 TESTING KIT ‘COVIHOME’
Recently, a team led by Prof Shiv Govind Singh of the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad has developed ‘COVIHOME’.
COVIHOME
- It is deemed India’s first Rapid Electronic Covid-19 RNA test kit.
- It is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Covid-19 testing kit that can produce results in 30 minutes for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.
- It is developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Hyderabad.
- It is validated by the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (ICMR-CCMB) Hyderabad.
- It does not require RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction), an expert human resource, and a BSL-2 lab facility for the extraction of RNA.
- The validation report confirmed the kit’s efficiency at 94.2 percent, Sensitivity 91.3 percent and Specificity 98.2 percent.
- The citizens will be able to find government facilities nearest to their location, such as mandis, blood banks and much more, at the click of a button.
- The citizens will be able to view the driving distance, get directions and turn by turn voice and visual guidance to locations, including traffic and road safety alerts during navigation.
- UMANG app has already started to provide map functionality through MapmyIndia in the following services:
- Mera Ration: Through UMANG, users can identify and navigate to the ‘Nearest Fair Price Shops’ as shops are visible in the form of pointers on MapmyIndia integrated map.
- eNAM: Through UMANG, 'Mandi Near Me' service will help users to identify and navigate to the nearby mandis pointed on the map.
- Damini: ‘Damini Lightning Alerts’ service is to provide lightning alerts to users by giving a visual of nearby areas where lightning has struck in the last few minutes.
- The MoU will help in increasing the functionality of map in many more services such as:
- ESIC: Users can view ESIC centers such as hospitals/dispensaries on map view and navigate to them.
- Indian Oil: Service is to locate nearby retail and distributors of Gas stations as well as fuel filling stations.
- NHAI: Users can view the toll plazas and toll rates information while travelling.
- National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB): It provides information corresponding to nearby police stations on the map.
- Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (Meri Sadak): It will help users to raise complaints of damaged roads by selecting the road on MapmyIndia platform.
- It is Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG).
- It is a Government of India single, unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-platform, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app.
- It is aimed at providing access to high impact services of various organizations (Central and State).
- It was launched by the Prime Minister in 2017.
- It brings major government services on a single mobile app, with a larger goal to make the government accessible on mobile phones of citizens.
- It is developed by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD) to drive Mobile Governance in India.
- It is a product of an indigenous, company founded and headquartered in New Delhi in 1955.
- It has digitally mapped the entire country.
- It helps users find relevant places nearby and see them on detailed building level maps.
- Its APIs enable app and technology developers to easily integrate India’s own, indigenous, Aatmanirbhar maps into their apps.
- It is a digital platform to facilitate farmers to get ‘right information at right time’ in their desired language.
- It aims to empower farmers with the technological interventions to reach farmers in remote areas.
- It will allow the farmers to interact and avail personalised advisories on agriculture and allied areas directly from the respective scientists of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs).
- It aims to support agriculture at the local level with a national perspective.
- It will be highly valuable in addressing the location-specific information needs of the farmers and also in Agricultural Extension, Education and Research activities.
- Using the Kisan Sarathi digital platform, farmers can get information about crop and crop production, among other things that will help them in improving the quantity of their produce.
- The farmers will be able to get information about good crop practices, the right amount of produce and many other basic things through Kisan Sarathi.
- It is an autonomous organisation under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
- It was established in July 1929 and was formerly known as the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research.
- It is headquartered at New Delhi.
- It is the apex body for coordinating, guiding and managing research and education in agriculture including horticulture, fisheries and animal sciences in the entire country.
- It is an agricultural extension center in India. Usually associated with a local agricultural university, these centers serve as the ultimate link between the ICAR and farmers, and aim to apply agricultural research in a practical, localized setting.
- It is an integral part of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS).
- The first KVK was established in 1974 at Puducherry.
- The mandate of KVK is technology assessment and demonstration for its application and capacity development.
- KVKs also produce quality technological products (seed, planting material, bio-agents, livestock) and make it available to farmers.
- The KVK scheme is 100% financed by the Government of India and the KVKs are sanctioned to Agricultural Universities, ICAR institutes, related Government Departments and Non Government Organizations (NGOs) working in Agriculture.
- KVKs act as a bridge between the laboratories and farmland. According to the Government, these are crucial to fulfilling the target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.
- The order is in accordance with The Constitution (103rd) Amendment Act 2019 that provides for the creation of the special EWS quota to be implemented by the state.
- The state government has simplified the norms stipulated by the Central Government for the implementation of 10 percent reservation to the EWS in employment and education, without any sub-categorisation.
- The people who are not covered under the existing reservations for BCs, SCs, STs and whose gross annual family income is below Rs 8 lakh per annum, are eligible for EWS reservation in both employment and educational opportunities.
- The AP government feels that there are many poor people in the upper sections of society who are not covered under any scheme and do not receive any benefits.
- The 10 per cent reservation for EWS is to cover such families in the general category.
- The previous government decision has created confusion among the people and litigations against the Kapu quota have deprived others of availing EWS quota.
- The government has asked all tehsildars to issue OBC certificates to persons eligible under EWS.
- The persons recruited under EWS category will be adjusted against the roster points earmarked for them.
- The orders on the roster points earmarked for 10 per cent reservation to EWS category will be issued separately, along with other rules to be framed/amended and guidelines to be formulated.
- The persons whose family own or possess either five or more acres of agricultural land, or, residential flat of 1000 sq feet or above, or residential plot of 100 sq yards and above are excluded.
- It is introduced in the Lok Sabha to draw attention of the House to a definite matter of urgent public importance.
- It needs the support of 50 members to be admitted in the Parliament.
- It is regarded as an extraordinary device because it interrupts the normal business of the House.
- It involves an element of censure against the government and hence Rajya Sabha is not permitted to make use of this device.
- The right to move a motion for an adjournment of the business of the House is subject to the following restrictions:
- It should raise a matter which is definite, factual, urgent and of public importance;
- It should not cover more than one matter;
- It should be restricted to a specific matter of recent occurrence and should not be framed in general terms;
- It should not raise a question of privilege;
- It should not revive discussion on a matter that has been discussed in the same session;
- It should not deal with any matter that is under adjudication by court; and
- It should not raise any question that can be raised on a distinct motion.
- The House expresses its decisions or opinions on various issues through the adoption or rejection of motions moved by either ministers or private members.
- The motions moved by the members to raise discussions on various matters fall into three principal categories:
- Substantive Motion: It is a self-contained independent proposal dealing with a very important matter like impeachment of the President or removal of Chief Election Commissioner.
- Substitute Motion: It is a motion that is moved in substitution of an original motion and proposes an alternative to it.
- Subsidiary Motion: It is a motion that, by itself, has no meaning and cannot state the decision of the House without reference to the original motion or proceedings of the House.
- Closure Motion: It is a motion moved by a member to cut short the debate on a matter before the House.
- Privilege Motion: It is concerned with the breach of parliamentary privileges by a minister.
- It is moved by a member when he feels that a minister has committed a breach of privilege of the House.
- Calling Attention Motion: It is introduced in the Parliament by a member to call the attention of a minister to a matter of urgent public importance, and to seek an authoritative statement from him on that matter.
- No-Confidence Motion: Article 75 of the Constitution says that the council of ministers shall be collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.
- The Lok Sabha can remove the ministry from office by passing a no-confidence motion.
- The law was originally drafted in 1837 by Thomas Macaulay, the British historian-politician, but was inexplicably omitted when the IPC was enacted in 1860.
- Section 124A was inserted in 1870 by an amendment introduced by Sir James Stephen when it felt the need for a specific section to deal with the offence.
- It was one of the many draconian laws enacted to stifle any voices of dissent at that time.
- The term ‘sedition’ has been defined under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.
- It is defined as an offence committed when "any person by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India".
- Disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity.
- The comments without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, will not constitute an offence under this section.
- The first known instance of the application of the law was the trial of newspaper editor Jogendra Chandra Bose in 1891.
- Bal Gangadhar Tilak was charged with sedition in 1897 for writing an article in his weekly publication called Kesari and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
- He was tried again in 1908 and was represented by MA Jinnah but his application for bail was rejected and he was sentenced to six years.
- In 1922, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested on charges of sedition in Bombay for taking part in protests against the colonial government.
- The Centre has written to states, asking them not to register cases under the repealed provision and withdraw any such case that may have been filed.
- The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has requested States and Union Territories (UTs) to direct all police stations under their jurisdiction not to register cases under the repealed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
- It has also asked the States and UTs to sensitize law enforcement agencies for the compliance of the order issued by the Supreme Court in 2015.
- The MHA has also requested that if any case has been booked in States and UTs under Section 66A of the IT Act, 2000, such cases should be immediately withdrawn.
- It was introduced by the UPA government in 2008.
- The amendments to the IT Act, 2000 gave the government power to arrest and imprison an individual for allegedly “offensive and menacing” online posts.
- The Section 66A empowered police to make arrests over what policemen could construe as “offensive” or “menacing” or for the purposes of causing annoyance, inconvenience, etc.
- It prescribed the punishment for sending messages through a computer or any other communication device like a mobile phone or a tablet, and a conviction could fetch a maximum of three years in jail.
- The problem was with the vagueness about what is “offensive”.
- The word having a very wide connotation was open to distinctive, varied interpretations.
- It was seen as subjective, and what might have been innocuous for one person, could lead to a complaint from someone else and, consequently, an arrest under Section 66A
- In 2015, the apex court struck down the law in the landmark case Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, calling it “open-ended and unconstitutionally vague”.
- The petitioners argued that Section 66A came with extremely wide parameters, which allowed whimsical interpretations by law enforcement agencies.
- It was argued that most of the terms used in the section had not been specifically defined under the Act which curtailed freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution.
- In 2015, a bench ruled in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India declared Section 66A unconstitutional for being violative of Article 19(1)(a) and not saved under Article 19(2).
- Article 19(1)(a) gives people the right to speech and expression whereas 19(2) accords the state the power to impose “reasonable restrictions” on the exercise of this right.
- The decision was considered a landmark judicial pushback against state encroachment on the freedom of speech and expression.
- It ruled that the Section 66A is cast so widely that virtually any opinion on any subject would be covered by it and if it is to withstand the test of constitutionality, the chilling effect on free speech would be total.
- The bench also read down Section 79 defining key rules for the relationship between governments and commercial internet platforms.
- The Section 79 says that any intermediary shall not be held legally or otherwise liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted on its platform.
POSTED ON 17-07-2021 BY ADMIN
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