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Daily Current Affairs for UPSC, IAS, UPPSC/UPPCS, BPSC, MPPSC, RPSC and All State PCS Examinations

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COVID-19 Diagnostic Kit

Why in NEWS ?

• Union HRD Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ Launched World's Most Affordable COVID-19 Diagnostic Kit COROSURE Developed by IIT Delhi.

About

• World’s most affordable RT-PCR based COVID-19 diagnostic kit developed by IIT Delhi was e-launched.
• It is approved by the ICMR and DCGI.
• The kit has received ICMR approval with the highest score and DCGI approved with a very high sensitivity and specificity.
• IIT Delhi became the first academic institution to obtain the ICMR’s approval for a real-time PCR-based diagnostic assay. It was also the first probe-free as say for COVID-19 approved by the ICMR.
• Probe-free diagnostic kit has been manufactured by Delhi NCR-based Newtech Medical Devices.
• The Corosure Kit has been developed indigenously and base price of the RT-PCR assay is Rs 399. Even after adding the RNA isolation and laboratory charges, the cost per test will be roughly comes to around Rs 650, considerably cheaper compared to currently available kits in the market.

Benefits

• This affordable detection kit will help the country amid the ongoing crisis.
• Will help detecting and thus controlling of spread of novel corona virus.
• It will boost the testing across the country.
• Kit becomes more significant as India now has around million number of total detected cases and is placed at third just after US and Brazil.
• It will also boost Self-Reliant Programme.

Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port

Why in NEWS ?

• Minister of State for Shipping Shri Mansukh Mandaviya has reviewed the development activities of Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port, first trans-shipment port of India, managed by DP(Dubai Port) World.

About

• Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port is proposed to be developed as most preferred gateway for South India and leading trans-shipment hub of South Asia.
• Minister directed officials to chalk out the strategy to tackle the various challenges and actualize the vision of Trans-shipment Hub of India and pioneer hub in the South Asia.
• Developing trans-shipment facility on Indian port to ensure that Indian cargo trans-ship through Indian Port. Resolving various issues of Vallarpadam Terminal is one of the top priority of the Ministry of Shipping.

What is Trans-shipment Hub

• It is the terminal at the port which handles containers, stores them temporarily and transfers them to other ships for the onward destination.

Importance of Vallarpadam Terminal

• The Kochi International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT), locally known as the Vallarpadam Terminal is located strategically on the Indian coastline.
• It successfully fulfills all the criteria which are needed to develop it as trans-shipment hub which include:

• It is best positioned Indian port with regard to proximity to International sea routes.
• Located at least average nautical distance from all Indian feeder ports.
• Entails a connectivity which has multiple weekly feeder connections to all ports on West & East Coast of India, i.e. from Mundra to Kolkata.
• Has proximity to key hinterland markets of India.
• Has infrastructure to manage large ships and capacity to scale it up.