Prelims Sure Shot

1. Offline retail payments set for fillip

Why in news

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unveiled a scheme of offline retail payments using cards and mobile devices.

• Lack of Internet connectivity or low speed of the Internet, especially in remote areas, is a major impediment in the adoption of digital payments.
• Against this backdrop, providing an option of offline payments through cards, wallets and mobile devices is expected to further the adoption of digital payments.
• The move is aimed at fostering financial inclusion.

 

Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) mechanism for digital payments:

• It has also decided on an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) mechanism for digital payments as the numbers of digital transactions are rising significantly giving rise to more disputes.

 

Positive Pay Mechanism:

• To reduce instances of fraud occurring on account of tampering of cheque leaves, the RBI has decided to introduce a mechanism of Positive Pay for all cheques of value 50,000 and above.
• Under this mechanism, cheques will be processed for payment by the drawee bank based on information passed on by the issuer at the time of issuance of the cheque.

 

2. Tsunami Ready Programme: UNESCO-IOC

Why in News

• Recently, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO (also known as UNESCO-IOC) has approved the recognition of two communities of Odisha viz., Venkatraipur and Noliasahi as Tsunami Ready Communities.
• With this recognition, India has become the first country in the Indian Ocean Region to achieve the honor from the UNESCO-IOC.
• Odisha is the first state in India to have such recognised communities.

Key Points

Tsunami Ready:

• It is a community performance-based programme initiated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO to promote tsunami preparedness through active collaboration of public, community leaders, and national and local emergency management agencies.
• The main objective of this programme is to improve coastal community’s preparedness for tsunami emergencies, to minimize the loss of life and property and to ensure a structural and systematic approach in building community preparedness through fulfilling the best-practice indicators set by the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWMS) of UNESCO-IOC.

 

Implementation in India:

• Tsunami Ready in India is implemented by the National Board (Ministry of Earth Sciences- MoES) under the Chairmanship of Director, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Centre (INCOIS) with members drawn from MoES, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), Andaman & Nicobar Islands Directorate of Disaster Management (DDM) and INCOIS.
• INCOIS (an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth sciences) is also providing tsunami advisories to Indian Ocean region (25 countries) as a Tsunami Service Provider as the responsibility assigned by UNESCO-IOC.
• The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC), INCOIS is the nodal agency to provide tsunami advisories to India. It is coordinating with the Disaster Management Officials (DMOs) for implementation of Tsunami Ready programme in India.
• It conducts IOWave Tsunami mock exercises biannually in coordination with ICG/IOTWMS and also conducts mock exercises at national level in alternative years in coordination with MHA and NDMA and State Disaster Management Agencies (SDMA) to strengthen the readiness to handle the emergency situations with stakeholders.

Tsunamis

• The word tsunami is a Japanese word, represented by two characters: tsu, meaning, “harbor”, and nami meaning, “wave”.
• The tsunami waves behave very differently in deep water than in shallow water as their speed is related to the water depth.
• They frequently occur in the Pacific, where dense oceanic plates slide under the lighter continental plates. When these plates fracture they provide a vertical movement of the seafloor that allows a quick and efficient transfer of energy from the solid earth to the ocean.

 

3. SFTS Infection in China

Why in News

Recently, deaths and infections have been reported due to the Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS) in East China’s Jiangsu and Anhui provinces.

• The new health threat emerges amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic which also emerged in China first.

Key Points

• SFTS is caused by the Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus (SFTSV) which belongs to the Bunyavirus family and is transmitted to humans through tick bites.
• A tick called Asian Longhorned Tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) is believed to be the primary vector (carrier) of the virus.
• The virus is often transmitted to humans from animals like goats, cattle, deer and sheep and regular contact with these animals makes farmers, hunters and pet owners vulnerable to the disease.
• Despite being infected by the virus, animals generally do not show any symptoms associated with SFTSV.

Origin and Spread:

• The virus was first identified in China over a decade ago and the first few cases were reported in rural areas of Hubei and Henan provinces in 2009.
• Researchers identified the virus by examining blood samples obtained from a cluster of people exhibiting similar symptoms.
• The virus eventually travelled to other East Asian nations, including Japan and South Korea, significantly raising the total number of cases.
• Due to more awareness about the health risks posed by tick bites, the fatality rate of the infection has started to drop significantly.

Incubation Period:

• It is the interval between being infected and showing symptoms. For SFTS, the incubation period is anywhere between 7 and 13 days.
• The disease usually spreads between March and November and the total number of infections generally peaks between April and July.

Symptoms:

• Fever, fatigue, chill, headache, nausea, myalgia (muscle pain), diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, gingival haemorrhage, conjunctival congestion, etc.
• Early warning signs include severe fever, thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) and leukocytopenia (low white blood cell count).
• More serious cases include multi-organ failure, hemorrhagic manifestation and the appearance of symptoms related to Central Nervous System (CNS) diseases.
• The CNS consists of the brain and the spinal cord and it controls most functions of the body and mind.

Prevention:

• Avoid wearing shorts while walking through tall grass, the woods, and any other environment where ticks are likely to thrive.
• Using tick-repellent lotions and sprays on the exposed body parts.

Treatment:

• There is no vaccine to treat the disease yet. However, the antiviral drug Ribavirin is known to be effective in treating the illness.
• Ribavirin is also used to treat Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) which is also transmitted by ticks.

Current Case Fatality Rate:

• It rests between approximately 16%-30%.
• SFTS has been listed among the top 10 priority diseases blueprint by the World Health Organisation (WHO) due to its fast spreading rate and high fatality rate.
• WHO’s Research and Development Blueprint identifies diseases and pathogens that have the potential to cause a public health emergency but lack effective treatments and vaccines.
• This watchlist for priority research and development includes Ebola, several other hemorrhagic fevers, Zika, Nipah, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and disease X, which represents the need to prepare for an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious epidemic.

 

4. Abanindranath Tagore

Why in News

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi has organised a virtual tour titled “The Great Maestro – Abanindranath Tagore” to commemorate the 150 birth anniversary of Abanindranath Tagore on 7 August 2020.

Key Points

• Birth: Abanindranath Tagore took birth in a family of Tagores of Jorasanko in Kolkata in 1871.
• He was a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore.

Abanindranath Ideology:

• In his youth, Abanindranath received training in European and Academic style from European artists.
• However, during the last decade of the 19 century, he developed distaste for the corporeality of European naturalism (which represented things closer to the way one sees them – inspired by the principles of natural science).
• Mughal miniatures influenced his visual ideas deeply. Another source of inspiration came from the visit of the Japanese philosopher and aesthetician Okakura Kakuzo to Kolkata in 1902.

Prominent Figure of Modern Indian Art:

• Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a stronger connection was established between art and nationalism. Many painters tried to develop a style that could be considered both modern and Indian.
• Raja Ravi Varma was one of the first artists who tried to create a style that was both modern and national.
• He mastered the Western art of oil painting and realistic life study, but painted themes from Indian mythology.
• However, in Bengal, a new group of nationalist artists gathered around Abanindranath Tagore.
• They rejected the art of Ravi Varma as imitative and westernised, and declared that such a style was unsuitable for depicting the nation’s ancient myths and legends.
• They felt that a genuine Indian style of painting had to draw inspiration from non-Western art traditions, and try to capture the spiritual essence of the East.

Bengal School of Painting:

• It is also called the Renaissance School or the Revivalist School, as it represented the first modern movement of Indian art.
• It rediscovered the glories of Indian art and consciously tried to produce what it considered a truly Indian art inspired by the creations of the past.
• Its leading artist was Abanindranath Tagore and its theoretician was E.B. Havell, the principal of the Calcutta School of Art.
• They broke away from the convention of oil painting and the realistic style, and turned for inspiration to medieval Indian traditions of miniature painting and the ancient art of mural painting in the Ajanta caves.
• They were also influenced by the art (wash technique) of Japanese artists who visited India at that time to develop an Asian Art movement.
• Associated Pupils: Nandalal Bose and Kshitindranath Majumdar
• Popular Paintings: Bharat Mata, My Mother, Journey’s End, etc.
• Popular Books: Rajkahini, Nalak, etc.
• Death: He died on 5 December, 1951.
• National Gallery of Modern Art
• NGMA was established in 1954, at the Jaipur House, New Delhi. It is run and administered as a subordinate office to the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
• One of its objectives is to acquire and preserve works of modern art from the 1850s onward.