Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 11 February 2022

::National::

MRNA vaccine tweaked to work against Omicron, says top govt expert Paul

Indian pharma company Gennova has made an Omicron-specific version of its mRNA platform coronavirus vaccine candidate, a top government expert said on Thursday, while adding that its development is proceeding “in parallel” with the original dose that is in clinical trials.
Gennova’s mRNA vaccine is being watched closely since it is entirely indigenously developed and can be transported and stored in normal cold chain networks, instead of the ultra freezing requirements of the American mRNA doses.
The platform has proven to yield among the strongest Covid-19 vaccines and doses developed through it can be updated quickly.
“The developers have tweaked the vaccine candidate for Omicron, and work on that development is also happening in parallel. Apart from that, another tremendous advantage is that they are trying that it gets administered intra-dermally using a special applicator. We are very proud that we have a candidate vaccine by Gennova, which is entirely an Indian development,” said VK Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog, during the weekly media briefing on Covid.
“There are so many diseases for which we are hunting for an affordable, effective, and lasting vaccine. We treasure this platform. As an option in the fight the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic, it remains relevant just as so many other vaccines are relevant,” added Paul.
Experts said data needs to be seen to know how effective the vaccine is.
“Will believe in what is being said when we see effectiveness data,” said Gagandeep Kang, senior vaccine expert, and faculty, CMC-Vellore.
Paul also said that this pandemic has seen great innovations that will help in future research and development (R&D).
“In this pandemic what has been encouraging to see is the development of vaccines based on various technologies, which is quite innovative. In India also we have had multiple technology options both at the level of R&D and manufacturing,” he said.

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::International::

American citizens in Ukraine should 'leave now': Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden on Thursday urged American citizens to leave Ukraine immediately, and warned about potential major conflict with Moscow should US and Russian troops engage each other on the ground.
"We're dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. This is a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly," the president said.
Biden also reiterated that under no circumstances would he send US troops to Ukraine, even to rescue Americans in case of a Russian invasion.
"That's a world war. When Americans and Russians start shooting one another, we're in a very different world," he said.
Western leaders have been conducting shuttle diplomacy in an effort to ease frayed nerves. But Biden's comments -- and the State Department also on Thursday renewing its warning for Americans citizens to leave -- are almost certain to ramp up tensions anew.
Biden however dismissed the scenario of having to rescue Americans in Ukraine, saying "how do you even find them?"
"What I'm hoping is that if (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is foolish enough to go in, he's smart enough not to in fact do anything that would negatively impact American citizens."

::Economy::

RBI chief says cryptos a threat to macroeconomy, refers to 17thC ‘tulip mania’

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said private cryptocurrencies were a threat to macroeconomy and financial stability, and would undermine the central bank’s ability to deal with challenges on the two fronts.
In a message for investors, Das said such assets have no underlying whatsoever, “not even a tulip”.
In the Union Budget presented on February 1, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a 30 per cent tax on gains made on such assets, besides stating that the RBI will start issuing the country’s first digital currency in 2023.
Das, who presented the first monetary policy statement after the Union Budget 2022-23, said, “Private cryptocurrencies or whatever name you call it are a threat to our macroeconomic stability and financial stability. They will undermine the RBI's ability to deal with issues of financial stability and macroeconomic stability.”
Das said, “They also need to keep in mind that the cryptocurrency has no underlying, not even a tulip”. Das was referring to the 'tulip mania' of the 17th Century that is often cited as a classic example of a financial bubble, where the price of something goes up, not due to their intrinsic value but because of speculators wanting to make a profit by selling a bulb of the exotic flower.

Denmark Inflation hits highest level in 13 years on energy costs

Denmark’s inflation rate jumped to its highest level since 2008 on rising energy costs, suggesting added pressure on wages as the country already struggles with a lack of workers.
onsumer prices rose 4.3% in January from a year earlier, Statistics Denmark said in a statement on Thursday. Prices on goods jumped 6.6%, the biggest year-on-year increase for any month since 1985. The uptick was driven by price hikes on electricity and gasoline, with core inflation excluding energy rising by 1.9%.
While the energy-driven surge in inflation is also hitting consumers elsewhere in Europe, Denmark is also facing concerns about labor shortages worsening wage pressures and potentially eroding competitiveness, even as the Nordic economy has been among the most resilient to the pandemic.
Palle Sorensen, chief economist at Nykredit, said higher fees on cigarettes and rising costs for businesses could push inflation rate higher even when temporary effects, like low energy prices in the beginning of 2021, will fade.
It’s obvious that rising inflation and the record-high pressure on the labor market will drive up wages during the year, which could make inflation more persistent in Denmark,” he said in a note to clients.

::Science and tech::

Lockheed Martin wins NASA contract to bring Mars samples back to Earth

Lockheed Martin's space division has won a NASA contract to build the rocket that will return the first Mars rock samples to Earth in the 2030s, the US space agency said.
The "small, lightweight rocket" will be the first to take off from another planet, bringing back "rock, sediment and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet," NASA said in a statement.
NASA's Perseverance Rover has been collecting samples from various Martian areas since landing on Earth's neighbor a year ago.
The goal of the mission is to find traces of ancient life on the Red Planet. But these samples will have to be analyzed in laboratories back on Earth, capable of more sophisticated tests than anything that can be done on Mars.
The samples will be gathered and then launched back to Earth in a complex operation in which the Lockheed Martin rocket will be a key element.
"The pieces are coming together to bring home the first samples from another planet. Once on Earth, they can be studied by state-of-the-art tools too complex to transport into space," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington.
According to the space agency's plans, a mission will be launched in 2026 at the earliest to send the mini-rocket to Mars, carrying another rover responsible for collecting the samples left behind by Perseverance.
Once the samples are placed in the rocket, it will take off and put them in orbit around Mars. They will then be captured by another vessel sent there to complete the final leg of the journey back to Earth.

::Sport::

Novak Djokovic on entry list for Indian Wells tournament

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic is on the entry list for the BNP Paribas Open in California, where the Serb would face a vaccine mandate.
Djokovic, who was unvaccinated against Covid-19 as of last month, was detained and eventually deported from Australia for failing to meet that country's strict vaccination requirements. It prevented him from defending his Australian Open title last month.
To enter Australia, Djokovic submitted a positive test issued in Serbia on Dec. 16 for a visa exemption on the grounds that he had recently recovered from the virus. But the Australian government canceled his visa and deported him.