Important Daily Facts of the Day

ISRO’s Reusable Launch Vehicle landing test successful (GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)

Why in news?

• Recently, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully carried out the landing experiment of the Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstration (RLV-TD) programme at the Aeronautical Test Range in Challakere, Chitradurga, Karnataka.

 

Details:

• An Indian Air Force (IAF) Chinook helicopter was used to drop the RLV-TD from an altitude of 4.5 km and the ISRO executed the landing experiment of the RLV-TD as planned.
• The RLV took off by a Chinook helicopter as an underslung load and flew at a height of 4.5 km. Once the predetermined pillbox parameters were attained, based on the RLV’s Mission Management and Computer command, the RLV was released mid-air, at a down range of 4.6 km. Release conditions included 10 parameters covering “position, velocity, altitude and body rates”.

Achievements:

• For the first time in the world, a winged body has been carried to an altitude of 4.5 km by a helicopter and released for carrying out autonomous landing on a runway.
• The configuration of RLV-TD is similar to that of an aircraft and combines the complexity of both launch vehicles and aircraft.

 

What is RLV?

• RLV is ISRO’s attempt at developing essential technologies for a fully reusable launch vehicle to enable low-cost access to space.
• ISRO has established itself as a cost-effective launch service provider in the billion-dollar satellite launch market and the new system will further strengthen its position.
• RLV is essentially a space plane with a low lift to drag ratio requiring an approach at high glide angles that necessitates a landing at high velocities of 350 kmph.
• ISRO had demonstrated the re-entry of its winged vehicle RLV-TD in the HEX mission in May 2016. The re-entry of a hypersonic sub-orbital vehicle marked a major accomplishment in developing Reusable Launch Vehicles.

 

India has registered a global first of a plant fungus infecting humans

 (GS Paper 2, Health)

Why in news?

• The first case of a plant fungus called Chondrostereum purpureum infecting human beings has been reported from Kolkata.
• A 61-year-old man suffering from a hoarse voice, cough, fatigue and difficulties swallowing was hospitalised and was detected as having been infected by the fungal species Chondrostereum purpureum. 
• This is worrisome and may be the first instance of a new danger that the human race may face in near future.

Chondrostereum purpureum:

• The fungus, Chondrostereum purpureum, is known to cause Silver leaf disease in plants, especially in species of rose families. However, there were no reported instances of this fungus infecting human beings from any part of the world.
• Of the hundreds of millions of fungal species, only a few cause infections in humans. This may be the start of a new phenomenon when plant fungus is adapting to invade human cells by evading the process of ‘phagocytosis’. 
• The process, which means ‘cell eating’, happens when a cell uses its plasma membrane to engulf a large particle, giving rise to an internal compartment called the ‘phagosome’. Organisms clean and defend themselves by this process.

 

Vulnerable:

• Human beings with a compromised immune system are most vulnerable to fungal infection.
• In 2021, many people in India who had developed COVID-19 contracted a secondary fungal infection from black fungus, resulting in over 4,500 deaths.

 

How fungi can invade humans?

• Rising temperature due to global warming is thought of as one of the major reasons for this new threat to human beings. Most fungi thrive in the range of 12°C to 30°C. However, many species are thermotolerant and can withstand high temperatures.
• In order to invade human cells, fungi, on one hand, have to be able to evade the phagocytosis pathway and, on the other hand, should have the ability to grow at 35-37 °C temperature. Global warming could have a significant effect on fungal populations.

 

Role of global warming:

• Global warming can change the distribution of heat-tolerant and susceptible species by favouring those that are more thermotolerant.
• This will facilitate fungi to spread and enter into closer contact with human populations and a few of those having pathogenic potential can acquire the ability to survive at body temperatures.
• This threat is magnified as some fungi can take the benefit of a natural selection-adaptation strategy, and therefore adapt to a higher temperature by thermal selection.
• Global warming means the narrowing of the thermal difference between the human body and its surroundings. Every degree increase in the global average temperature reduces this gradient by about five per cent. This increases the chance of the prevalence of fungal diseases.

 

Conclusion:

• Fungal infections are expected to pose a greater threat to human beings in the years to come due to rising temperatures, caused by climate change and other reasons such as growing resistance to the small number of treatments available.

 

ICCR to build ambassador programme among foreign students in India

(GS Paper 1, Culture)

Why in news?

• The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) is aiming to expand the country’s artistic and creative footprint globally, by tapping into the experiences of foreign students studying in India.
• It hopes that more than 48,000 foreign students in India will be brand ambassadors of the national heritage, tourist destinations, textiles, yoga, ayurveda and craft.

 

E-3:

• Beginning in 2023, the ICCR will start E-3 or ‘exit engagement evenings’ with foreign students, beginning three or four months before they finish their courses in various Central and State universities, institutes such as the National Institutes of Technology and agricultural colleges.
• The engagements will include visits to places of national importance. This “soft diplomacy” is meant to spread the India story when students go back to their home countries.
• At present, the ICCR has zeroed in on the Khadi Commission, the Indian Tourism Development Corporation and the Department of Ayush to hold these evenings with the students.
• There are plans to rope in the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED), which promotes produce and products of tribes.
• As a pilot project, the Ministry of Tourism wants to take foreign students to Parliament and the Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya.

 

India Alumni Portal:

• In April 2022, the ICCR launched a website, called the India Alumni Portal, as a platform to connect with the foreign students around the world who have studied in India.
• The portal is envisaged to be a single platform for all foreign scholars to register, interact, and maintain their Indian links.

 

Foreign students in India:

• According to the latest All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) brought out by the Ministry of Education, the number of foreign students enrolled in Indian higher education institutions was 48,035 in 2020-21, a marginal dip from 49,348 in 2019-20.