Here are  Back2Basics collections from today’s news items

B2B #1: From news- India’s genetically modified crop area fifth largest in world

International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA)

1. ISAAA is a non-profit international organization that shares agricultural biotechnology, focusing on genetic engineering
2. ISAAA documents approved GM crops worldwide and present them in a database available in the organization’s website
3. The Global Knowledge Center on Crop Biotechnology is the information network of ISAAA
4. The organization releases an annual publication on the global status of commercially approved genetically engineered crops
5. The ISAAA receives funding from both public and private donors

B2B #2: From news- Govt. seeks help to end manual scavenging

Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention

1. It will be held in Delhi from September 29 to October 2
2. Ministers from over 70 countries will be invited and taken on a ‘Gandhi Trail’ in Gujarat
3. The government will use the occasion to “showcase its performance” and “success story” in the Swachh Bharat programme in the past four years, which was launched on October 2, 2014, and have a face-to-face dialogue with the world leaders to share their experiences on sanitation programmes
4. The Foreign Ministry will coordinate this mega exercise along with the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation

B2B #3: From news- North India’s obsession with the male child remains unchanged

Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP)

1. It is a campaign of the Government of India that aims to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of welfare services intended for girls. The scheme was launched with an initial funding of ₹100 crore.
2. It mainly targets the clusters in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Bihar and Delhi.
3. It aims to address the issue of declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) through a mass campaign across the country targeted at changing societal mindsets & creating awareness about the criticality of the issue.
4. The Scheme will have focused intervention & multi-sectoral action in 100 districts with low Child Sex Ratio.
5. This scheme is a joint initiative of Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Human Resource Development.
6. These guidelines cover the key elements of the scheme including enforcement of Pre-Conception & Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC & PNDT) Act, awareness and advocacy campaign and multi-sectoral action in select 100 districts which are low on Child Sex Ration (CSR).

Here’s a Factoid to brush up your concepts

Name : Aditya-L1

Details : It is India’s first solar mission. It will study the sun’s outer most layers, the corona and the chromospheres and collect data about coronal mass ejection, which will also yield information for space weather prediction. Significance of the mission: The data from Aditya mission will be immensely helpful in discriminating between different models for the origin of solar storms and also for constraining how the storms evolve and what path they take through the interplanetary space from the Sun to the Earth. Position of the satellite: In order to get the best science from the sun, continuous viewing of the sun is preferred without any occultation/ eclipses and hence, Aditya- L1 satellite will be placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the sun-earth system. What are Lagrangian points and halo orbit? Lagrangian points are the locations in space where the combined gravitational pull of two large masses roughly balance each other. Any small mass placed at that location will remains at constant distances relative to the large masses. There are five such points in Sun-Earth system and they are denoted as L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. A halo orbit is a periodic three-dimensional orbit near the L1, L2 or L3.