Global Entrepreneurship Summit
Category: International
- The ninth edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit is all set to roll in Hague, Netherlands out with a number of entrepreneurs from across the world, including 27 from India, gathering to share their insights and showcase their ideas on a world stage.
- The Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2019 is being hosted by the governments of the United States of America and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and is the first edition of the event to be held in the European Union.
- The key focus areas of the summit include the five global challenges surrounding water, agriculture, healthcare, connectivity, and energy.
- The GES 2017 event in India in Hyderabad hosted more than 1,500 entrepreneurs from around the world, and focussed on the issue of ‘Women First, Prosperity for All’. It was the first edition of the GES to take place in South Asia, and more than 50% of the delegates at the event were women.
PMI
Category: Economy
- The country’s manufacturing sector performance gained momentum in May as companies lifted output amid strengthening demand conditions, leading to further job creation in the sector.
- The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, improved to 52.7 in May from 51.8 in April, pointing to the strongest improvement in the health of the sector in three months.
- This is the 22nd consecutive month that the manufacturing PMI has remained above the 50-point mark.
- In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.
M-junction
Category: Agriculture
- mjunction, a joint venture of Steel Authority of India Ltd. and Tata Steel, is set to bag the tender for operating an alternative tea e-auction platform.
- The Tea Board had floated the tender for selection and appointment of a system integrator for design, development and maintenance of an e-auction platform of tea at Jorhat, Assam.
- Currently, six centres auction tea through the electronic auction system.
Editing of Chicken Genes
Category: Sc/tech
- Scientists in Britain have used gene-editing techniques to stop bird flu spreading in chicken cells grown in a lab — a key step towards making genetically altered chickens that could halt a human flu pandemic.
- Bird flu viruses currently spread swiftly in wild birds and poultry, and can at times jump into humans.
- In the latest study, by editing out a section of chicken DNA inside the lab-grown cells, researchers prevented the bird flu virus from taking hold in the cells and replicating.
- The next step will be to try to produce chickens with the same genetic change.
- In the further work, the team hopes to use the gene editing technology, known as CRISPR, to remove a section of the birds’ DNA responsible for producing a protein called ANP32, on which all flu viruses depend to infect a host.
CCR5
Category: Sc/tech
- People with a DNA mutation that reduces their chance of HIV infection may die sooner according to a study that suggests tinkering with a gene to try to fix one problem may cause others.
- The gene is called CCR5. When it is working normally, it lets certain cells of the immune system display a protein on their surfaces.
- HIV has co-opted that protein to use as a doorway to infect those cells. The mutation prevents that protein from appearing, and so reduces the risk of HIV infection.
