GK and Current Affairs Updates

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has setup a seven-member expert committee for exploring the other possible alternatives to pellet guns as non-lethal weapons. 
•    The Committee will be headed by T V S N Prasad, Joint Secretary in the MHA. 
•    It will submit its report within two months. Other members of the committee: Atul Karwal (IG, CRPF), Rajeev Krishna, (IG Operations, BSF), Tushar Tripathy (DDG, Small Arms, Ordnance factory Board) and Naresh Bhatnagar (Professor at IIT, Delhi). 
•    Earlier Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced in Lok Sabha that an expert committee will be set up to recommend alternatives to pellet guns. Pellet guns have been categorised as non-lethal weapon. 
•    In this gun, pellets are loaded with lead balls and once fired disperse into huge numbers. They may not kill the person they hit, but penetrates skin tissue and cause serious injuries. 
•    Pellet guns are being used since 2010 in Kashmir to disperse and control crowd i.e as deterrence to antisocial elements. 
•    The use of pellet guns is blamed for causing fatal injuries and blindness among protestors in Kashmir.

Lok Sabha on 26 July 2016 passed the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016 to amend the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) (CLPR) Act, 1986. 
•    As per data presented in form of answer about child labour in Rajya Sabha in 2014, the number of child labourers decreased by 65% - from 1.26 crore to 82.2 lakh (aged between 5 – 14 years) between Census 2001 to and Census 2011.
•    The five biggest child labour employer states of India are - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. 
•    Major schemes like Right to Education, MNREGA, Mid-Day Meal have given children an incentive to study and has helped in reducing the population in terms of child labour.
•    Successive governments have fought to end child labour like elimination of child labour from hazardous occupations and processes.
•    A United Nations body has expressed concern over the changes made in Child Labour law. UNICEF India said this could lead to more children working in unregulated conditions.

The largest lotus field is 1.08 km² and was achieved by Guangchang County CPC Committee and Guangchang County People's Government (both China) in Guangchang, Jiangxi, China on 9 July 2016.
•    The total area of lotus plantation is more than 60 km² in Guangchang. The total output is about 8 million kg per year.
•    Official Guinness World Records adjudicator Maggie Luo presented a certificate to Guangchang County CPC Committee and Guangchang County People's Government earlier this month.
•    The people of Guangchang applied for this record because they wanted to promote their planting products and attract tourists to the area.
•    Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers.
•    China ranks first in worldwide farm output, primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, tomato, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed and soybeans. 
•    Although accounting for only 10 percent of arable land worldwide, it produces food for 20 percent of the world's population.

The Democratic convention formally nominated Hillary Clinton for president on making history by choosing a woman to be the first standard-bearer of a major political party.
•    Vince Insalaco, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, where the Clintons built their public profile over two decades, said the choice of the first female presidential nominee was a historic moment.
•    Mrs. Clinton’s primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, played a symbolic role in hopes of unifying the party behind her. 
•    After Vermont arranged to go last in the roll call, Mr. Sanders joined its delegation to roars of “Bernie, Bernie” and called on the party to rally behind Mrs. Clinton.
•    Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton had their own brutal competition this year, and their policy differences were greater than those between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama — part of why many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters are reluctant to get behind her.

The Lok Sabha on July 25, 2016 passed the Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
•    The Bill seeks to amend the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, which declares certain Institutes of Technology as institutions of national importance.
•    The Bill seeks to add six new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Palakkad in Kerala, Goa, Dharwar in Karnataka, Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, and Jammu.
•    It also seeks to bring the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad within the ambit of the Act.  All these institutions will be declared as institutions of national importance.
•    The Bill provides for the incorporation of IIT (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad.  It states that until the statutes in relation to IIT (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad are made under the Act, the statutes applicable to IIT Roorkee will apply to it.
•    The Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar, on 19 July 2016.

Brazilian researchers on 21 July 2016 announced that they have found another species of mosquito, which is able to transmit the Zika virus to humans.

•    The scientists found the presence of the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito infected by the Zika virus in three out of 80 groups of mosquitoes analysed up until now.
•    The 80 groups were from the metropolitan area of Recife, Brazil.
•    Until now, transmission of the virus was only known through the Aedes aegypti mosquitos, which are also responsible for the spread of dengue and chikungunya.
•    The Culex quinquefasciatus is known as domestic mosquito in Brazil.
•    It is a medium-sized mosquito found in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.
•    It is the vector of Wuchereria bancrofti, avian malaria and arboviruses.
•    Its genome was sequenced in 2010, and was shown to have 18883 protein-coding genes.

Union Government has decided to reduce the number of Maoist-affected districts by about a fifth.

•    As per reports, about 20 out of 106 districts described as being Maoist-affected and part of the Red Corridor may soon no longer be part of the list.
•    Dropping of these districts from the list will result in drying of the financial aid given to the districts. The aid was being provided to the tune of 30 crore rupees annually for various developmental work.
•    The red corridor expands in 106 districts of 10 states of the country. The ten states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
•    These districts are described as those affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) and constitute the Red Corridor.
•    44 districts of these 106 are said to be the worst affected districts. In total India constitutes of 683 districts.

Scientists are working towards storing digital data in the base sequence of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). 

•    Thus they are seeking to make the genetic material capable to store data for long time in durable format as an archive data for the future. 
•    The information in the DNA is stored in strings i.e. in the form four-letter DNA code. It is basically sequences of four building blocks (nuclear strands) abbreviated as A (Adenine), C (Cytosine), T (Thymine) and G (Guanine) found in DNA molecule. 
•    Basically digital devices store information in binary format (1s and 0s) i.e. in a two-letter code that produces strings of 1s and 0s. 
•    The DNA digital data storage technology uses artificial DNA made using oligonucleotide synthesis machines for storage and DNA sequencing machines for retrieval of stored data. 
•    Using this technology strings of DNA can be custom-made that can carry the new code, and store information that code contains

A museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide has opened in Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital Sarajevo, exploring the country's wartime history. 

•    The exhibit includes a reconstruction of a prison cell, personal belongings of victims who lost their lives, and screenings of films about the witnesses of crimes.
•    The exhibition is aimed at providing information about the Bosnian war during 1992-1995.
•    It also screens films about the war, including ‘City under Siege’ and ‘The End of Impunity - Sexual Violence before the Tribunal’ and ‘Through Their Eyes’, about victims and witnesses of crimes who overcame their fears to testify in court.
•    Journalist and film-maker Avdo Huseinovic played a major role in gathering material for the museum, which he described as modest but important.

With 1,263 bird species, India is home to nearly 12% of the total number of 10,135 bird species in the world, according to a study published in the journal 'Indian BIRDS'. 

•    Among the 1,263 species, Himalayan Forest Thrush (Zoothera salimalii) is reportedly the newest species discovered, while White-browed Crake (Amaurornis cinerea) is the latest entry to the country’s bird list.
•    Raptors or birds of prey, which include vultures, eagles, and kites, are represented by 57 species and typical babblers by 53 species. 
•    Of all the birds known to occur within the geographical boundaries of India, 61 species are endemic, found only in India, and another 134 species are near-endemic, meaning these are largely restricted to India with small populations found in neighboring countries.
•    Taxonomically, the bird population in the country is divided into 23 orders, 107 families and 498 genera.
•    Among the bird families, Muscicapidae (comprising chats, robins and flycatchers) are the most diverse, having as many as 97 species.