UPSC Daily Current Affairs | Prelim Bits 10-04-2020

Remote Patient Health Monitoring System

• Recently, Bharat Electronics Ltd. and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh, have jointly developed a remote patient health monitoring system.
• The remote patient health monitoring system can be installed at homes or hospitals premises to reduce the risk of exposure to healthcare workers to Covid-19 while attending to persons undergoing isolation.
• The device has non-invasive sensors and it measures temperature, pulse rate, saturated oxygen level, and respiration rate.
• It shows the severity of the patient’s condition in different colour codes.
• The system is expected to reduce the increasing demand of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and logistics.
• The system will also help to generate hot spots using the system’s data analytics software so that authorities can contain these zones.
• A mobile app and Web browser have been developed, People who show symptoms of infection get enrolled with AIIMS - Rishikesh.
• The hospital will assess their complaints and if found necessary, will provide these individuals with a kit to help monitor their health parameters regularly.
• Patient health parameters, along with patient location, are uploaded on a regular basis to a Centralized Command & Control Centre (CCC) on cloud using either the patient’s mobile phone or integral GSM SIM card.

Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL)

• BEL is an Indian state-owned aerospace and defence company.
• It is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Defence of India.
• It primarily manufactures advanced electronic products for the Indian Armed Forces.
• It has been granted Navratna status.
• BEL also develops Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter-verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs).

Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (BCPL)

• The Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (BCPL) is the only Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) that produces the anti-malarial drug in the country, i.e. manufactures chloroquine phosphate.
• The government-owned corporations are termed as Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) in India.
• In a PSU majority (51% or more) of the share capital is held by the central government or by any state government or partly by the central governments and partly by one or more state governments.
• The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) audits government companies.
• Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd., precursor of the Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd, was formed by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray on April 12, 1901.
• The company became the first Indian Company to manufacture quality Chemicals, Drugs, Pharmaceuticals and Home Products, employing indigenous technology, skill and raw materials.
• The Management of Bengal Chemical was taken over by the Government of India and the Union Government nationalized the Organization on December 15, 1980.
• A new Government Company, Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (BCPL) was launched on March 27, 1981.
• Recently it has been alleged that the central government is not giving orders to the Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (BCPL) to produce anti-malarial drugs.

Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray

• Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray is known as “Father of Indian Chemistry”, Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861-1944) was a well-known Indian scientist and teacher and one of the first “modern” Indian chemical researchers.
• He discovered the stable compound mercurous nitrite in 1896.
• The British Government first honoured him with the imperial title of CIE (Companion of the Indian Empire) and then with the Knighthood in 1919.
• In 1920, he was elected General President of the Indian Science Congress.
• As a nationalist he also wanted that the Bengalis should come up in the world of enterprise.
• He himself set an example by establishing a chemical firm called the Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works (1901).
• He was completely against the caste system and other irrational social systems and carried on work of social reformation till his death. 

Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR)

• The ICCR runs 36 cultural centers across the globe and its emphasis is on making India a hub of higher education.
• The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), is an autonomous organization of the Government of India, involved in India's external cultural relations (cultural diplomacy), through cultural exchange with other countries and their peoples.
• It was founded in 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India’s first Education Minister.
• ICCR has been assigned the responsibility of facilitating the celebration of the International Day of Yoga by Indian Missions/Posts abroad since 2015.
• ICCR, which is the only soft power institution of the country which plans to focus more on areas that have so far largely remained “neglected” like Indian literature, Indian artisans and also Ayurveda.
• ICCR has instituted several awards, which are conferred upon the foreign nationals for their contributions in different fields, under its mandate of promoting India’s cultural relations, Such awards include
• Distinguished Indologist Award - The annual “ICCR Distinguished Indologist Award” was instituted in 2015 during the First World Indology Conference hosted in India.
• Award is conferred upon a foreign scholar for his contribution in study, teaching and research in any of the fields of Indian Studies.
• World Sanskrit Award- The institution of annual “World Sanskrit Award” was announced during the 16th World Sanskrit Conference held in Bangkok in June 2015 recognizing the contribution of foreign scholars in promoting Sanskrit studies.
• Distinguished Alumni Award - Citation and Plaque: Recognizing the achievements of foreign students who studied in India. It was instituted in 2015.
• Gisela Bonn Award - Annual Gisela Bonn Award was instituted by ICCR in 1996 in the name of famous German journalist, writer, environmental activist and Indologist, Giesela Bonn, to honour her services to bolster Indo-German relations.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was born on 11th November 1888 in Mecca, Saudi-Arabia.
• He was a proponent of Hindu Muslim unity, opposed to Partition.
• In 1912, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad started a weekly journal in Urdu called Al-Hilal which played an important role in forging Hindu-Muslim unity after the bad blood created between the two communities in the aftermath of Morley-Minto reforms.
• The government regarded Al- Hilal as propagator of secessionist views and banned it in 1914.
• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad supported the Non-Cooperation Movement started by Gandhiji and entered Indian National Congress in 1920.
• In 1923, he was elected as the president of Indian National Congress.
• He again became the president of Congress in 1940 and remained in the post till 1946.
• Some of his works are Basic Concept of Quran, Ghubar-eKhatir, Dars-e-Wafa, India Wins Freedom, etc.
• In 1947, he became the first education minister of free India and remained at this post till his death in 1958.
• In his tenure, he did tremendous work for the upliftment of the country.
• For the progress and development in science education, he established following institutions,

1. Scientific Research Institute (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research),
2. A separate institute for atomic development,
3. Indian Council for Agriculture and Scientific Research,
4. Indian Council for Medical Research,
5. Indian Council for Historical Research, and
6. Indian Council for Social Science Research.
7. Indian Council for Cultural Relations, for introduction of Indian culture to other nations.

• Following three academics were formed:

1. Sahitya Academy for development of literature.
2. Sangeet Natak Academy for the development of Indian music and dance.
3. Lalit Kala Academy for the development of painting.

• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was posthumously awarded India's highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna in 1992.

Monetary Policy Report

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) uses monetary policy to control inflation, interest rates, supply of money and credit availability.
• The RBI has a government-constituted Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which is tasked with framing monetary policy using tools like the repo rate, reverse repo rate, bank rate, Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR).
• The repo rate, also known as the policy rate, is the interest rate at which the RBI provides loans to banks.
• The reverse repo is the rate at which commercial banks park their money with the central bank.
• Bank rate is the rate charged by the RBI for lending funds to commercial banks.
• Cash Reserve Ratio - Banks are required to hold a certain proportion of their deposits in the form of cash.
• This minimum ratio (that is the part of the total deposits to be held as cash) is stipulated by the RBI and is known as the CRR.
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently released its Monetary Policy Report (MPR).
• The report follows the unscheduled monetary policy meeting held in end March, 2020 to discuss the uncertainties arising from the nationwide lockdown.
• Since the review was conducted in end March, 2020, the early policy review, scheduled for April, 2020 was withdrawn.

Source: The Hindu, Business Insider