30/3/2024 : Daily Current Affairs : Micro Notes (Revision Notes) (Arora IAS)

WHO Coronavirus Network (CoViNet)

• Launched by the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Goal: Facilitate and coordinate global expertise for early detection, monitoring, and assessment of coronaviruses.
  • SARS-CoV-2 (causing COVID-19)
  • MERS-CoV
  • Potential novel coronaviruses
• Expands on: WHO COVID-19 reference laboratory network (established during pandemic).
• Network: 36 laboratories from 21 countries across all 6 WHO regions.
• Focuses on: ‘One Health’ approach – human, animal, and environmental coronavirus surveillance.
• Aims to:
  • Monitor global circulation and evolution of these viruses.
  • Provide timely risk assessment for informing WHO policy.

India-led Group of Friends (GOF)

• Launched by India in 2022 during its UN Security Council presidency.
• Represents member states’ political will to champion implementation of UNSC Resolution 2589.
• Focuses on: Strengthening legal frameworks against perpetrators of malicious acts targeting peacekeepers.
• Membership: 40 member states.
  • Co-chairs: India, Bangladesh, Egypt, France, Morocco, Nepal.
• Functions:
  • Informal platform for information exchange, best practice sharing, and resource mobilization.
  • Monitors progress on accountability for crimes against peacekeepers.
  • Convenes meetings and events to promote peacekeeper safety and security.

White Rabbit Collaboration

• Launched by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).
• White Rabbit technology: Synchronizes devices in accelerators down to sub-nanoseconds.
  • Solves challenge of establishing a common notion of time across a network.
• Applications:
  • Finance sector
  • Research infrastructures
  • Potential future quantum internet use
  • Global time dissemination technologies (replacing satellite reliance)
• White Rabbit Collaboration:
  • Membership-based global community.
  • Maintains high-performance open-source White Rabbit technology.
  • Facilitates technology adoption by industry.
  • Provides support, training, and fosters trust in products using the technology.

Exercise Tiger Triumph

• India-U.S. tri-service Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) exercise.
• Phases: Harbor phase and sea phase.
• Activities:
  • Combined operational maneuvers
  • Command and control practice
  • Joint sustainment operations
  • Cultural and athletic events
• Objectives:
  • Develop interoperability for conducting HADR operations.
  • Refine Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for rapid coordination.
  • Build trust and confidence for joint force response.