Facts in News

                       Facts in News

AEG12 Mosquito Protein

• According to scientists at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), a mosquito protein, called AEG12, strongly inhibits the family of viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, West Nile, and Zika, and also weakly inhibits coronaviruses.
• It is located on the microvillar membranes of the midgut epithelial cells of adult female mosquitoes.
• It works by destabilising the viral envelope, breaking its protective covering. It rips out the lipids (the fat-like portions of the membrane that hold the virus together).
• It does not affect viruses that do not have an envelope.
• It also breaks open red blood cells, so research is needed to make it target viruses only.

Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN)

• It was launched as a regional connectivity scheme under the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 2016.
• The first flight under the UDAN scheme was flagged in 2017 from Bhubaneswar to the Varanasi route.
• It offers a unique opportunity to a common man to fly at an affordable price.
• It has played a major role in adding new airports and routes to the aviation landscape of the country.
• The 4th round of UDAN was launched in December 2019 with a special focus on North-Eastern Regions, Hilly States, and Islands

• The UDAN 4.1 is focused on connecting smaller airports, along with a special helicopter and seaplane routes.
• The scheme intends to boost inclusive national economic growth, employment opportunities, and air transport infrastructure development across the nation.

Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF)

• It is a specialised by-product of crude or petroleum.
• It is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines.
• It is colourless to straw-coloured in appearance.
• The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1, which are produced to a standardized international specification.
• ATF or jet fuel cost, which accounts for 45-55% of an airline’s operating expenses
• The Ministry of Civil Aviation  is working on the airline industry’s demand to bring Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) under the ambit of GST.
• Other excluded categories from GST: Alcohol for human consumption, petroleum products like crude oil, natural gas etc and electricity.

Equity-linked Savings Schemes (ELSS)

• It is a type of mutual fund scheme that primarily invests in the stock market or Equity.
• Under it, investments of up to Rs. 1.5 lakh are eligible for tax deduction under section 80C of the Income Tax Act.
• The advantage ELSS has over other tax saving instruments is the shortest lock-in period of 3 years.
• It has a majority of the corpus invested in the equities. Since it is an equity fund, returns from an ELSS fund reflect returns from the equity markets.
• In the case of ELSS funds, the minimum investment amount for most fund houses is Rs. 500.

Index Monitoring Cell

• Index Monitoring Cell (IMC) recently submitted its report to the centre.
• Set up by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in 2020.
• Its task is to improve India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index and to evolve an objective yardstick to gauge media freedom.
• The group will also put in place a mechanism for States to come up with their own rankings of press freedom.
• Composition of the IMC: It will include the director-general of the Press Information Bureau, officials from the Registrar of newspapers of India, Bureau of outreach and communication, and from the press facilitation unit, apart from the secretary of the Press Council of India and Niti Aayog.

World Press Freedom Index

• Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organisation that works to document attacks on journalists around the world.
• HQ- Paris.
• Ranked India 142 out of 180 countries in 2020.