Current Affairs: July 16, 2020

Notes:
The state government of Madhya Pradesh is set to launch a ‘Roko -Toko’ campaign for urging people to wear masks.
Roko-Toko in Hindi means stop and campaign and it seeks to nudge people who do not wear masks in public places to practise mask-wearing. The state also runs a scheme called ‘Jeevan Shakti Yojana’, under which selected organisations will provide masks to people at a price of Rs 20 per piece.

Notes:
Global leader in payments technology Visa has partnered with Federal Bank to deploy Visa Secure to the bank’s cardholders.
Visa Secure is an authentication program that uses the latest standards of the EMV protocol. This upgraded technology will provide security to curb online frauds and quick check-out experience to the card-holders.

Notes:
The Indian Railways has set the target to achieve net zero carbon emission by the year 2030. In order to achieve the target of becoming a Green Railways, it has accelerated the efforts.
Some of its initiatives include Electrification of lines, improving energy efficiency of trains, green certification for stations, fitting bio toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy. Recently, a 1.7 mega watt plant at Bina in Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with BHEL has been installed.

Notes:
NITI Aayog has estimated that India needs 6.2% additional spending of GDP to achieve 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The country’s think tank said this in its second Voluntary National Review (VNR) at the UN high-level political forum (HLPF) on sustainable development, 2020. India needs to upgrade its statistical system, improve its monitoring mechanism and capacity building of all stakeholders. It also advised that the Budget should be aligned with SDGs.

Notes:
The Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, has successfully established stable cultures of coronavirus from patient samples.
The Seventeen in-vitro cultures have been established using Vero cells, from samples of different locations and different virus loads. The cultured SARS-Cov-2 can be used in developing antibodies or antidotes, testing of antibodies and identifying therapeutic agents.