Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 13 March 2021

::NATIONAL::

SahityaAkademi Award 2020: 20 winners were announced

• The list includes seven books of poetry, four novels, five short stories, two plays, and one each of memoirs and epic poetry in 20 Indian languages.
• Politician-writer M VeerappaMoily, poet ArundhathiSubramaniam are among 20 writers who will be bestowed with the SahityaAkademi Award 2020.

SahityaAkademi Awards 2020: Full List of Winners

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::International::

Leaders from India, Australia, Japan and American participate in Quad Leaders’ Summit

• •    Meeting for the first time, the leaders of the four ‘Quad’ countries – India, Japan, United States and Australia, agreed to commit to manufacturing one billion doses of vaccine by 2022 for distribution in Asia, where China’s presence casts a large shadow.
• •    While all of them had spoken on the phone with each other, this was the first virtual meeting of the four leaders – Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi, US President Joe Biden, Japanese PM YoshihideSuga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The summit had been proposed by the US within the first weeks of the new Biden administration taking over earlier this year.
• •    The virtual meeting marked the most significant upgrade to the ‘Quad’ format, which began first in 2007 as a tentative grouping of officials from four countries who had coordinated the disaster relief to the Indian Ocean tsunami and earthquake of 2004.
• •    After the first Quad summit, there was also a joint statement, with the poetic title – “Spirit of the Quad”. While this is standard practice for most multilateral meetings, it has significance for the Quad as previous gatherings at various levels generated separate press releases from the four countries’ foreign offices.

::Economy::

'My Ration Mobile App' Launched For Overseas Ration Card Holders

• •    Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution launched Mera Ration Mobile App for the benefit of those ration card holders who move to new places in search of livelihood.
• •    Addressing media in New Delhi Secretary SudhanshuPandey said that at present 32 States and Union Territories are covered under One Nation One Ration Card- ONORC and integration of remaining four States and UTs is expected to be completed in next few months.
• •    He also informed that at present, the system covers nearly 69 Crore National Food Security Act- NFSA beneficiaries in the country. Mr. Pandey informed that the ONORC has proved to be a tremendous value-added service to each NFSA beneficiary during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly migrants, which allowed them to avail the benefit of subsidisedfoodgrains.

In a huge achievement, Indian Railway surpasses last year cumulative freight loading way before the year end

• •    In spite of Covid challenges, on 11th March 2021, Indian Railways surpassed last year's total Cumulative freight loading.
• •    On 11th March 2021, Indian Railways’ cumulative freight loading touched 1145.68 million tonnes which is higher than total cumulative loading of last year (1145.61 million tonnes).
• •    Freight figures continue to maintain the high momentum in terms of loading and speed in the month of March 2021 as well for Indian Railways.
• •    On a month to month basis, upto March 11, 2021, Indian Railways loading was 43.43 million tonnes, which is 10 % higher compared to last year’ loading for the same period (39.33 million tonnes).
• •    On day to day basis, on 11th March, 2021, the freight loading of Indian Railways was 4.07 million tonnes, which is 34% higher compare to last year’s loading for the same date (3.03 million tonnes).
• •    The average speed of Freight Trains in the month of March 2021 till 11th March was 45.49 kmph which is almost double compare to last year for the same period (23.29 kmph).
• •    It is worth mentioning that a number of concessions/discounts are also being given in Indian Railways to make Railways Freight movement very attractive. Strong emergence of Business Development Units in Zones & Divisions, constant dialogue with the industry & logistics service providers, faster speed etc are adding to the robust growth of freight business for the Railways.

::SCIENCE AND TECH::

Scientists develop molecular sensor that will aid identifying new drugs of therapeutic value

• •    Researchers have recently developed a molecular sensor, which can identify cancer drugs by detecting how such chemicals modify microtubules inside living cells
• •    Microtubules are part of the cytoskeleton, a structural network within the cell's cytoplasm, and they alter in response to several chemicals.Understanding tubulin modifications has remained a challenge till date because of unavailability of tools that can mark them in living cells. Researchers from inStem, Bangalore, India, in collaboration with Curie Institute, Orsay, France, funded by Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (IFCPAR/CEFIPRA), a bilateral organization supported by Department of Science & Technology (DST),
• •    Government of India and Government of France decided to overcome this shortcoming and developed the first tubulin nanobody - or sensor to study the dynamics of microtubule modifications in living cells and use this for identification of new cancer therapeutic drugs. This work has been recently published recently in the Journal of Cell Biology. The researchers from Bangalore and Orsay devised a method to design synthetic proteins, known as nanobodies, which can bind specifically to modified microtubules.
• •    These nanobodies are similar to antibodies made in our body as a defense mechanism against pathogens. However, unlike antibodies, the nanobodies are smaller in size and easily amenable for protein engineering. The nanobody was then coupled with a fluorescent molecule to serve as a detection tool, called sensor.

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