Current Affair 1:

Regulation S Bonds

News:

Regulation S is a regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States of America. It provides that offers and sales of securities that occur outside of the United States are exempt from the registration requirements of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”).

Section 5 of the Securities Act requires that all securities offered or sold by means of interstate commerce be registered unless an exemption is available.

The purpose behind Section 5 is to ensure adequate disclosure before a security is offered to the public so that the public may make informed investment decisions

Regulation S permits these types of transactions to occur without SEC registration.

Benefits:

It allows issuers and other distributors of securities to raise capital more quickly, more discreetly and less expensively than would be the case if registration were required. This encourages foreign investors to buy US financial assets in order to increase the liquidity of US markets.

Risks:

Abuse of Regulation S means that securities are being offered or sold without adequate disclosure to the public.

Current Affair 2:

India’s own CAR-T cell therapy

News:

In October 2023, India’s drug regulator Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation approved NexCAR19 as India’s first indigenously-developed CAR-T cell therapy.

Now, a 64-year-old has become the first patient in the country to be free of cancer cells after being administered this therapy.

What is CAR-T cell therapy?

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a type of cell-based gene therapy which involves altering the genes inside T-cells to help them attack cancer cells.

T-cells are special cells (a type of white blood cells that find and fight illness and infection) whose primary function is cytotoxic, meaning it can kill other cells. In the therapy, T-cells are harvested from the patient’s blood.

Researchers modify these cells in the laboratory so that they express specific proteins on their surface known as chimeric antigen receptors (CAR).

These cells are then grown and multiplied in the laboratory and then inserted back into the patient.

This genetic modification allows CAR T-cells to effectively bind to the cancer cells and destroy them — especially in blood cancers like leukaemia and lymphomas.

As CAR-T cells directly activate the patient’s immune system against cancer, it makes the treatment more clinically effective than surgery, Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy.

India is one of the first developing countries to have its indigenous CAR-T and gene therapy platform.

Current Affair 3:

Source of Zodiacal dust identified

News:

Zodiacal light is the faint glow visible on completely dark nights from Earth. It is due to the sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust (Zodiacal dust).

Zodiacal light is present across the entire path of the ecliptic, which is the path along which the Sun moves in the sky over the course of a year.

Major Highlights of the study:

Scientists at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad examined the data from the Juno spacecraft’s encounter with dust particles between 1 and 5 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. They found a peak in dust particle flux at 1.5 AU, suggesting a significant concentration of dust in that region.

AU’ stands for ‘astronomical unit’, which is the distance between the earth and the Sun. Mars is at a distance of 1.52 AU and Jupiter at 5.2 AU from the Sun.

Juno is a spacecraft that NASA launched in 2011 to study the gas-giant Jupiter and its moons.

By comparing the flux of dust near Mars and the number of particles escaping Mars’s moons, Deimos and Phobos, the researchers concluded that these moons could be a major source of the interplanetary dust responsible for zodiacal light.

Mars’s two moons are called Deimos and Phobos. Mars in Greek mythology is the god of war and the planet’s moons are named for his twin sons, the gods of dread and panic, respectively. The American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered both of them in 1877.   Phobos is the bigger of Mars’s two moons. It is drifting closer to Mars at a rate of six feet per century. Eventually, astronomers expect it will either crash into the planet or break up into a ring around it. But Deimos and Phobos don’t have atmospheres, which means most micrometeorites slam into their surfaces and kick up small clouds of dust.

 

Current Affair 4:

Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF)

The Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023 is an Act of the Parliament of India. It seeks to regulate all research and development in the fields of natural sciences establishments in India.

It repeals the Science and Engineering Research Board Act, 2008 and dissolves the SERB.

 

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