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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.