Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 17 August 2021

::NATIONAL::

The Civil Aviation Ministry on Monday gave conditional permission to 10 organisations, including Mahindra and Mahindra, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Bayer Crop Science, to use drones for various purposes. In a statement, the ministry said the Karnataka government is one of the 10 organisations and it has got the permission to conduct “drone based aerial survey for creating urban property ownership records in Bengaluru".
Mahindra and Mahindra has got permission to conduct “drone-based agricultural trials" and use drones for precision spraying on paddy and hot pepper crop in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, it mentioned.
Two organisations — Gujarat-based Blue Ray Aviation and Telangana-based Asia Pacific Flight Training Academy — have been permitted to conduct “remote pilot training using drones", the ministry’s statement noted.
Bayer Crop Science has got the permission to conduct “drone-based agricultural research activities" and use drones for agricultural spraying, it mentioned.
Gangtok Smart City Development has got the permission for drone-based aerial survey for its smart city project, the ministry’s statement mentioned. It said SAIL has got the permission to use drones to conduct “perimeter surveillance" of its steel plant in Burnpur, West Bengal.

Researchers have developed a new cheaper, faster and more accurate Covid diagnostic test that uses electrodes made from graphite — the material found in pencil lead — to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The team at University of Pennsylvania in the US noted that current tests were limited by the tradeoff between accuracy and the time it takes to analyse a sample. According to the research, the graphite electrodes reduce the cost to $1.50 per test.
While his previous research highlights the invention of RAPID (Real-time Accurate Portable Impedimetric Detection prototype 1.0), a COVID-19 testing kit which uses screen-printed electrodes, this new research published in PNAS presents LEAD (Low-cost Electrochemical Advanced Diagnostic), using the same concept as RAPID but with less expensive materials. De la Fuente’s current test reduces costs from $4.67 per test (RAPID) to $1.50 per test (LEAD) just by changing the building material of the electrodes.

Prime Minister NarendraModi on Sunday announced that 75 new Vande Bharat Express trains will be launched to connect different parts of the country in 75 weeks to mark the ongoing ‘AzadikaAmritMahotsav.
“...The country has resolved that 75 Vande Bharat trains will be connecting every corner of the country in 75 weeks of AmritMahotsav of Independence,” he told the crowd during his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort.
The Indian Railways had floated a revised tender in September last year for procuring 44 semi-high speedVande Bharat trains from companies registered only in India. The government had earlier scrapped three global tenders for the ambitious project.
Hyderabad-based engineering firm Medha, which in February secured the contract to supply the electrical systems for the 44 trains, has now been told to advance its production plan so that at least two prototypes can be rolled out by next March following all trials.
The maiden run of a Vande Bharat train was flagged off by Modi on the New Delhi-Varanasi route on February 15, 2019. The second such train service between New Delhi and Shri Mata VaishnodeviKatra was flagged off by Union home minister Amit Shah on October 3 in the same year.

Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, ShriNarendra Singh Tomar inaugurated the world's second-largest refurbished state-of-the-art National Gene Bank at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), Pusa, New Delhi.
On this occasion, ShriTomar said that the farmers of India are fully capable of accepting the challenges faced by the agriculture sector and conquering them.
He said that our farmers are skilled human resources even without any major educational degree. Prime Minister ShriNarendraModi is constantly concerned about the welfare of the farmers and concrete steps have been taken by the government through several schemes to increase their income.
Appreciating the services of visionary experts like Prof. B. P. Pal, Prof. M.S. Swaminathan and Prof. Harbhajan Singh, ShriTomar said that they had laid a strong foundation for the conservation of diversity of indigenous crops in the country.
“We have a glorious past, for the progress of the country, everyone should keep moving forward with a sense of responsibility towards the future. This revamped state-of-the-art National Gene Bank is a powerful step in that direction.
The staff working here must have felt satisfaction and happiness that how they are serving the agriculture sector and the country while saving the heritage. Today, the need for biofortified crop varieties is being felt, somewhere there is an imbalance, which the government is trying to overcome by taking the farmers along”, he added.

Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) has conducted a ground run and low-speed taxi test for its developmental Hindustan-228 commuter aircraft.
The tests took place at the company’s Kanpur facility, where it builds the Do-228 for India’s military, coast guard, and other customers, says the company.
HAL aims to secure a domestic type certification from India’s Directorate General of Civil Agency (DGCA) for the aircraft, which is intended to support New Delhi’s Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS). It also hopes to attain international certification.
“This aircraft could be utilised successfully by civil operators and State Governments for their intra and inter-state connectivity with seamless support towards training, maintenance and logistics,” says HAL.
It says that the 19-seater can serve in missions including the transport of passengers and cargo, as well as flight inspection, cloud seeding, and various recreational roles.
In late 2016, HAL announced plans for a civil variant of the Do-228 turboprop.
The type, based on the Do-228-201, falls under the auspices of two Indian government initiatives, “Make in India” and RCS. Launched in 2017, the RCS is intended to provide affordable air transport to small airports.

Every chess player works towards achieving the Grandmaster (GM) title. On August 3, Harshit Raja turned GM after he drew his game against Dennis Wagner at the Biel Masters Open 2021. Raja, who achieved his final GM norm with one round to spare, is India’s 69th Grandmaster.
The 20-year-old from Pune has several notable achievements spanning over his professional years. He won silver in U-13 National Chess Championship in Jamshedpur in 2014 and gold in the SGFI Nationals held in Tamil Nadu the same year. He represented India in World Youth Chess Championship U-14 in Greece in 2015.