Daily Current Affairs 2025  

01/10/2025

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CA-01/10/2025

• Causative agent: False smut is caused by the fungus Ustilaginoidea virens (also known as Villosiclava virens).
• Affected crop: Primarily rice (paddy).
• Symptoms: Individual rice grains are transformed into velvety, ball-shaped spore masses called smut balls. These start orange-yellow and mature into greenish-black. The smut balls enclose floral parts and release powdery spores when ruptured.
• Disease occurrence conditions: High relative humidity (>90%), temperatures 25-35°C, rainy and damp weather with soils rich in nitrogen favor disease development.
• Impact: Causes chalkiness in grains, reduces 1000-grain weight and seed germination by up to 35%. Yield losses can range from 7%-75% in India, 3%-70% generally depending on conditions.
• Infection stage: The fungus infects rice during the flowering stage, targeting floral organs including stamens, which are critical for smut ball formation.
• Disease cycle: Spores germinate on spikelets and infect inner floral parts; chlamydospores and sclerotia help fungus overwinter in soil and seeds.
• Mycotoxins: The fungus produces ustiloxins and ustilaginoidins, which are carcinogenic and harmful to human and animal health.
• Management: Use of resistant varieties, seed treatment, moderate nitrogen use, field sanitation by removing infected seeds and debris, alternate wetting and drying rather than continuous flooding helps reduce humidity and disease development.

• Destroying infected straw and stubble after harvest to reduce the primary inoculum for the next crop is essential.
• Use of certified disease-free or sclerotia-free seeds helps reduce initial infection.
• Cleaning bunds and controlling weed grasses around rice fields limit pathogen reservoirs.
• Furrow irrigation has been found effective in reducing disease severity.
• Maintaining moderate nitrogen fertility rates and practicing crop rotation.
• Spraying fungicides such as carbendazim, copper-based fungicides, propiconazole, chlorothalonil, mancozeb, and captan at the tillering and flowering stages.
• Planting resistant or tolerant rice hybrids identified through screening.
• Biocontrol agents such as Bacillus subtilis and plant extracts like garlic and turmeric have shown inhibitory effects on the pathogen.

• The spacecraft is a spin-stabilized satellite orbiting the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1) in a Lissajous orbit for continuous solar observation.
• It carries a scientific payload of 10 instruments categorized into three groups:

• Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) detectors: IMAP-Lo, IMAP-Hi, and IMAP-Ultra, which map energetic atoms from the heliosphere boundary and interstellar medium.
• Charged Particle Detectors: SWAPI, SWE, CoDICE, and HIT that measure solar wind ions, pickup ions, energetic particles, and electrons.
• Other instruments: MAG (magnetometer), IDEX (ion detector), and GLOWS (ultraviolet imaging).

• IMAP-Lo, mounted on a pivot platform, measures neutral interstellar atoms such as H, He, O, Ne, and D with improved collection power compared to previous missions.
• IMAP-Hi has two ENA imagers that measure high-energy atoms with enhanced spectral and spatial resolution.
• IMAP-Ultra images energetic neutral atoms, mainly hydrogen, in the heliosheath and beyond.
• The spacecraft is equipped with I-ALiRT technology to provide real-time space weather alerts with about 30 minutes warning.
• The mission features better resolution, sensitivity, and collection power than predecessors like IBEX and ACE.

• Map the global boundary of the heliosphere to understand its interaction with the local interstellar medium.
• Study the acceleration, composition, and propagation of energetic particles near the Sun and throughout the heliosphere.
• Understand how the solar wind plasma interacts with the interstellar medium, shaping the heliosphere's structure.
• Track interstellar neutral atoms entering the solar system to measure the properties of the local interstellar medium.
• Improve forecasting of solar wind disturbances and space weather events to protect Earth and space assets.
• Provide data supporting future human missions beyond low Earth orbit (e.g., Artemis and Mars).

• Expansion of Technology Scope: There is broad consensus that the Arrangement must extend its control lists to include cloud infrastructure, AI systems, biometric systems, digital surveillance tools, and cross-border data transfers. This aims to address both military and malicious civilian uses while differentiating legitimate uses.
• Redefining “Export”: The definition of export must be updated for the digital era. Proposals include treating cloud-based transfers, remote access, software-as-a-service (SaaS), API calls, and admin rights as exports subject to control. This would help close regulatory loopholes in intangible tech flows.
• Binding Commitments: A shift from voluntary guidelines to binding minimum standards has been strongly advocated. There are calls for mandatory licensing standards, peer review compliance, and shared watchlists of high-risk entities across member states.
• Agile, Responsive Governance: Proposals include forming specialized technical committees for rapid regime updates, and even establishing domain-specific sub-regimes for rapidly advancing sectors like AI, cyberweapons, and digital surveillance.
• Integration of Human Rights: Newer reform proposals focus on explicitly considering human rights, oversight, and the risk of mass surveillance or repression in export licensing decisions, not just military or WMD risks.

• India, since joining in 2017, is focusing on pushing reforms that balance global non-proliferation with development and technology access for the Global South, and aligning its domestic controls (Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment, and Technologies) with evolving global standards.
• India’s advocacy in the regime aims to ensure that reforms don’t become barriers for technological progress in developing economies, while still addressing security concerns.

• The Arrangement was established in 1996 and currently has 42 member countries.
• India became a participating state in December 2017, boosting its credentials in global export control regimes and facilitating high-technology trade, especially in the defense and space sectors.
• Major arms exporters like the United States, Russia, India, Japan, and EU nations. Its headquarters is in Vienna, Austria.

• The primary aim is to contribute to regional and international security and stability.
• It seeks to prevent destabilizing accumulations of arms and dual-use technologies by promoting transparency and responsibility in exports.

• Complements other export control regimes like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Australia Group (chemical/biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

• Lecanemab is a monoclonal antibody for early Alzheimer's disease treatment.
• It targets and reduces amyloid beta plaques in the brain.
• Approved for mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia due to Alzheimer's.
• Slows cognitive decline by about 27% over 18 months in clinical trials.
• Administered via intravenous infusion every two weeks at a dose of 10 mg/kg. .
• Most common side effects: headache, infusion reactions, and amyloid-related imaging abnormalities.
• Not a cure, but slows progression and helps maintain daily functioning longer.
• Approved by FDA in 2023 and other regulators like Australia's TGA in 2025.
• Costly and needs monitoring for side effects during treatment.

• Replaces the earlier Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) which was found incompatible with WTO norms.
• Provides refunds on embedded taxes and duties like mandi tax, VAT, coal cess, central excise duty on fuel, etc.
• Refunds are issued as transferable electronic duty credit scrips, maintained digitally through an electronic ledger by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC).
• Applies uniformly across all sectors, including textiles, and covers exports from SEZs, EOUs, and other special entities.
• The electronic scrips can be used to pay basic customs duties or can be transferred to other importers.

• The scheme was designed in response to a WTO dispute panel ruling that India's earlier export subsidy programs violated WTO rules.
• The RoDTEP scheme is WTO-compliant and helps compensate exporters for indirect taxes incurred during production and distribution, which are not refunded otherwise.
• It supports India’s export ecosystem by reducing the cost disadvantages faced by exporters due to embedded taxes.

• Claims for RoDTEP benefits are made by exporters in the shipping bill at the time of export.
• The duty credits are credited to the exporter's ledger account electronically through the ICEGATE portal.
• A dedicated committee under the Department of Revenue manages the scheme and recommends rates and coverage.

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