UniFocus IAS ( UNIFOCUS UNIVERSAL )

A new vaccine for dengue received prequalification from the World Health Organization (WHO) on 10 May 2024. TAK-003 is the second dengue vaccine to be prequalified by WHO. Developed by Takeda, it is a live-attenuated vaccine containing weakened versions of the four serotypes of the virus that cause dengue.   WHO recommends the use of TAK-003 in children aged 6–16 years in settings with high dengue burden and transmission intensity. The vaccine should be administered in a 2-dose schedule with a 3-month interval between doses.  WHO News <<< About Dengue

  The All India Spices Exporters Forum (AISEF)   body fighting to legalise  ethylene oxide (EtO) treatment for spices within the country. Association urged that prohibition of ethylene oxide could make Indian spies bronds unsafe as per FDA standards.  Recenty indian spies brands are facing rejetion in many countries because of presence of ethylene oxide content beyond maximum treshold level. Inlight of all these developments, FSSAI is also started collecting spies samples accross bronds for testing treshold level of EtO levels. It is to be noted that  ethylene oxide is approved for use on spices in the US under prescribed tolerance limits.   EtO is used as a sterilizer in order to stop reproduction of microorganisms, thus preventing food from getting spoiled. The Hindu Business Line Deccan Herald The Hindu <<< International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC ) reports cancer-causing chemicals ( ethylene oxide ) in Indian spices

CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) is a new robotic technology designed to demonstrate collaborative, autonomous exploration and formation sensing by navigating, communicating, computing, perceiving and decision-making without human interaction. To demonstrate the CADRE technology, NASA/JPL is developing multiple small rovers, capable of surviving the daytime Lunar environment and carrying a micro-payload. The systems is designed so that agents (Rovers and a Basestation) share data among the team and make cooperative decisions about the execution of tasks in the workspace. The rovers will autonomously travel in formation and cooperatively explore the local Lunar surface, generate a digital elevation map and perform a distributed measurement with the micro-payload. NASA

It is a  $134-million initiative launched to eliminate mercury-containing medical devices. Members:  Governments of Albania, Burkina Faso, India , Montenegro and Uganda. Initiative was led by the  United Nations Environment Programme  (UNEP), with funding from the  Global Environment Facility  (GEF) and executed by the  World Health Organization  (WHO). Aims of Project: Project will  develop and implement nation-wide strategies to stop the import, export and manufacture of thermometers and sphygmomanometers,  Project will  encourage the adoption of accurate, affordable and safe mercury-free alternatives, while improving the management of mercury-containing medical waste. UNEP

The World Health Organization (WHO) is launching a new initiative, SPECS 2030, to assist countries in achieving the global eye care target of a 40% increase in the proportion of people with access to appropriate spectacles. The launch will be held during a 2-day meeting in Geneva, Switzerland with over 100 participants including Member States representatives, UN agencies, academia and nongovernmental organizations. The SPECS 2030 initiative calls for coordinated action across 5 key pillars: improve access to refractive  services build capacity of  personnel  to provide refractive services improve population  education reduce the  cost  of refractive error services strengthen  surveillance  and research. WHO News

XRISM (pronounced “crism”) is led by  JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)  in collaboration with NASA, along with contributions from  ESA (European Space Agency) . It  launched  Sept. 6, 2023. NASA and JAXA developed Resolve, the mission’s  microcalorimeter spectrometer . The objective of the mission is to investigate celestial X-ray objects in the Universe with high-throughput imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy. XRISM was launched from the Tanegashima Space Center at 8:42 a.m on September 7, 2023 JST in Japan  " X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM)" -  NASA " NASA, JAXA XRISM Spots Iron Fingerprints in Nearby Active Galaxy" -  NASA

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is designed to discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest dwarf stars in the sky. In its prime mission, a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, TESS monitored the brightness of stars for periodic drops caused by planet transits. The prime mission ended on July 4, 2020 and TESS is now in an extended mission.   TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in

The observatory, a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), is measuring the height of  nearly all water surfaces  on Earth. SWOT was designed to measure every major river wider than about 300 feet (100 meters), and preliminary results suggest it may be able to observe much smaller rivers. SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the project’s U.S. component. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Th

As per the report  In 2022, India, Mexico, China, the Philippines and France were (in descending order) the top five remittance recipient countries. India is the first country to  receiving more than USD 111 billion of remittance.  United States of America is consistently been the top remittance-sending country in the world followed by Saudi Arabia, Switzerland,  and Germany. World Migration Report - 2024

World Thalassemia Day is inagurated by  Thalassemia International Federation (TIF) in 1994 in memory of  son of Panos Englezos, a Thalassemia patient who died from the disease. About Thalassemia: Thalassemia is an inherited (i.e., passed from parents to children through genes) blood disorder caused when the body doesn’t make enough of a protein called hemoglobin, an important part of red blood cells. When there isn’t enough hemoglobin, the body’s red blood cells don’t function properly and they last shorter periods of time, so there are fewer healthy red blood cells traveling in the bloodstream. Red blood cells carry oxygen to all the cells of the body. Oxygen is a sort of food that cells use to function. When there are not enough healthy red blood cells, there is also not enough oxygen delivered to all the other cells of the body, which may cause a person to feel tired, weak or short of breath. This is a condition called anemia. People with thalassemia may have mild or severe anemia.

Chloropicrin , also known as  PS  (from  Port Sunlight ) and  nitrochloroform , is a chemical compound currently used as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial, fungicide,  herbicide ,  insecticide , and  nematicide .  It was used as a  poison gas in World War I  and allegedly by Russia in the  Russian invasion of Ukraine . Its chemical structural formula is  Cl 3 C − N O 2 . ( Wikipedia ) Recently  Russia and Ukraine have accused each other  of using banned toxins on the battlefield.  (  USNews  ) OPCW reported that alligations are  insufficiently substantiated. (  USNews  ) Chloropicrin is  less lethal than other chemical weapons. I t was used  as a  poison gas in  World War I before the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons in war. ( The Kyiv Independent ) The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting th

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) today launched the World Migration Report 2024. Highlights of Report: 1. I nternational migration remains a driver of human development and economic growth. 2.  650 per cent increase in international remittances from 2000 to 2022, rising from USD 128 billion to USD 831 billion. 3.  Of that 831 billion in remittances, 647 billion were sent by migrants to low– and middle-income countries. 4. As per the report,  international migrants worldwide stoods at  281 million.  5. Among these, displaced individuals constitute 117 million. C onflict, violence, disaster, and other are the attributed reasons. About  International Organization for Migration (IOM): Established in 1951,  IOM is part of the United Nations System and stands as the leading intergovernmental organization in the field of migration . There are  175 member states, and 8 states holding observer status. IOM’s work is focused on the following  three objectives namely  Saving live

 Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea (/ˌhɒləˌθjʊəˈrɔɪdiə, ˌhoʊ-/ HOL-ə-thure-OY-dee-ə, HOHL-). They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. They are found on the sea floor worldwide. The number of known holothurian (/ˌhɒləˈθjʊəriən, ˌhoʊ-/ HOL-ə-THURE-ee-ən, HOHL-) species worldwide is about 1,786, with the greatest number being in the Asia-Pacific region. Many of these are gathered for human consumption and some species are cultivated in aquaculture systems. The harvested product is variously referred to as trepang, namako, bêche-de-mer, or balate. Sea cucumbers serve a useful role in the marine ecosystem as they help recycle nutrients, breaking down detritus and other organic matter, after which bacteria can continue the decomposition process. Like all echinoderms, sea cucumbers have an endoskeleton just below the skin, calcified structures that are usually reduced to isolated microscopic ossicles (or s

Chang'e 6 (Chinese: 嫦娥六号; pinyin: Cháng'é liùhào) is a robotic lunar exploration mission by the China National Space Administration. As China's second sample return mission, it will attempt to obtain a sample of soil and rock from the far side of the Moon. Like its predecessors in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese Moon goddess Chang'e. It launched on 3 May 2024 and the mission is expected to last about 53 days. ICUBE-Q or ICUBE-Qamar is a lunar CubeSat jointly developed by Institute of Space Technology (IST), Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). It is a rideshare mission on the Chinese lunar sample-return mission of Chang'e 6 and is the first lunar mission of Pakistan. With the launch of ICUBE-Q  Pakistan made history by launching its first satellite mission to the moon. "Chang-6" - Wikipedia "ICUBE-Q" - Wikipedia mint

Rome –  The benchmark for world food commodity prices edged higher in April, as rising meat prices and modest upticks for vegetable oils and cereals more than offset decreases for sugar and dairy products, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)  reported  Friday. The  FAO Food Price Index , which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a set of globally-traded food commodities, averaged 119.1 points in April, up 0.3 percent from its revised March level, while down 9.6 percent from its year-earlier level. The FAO Cereal Price Index rose 0.3 percent from March, ending a three-month declining trajectory. Global wheat export prices stabilized in April as strong competition among major exporters offset concerns about unfavorable crop conditions in parts of the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States of America. Maize export prices increased, influenced by high demand amidst mounting logistical disruptions as a result of infrastru

The Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is organizing the side event titled “Localizing the SDGs: Women in Local Governance in India Lead the Way” on 3 rd May, 2024, during the 57th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD57), taking place from the 29 th  of April until the 3 rd  of May 2024 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.Smt. Supriya Das Datta, Sabhadhipati, Sepahijala Zilla Parishad, Tripura; Smt. Kunuku Hema Kumari, Sarpanch, Pekeru Gram Panchayat, Andhra Pradesh and Smt. Neeru Yadav, Sarpanch, Lambi Aheer Gram Panchayat, Rajasthan are attending the event to represent the Elected Women Representatives from the rural local self-government in India and the delegation is led by Shri Vivek Bharadwaj, Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, GoI. A Population Commission was established by the Economic and Social Council in its resolution 3 (III)

UNHCR launched the  UNHCR Climate Resilience Fund , seeking to boost the protection of refugees and displaced communities who are most threatened by climate change. Fund will exclusively target financing efforts to protect the most threatened displaced communities, equipping them to prepare for, withstand and recover from climate-related shocks. Fund will finance activities directly linked to at least one of the below four objective: International protection; Adaptation/access to environmentally sustainable resources; Resilience; and Mitigation/Greening UNHCR operations. UNHCR

The Group of Seven (G7) countries, which include Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US,  announced at a ministerial meeting  that they will shut down coal-fired power plants by 2030-2035, or on a timeline consistent with the 1.5 C degree temperature limit. In addition, the G7 countries announced they will rapidly scale-up battery storage sixfold by 2030 to support electricity grids powered by renewable energy sources. World Resources Institute The Guardian

It will be  co-chaired by Ambassador Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa and Director-General for Energy Ditte Juul Jørgensen of the European Commission. It was formed to address  issues relating to equity, transparency, investment, sustainability and human rights. United Nations

"Nilgiri tahr census kicks off"- The Times of India About the Nilgiri Tahr: The Nilgiri tahr is the only mountain ungulate in southern India amongst the 12 species present in India. It is also the state animal of Tamil Nadu. The Nilgiri tahr, which used to be found along the entire stretch of Western Ghats, is presently found only in small fragmented pockets. A large part of its population has been wiped out from its historical range. The existing populations are under severe stress due to habitat loss and hunting. This endemic species of the Western Ghats is listed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, 1972. The population of Nilgiri Tahr has been estimated at 3,122 individuals in the wild as per a report released by WWF India in 2015. HABITAT AND DISTRIBUTION OF NILGIRI TAHR The Nilgiri tahr is a sure-footed ungulate that inhabits the open montane grassland habitats at elevations