UNICEF’s Generation AI initiative is currently working with the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and other stakeholders to realiae the potential of AI for children in a safe and transparent way.

At a time when the world grapples with highly treatment-resistant tuberculosis, the recently approved three-drug regimen to tackle the condition has shown a 90 per cent favourable outcome, according to a new study.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft left the asteroid Ryugu a year ago and is expected to reach Earth and drop a capsule containing the precious samples in southern Australia on December 6.

The soil samples and data from the asteroid could provide clues to the origins of the solar system.

 

Hayabusa2 project:

It is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese space agency, JAXA.

Kala-azar or visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a tropical disease characterised by irregular fever, weight loss, anaemia and swelling of the spleen and liver.

It is caused by a protozoan Leishmania parasite and is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected female sandflies.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), globally, about 7 to 10 lakh new cases occur annually.

India accounts for about two-thirds of the total global cases, and the disease is endemic to Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

An initiative was launched by WHO to eliminate VL as a public health problem from the South East Asia region by 2020.

The deadline has now been extended to 2023.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is a legally-binding international agreement setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of every child, regardless of their race, religion or abilities.

Under the terms of the convention, governments are required to meet children’s basic needs and help them reach their full potential.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child urges all public and private actors to act in the best interests of the child, across all their developmental activities and provision of services.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional organization comprising seven Member States lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal constituting a contiguous regional unity.

This sub-regional organization came into being in 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration.

It constitutes seven Member States: five deriving from South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and two from Southeast Asia, including Myanmar and Thailand.

It is not an FTA.

IT is a sector-driven organization focussing on sharing best practices and help each other in agriculture, public health, poverty alleviation, counter-terrorism, environment, culture etc.

A BIMSTEC free trade agreement is under negotiation.

India’s ‘One Health’ vision derives its blueprint from the agreement between the tripartite-plus alliance comprising the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — a global initiative supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank under the overarching goal of contributing to ‘One World, One Health’.

In a rare complication, some patients infected with Covid-19 have been found suffering from Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS).

In India, such cases have been reported since August.

What is Guillain Barre Syndrome?

It is a very rare autoimmune disorder.

The immune system, in an attempt to kill the coronavirus, accidentally starts attacking the peripheral nervous system.

GBS is caused by bacteria or viral infection.

In the past, patients of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome showed GBS symptoms, as did those infected with Zika, HIV, Herpes virus and Campylobacter jejuni.

According to a research, By 2025, companies will generate and process more than 75% of their data outside of traditional centralised data centres — that is, at the “edge” of the cloud.

As the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices expands and the need to process IoT data quickly increases, many IT leaders are considering or beginning to employ edge computing options.

 

What is edge computing?

Edge computing enables data to be analysed, processed, and transferred at the edge of a network.

Meaning, the data is analysed locally, closer to where it is stored, in real-time without latency, rather than send it far away to a centralised data centre.

It allows for quicker data processing and content delivery.