RAJYA SABHA ELECTIONS ON JUNE 19

RAJYA SABHA ELECTIONS ON JUNE 19 

The elections to 18 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on June 19

Four each in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, three each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two seats in Jharkhand and one each in Manipur and Meghalaya.

Rajya Sabha: The Rajya Sabha or Council of States is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. 

 

Maximum membership of 245, 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories while 12 members are appointed by the President

 Terms six years

 Rajya Sabha is not subjected to dissolution.

The Vice President of India is the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha,

The Deputy Chairman, who is elected from amongst the house's members

SPACE X’S SPACECRAFT SUCCESSFULLY

SPACE X’S SPACECRAFT SUCCESSFULLY

• SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft with two NASA astronauts successfully docked with Internationals Space Station.
• NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley
• It lauch from the Kennedy Space Center In Florida
• Step of a new age in commercial space travel
• SpaceX: An American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company
• Headquartered in Hawthorne, California.
• It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk
• Launch facilities: SpaceX currently operates three orbital launch sites, at Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and Kennedy Space Center, and is under construction on a fourth in Brownsville, Texas.
• NASA: In 2006, NASA announced that SpaceX had won a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Phase 1 contract to demonstrate cargo delivery to the ISS, with a possible contract option for crew transport.

Nepal Tables Amendment for New Map

• The government of Nepal tabled the Constitution Amendment bill to formalise the country’s new map  

• The Constitution Second Amendment bill will change the Schedule 3 of the Nepalese Constitution and replace the existing map with the map that was unveiled on May 20. 

• The new map depicts the important land covering Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani as part of Nepal. 
• Kalapani : The Kalapani territory is an area under Indian administration as part of Pithoragarh district in the Uttarakhand state,
• The territory represents the basin of the Kalapani river, one of the headwaters of the Kali River in the Himalayas
• The valley of Kalapani, with the Lipulekh Pass at the top, forms the Indian route to Kailash–Manasarovar,
• Lipulekh is a Himalayan pass on the border between India's Uttarakhand state and the Tibet region of China, near their trijunction with Nepal..

TATA SONS WITH SREE CHITRA TIRUNAL INSTITUTE FOR PRODUCTION OF COVID-19 TEST KITS

TATA SONS WITH SREE CHITRA TIRUNAL INSTITUTE FOR PRODUCTION OF COVID-19 TEST KITS 

• The Tata Sons has entered into an agreement with the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology for production of COVID-19 testing kits. The SCTIMST is an Institute of National Importance under the Department of Sciences and Technology, Government of India.
• The kits will be based on RT-LAMP (Reverse Transcriptase Loop-Mediated Amplification) technology which can produce results in significantly less time
• Similar to RT-PCR, RT-LAMP uses reverse transcriptase to synthesize complementary DNA (cDNA) from RNA sequences.
• RT-LAMP is used in the detection of viruses. This method can be very effective in detecting viruses with an RNA genome (Group II, IV, and V based on the Baltimore Virus Classification system).
•  It is specifically advantageous because it can all be done quickly in one step.
• No need for expensive thermocycling equipment that is necessary for other methods like PCR, which makes RT-LAMP very cost effective.
• In contrast with conventional PCR and real-time PCR assays, this method is much more efficient while still obtaining a high level of precision.
• For each LAMP assay, primers must be specifically designed to be compatible with the target DNA.