Two new Indian beaches from Lakshadweep receive Blue Flag certification (GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in news?
- Recently, two beaches from Lakshadweep;Minicoy Thundi Beach and Kadmat Beach were added to the list of ‘Blue Beaches’ by the Foundation for Environment Education (FEE).
Blue Beaches in India:
- With the new additions, India now has 12 beaches certified under the Blue Flag Certification.
- Last time it was in September 2021 when Kovalam Beach in Tamil Nadu and Eden Beach in Puducherry made it to the list.
- Apart from these Ghoghla Beach in Diu, Golden Beach in Odisha, Kappad Beach in Kerala, Kasarkod Beach in Karnataka, Padubidri Beach in Karnataka, Radhanagar Beach in Andaman and Nicobar, Rushikonda Beach in Andhra Pradesh, Shivrajpur Beach in Gujarat are also ‘Blue Beaches’.
About ‘Blue Beaches’:
- It is an eco-tourism model endeavouring to provide the tourists/beachgoers clean and hygienic bathing water, facilities, a safe and healthy environment and sustainable development of the area.
- It is accorded by the international jury composed of eminent members - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Denmark-based NGO Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- The certification is awarded to beaches, marinas (which are small ports or harbours designed for pleasure yachts or boats) and sustainable boat tourism operators in FEE member countries after they fulfil 33 criteria related to environment, education, access and safety.
- Atotal of 5042 sites are awarded certificates across 48 countries.
- Spain with 729 sites tops the list of countries with Blue Flag awarded sites. It is followed by Greece and Turkey with 591 and 560 sites respectively.
- India is placed at 36 spots.
ISRO to boost NavIC, widen user base of location system
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working on a series of improvements to the NavIC, or India’s equivalent of the Global Positioning System (GPS), so that more people are motivated to install it and use it.
- Plans are also afoot to make its reach global rather than circumscribe it to India and a limited territory around it.
What is NavIC?
- NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), or the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), is a constellation of seven satellites that is akin to the American GPS, the European Galileo and the Russian GLONASS, and can be used to track location.
- The first of these satellites (IRNSS-1A) were launched in 2013 and the latest in 2018.
- Though available for use in mainland India as well as a range of 1,500 km around it, it isn’t in wide regular use in India primarily because mobile phones haven’t been made compatible to process its signals.
- The Indian government has been pressing manufacturers to add compatibility and has set a deadline of January 2023 but media reports suggest this is unlikely before 2025.
Major changes:
- A major forthcoming change is to add the L1 band into NavIC. This bandwidth is part of the GPS and is the most usedfor civilian navigational use.
- Currently NavIC is only compatible with the L5 and S bands and hasn’t easily penetrated into the civilian sector.
- The other major step would be to increase the “safety” of the signals. There’s Long Code and Short Code. Currently (NavIC) only provides short code. This has to become Long Code for the use of the strategic sector. This prevents the signal from being breached. This had been part of the original scheme for NavIC but less work has gone into it so far.
Shortcomings:
- There are five more satellites in the offing to replace defunct NavIC satellites that would be launched in the coming months. However, to make NavIC truly “global” like GPS, more satellites would need to be placed in an orbit closer to earth than the current constellation.
- Currently, NavIC satellites orbit earth in a geostationary or geosynchronous (GEO) orbit, or about 36,000 km from earth. MEO orbits occupy a space between GEO and Low Earth Orbit (LEO), or about 250-2,000 km from earth.
A first inhalable vaccine against Covid-19 in China
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- Recently, authorities in Shanghai have started administering an inhalable vaccine against Covid-19, apparently a world first.
- The vaccine is being offered for free as a booster dose for previously vaccinated people.
How it is administered?
- The vaccine is a mist that is sucked in through the mouth.
- After slowly inhaling, people hold their breath for five seconds, with the entire procedure completed in 20 seconds.
- The inhalable vaccine has been developed by the Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc. as an aerosol version of its one-shot adenovirus vaccine, which uses a relatively harmless cold virus.
Intranasal vaccine:
- In September 2022, India’s national drug regulator cleared Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’s iNCOVACC, the country’s first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in unimmunised adults.
- iNCOVACC, which uses a modified chimpanzee adenovirus, will be delivered through the nasal route, which would potentially trigger an immune response in the mucosal membrane.
- It has been designed to not only protect against infection but also reduce transmission of the virus.
- The vaccine is not yet part of India’s national immunisationprogramme. Bharat Biotech, the manufacturer of Covaxin, had first announced an intranasal vaccine in September 2020, after the first wave of the pandemic. It was widely billed as a potential gamechanger at the time.
Easy to deliver:
- Any needle-free vaccine, the intranasal formulation or the inhalable type developed by CanSinowould be easy to administer, and would cut down on the dependence on trained personnel, ultimately making mass immunisation more accessible in poorer countries and countries with inadequate healthcare infrastructure.
- Also, experts have pointed out that needle-free shots might persuade those who do not like to be injected to get the vaccine.
- ZydusCadila’sZyCoV-D, the first Covid-19 vaccine built on a DNA platform, is an intradermal vaccine that is applied through the skin, but using a needle-free system.
Concerns:
- While around a dozen nasal vaccines are being tested globally according to the World Health Organization, the effectiveness of non-needle vaccines is yet to be fully tested. Save for some flu vaccines, this route of delivery has not been very successful so far.
- Also, only very small volumes of the vaccine can be squirted into each nostril, and the same would be true for inhalable formulations as well.
