GK & Current Affairs Quiz: March 28, 2019

Notes:
On 27th March, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted its first-ever Anti-Satellite (A-SAT) missile test ‘Mission Shakti’ from the Dr AP J Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha. A DRDO-developed Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Interceptor Missile has successfully shot down a live satellite on a Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is 300km from the earth, within three minutes. Hence, Mission Shakti is an important step towards securing India’s safety, economic growth and technological advancement. With this feat, India has joined elite group of four along with US, Russia & China. A-SATs are space weapons designed to disable or destroy satellites for strategic military purposes. Most military satellites orbit up to 2,000 km above the earth’s surface on LEO. However, no country has used A-SAT system in warfare till now. Several nations have shot down their own (defunct) satellites to demonstrate their ASAT capabilities in a show of force.

Notes:
The researchers at IIT-Delhi have designed an “Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based low-power electronic hardware system” to easily detect Malaria, Tuberculosis (TB), Intestinal parasite, and Cervical cancer in a few milliseconds. The research is focused on building an intelligent Neuromorphic system which can be used for healthcare access in resource-constrained areas with limited access to human specialists. The approach demonstrated by the researchers is portable, low-power and can classify with high accuracy in detection of the diseases.The long-term impact and goal of this work will be to enable potential future deployment of the platform in rural and resource-constrained areas and improve the access to diagnostic health-care. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), cervical cancer is the 4th most frequent cancer in women with an estimated 570,000 new cases in 2018 representing 6.6% of all female cancers.

Notes:
The World Theatre Day (WTD) is observed every year on 27th of March to draw attention to the power of the stage. It also tells the importance of theater arts as it continues to move, entertain, teach and change us. The day was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI), the world organization for performing arts. The day is a celebration for those who can see the value and importance of the art form “theatre”, and acts as a wake-up-call for governments, politicians and institutions which have not yet recognized its value to the people and to the individual and have not yet realized its potential for economic growth.

Notes:
For the first time in the world, researchers at the GRAPES-3 muon telescope facility in Ooty have measured the electrical potential, size and height of a thundercloud that passed overhead on December 1, 2014. The study of thunderclouds is helpful in navigation of aircraft and preventing short circuits in aeroplanes. At 1.3 gigavolts (GV), this cloud had 10 times higher potential than the previous record in a cloud. This is not because clouds with such high potentials are a rarity, but rather, because the methods of detection have not been successful so far. The structure of Cloud is that clouds have negative charges along their lower side and positive charges on top and can be several kilometres thick. If balloons are used to measure the potential difference between the top and bottom, they will take hours to traverse the distance. Unfortunately, thunderstorms last only for about 15-20 minutes, and this method fails. The GRAPES-3 experiment (or Gamma Ray Astronomy PeV EnergieS phase-3) located at Ooty in Tamil Nadu and is designed to study cosmic rays with an array of air shower detectors and a large area muon detector.

Notes:
The world’s largest e-waste recycling facility has recently opened at the Dubai Industrial Park in United Arab Emirates (UAE) on an area of 280,000 square feet. 120 million dirhams ($5 million) project has been set up by “Enviroserve’ company with support of Swiss Government Export Finance Agency. It will service international e-waste recycling efforts across Africa, Middle East and Caucasus region. The facility will utilise state-of-the-art reclamation technology, which surpasses the European Union’s standards for e-waste. It will process Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), IT Asset Disposition (ITAD), refrigerant gas and specialized waste. It has a processing capacity of 100,000 tonnes of total integrated waste per year, of which 39,000 tonnes is e-waste. The facility can process the entire range of WEEE from consumer and industrial to commercial and military.