on 24-Sep-2020 (Thu)

The abducens nerve is the sixth cranial nerve. It courses from its nucleus located in the dorsal pons to its innervation of the lateral rectus muscle and can be divided into four parts:

1. nucleus and intraparenchymal portion
2. cisternal portion
3. cavernous sinus portion
4. orbital portio

Nucleus and intraparenchymal portion

The abducent nucleus is a small nucleus situated at the upper part of the rhomboid fossa beneath the facial colliculus within the pons. Fibers pass anterior through the pons medial to the facial nucleus to reach the pontomedullary junction.

Articl

Sensitivity (of a medical test) = how many positives are correctly identified as positive

Specificity (of a medical test) = how many negatives are correctly identified as negative

The Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA), for instance, is collaborating with the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to create 25-feet installations of Ravana(s) in five cities, including Delhi.

India’s first e-waste clinic to be set up in Bhopal

The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have joined hands to set up the country’s first e-waste clinic here,

“Electronic waste will be collected door-to-door or could be deposited directly at the clinic in exchange for a fee. The CPCB will provide technical support at the unit,

Worldwide, flights produced 895 million tonnes of CO2 in 2018. In stark comparison, humans globally produced about 42 billion tonnes of CO2 (atag.org).

Bhadra Tiger Reserve in Chikmagalur, Karnataka.

The government’s next big priority after achieving the aim of building 100 million toilets as part of the ‘Clean India’ programme is to phase out single-use plastic

“We were importing plastic waste in large quantities and have enough of it which is a problem. We have stopped that and banned that. We have already banned plastic carry bags below 50 microns under Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016,” he said.

The Minister said States have their own laws regarding waste management.

plastic waste is growing in rural areas and there are no rules applicable to gram panchayats.

Six roads in the States of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura have been identified for construction using waste plastic material and work on this pilot project has commenced

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has started a pilot project to build roads using plastic waste and environment-friendly technology, primarily along the Sino-India border, said a senior official on Wednesday.

The BRO constructs roads in many areas that are in ecologically sensitive zones where restrictions have been imposed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on the use of construction materials like local aggregates and sand, he said.

“To overcome this problem, BRO has adopted innovative modern technology involving use of non-toxic chemicals, polymers, enzymes etc for soil stabilisation to construct road pavements without depending on conventional materials like stone aggregates and sand,” Lt. Gen. Singh added.

The Indian Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros birostris) is a fairly common hornbill species found only in the Indian subcontinent. It is a medium-sized hornbill with a beak to tail length of about 50 cm, but one of the larger conspicuous birds we may see in our backyards.

Humans pollute more than volcanoes: study

Human activity churns out up to 100 times more planet-warming carbon each year as all the volcanoes on Earth, says a decade-long study released Tuesday.

The freedom to define land, not already classified as forests by the Centre or state records, as forest has been the prerogative of the States since 1996

core sector output, which is measured by tracking the performance of eight major industries including cement, steel, and crude oil, contracted by a sharp 5.2% in September.

(BRICS was formed in 2006).

Where BRICS has failed its founders is in the vision of interdependence between the five countries; despite their combined population accounting for 40% of humanity, intra-BRICS trade still makes up just 15% of world trade.

Going by the matrix of tests carried out by the Bureau of Indian Standards for the Ministry, Delhi has abysmal water quality, Chennai and Kolkata rank very low, and Mumbai is the only city with acceptable results. City water systems are normatively required to comply with the national standard for drinking water, IS 10500:2012

The most important issue is addressing the validity of a licence fee in the form of revenue share. This was set when spectrum was allotted and not auctioned. With the government now collecting revenues upfront in the form of spectrum auction fees — which some feel are unjustifiably high — there is little justification for a licence fee as well. There is also the issue of interconnect usage charges to be settled. The telecom regulator is adjudicating this dispute right now.

But the key takeaway from the judgment is that disclosure of details of serving judges’ personal assets was not a violation of their right to privacy.

Anarchy in Bolivia: On Evo Morales’ exit

■ right coronary artery (RCA): ◆ acute marginal branches ◆ atrioventricular (AV) nodal artery ◆ posterior descending artery (PDA) = posterior interventricular artery (PIV)

Even with the boost from the ₹1.76 lakh crore dividend payout from the Reserve Bank of India, the budget arithmetic is optimistic and it now appears certain that the government will miss the fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of GDP.

The ₹25,000 crore Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has expanded in both size and scope from the earlier one announced in September. And the variables are clear such as the unit sizes that will be supported. The AIF will provide funds to bail out stalled real estate projects with unit size of less than ₹2 crore a unit in metros and ₹1 crore in other places. The Centre will contribute ₹10,000 crore, with the State Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India providing the balance. The fund, to be managed by SBICAP Ventures, will offer support to viable projects with a positive net worth and registered with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

India’s experience with countries with which it has signed free trade agreements till now is not exactly a happy one. Though trade has increased post-FTA with South Korea, ASEAN and Japan, imports have risen faster than exports from India.

Global Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication officially declared that wild poliovirus type 3 has been eradicated. The last case of wild poliovirus type 3 was seen in northern Nigeria in 2012. This is the second wild poliovirus to be declared eliminated — the first was in 2015 when type 2 wild poliovirus was declared as eliminated. With two of the three wild polioviruses eliminated, only type 1 wild poliovirus is still in circulation and is restricted to just two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What does the official declaration of wild type 3 poliovirus elimination mean in the war against polio? Put simply, it opens up the possibility of switching from the currently used bivalent oral polio vaccine containing type 1 and type 3 to a monovalent vaccine containing only type 1. The globally synchronised switch in April 2016 from a vaccine containing all the three types (trivalent) to a bivalent vaccine was done to reduce the number of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDVP) cases.

While the type 3 poliovirus in the vaccine is the least likely to cause vaccine-derived polio, it has the greatest propensity to cause vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP). Though the risk of VAPP is small, it is caused when the live, weakened virus used in the vaccine turns virulent in the intestine of the vaccinated child or spreads to close contacts who have not been immunised. VAPP can be greatly reduced if there is a switch from the bivalent to a monovalent vaccine containing only type 1.

The move to revive BSNL and MTNL and merge them comes at a crucial time for the industry

rise in India’s ranking by 14 places to 63 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2020 survey is a positive development. India also figures in the top ten most improved countries in the world for the third consecutive year. From being ranked 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2020

The NE monsoon rains contribute about 20% of India’s annual rainfall and span October-December.

The Centre’s new draft of Intermediary Guidelines, originally issued in 2011, was made public last year, and comments invited from all sections. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has received numerous responses, and inter-ministerial discussions have taken place. It is not yet known whether concerns voiced by Internet freedom activists and social media companies will be factored into the final notification. In particular, the provisions on the mandatory disclosure of “originators” of offending messages are a source of worry to social media platforms that use end-to-end encryption. Whether it is technologically feasible for the platforms to provide back-door access to law enforcement is itself in doubt.

Mr. Banerjee and Ms. Duflo carried out in Rajasthan some years ago would explain the concept better. Despite immunisation being free, women were not bringing in their children for the vaccination shot. The two MIT economists decided to give a bag of pulses free to women who brought their babies for vaccination. Word soon spread and the rate of immunisation shot up in the region. Another experiment they did was in Mumbai and Vadodara to understand learning outcomes in the field of education. Was it lack of access to textbooks or hunger that caused poor learning outcomes? Through field studies, Mr. Banerjee and Ms. Duflo established that the problem is that teaching is not adapted to the needs of the students. Learning outcomes improved in schools that were provided with teaching assistants to support students with special needs.