ISRO successful in key test for India's third moon mission
- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted the flight acceptance hot test of the CE20 cryogenic engine that will power the Cryogenic Upper Stage of the LVM3 launch vehicle for the Chandrayaan 3 mission.
- The test was conducted at the ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. All the propulsion parameters during the test were found satisfactory and closely matched with predictions.
- The test was carried out for a planned duration of 25 seconds at the High Altitude Test Facility.
- The cryogenic engine will be further integrated with the propellant tanks, stage structures and associated fluid lines to realise the fully integrated flight cryogenic stage.
On regulating online sale of drugs in India
- In early February, the Ministry of Health pulled up at least twenty companies including Tata-1mg, Flipkart, Apollo, PharmEasy, Amazon and Reliance Netmeds, by issuing them a show cause notice, for selling medicines online.
- The draft e-pharmacy rules, which were originally intended to whip e-pharmacy businesses into shape were floated by the Ministry of Health in 2018. But the proposal was abruptly shoved into cold storage.
- Stiff competition has forced mom and pop pharmacists to also offer home delivery options to their customers by introducing their own store apps. They even give customers options to order medicines over WhatsApp.
Proton beam therapy out of reach for many with cancer
- Cancer patients in India face twin challenges when it comes to accessing proton beam therapy (PBT): not enough facilities offering the treatment and cost running into many lakhs of rupees.
- Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy which uses protons rather than x-rays to treat cancer. A proton is a positively charged particle. At high energy, protons can destroy cancer cells.
- Like x-ray radiation, proton therapy is a type of external-beam radiation therapy. It painlessly delivers radiation through the skin from a machine outside the body. While radiation can prove toxic to the whole body, protons can destroy cancer cells precisely by targeting tumours, thus saving adjoining organs
- Currently there are 42 PBT machine installations in the U.S., followed by Europe (35), Japan (26), China (seven), Taiwan (three) and South Korea (two), while India has only one.
- But setting up a PBT centre is fraught with infrastructural and regulatory challenges stemming from safety concerns from the Department of Atomic Energy. A PBT machine is a huge contraption, up to three storeys tall and costs nearly ₹500 crore.
- Also, there are concerns of safety, as hydrogen is a highly volatile element and we have to run daily checks to prevent leak.
The ‘Adopt a Heritage'
- Apni Dharohar, Apni Pehchaan’ scheme is an initiative of the Ministry of Tourism, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India. It was launched in September 2017 on World Tourism Day by President Ram Nath Kovind.
RBI’s new pilot project on QR-code based coin vending machines
- The vending machines would dispense coins with the requisite amount being debited from the customer’s account using United Payments Interface (UPI) instead of physical tendering of banknotes.