Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission crosses 1 crore digitally linked health records

• Meanwhile, Mansukh Mandaviya will inaugurate "Arogya Manthan 2022" to celebrate four years of the implementation of Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and one year of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) on September 25.
• The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country. It will bridge the existing gap amongst different stakeholders of the Healthcare ecosystem through digital highways.
• On February 26, 2022, the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the national rollout of the Central Sector Scheme, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with a budget of Rs 1,600 crores for five years.
• The National Health Authority (NHA) will be the implementing agency of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM).

At DefExpo 2022, India-Africa defence dialogue on the anvil

• A separate Indian Ocean Region plus (IOR+) conclave with participation of approximately 40 countries is also on the anvil, the Defence Ministry said.
• The Expo, earlier scheduled to be held in March, was postponed due to “logistical challenges” the Ministry had said.
• For DefExpo 2022, Indian companies, Indian subsidiaries of foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers, Division of company registered in India, exhibitor having joint venture with an Indian company will be considered as Indian participants.
• The theme of DefExpo 2022 is ‘Path to Pride’ and the aim is to showcase the might of the domestic defence industry, which is now powering ‘Make in India, Make for the World’ resolve of the Government and the nation at large.

Anti-child-sexual-abuse drive

• The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at 59 locations across 20 States and one Union Territory, as part of a pan-India drive against the circulation and sharing of child sexual abuse material.
• The operation code-named “Megh Chakra” was carried out following the inputs received from the Interpol’s Singapore special unit based on the information received from the authorities in New Zealand.
• Last November, the agency had launched a similar exercise code-named “Operation Carbon”, searching the premises of suspects in 13 States and one Union Territory.
• The previous operation was conducted at 76 locations. The persons named in the FIRs were booked under the relevant provisions of the IPC and the Information Technology Act, for allegedly being part of the syndicates that uploaded, circulated, sold and viewed such material.
• The CBI had later decided to send requests to several countries for sharing and gathering information under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) on those involved in the racket.

US terminates Afghanistan’s designation as major non-NATO ally

• In 2012, the United States named Afghanistan a major non-NATO (MNNA) ally, which cleared the way for the two countries to maintain a defence and economic relationship.
• The designation gave several facilities and concessions to Afghanistan in terms of defence and security-related assistance and equipment.
• The change in Afghanistan’s status follows Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country last year, ending nearly 20 years of war.

Researchers have given new insights on the ‘coffee-ring effect’.

• For about two decades now, the ‘coffee ring effect’ has been known as when a drop of spilt coffee dries up, the outermost edge of the dried drop is a little darker than the centre, forming a darker ‘ring’.
• This is caused by the outward drift of suspended coffee particles from the centre, causing a denser, darkened rim.
• Now, researchers from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, have shown that after reaching the rim, as the drop dries, some of the particles undergo an inward drift too.
• This research has applications in agriculture, forensic science and even disease diagnosis. The present work has been published in the journal, Soft Matter.

BA.2.75 emerges as major sublineage in Maharashtra

• Since the first case of SARS-CoV-2 in March 2020, India has witnessed three pandemic waves. Delta (B.1.617.2) and its sublineages caused the second wave, and Omicron (B.1.1.529) and its sublineages (BA.1 and BA.2) are driving the third wave.
• After the waning of the third wave, India saw a surge in COVID-19 cases from May 2022. On sequencing, these variants were characterised as BA.2 by Pangolin.
• However, the predominance of BA.2 after the waning of the third COVID wave was unexplainable. Subsequently, the Indian isolates of BA.2 were further classified into sub-lineages BA.2.74, BA.2.75 and BA.2.76.
• Since their designation, these new sub-lineages have already spread to over 40 countries.
• They have acquired additional mutations in their spike protein compared to BA.2. These added mutations, over and above those of the parental BA.2 variant, have raised concerns about their impact on viral pathogenicity, transmissibility, and immune evasion properties of the new variants.

Minister Shri G. Kishan Reddy launches Virtual Conference ''SymphoNE'' to boost Tourism Sector in North East India.

• SymphoNE is the start of a series of dialogues on North Eastern Region''s Development Conference comprised of a broad range of Policy Thinkers, Stakeholders & Influencers with the aim to boost Tourism Sector in North Eastern Region.
• The Virtual Conference ''SymphoNE'' being organized on 24th & 27th September 2022 by Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region on the occasion of World Tourism Day.
• This two day conference will aim to create a roadmap to showcase the unexplored beauty of North East India & boost the tourism Sector in North Eastern Region.
• SymphoNE aims to develop one-stop solution to eliminate all obstacles that are being faced by the tourists, and the tour operators while carrying out the operations for the visitors.

President Murmu presents National Service Scheme Awards for the year 2020-21

• A total of forty-two awards were given today. Two universities, ten NSS units, their programme officers, and 30 NSS volunteers received the awards.
• The Department of Youth Affairs of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports confers every year the National Service Scheme Award. Awards are conferred to recognise and reward outstanding contributions towards voluntary community service with a view to further promoting NSS in the country.
• At present, NSS has about 40 lakh volunteers on its rolls spread over the country.

Ninth Session of Governing Body of the ITPGRFA concludes

• The six-day GB9 session of ITPGRFA was inaugurated by the Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in New Delhi on September 19, 2022.
• In a historical first, Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII) contributed Rs 20 lakhs (~USD 25,000) to the Benefit-Sharing Fund (BSF) as the first collective contribution from Indian seed sector, during the GB-9 meetings. The BSF is the funding mechanism of the Treaty used for support of capacity building, Conservation and sustainable use projects among the Contracting Parties of the Treaty.
• Dr Sunil Archak, ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, India, was appointed as Co-Chair, along with Dr Michael Ryan, Department of Agriculture, Canberra, Australia, on the Working Group on ‘Enhancement of the Multilateral System (MLS)’.

India to get its first flex-fuel car by Toyota tomorrow

• A flex fuel, or flexible fuel, vehicle has an internal combustion engine (ICE), but unlike a regular petrol or diesel vehicle, this can run on more than one type of fuel, or even a mixture of fuels.
• The most common versions use a blend of petrol and ethanol or methanol, but these engines are also equipped to run on 100 per cent petrol or ethanol as well.
• This is made possible by equipping the engine with a fuel mix sensor and an engine control module (ECM) programming that senses and automatically adjusts for any ratio of designated fuels.
• The most important benefit is that the use of ethanol blending sharply lowers harmful pollutants such as carbon monoxide, sulphur, and carbon and nitrogen oxides. Another obvious benefit is that blending will help cutback on oil imports for fueling vehicles.
• But there are problems: a flex fuel car typically takes a small hit on fuel efficiency when using ethanol for motive power, ranging from between 4 per cent and 8 per cent.
• So, while fuel economy is generally lower with increased levels of ethanol (engines are optimised for petrol), on the flip side, many flex fuel vehicles have improved acceleration performance when operating on higher ethanol blends.