JANUARY, 2015

Vaid’s ICS Lucknow B-36, Sector –C, Aliganj, Lucknow Ph: 0522-2326249/ Mob: 9415011892/93 website: www.vaidicslucknow.com

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Content

Pages

1. National Events 3

2. International Events 9

3. Science & Technology 12

4. Economy 14

5. Environment 18

6. Sports 21

7. Award 24

8. Appointments 26

9. 2014 Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters 28

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NATIONAL EVENTS normal bulb. LED bulbs have a very long life, almost 50 times more than ordinary bulbs, and 8-10 times that of CFLs. These LEDs provide PM launched National Programme both energy and cost savings in the medium for LED-based Home and Street term. Lighting Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on 5 President signed Ordinance to amend January 2015 launched a National Programme Citizenship Act, 1955 for LED-based Home and Street Lighting in President Pranab Mukherjee on 6 January New Delhi to reduce energy consumption. 2015 signed the Ordinance that amends’ Other Launches- Citizenship Act, 1955. The ordinance provides • A scheme for Light Emitting Diode (LED) life-long Indian visa facility to Person of Indian bulb distribution under the Domestic Efficient Origin (PIO) and exempts them from appearing Lighting Programme (DELP) was also before the local police station on every visit. launched. Earlier, Union Cabinet headed by Prime • The Prime Minister also launched a web- Minister had approved the promulgation of based system to enable consumers in Delhi to ordinance to amend the Act. The ordinance was register requests for procuring LED bulbs promulgated after the Citizenship under Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was not passed in (DELP). Consumers can register either through either House of Parliament during the winter the programme website session of Parliament in December 2014. It was (www.eeslindia.org/Delhi-Launch) or by introduced in Lok Sabha on 23 December sending an SMS to a designated number. 2014. Main Provisions of the Ordinance- Highlights of the programme- • It merges Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) • LED bulbs will be distributed in a phased and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO), thus manner from March 2015 onwards. making PIO eligible for life-long visa and • The entire project of installing LED bulbs for bringing them on equal footing with OCI. domestic and street-lighting in 100 cities is • It relaxes the requirement of 12 months in targeted for completion by March 2016. cases related to citizenship by registration and • In Delhi, LED bulbs will be provided to all naturalization. Instead it allows for breaks up to domestic consumers at an initial payment of 10 30 days if the Union government is satisfied rupees each and the balance amount of 120 that special circumstances exist, and has rupees each will be recovered from their recorded them in writing. electricity bill. • It provides certain additional grounds on • Therefore, the cost for an LED bulb to which a person may register for overseas domestic consumer will be 130 rupees through citizenship card. this programme due to bulk procurement, Additional grounds covered are: compared to the current open market retail a) A minor child whose parent(s) are Indian price in the range of 350-600 rupees for LED citizens bulbs. b) Spouse of an Indian citizen or an Overseas • The estimated annual savings for households Citizen of India cardholder or a person of in Delhi per LED bulb will be 162 rupees. The Indian origin subject to certain conditions LED bulbs will have a warranty of 3 years. c) Great grandchild of a person who is a citizen • It will result in annual saving of energy by of another country, but who meets one of about 24 crore units every year. several conditions required for Indian Background- citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The initiatives are the part of the • It allows the Union government to cancel Government’s efforts to spread the message of overseas citizenship where it is obtained by the energy efficiency in the country. The LED spouse of an Indian citizen or OCI cardholder based lights will help in reducing energy or PIO, if: consumption by 88 percent compared to a a) The marriage is dissolved by a court, or 3

b) The spouse enters into another marriage day about the vacancies in the Supreme Court even while the first marriage has not been and the High Courts. Vacancies to come up dissolved within the next six months should also be Background- intimated to the commission in advance. This ordinance was the ninth ordinance Composition of NJAC- promulgated by Narendra Modi-led The NJAC has the Chief Justice of India as government since it came to power in May Chairperson and two senior-most judges of the 2014. Supreme Court as members, apart from the The ordinance is in-line with the promise Union Law Minister and two eminent made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to personalities, one of whom would be Indian diaspora at Madison Square Garden in nominated from among the Scheduled Castes, New York during his September 2014 visit. the Scheduled Tribes, minorities, the Other During his visit, he assured the Indian diaspora Backward Classes or women. that the government will merge the two schemes. He also announced that PIOs will be Union Government formed NITI granted lifetime visa to India. Aayog to replace Planning Commission President signed National Judicial Union Government on 1 January 2015 set Appointments Commission Bill, 2014 up the National Institution for Transforming The President Pranab Mukherjee on 31 India (NITI) Aayog. NITI Aayog that replaced December 2014 signed National Judicial the 65 year old Planning Commission will be Appointments Commission Bill, 2014. With headed by Prime Minister. It will have a this, National Judicial Appointments governing council comprising Chief Ministers Commission Act, 2014 has come into effect. of all the states and Lt. Governors of Union The Bill also called the 121st Constitutional Territories. Amendment Bill, 2014 will set up National Apart from this, the NITI Aayog will also Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) have a Vice-Chairperson and a Chief Executive replacing collegiums system to appoint judges Officer (fixed tenure, in the rank of Secretary of higher judiciary. to the Government of India), who will be The NJAC Bill was passed by both the appointed by the Prime Minister. Houses of Parliament in August 2014. Till The NITI Aayog’s functions have been December 2014; it was ratified by the described as the Bharatiya approach to Legislatures of 16 States, thus crossing the 50 development. The Aayog has been tasked with percent ratification needed by the States in case a role of formulating policies and direction for of a Constitutional Amendment Bills as per the government and serving as a think-tank, it Article 368 of the Constitution. will provide a national agenda for Prime Main Features of the NJAC Act, 2014- Minister and Chief Ministers. It will also • It gives NJAC a Constitutional status for provide relevant strategic and technical advice appointment of judges to the Supreme Court across the spectrum of key elements of policy, and the High Courts. like economic matters of national and • It also gives the executive an equal role in the international importance. appointment of judges to the highest judiciary, as a constitutional body. Functions that will be undertaken by the • It specifies amendments to Articles 124 (2) NITI Aayog- and 217 (1) that deals with the appointment of • It will develop mechanisms for formulation of judges in the Supreme Court and the High credible plans to the village level and aggregate Courts, respectively. these progressively at higher levels of • Now the judges in the Supreme Court and the government High Courts will be appointed by the President • Special attention will be given to the sections in consultation with the NJAC. of the society that may be at risk of not • Once the NJAC is in place then Union benefitting adequately from economic progress government has to intimate NJAC within 30

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• It will also create a knowledge, innovation Comment- and entrepreneurial support system through a In case of Delhi and Puducherry, the elected collaborative community of national and chief ministers will not be members of the new international experts, practitioners and partners NITI Aayog. The Article 239 of the • It will offer a platform for resolution of inter- Constitution of India defines both Delhi and sectoral and inter-departmental issues in order Puducherry as Union Territories and therefore, to accelerate the implementation of the their administrators, lieutenant governors will development agenda be members of the panel. • It will also monitor and evaluate the implementation of programmes, and focus on Union Government launched Madan technology upgradation and capacity building. Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching Other members of the NITI Aayog will be- Union Government launched Madan Mohan Experts, specialists and practitioners with Malviya National Mission on Teachers and relevant domain knowledge as special invitees Teaching on 25 December 2014. Prime nominated by the Prime Minister Minister Narendra Modi launched the mission • Members - Full-time at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. • Part-time members: Maximum of 2 from The mission was launched the mission with leading universities research organizations and an outlay of 900 crores rupees during 12th five other relevant institutions in an ex-officio year plan. It envisages to addressing capacity. Part time members will be on a comprehensively all issues related to teachers, rotational basis. teaching, teacher preparation, professional • Ex Officio members: Maximum of 4 development, Curriculum Design, Designing members of the Union Council of Ministers to and Developing Assessment & Evaluation be nominated by the Prime Minister. methodology, Research in Pedagogy and • Secretariat as deemed necessary developing effective Pedagogy.

On One hand, the mission will address Difference between the NITI Aayog and current and urgent issues such as supply of Planning Commission- qualified teachers, attracting talent into Under the Planning Commission centre-to- teaching profession and raising the quality of state one-way flow of policy existed, whereas, teaching in schools and colleges. the NITI Aayog has planned a genuine and On another hand, the mission will pursue continuing partnership of states. Now, state long term goals of building a strong governments can play an active role in professional cadre of teachers by setting achieving national objectives, as they have performance standards and creating top class been empowered to provide with strategic and institutional facilities for innovative teaching technical advice across the spectrum of and professional development of teachers. policymaking. The Mission will focus on both urgent Background- issues and long term goals in a holistic manner National Institution for Transforming India dealing with the whole sector of education (NITI) Aayog has been created in accordance without fragmenting the programmes based on to the announcement made by the Prime levels and sectors as school, higher, technical Minister Narendra Modi on 15 August 2014. etc. On the Independence Day, he announced that The mission is an umbrella scheme will the government will replace the Planning create synergies among the various ongoing Commission which was established on 15 initiatives on Teachers and Teaching under March 1950 through a Cabinet Resolution. Union Ministry of Human Resources Further to revamp the Planning Commission, Development and other autonomous the Prime Minister met with Chief Ministers institutions. and Governors of various States on 7 The Mission will have the components December 2014 and discussed their opinions such as Schools of Education (in Central on the same to separate the process of Universities), Centres of Excellence for governance from the strategy of governance. 5

Curriculum and Pedagogy,) Inter-University b) It also says that the investigation of the FIR Centres for Teachers’ Education, National should be completed in 60 days Resource Centre for Education, Centres for c) A Special Prosecutor should be appointed to Academic Leadership and Education handle all such cases atrocities Management, Innovations, Awards, Teaching d) The trail should be completed within 90 Resource Grant, including Workshop & days Seminar and Subject Networks for Curricular • Legal awareness training for the North East Renewal and Reforms. Representative from eight North East States Besides, Prime Minister Narendra Modi • It also recommended for setting up Relief launched the Campus Connect wi-fi of Banaras Corpus Fund for helping heinous crime victims Hindu University by remote control. He Short Term Measures: unveiled the plaque of the Inter-University • Use of information technology to reach large Centre and also launched the Varanasi number of people from North East India Mahotsav. • Sensitising law enforcement agencies about the culture and needs of the North East people Union Government accepted • Comprehensive computer database to keep Bezbaruah panel report on safety of tab on people from North East North East people • Promotion of Sports from North East India to establish bond with rest of India Union Government on 2 January 2014 Long Term Measures: accepted the recommendations of the • Committee had recommended the Union Bezbaruah committee. Union Home Minister Government to initiate debate on anti-racial Rajnath Singh said that the recommendations laws will be implemented in next 6 months. • Establishment of North East Centre in Delhi The Bezbaruah committee of five members was set up under chairmanship of M P Measures announced by Union Government Bezbaruah in February 2014 to look into the Any derogatory remark relating to race, concerns of the people of the North East living culture or physical appearance of people of in other parts of the country. North Eastern states can land a person in jail The committee was constituted after the for up to five years. killing of Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Apart from this, the Union Government has Tania in a Delhi market. The report was decided to provide legal assistance to people of submitted to the Home Ministry in July 2014. North East by Delhi Legal State Services Main recommendations of the committee- Authority. For the purpose a panel of seven • It has recommended immediate, short term lawyers including five women members has and long term measures to be implemented in been constituted. certain time periods To increase representation of people of a) Immediate – to be implemented within 6 North Eastern states in force, the government months to 1 year has advised to Delhi police to recruit 20 police b) Short Term – to be implemented within a personnel to recruit 20 police personnel from period of 1 to 1.5 years each Northeastern States. The government has c) Long Term – to be implemented within a also decided that the Delhi Government will period of 1.5 years to 3 years provide compensation and financial assistance Immediate measures: to people of the reason who fall prey to • The committee has recommended amendment violence. of Section 153 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as the second alternative • Insertion of a new law in Indian Penal Code Union Government introduced to deal with the rising against people of this Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill region. The new law should include among to facilitate introduction of GST others Union Government introduced the a) Any offence against them should be made Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, 2014 in cognizable and non-bailable. the Lok Sabha on 19 December 2014. The 6

introduction of this Bill will facilitate the • The net proceeds of additional tax on introduction of the Goods and Services Tax supply of goods, except the proceeds from (GST) regime in India. Union Territories, will not form the part of The 122nd Constitution Amendment Bill Consolidated Fund of India and shall be seeks to inserts Article 246A, 269A, Article deemed to have been apportioned to States 279A and omits Article 268A which was from where the supply originates. inserted by the Constitution (88th Amendment) • It proposes that Parliament by Law on the Act, 2003. It also omits Entry 92 and 92C from recommendation of the GST Council provide the Union List and Entry 52 and 55 of the State for the compensation to the States for loss of List of the Seventh Schedule revenue arising on account of implementation Besides, it amends Article 248, 249, 250, of GST for a period of five years. 268, 269, 270, 271, 286, 366, 368, Sixth • It subsumes all the Central indirect taxes, Schedule and the Entry 84 of the Union List levies and Central Sales Tax and State Value and Entry 54 and 62 of the State List of Added Tax and Sales Tax Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. • It dispenses with the concept of declared Article 246A: Empowers Legislature of every goods of special importance under the State to make laws with respect to goods and Constitution services tax imposed by the Union or by such • It covers all goods and services except State provided that these powers are subject to alcoholic liquor for human consumption for the laws made by Parliament in accordance with levy of GST. the Article 246A (2). • In case of petroleum products, these goods Article 246A (2): Parliament has the exclusive will not be subjected to GST till a date is power to make laws with respect to GST where notified on the recommendation of the GST the supply of goods, or of services, or both take Council place in the course of Inter-State trade or About Goods and Services Tax (GST) commerce. Council- Article 269A: Provides that GST on supplies 1.The GST Council comprises of following of the good and services taking place in the members coruse of inter-state trade will be levied and • Union Finance Minister: Chairperson collected by the Union and apportioned • Union Minister of State in charge of between the Union and the States in the manner Revenue or Finance: Member provided by the Parliament by law on the • Minister in charge of Finance ot Taxation or recommendations of the GST Council. any other Minister nominated by each State Article 279A: Empowers President of India to government: Members constitute a Goods and Service Tax (GST) 2.The GST Council should choose one Council within sixty-days of the amongst them to be the Vice-Chairperson of commencement of the 122nd Constitution the Council for such period as they may decide. Amendment Act. 3. Functions of GST Council Main Provision of the Bill- • To make recommendations to Union and • It provides for constitution of a Goods and State on the taxes, cesses and surcharges levied Services Tax (GST) Council to recommend to by Union, State or local bodies that can be the Union and States on the inclusion and subsumed in the GST exclusion of goods and services • To make recommendations on goods and • It brings petroleum crude, high speed services that may be subjected to, or exempted diesel, motor spirit, natural gas, aviation from the GST turbine fuel and tobacco and tobacco products • To propose a model GST Laws, principles within the purview of Union List and State list. of levy, apportionment of Integrated GST and • It proposes an additional tax on supply of the principles that govern the place of supply goods, not exceeding one percent, in the course • Recommend the threshold limit of turnover of inter-State trade will be levied and collected below which goods and services amy be by the Union for a period of two years and exempted from GST apportioned to the States • Recommend the rate including floor rates with bands of GST 7

• Recommend any special rate or rates for a specified period to raise additional resources during any natural calamity or disaster • Recommend special provisions with respect to the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand 4. Every decision of the Council shall be taken by a majority of not less than three-fourth of the weighted votes of the members present and voting in accordance with the following principles: (a) The vote of the Union government shall have a weightage of one-third of the total votes cast (b) The votes of all the States government taken together shall have a weightage of two- third of the total votes cast in the meeting 5. One half of the total number of members of the GST Council shall constitute the quorum at its meeting Analysis- The tabling of the GST Bill in the Lok Sabha is only half-a-step towards implementing the reforms much needed to rejuvenate the economy. The Bill is a result of a series of hectic-negotiations with the empowered committee of state finance ministers which seeks to ensure seamless transfer of goods and services across the country by removing the cascading effect of several state and central levies. Although Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley called the Bill as the biggest tax reform since 1947, however, tax experts said the structure of the Bill is riddled with intrinsic conflicts. According to Harishanker Subramaniam, national leader, indirect tax, Ernst & Young, “the 1 percent additional levy is distortionary. It is for origin or manufacturing states while the GST as such is a destination-based tax. Centre has gone too far to get states on board. It has travelled more than half way to bring them.” Also, it would be better that Union government now takes the step towards introducing Direct Tax Code Bill. Because implementing these two tax reforms bill will only make the economic reforms a complete one.

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INTERNATIONAL EVENTS Union Government identified five areas for Varanasi-Kyoto partnership Maithripala Sirisena won 2015 Union Government in the second week of January 2015 identified five areas for Presidential Elections of Sri Lanka rejuvenating the holy city under the Kyoto- Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa from Varanasi partnership deal signed between India United People's Freedom Alliance got 47.6 and Japan in August 2014. percent and Opposition candidate Maithripala Japan will extend its expertise to help in Samisen from United National Party got 51.3 rejuvenating Varanasi under the Kyoto- percent of the votes polled in the Presidential Varanasi partnership deal. elections held on 8 January 2015. The identified areas include- Rajapaksa conceding defeat moved out of • Solid-liquid waste management Templetrees, the official residence of the Sri • Transport management Lanka President after ruling for ten years. • Developing the Buddhist tourist circuit in and The results of elections were unexpected and around Varanasi dethroning of incumbent President Rajapaksa, • Industry-university interface South Asia’s longest serving leader, has come • Setting up of a convention centre on public- as a surprise to the world community. private partnership basis for giving a fillip to Moreover, the results came as a shock to the cultural activities in the city Rajpaksa who had called for snap elections in Earlier in 2014, Union government had November 2014 and amended the Constitution sanctioned a sum of 80 crore rupees for of Sri Lanka to stand for a third term. In Varanasi under the Heritage City Development September 2010, under President Rajapaksa, and Augmentation Yojana (Hriday). Sri Lanka passed the eighteenth amendment to Background- the Constitution and removed the two term The Varanasi-Kyoto partnership deal is a limit on Presidents. part of Sister City Cooperation that was signed According to the Constitution of Sri Lanka between India and Japan during Prime Minister normal term for President is six years although Narendra Modi’s five-day visit to Japan in an incumbent may call an election at any time August 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is after four years in office. a Member of Parliament from Lok Sabha seat Further, the result ends a decade of rule that of Varanasi. critics said had become increasingly Varanasi and Kyoto are one of the oldest authoritarian and marred by nepotism and continuously inhabited cities of the world. corruption. The election results are seen as the Varanasi on the one hand is called the most significant for decades in the island cultural capital of India and is the oldest living nation and a last chance for democracy. city in the world. On the other hand, Kyoto is a Election Results and relations with India place of ancient temples and shrines and vis-à-vis China practically called the cultural centre of Japan. It The winning of Sirisena is seen by many as has been the Capital of Japan till the end of advantage to India as during the Rajapaksa Nara Period (794 AD) after which the emperor rule; he had opposed the infrastructure related moved to Tokyo. contracts between the island nation and China. Moreover, he has announced to scrap many of Egypt to hold parliamentary elections the contracts between Sri Lanka and China including a new city proposed to be built on in March 2015 reclaimed land off Colombo at a cost of 1.5 Egypt will hold parliamentary elections for billion US dollars. House of Representatives in two phases. The However, if moderation in Tamil Nadu is decision was announced by the Egypt election not observed, the new government could commission on 8 January 2015. become a plaything in the hands of the The first phase of election will be conducted Buddhist clergy. from 22 March 2015 to 23 March 2015. The second phase of election will be conducted from 26 Aril 2015 to 27 April 2015. 9

Egypt will hold the parliamentary elections • Both the countries agreed to promote bilateral for 567-member House of Representative. Out economic, trade and investment cooperation, of 567 seats 27 will be elected by the President. including the idea of exploring the use of The remaining 540 seats will be distributed national currencies in settlements. between 420 members, to be elected • Both the countries agreed to consult and individually by voters, and 120 seats allocated coordinate in multilateral forums such as G20, to party lists. East Asia Summit (EAS), BRICS and RIC. Earlier in December 2014, President of The bilateral program on enhanced cooperation Egypt Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi ratified the in oil and gas sphere underlines the serious Electoral Constituencies’ law to pave the way commitments of the two counties to develop for parliamentary elections of 2015. cooperation in energy area of great promise. Since June 2012, Egypt has been without a • Both the countries envisage broader parliament when a court dissolved the collaboration between hydrocarbon companies democratically elected main chamber, of the two countries in oil and gas exploration reversing a major accomplishment of the 2011 and production as well as in LNG projects and uprising, which outsed autocrat Hosni supplies. Mubarak. Hosni Mubarak was a long term • India reassured Russia that Russia will remain President of Egypt for 30 years. primary defence partner of India, though both The parliamentary election is the final step the countries did not reach a concrete in a political road map of Egypt announced by agreement on the fifth generation fighter the then defence minister Al-Sisi in July 2013 aircraft (FGFA) and a multirole transport after ousting Islamist Mohamed Mursi, first aircraft (MTA) projects. democratically elected president of Egypt • Russia expressed that it would look at following mass protests against his troubled participating in the Delhi Mumbai Industrial rule. In lieu of this, an Election Law was Corridor project and will speed up the approved by the Interim President Adly negotiations for a free trade agreement between Mansour in 2013. India and the Eurasian Union. • Russia looks forward to India to become a 15th Indo-Russian Bilateral Annual full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Summit held in New Delhi Organisation (SCO). 15th Indo-Russian Bilateral Annual Summit • India and Russia supports the evolution of was held in Delhi 11 December 2014. President open, balanced and inclusive security Vladimir Putin of Russia visited India to hold architecture in the Asia Pacific region based on the summit on the invitation of Prime Minister collective efforts, considering legitimate Narendra Modi. interests of all states of the region and guided Prime Minister Narendra Modi and by respect for norms and principles of President Vladimir Putin released a joint international law. statement in which both the countries agreed on a vision for strengthening the India-Russia About Indo-Russian Annual Summit – partnership over the next decade. • President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Highlights of the summit- Vajpayee launched the annual Summit process • During the summit, both the countries signed in 2000. The first summit Prime Minister 20 agreements in the fields such as nuclear Vajpayee visited Moscow and held the summit. energy, oil and gas, health, investment, mining, • This is President Vladimir Putin's eleventh media and wind power. Annual Summit and first summit of Prime • Both the countries agreed on the construction Minister Narendra Modi. of at least 12 new nuclear power units within the next 20 years, including two new units at India became second largest foreign the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Both trading partner of Dubai after China also countries agreed to find a new site to India became second largest foreign trading construct a new nuclear plant. partner of Dubai after China. This was revealed by the figures released by Dubai Customs on

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28 December 2014 that provides trade data for the first nine months of 2014.

The figures show that China was Dubai’s top foreign trade partner with a trade value of 34 billion US dollars. As a result, the share of China increased 27 percent over the year 2014. India followed next with a trade value worth 21.78 billion US dollar. However, among the Arab nations, India was at the top with trade volume worth 10 billion US dollars. Dubai's non-oil foreign trade in the first nine months of 2014 was around 269 billion US dollars, with imports having the biggest share at 169 billion US dollars, exports at 23.41 billion and re-exports 76.23 billion US dollars. Dubai’s foreign trade scored steady growth in the first nine months of 2014 with top trading partners. Dubai’s trade statistics for the first nine months of 2014 clearly show the Emirate’s solid foothold as a regional and international trading and investment hub. It maintained a high value despite the global decline in commodity prices. This reflects Dubai’s trading capability to increase the volume of foreign trade, including imports, exports and re-exports, to compensate for any drop in prices.

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY World’s smallest hearing aid named Nanoplug developed Teixobactin, a new antibiotic The world's smallest hearing aid named discovered Nanoplug was developed by an international team of researchers. The development of New antibiotic named Teixobactin was Nanoplug was revealed in the fourth week of discovered by a team of scientists from December 2014 in The Times of India. Northeastern University in Boston, The concept of Nanoplug was first Massachusetts. Discovered for the first time conceived by Nevena Zivic and then brought to after about three decades, this antibiotic is execution by industrial designer, Jongha Lee, capable of fighting infections that kill hundreds audio engineer Mladen Stavri and of thousands of people each year. electromechanical engineer Zoran Marinovi. The discovery was published online in the The Nanoplug is so tiny that it is almost journal Nature on 7 January 2015. undetectable. The designing of this hearing aid

was funded through Indiegogo, a crowdfunding Feature of Teixobactin- platform. • Teixobactin inhibits cell wall synthesis by The development of device was made binding to a highly conserved motif of lipid II possible by advances in Nanotechnology, most (precursor of peptidoglycan) and lipid III notably by the US Photonics Endure (precursor of cell wall teichoic acid). nanobattery that is as about the size of a grain • Any mutants of Staphylococcus aureus or of sand and is able to work six days without Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to recharge. teixobactin has been obtained

• Properties of this compound suggest a path Highlights of the Nanoplug- towards developing antibiotics that are likely to • Nanoplug is comprised of micro-components avoid development of resistance and a nano-battery.

• The hearing aid is meant to be less intrusive, How Teixobactin was obtained? less noticeable and less expensive. The antibiotic Teixobactin was obtained • The device is just 7.1mm x 5.7mm x 4.17mm, from uncultured bacteria by cultivation in situ which is half the size of any other hearing aid. or by using specific growth factors. Uncultured • As claimed by the researchers, hearing aid organisms were used for creation of the battery has no toxic chemicals inside, nor antibiotic as the team believed that heavy metals. approximately 99% of all species in external • Nanoplug can be programmed using software environments are an untapped source of new running on a computer, the results of which can antibiotics. be downloaded directly to the device via a Why this discovery is essential? cable. The first antibiotic Penicillin was • The Nanoplug is shaped roughly rectangular, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 and it is placed inside a mushroom shaped sleeve since that discovery more than 100 compounds which allows for comfort in keeping the have been found. The heyday of antibiotic hearing device securely in place. discovery was in the 1950s and 1960s, but no • A tool is also provided for removal of the new class has been found since 1987. hearing aid. Need of introduction of new antibiotic or • The Nanoplug does not entirely fill the ear drug became essential as diseases like Malaria canal which means it allows sound to be and MDR TB (Tuberculosis) has became localized. incurable as they have developed resistance against the class of antibiotics available at present, causing a public health crisis. This DRDO successfully tested an discovery can be beneficial in the fight against indigenous 1000 kg glide bomb the growing resistance to drugs. India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on 19 December 2014

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successfully tested an indigenously built 1000 research. The test launch cost approximately 3 kg glide bomb. The bomb had successfully hit billion US dollar. a target 100 km away in the Bay of Bengal off The clean engine eco-friendly Angara the Odisha coast. rocket family is capable of delivering up to 25 The bomb was dropped by an Indian Air tonnes to a low orbit. Force (IAF) aircraft in the ocean. It glided for nearly 100 km before hitting the target with great precision. The bomb was guided by an on-board navigation system. The flight of the glide bomb was monitored Project LettuceOnMars: To grow by radars and electro-optic systems stationed at lettuce on Mars in 2018 Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Scientists at University of Southampton, Odisha’s Balasore district, about 230 km from UK are planning to grow lettuce on Mars in Bhubaneswar. 2018 under the Project #LettuceOnMars. Under the project the team will grow small plants with About the Glide Bomb- gases obtained from the Martian atmosphere, • The glide bomb was designed and developed with a minimum of material imported from by Defence Research and Development Earth. Organisation (DRDO). The aim of the project is to prove that plant • Multiple DRDO laboratories including life can thrive in the controlled greenhouse Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), environment and that the resources on Mars Pune-based Armament Research and can be appropriately managed to establish a Development Establishment (ARDE) and permanent human settlement. Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory The scientists led by Suzanna Lucarotti will (TBRL) have contributed towards development demonstrate their project via a payload in the of the glide bomb. form of lettuce that will be carried by Mars • The complete avionics package and One Lander in 2018. navigation system for the testing of bomb was Mars One Lander will be launched by Mars designed and developed by Research Centre One which is a not-for-profit foundation that Imarat (RCI). aims to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars by 2026. Russia successfully test-launched How lettuce will be grown on Mars? Angara-A5 rocket The greenhouse of the project would be Russia successfully test-launched Angara- launched from the Earth with lettuce seeds, A5 rocket from Plesetsk in northern Russia on water, nutrients and systems for atmospheric 23 December 2014. The rocket was designed to processing and monitoring. succeed Proton and other Soviet-era launchers. As per the plans, on its way to Mars, the The Angara is billed as the first rocket to have greenhouse will be powered down while the been completely built after the collapse of the lettuce seeds will be frozen and will be Soviet Union. reactivated again after Mars One Lander lands The rocket Angara was named after a on the Red Planet. The activated powers will Siberian river flowing out of Lake Baikal. It help in heating elements to maintain a was expected to launch a payload of two tonnes temperature between 21°C and 24°C. into space. The rocket was developed with a Whereas, Carbon Dioxide which is essential view to launch manned spacecraft. for the plants life will be extracted from the The test launch of the light version of the Martian atmosphere and will be processed Angara rocket ended in embarrassment in June before entering the growth chamber. Further, due to a sudden automatic launch abort. the lettuce will be grown without soil and water The Angara-A5 is the first space-booster and nutrients will be sprayed on it on a regular designed from scratch since the Soviet era. It interval. took two decades of design work and scientific

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ECONOMY About United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) report- WESP report is published annually at the World Economic Situation and beginning of the year by the UN Department of Prospects 2015 report released by Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA), the UNESCAP UN Conference on Trade and Development United Nations Economic and Social (UNCTAD), the five UN regional commissions Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the World Tourism Organization on 19 January 2015 released World Economic (UNWTO). Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2015 report. The report projects that the regional growth RBI cut Repo Rate by 0.25% in sixth will pick up in 2015-16, as average GDP Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy growth will accelerate from 5.0 percent in 2014 to 5.3 percent in 2015 and 5.7 percent in 2016. Statement 2014-15 The report has highlighted that the South The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 15 Asia’s economic growth is set to reach a four- January 2015 announced sixth Bi-Monthly year high in 2015. The average gross domestic Monetary Policy Statement. RBI in its bi- product (GDP) growth of South Asia monthly monetary policy statement cut its main accelerated from 3.7 percent in 2013 to 4.9 lending rate (Repo Rate) by 0.25 per cent with percent in 2014, and is projected to strengthen immediate effect. This is the first rate cut from further to 5.4 percent in 2015 and 5.7 per cent the RBI since 2013. in 2016. With this, repo rate will now prevail at 7.75 It expects that the recovery will be led by a percent from previous 8 percent. The RBI rate pick-up in growth in India, which accounts for cut comes just two weeks before its scheduled about 70 percent of regional output. policy review on 3 February 2015. The report in context of other Asian Based on the assessment of the current and countries like Bangladesh and the Islamic evolving macroeconomic situation, the Republic of Iran said that they will also see following changes has been taken growth in the forecast period. • Repo Rate: Reduced Repo rate under It says that growth supported by the robust Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) by 25 external demand is expected to be underpinned basis points from 8.0 percent to 7.75 percent by a moderate strengthening of domestic with immediate effect consumption and investment. • Reverse Repo Rate under the LAF: Stands adjusted to 6.75 percent Report in context of India- • Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR): Kept WESP 2015 report said that India will see unchanged at 4.0 percent of net demand and gradual growth acceleration in its GDP which time liabilities (NDTL) is expected to reach 5.9 percent in 2015 and 6.3 • Marginal standing facility (MSF) rate: 8.75 percent in 2016. It says that it is expected that percent the recovery will be led by India. • Bank Rate: 8.75 percent India’s economy expanded in 2014 • Repo Rate: It is the rate at which commercial estimated by 5.4 percent, which improved from banks borrow from the RBI by selling their growth of 5.0 percent recorded in 2013. securities or financial assets to the RBI for a The report said that the recovery is partly short-period of time. The repo rate is used by the result of improved market sentiment and the central bank to increase liquidity in the plans to reform the bureaucracy, labour laws system. and public subsidies after the new • Reverse Repo Rate: It is the rate of interest administration took office in the second quarter at which the central bank borrows funds from of 2014. other banks for a short duration. The banks deposit their short term excess funds with the central bank and earn interest on it. This rate is used by the central bank to absorb liquidity

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from the economy. Generally it is one banks’ delinquent loans and lackluster credit percentage less than the Repo rate. growth. • Bank Rate: The only way the bank rate is • Urban co-operative banks exhibited improved different from the repo rate is that the bank rate performance, however, the performance of is the rate at which banks borrow money from primary agriculture credit societies and long the central bank without any sale of securities. term rural credit co-operatives remained a It is generally for a longer period of time. matter of concern with a further increase in • Cash Reserve Ratio: CRR is the minimum their losses coupled with deterioration in asset percentage of cash deposits that banks must quality. keep with the central bank. The current rate is • The asset size of the non-banking financial 4%, which means for a cash deposit of 100 companies (non-deposit taking-systemically rupees, the bank has to park 4 rupee with the important) showed an expansion, however, central bank. asset quality deteriorated further during the period of review. RBI released Financial Stability • The banking stability indicator suggests that Report December 2014 overall risks to the banking sector remained The Reserve Bank of India on 29 December unchanged during the first half of 2014-15. 2014 released the Financial Stability Report • Although the liquidity position improved in December 2014. The report also includes the the system, concerns remain on account of Trend and Progress of Banking in India during deterioration in asset quality along with 2013-14. weakened soundness. Highlights of the Report- • The profitability dimension of the indicator Macro-Financial Risks: showed an improvement but it remained • The current weak global growth outlook may sluggish. prolong easy monetary policy stance, that is, • The stress tests suggest that the asset quality low interest rate regime in most advanced of banks may improve in the near future under economies (AEs). expected positive developments in the • Low risk premia resulting from low interest macroeconomic conditions and banks may also rate in AEs may lead to accumulation of be able to meet expected losses with their vulnerabilities, and sudden and sharp existing levels of provisions. overshooting in markets cannot be ruled out. • The asset quality of scheduled commercial • Financial risk taking has not translated into banks may worsen from the current level if the commensurate economic risk taking. macroeconomic conditions deteriorate • Increase in portfolios flows to emerging drastically, and banks are likely to fall short in market against the backdrop of low interest terms of having sufficient provisions to meet rates in AEs may increase the risk of reversals expected losses under adverse macroeconomic on possible adverse growth or financial market risk scenarios. shocks, thus necessitating greater alertness. • Analysis of the interconnectedness indicates • On the domestic front, macroeconomic that the size of the interbank market in relation vulnerabilities have abated significantly in to total banking sector assets has been on a recent months on the back of improvement in steady decline. growth outlook, fall in inflation, recovery in • Contagion analysis with top five most the external sector and political stability. connected banks reveals that the banking • Growth in the banking business and activity system could potentially lose significant in primary capital markets remain subdued due portion of its total Tier-I capital under the joint to moderate investment intentions. solvency-liquidity condition in the event of a Financial institutions: Developments and particular bank triggering a contagion. stability: Financial sector regulation and • The growth of the Indian banking sector infrastructure: moderated further during 2013-14. Profitability • The capital to risk weighted assets ratio declined on account of higher provisioning on (CRAR) of the scheduled commercial banks at 12.8 per cent as of September 2014 is satisfactory 15

• The banking sector, particularly the public being faced by them in getting KYC sector banks would require substantial capital documents at frequent intervals. to meet regulatory requirements with respect to As per RBI notification, the KYC exercise additional capital buffers. will be required to be done in three ways • With the increased regulatory focus on and they are segregating the cases of willful defaults and • For high-risk individuals and entities – in at ensuring the equity participation of promoter(s) least every 2 years in the losses leading to defaults, there is a need • For medium risk individuals and entities - in for greater transparency in the process of at least every 8 years carrying out a net economic value impact • For low risk individuals and entities – in at assessment of large Corporate Debt least every 10 years Restructuring (CDR) cases. These time limits will be adjusted by taking • Another aspect that impinges upon the banks’ into account whether and when client due asset quality is corporate leverage and its diligence measures have previously been impact on banks’ balance sheets, particularly undertaken and the adequacy of data were ‘double leveraging’ through holding company obtained. However, physical presence of structures and the pledging of shares by clients may not be insisted at such periodic promoters. updations. • Indian stock markets have seen a rapid Previous norms said that the NBFC’s should growth in recent months. While the retail undertake KYC once in every 5 years for low investor base still remains comparatively low, risk category customers and once in two years India’s stock markets have been attracting for both high and medium risk categories. substantial amounts of foreign investments, increasing the risk of reversal. Foreign Exchange Reserves of India • The Securities and Exchange Board of India reached 320 billion US dollars has introduced an additional safety net in the Foreign Exchange Reserves of India form of core settlement guarantee fund to reached 320 billion US dollars on the back of a mitigate risks from possible default in massive jump in foreign currency assets. This settlement of trades and to strengthen risk was revealed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) management framework in the domestic capital data on Foreign Exchange released on 26 markets. December 2014. • With a view to improving participation of As per the data on foreign exchange- actual users / hedgers and the quality of price • During the week 8 December to 19 December discovery in the market, the Forward Markets 2014 the flow of foreign exchange hit 3.163 Commission has revised position limits which billion US dollars enabling total foreign are linked to estimated production and imports exchange reserves to reach 319.997 billion US of the underlying commodities. dollars. • To deal with issues relating to unauthorised • The foreign currency assets (FCAs), which deposit acceptance and financial frauds, the are a major constituent of overall reserves, State Level Coordination Committee (SLCC) jumped by 3.310 billion US dollars to reach mechanism has been strengthened under the 295.670 billion US dollars during the week initiative of the Financial Stability and ended 19 December 2014. FCA is expressed in Development Council (FSDC). dollar terms that include the effect of appreciation and depreciation of non-US RBI relaxed KYC rules for Non- currencies such as the euro, pound and yen, held in reserves. Banking Financial Companies • The gold reserves remained unchanged at Know-Your-Customers (KYC) rules for 18.985 billion US dollars. Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) • Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) decreased by were relaxed by the Reserve Bank of India 29.2 million US dollars to touch 4.199 billion (RBI) on 2 January 2015. US dollars. With this, India’s SDR with the The KYC rules were amended for NBFC’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) dipped by due to practical difficulties and constraints 16

117.6 million US dollars to reach 1.142 billion US dollars. • During the week ending on 25 July 2014 the reserves had touched 320.56 billion US dollars, which is little less than the life-time high of 320.79 billion US dollars on 2 September 2011.

Union Finance Ministry approved 8.75 percent interest rate on PF deposits for 2014-15 The Union Finance Ministry on 19 December 2014 approved 8.75 percent interest rate on Provident Fund (PF) deposits for the year 2014-15. This rate of interest on PF deposits will now be notified by the Union Labour Ministry as well as by the Income Tax Department. The decision will be implemented from the date of notification. Background- The rate of interest on PF deposits for 2013- 14 was 8.75 percent itself. On 26 August 2014, Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's Central Board of Trustees (CBT) had decided to retain the interest rate on PF deposits at 8.75 percent only for the 2014-15. As per the practice, decision of the trustees of EPFO on interest rate is implemented after the concurrence of the Finance Ministry.

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ENVIRONMENT Gosain — were also made members of the principal committee. The Union government has been implementing NGT gave directions to clean Yamuna Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) for cleaning of under Maily se Nirmal Yamuna Yamuna River with assistance from Japan Revitalization Plan 2017 International Cooperation Agency, without National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 13 much success. January 2015 gave directions to clean River Yamuna under Maily se Nirmal Yamuna ICRISAT launched GreenPHABLET Revitalization Plan 2017. The directions were given by the principal for small farmers bench of NGT presided over by Chairperson International Crops Research Institute for Justice Swatanter Kumar. The tribunal's the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) on 29 judgment came on a petition by Manoj Misra December 2014 launched GreenPHABLET for of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan against pollution in small farmers. GreenPHABLET is a the Yamuna and covering of drains in Delhi. customised low-cost combination of phone and Directions given by bench are- tablet computer. The device was powered by • Impose a fine of 5000 rupees on individuals GreenSIM. for throwing waste or religious items into the The GreenPHABLET is dust- and shatter- river proof, readable under bright sunlight; operates • Banned the dumping of construction material from -20°C to +60°C. into the Yamuna while imposing a fine of The device has been developed by the 50000 rupees on the violators ICRISAT Centre of Excellence in ICT • Restrained real estate developers from Innovations for Agriculture in collaboration carrying out any construction work on the with NUNC Systems. floodplains Features of GreenPHABLET- • It also directed states where Yamuna and its The GreenPHABLET will allow tributaries flow to come up with an action plan information to be precisely targeted to to ensure environmental flow to revive the individual smallholder farmers. This will help Yamuna stretch in Delhi. farmers purchase inputs at lower price, get a • The bench directed that 4000 crore rupees, better price for their produce, and link them to as estimated by the expert committee be made markets. available from the 20000 crore rupees Budget The device will act like a mobile village of Delhi Government. knowledge centre/common service centre which enables farmers to benefit from Constitution of a committee to implement contemporary information and communication the directions technologies and expanding Internet The bench decided to constitute a principal connectivity in remote rural regions. committee which will be responsible for The device will enable to share real time implementation of the judgment. information between farmers and researchers The committee will consist of the Special which would help to improve crop productivity Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and and researchers to collect accurate data in real Forests (MoEF), joint secretary of the Ministry time. of Water Resources, chief secretary of Delhi, Apart from regular phone services vice-chairman DDA, commissioners of all developing world smallholder farmers receive corporations and the state secretaries of free messages about the weather and pest Haryana, UP, Himachal Pradesh and problems while sharing the most competitive Uttarakhand. agricultural input and crop prices. Members of the expert committees earlier constituted by NGT — including professor About GreenSIM- emeritus of DU C R Babu, former professor of The GreenSIM is a special SIM card that JNU Brij Gopal and IIT Delhi professor A K can be used with any mobile phone. The GreenSIM was created under partnership 18

between ICRISAT, mobile phone service National Oceanic and Atmospheric provider Airtel, and the IFFCO (Indian Administration (NOAA) scientists. The Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative) Kisan Sanchar findings of NASA and NOAA were released Limited (IKSL). on 16 January 2015. Through the GreenSIM, a farmer will be Both NASA and NOAA conducted entitled to receive five voice messages. These independent analyses based on satellite and messages are in Telugu, covering various fields ground readings, but they arrived at similar like agriculture, animal husbandry, conclusions. horticulture, insurance, government policies The global average temperature for 2014 and schemes, mandi prices, weather forecast, was roughly 1.24°F (or 0.69°C) warmer than sericulture, pisciculture, crop loans, plant the 20th-century average that included record protection and health. heat in the western United States, Europe, Australia, and much of the Pacific Ocean. Lima Call for Climate Action put world on track to New Universal Rankings of 10 warmest years- Climate Agreement 1. 2014 2. 2010 3. 2005 Lima Call for Climate Action issued on 14 4. 2007 5. 1998 6. 2002 December 2014 put the world on track to new 7. 2013 8. 2009 9. 2003 universal climate agreement. 10. 2006 The Lima Accord was issued at the conclusion of the 20th session of the Findings- Conference of the Parties (CoP) and the 10th As per GISS Surface Temperature Analysis session of Conference of the Parties serving as (GISTEMP), since 1880, Earth’s average the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 (CMP) held in Lima, Peru 1 December 2014 to degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), 14 December 2014. which was caused by the increase in carbon The member nations participating at the dioxide into the planet’s atmosphere. Lima Climate Conference for the first time The 2014 temperatures were the warmest agreed that nations, large and small, developed ones, but scientists still expect to see year-to- and developing each will make pledges aimed year fluctuations in average global temperature at cutting global greenhouse gas emissions. caused by phenomena such as El Nino or La The President of 20th CoP was Manuel Nina. Pulgar-Vidal, the Minister of the Environment The phenomena El Nino and La Nina in the of Peru and more than 190 nations participated Pacific Ocean played an important role in the at the Lima Climate Conference. The Indian flattening of the long-term warming trend over side was represented by Prakash Javadekar, the past 15 years. Moreover, 2014’s record Union Minister of Environment, Forest and warmth occurred during an El Nino-neutral Climate Change year. The Lima accord will serve as an outline Regional differences in temperature are text for 21st CoP scheduled to be held in more strongly affected by weather dynamics December 2015 in Paris, where world leaders than the global mean temperature. are expected to finalize and sign an Study Process- international climate deal. The U.N. has The scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute targeted 2015 for such a deal, which would for Space Studies (GISS) in New York mapped then go into effect in 2020. the five-year global temperature averages from 1880 to 2014. The GISS analysis incorporated surface 4-Year 2014 ranked as Earth's hottest temperature measurements from 6300 weather year since 1880 stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of The year 2014 was ranked as the Earth’s sea surface temperatures and temperature hottest year since 1880 as per the two separate measurements from Antarctic research analyses done by National Aeronautics and stations. Space Administration (NASA) scientists and This raw data was analyzed using an 19

algorithm that measures the varied spacing of The National Park has been carved out of temperature stations around the globe. The the land of Sadhrana, Chandu, Sultanpur and result is an estimate of the global average Saidpur villages. temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

Sultanpur National Park shut down after migratory birds found dead Forest and wild life department on 11 January 2015 shut down the Sultanpur National Park for one week. The park was shut down after 47 migratory birds were found dead in the park on 10 January 2015. The dead birds included Eurasian coots (36) and common moorhen (9) and one each of spot-billed duck and jungle babbler. Deaths of these birds had triggered fears of bird flu outbreak in the park but real cause of their death is not clear. The real cause is not known because the common feature of flu was not spotted in any of these birds. In case of bird flu, the legs of birds develop red spots. To know the real cause, samples of the dead birds have been sent to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal to verify the real cause of deaths.

About Sultanpur National Park- Sultanpur National Park, a bird sanctuary on Gurgaon-Farrukh Nagar Road is a seasonal wetland that attracts around 200 species of migratory birds every year between October and March from Europe, Siberia and Central Asia. The park is also a home of several species of insects, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. The park is located on the Sultanpur Jheel (an area of 1.21 sq. Km.) and the jheel was accorded Sanctuary status on 2 April 1971 under section 8 of the Punjab Wildlife Preservation Act of 1959. The decision of granting the Sanctuary status was taken after the 1969 Conference of the International Union of Conservation of nature and Natural resources (IUCN) in New Delhi. The status of the park was upgraded to National Park under Section 35 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 on 5 July 1991. Simultaneously the area was increased to 1.42 sq. Km.

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SPORTS On the way to make the world record of fastest century, Villiers went to fifty off 16 balls, one ball less than Sanath Jayasuriya's 19- Sania Mirza, Bethanie Mattek-Sands year old record of the fastest ODI half-century. won women’s doubles title of Sydney Jayasuriya scored the fifty in 17 balls for Sri International Lanka against Pakistan in 1995-96. Sania Mirza and her partner Bethanie Apart from this, Villiers 149 off 44 balls Mattek-Sands of the US on 16 January 2015 that included 16 sixes helped South Africa to won the women’s doubles title of the Sydney score 439, the second highest total in one-day International Tennis Tournament. internationals. South Africa went past their The unseeded Indo-American pair defeated own previous highest total-the 438 for nine top-seeded Americans Abigail Spears and they scored in a record run chase against Raquel Kops-Jones 6-3, 6-3 in the summit Australia on the same ground in 2005-06. Sri clash played in Sydney. With this win, the duo Lanka holds the world record of 443 for nine, earned 470 ranking points each and split 39000 made against the Netherlands in 2006. US Dollar as prize money. This was the fifth WTA title for Sania and ICC Cricket World Cup Bethanie together, while it was the first title of The ICC Cricket World Cup is the the season for Sania. This was 23rd career title international championship of One Day for Sania. International (ODI) cricket. It is organised by The 2015 Sydney International Tennis the International Cricket Council (ICC). The Tournament was held from 12 January to 17 world cup is held once in every four years. January 2015 at Sydney Olympic Park Tennis So far ten ICC Cricket World Cup have Centre, Australia. taken place. The eleventh Cricket World Cup will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Sydney International Tennis Tournament- Zealand in February and March 2015. Sydney International tennis Tournament 14 teams will be participating in World Cup also known as Apia International Sydney is one 2015. These are England, Australia, Sri Lanka, of the oldest professional tennis tournaments of Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Scotland, South the world. It started in 1885. The tournament Africa, India, Pakistan, West Indies, was used by colonial officials as a means to Zimbabwe, Ireland and UAE. select the Davis Cup team. The first match will be played in Currently, the tournament is conducted Christchurch, New Zealand and Melbourne, annually a week prior to the Australian Open, Australia on 14 February 2015, while the final the first Grand Slam tournament of the tennis match will be played at the Melbourne Cricket calendar. Ground on 29 March 2015.

South Africa's AB de Villiers hit Australia won 4-match Border- fastest century in ODIs Gavaskar Test series, 2-0 South Africa’s cricketer AB de Villiers on Australia on 10 January 2015 won the 4- 18 January 2015 hit the fastest century in One- match Border-Gavaskar Test series played Day International (ODI) cricket. The 30-year- against India by 2-0. India, who lost the first old South African captain scored the century in two matches of the game, was successful in just 31 balls. drawing the third and fourth matches of the He achieved the feat in second ODI match series. of the 5-match ODI series played at the Wanderers in Johannesburg against West Series Report- Indies. • 1st Test Match - played at Adelaide Oval The previous record was held by New between 9 December and 13 December 2014, Zealand’s Corey Anderson who scored a Australia won by 48 runs and Nathan Michael century in 36 balls against the West Indies on 1 Lyon of Australia was declared as the Player of January 2014. the match 21

• 2nd Test Match - played at Brisbane Cricket submitted their votes for the FIFA Ballon d’Or Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane between 17 award. The entire electoral procedure was December and 20 December 2014, Australia overseen and monitored by won by 4 wickets and Steven Smith of PricewaterhouseCoopers Switzerland (PwC). Australia was declared as the Player of the Other Awardees- match 1. Nadine Kessler won the FIFA Women’s • 3rd Test Match - played at Melbourne World Player of the Year award 2014. Cricket Ground between 26 December and 30 2. Joachim Low won the FIFA World Coach of December 2014, the match was drawn and the Year 2014 for Men’s Football award. Ryan James Harris of Australia was declared as 3. Ralf Kellermann won the FIFA World the Player of the match Coach of the Year 2014 for Women’s Football • 4th Test Match - played at Sydney Cricket award. Ground between 6 January and 10 January 4. James Rodriguez won the FIFA Puskas 2015, the match was drawn and Steven Smith Award for the best goal of the year. of Australia was declared as the Player of the 5. FIFA Team of the Year 2014: FIFPro World match XI includes Manuel Neuer, David Luiz, Philipp Lahm, Sergio Ramos and Thiago Silva in Bhakti set world record by swimming defence; Angel Di Maria, Andres Iniesta and 1.4 miles in 52 minutes in the Toni Kroos in midfield and Cristiano Ronaldo, Antarctic Ocean Lionel Messi and Arjen Robben in attack.

Indian open water swimmer Bhakti Sharma FIFA Ballon d'Or Award- on 14 January 2015 set a world record by • The FIFA Ballon d'Or award is an annual swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes in one association football award given by FIFA to degree temperature in the Antarctic Ocean. She the male player who has performed the best in is the first Indian women as well as to achieve the previous calendar year this feat. • It is awarded based on the votes from national She broke the record of British open water team coaches and captains, as well as swimming champion Lewis Pugh and journalists from around the world. American swimmer Lynne Cox. • The award began in 2010 after France The 24-year old is now the first Asian girl Football's Ballon d'Or and the men's FIFA and youngest in the world to have achieved this World Player of the Year award were merged. feat and now has conquered all the five oceans • The winner of the 2010 FIFA Ballon d'Or of the world. was Lionel Messi who then won the title for Bhakti’s quest was sponsored by Hindustan the following two years 2011 and 2012. Zinc.

Cristiano Ronaldo won the 2014 FIFA Mahendra Singh Dhoni announced retirement from Test cricket Ballon d'Or Award Mahendra Singh Dhoni on 30 December Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo on 2014 announced retirement from International 12 January 2015 won the 2014 FIFA Ballon Test Cricket with immediate effect. d’Or award for the best footballer of the year in Dhoni decided to retire from Test Cricket by the world. It is the third time that Ronaldo has citing the strain of playing all formats of won the Ballon d'Or award following the Cricket. Now he wants to concentrate on ODI previous triumphs in the years 2008 and 2013. and T20 formats. Ronaldo defeated Barcelona forward Lionel His decision to retire from Test Cricket Messi and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel came after the Third Test against Australia at Neuer by bagging 37.66 percent of votes. the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Lionel Messi was at the second position Although the match ended in a draw, however, with 15.76 votes and Manuel Neuer stood at Dhoni surpassed Kumar Sangakkara record of the third place with 15.72 percent votes. stumping 134 players in all the three formats. 181 national team coaches, 182 national team captains and 181 media representatives 22

Virat Kohli will be the captain of the Indian Team for the Fourth and Final Test against Australia that will be played in Sydney from 6 January 2015. India has already lost the series.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni in Test Cricket- • He is widely regarded as one of the greatest finishers in limited-over cricket • He made his Test debut on 2 December 2005 as wicket-keeper against Sri Lanka • Under his leadership India became the No. 1 team in the Test Rankings • He became the captain of Indian Test Cricket team in 2008 • In his Test career, he has played 90 matches and scored 4876 runs in 144 innings • His highest Test score is 224 runs

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AWARDS Till now 43 people have been honoured with the Bharat Ratna. In 2013, cricketer Prabhu Nath Dwivedi named as the Sachin Tendulkar and scientist C N R Rao were awarded Bharat Ratna for their winner of the Sahitya Akademi contribution in their respective fields. Award 2014 for Sanskrit Eminent Sanskrit scholar Prabhu Nath About Madan Mohan Malaviya- Dwivedi was on 14 January 2015 named as the • He was a freedom fighter and educationist winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 who was part of the Indian National Movement for Sanskrit language. • He was popularly known as Mahamana. He was awarded for his work • He was president of Indian National Congress Kanakalochanaha, a collection of 16 short- (INC) for two terms in 1909 and1918. He was stories based on various social issues. His name one of the founders of the Hindu Mahasabha. was selected by a three-member jury of the • He was one of the leading educationists of Sahitya Akademi. India before independence and he was founder The award will be presented to him in of the Banaras Hindu University in 1916. March 2015 during the Festival of Letters that • He was also the Chairman of Hindustan will be organised by the Sahitya Akademi in Times from 1924 to 1946. His efforts resulted New Delhi. in the launch of its Hindi edition in 1936 Backround- • Malviya was born in Allahabad in Uttar In December 2014, Sahitya Akademi Pradesh, India on 25 December 1861 announced names of 22 poets and authors that About Atal Bihari Vajpayee- will be honoured with prestigious Sahitya • Vajpayee is a three time Prime Minister of Akademi Award 2014. India who served the first term in 1996 for just But it had not announced the winners of 13 days. During his second term in 1998-1999 Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 for Manipuri he served for 13 months. and Sanskrit language. • In his final and third term he completed the About Sahitya Akademi Award- full five-year from 1999-2004. Thus, he Sahitya Akademi Award is conferred every became the first Prime Minister from outside year on writers who have shown outstanding the Indian National Congress party to serve a works in one of the twenty-four major Indian full five-year term. languages. • When Janata government collapsed, Vajpayee These twenty-four major Indian languages restarted the Jana Sangh as the Bharatiya are Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Janata Party in 1980. Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, • He began a push for a full-scale diplomatic Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, peace process with Pakistan and initiated a new Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthan, Sanskrit, peace process aimed towards permanently Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. resolving the Kashmir dispute and other The award prize consists of engraved conflicts with Pakistan. With this view he copper plaque, a shawl and a cheque of 1 Lakh inaugurated Delhi-Lahore bus service in rupees. February 1999 and signed Lahore Declaration with Nawaz Sharif, the then PM of Pakistan. Atal Bihari Vajpee and Pandit Madan • He was also the Minister of External Affairs Mohan Malaviya to receive Bharat in the cabinet of Prime Minister Morarji Desai Ratna in 1978. As foreign minister, that year Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpee Vajpayee became the first person to deliver a and freedom fighter Pandit Madan Mohan speech to the United Nations General Malaviya (posthumously) will receive the Assembly in Hindi. Bharat Ratna. The decision to confer the highest civilian award of the country was About Bharat Ratna Awards- announced by the Union Government on 24 • Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of December 2014. India that was instituted on 2 January 1954 by the order of Rajendra Prasad, the former 24

President of India. Bharat Ratna recipients rank others. seventh in the Indian order of precedence, but constitution prohibits using the award name as About the Giraffe Hero award- title. The Giraffe Heroes Project is a non-profit • The award is conferred in recognition of group which honours the risk-takers, people exceptional service or performance of the who are largely unknown, people who have the highest order, without distinction of race, courage to take risks for the common people in occupation, position, or sex. the US and around the world. • The award was originally limited to Earlier, the following people from India achievements in the arts, literature, science and were honoured with the Giraffe Hero award public services but the union government including Baba Amte, Mabelle Arole, Jaya expanded the criteria to include any field of Arunachalam, C P Bhatt, Sunitha Krishnan, human endeavour in 2011. Usha Narayane, Bunker Roy, Vijay Saluja and • Recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are G Venkatasamy. made by the Prime Minister to the President, with a maximum of three nominees being awarded per year. Recipients receive a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal-leaf–shaped medallion and award does not contain any monetary grant. • Original provisions of the Bharat Ratna did not allow any one to grant the posthumous awards. Later in January 1966, a provision posthumous was inserted. • The former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was the first individual to be honoured posthumously in 1966. • The first recipients of the Bharat Ratna were C Rajagopalachari, scientist C V Raman and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan were honoured in 1954.

Noted RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal conferred with Giraffe Hero award 2015

Renowned Indian RTI activist Subhash

Chandra Agrawal was on 15 January 2015 conferred with the Giraffe Hero award 2015 by a US-based NGO The Giraffe Heroes Project.

The award will be presented to him on 22

January 2015.

Agrawal was awarded for his bravery in utilising the Right to Information (RTI) Act,

2005 for public good despite innumerable challenges. Agrawal also holds the Guinness record of filing highest number of published letters to the editors.

His RTI applications has delivered some important orders in India like declaration of assets by Supreme Court judges, bringing political parties under the RTI act among

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APPOINTMENTS 2016. Brahma, the senior-most Election Filmmaker Pahlaj Nihalani appointed Commissioner in the Election Commission of India succeeds V.S. Sampath. as Chairman of CBFC Sampath demitted the office on 15 January Filmmaker Pahlaj Nihalani on 19 January 2015 after attaining the age of 65, the upper 2015 was appointed as the Chairman of Central age limit under the Constitution for holding the Board of Film Certification (CBFC). post. Nihalani, known for the 1990s blockbusters Brahma (64) will assume the charge of the Shola aur Shabnam and Aankhen will succeed office of Chief Election Commissioner with Leela Samson who resigned from her office on effect from 16 January 2015. He will have a 16 January 2015. small tenure of three months till 19 April 2015, Nihalani is also known for producing a fan- when he turns 65, the upper age limit for the song for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in post. 2014titled Har Ghar Modi-The Power House of India. About Harishankar Brahma- Union Information and Broadcasting • He is a 1975 IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh Ministry who reconstituted the complete Board cadre also appointed nine new members in it. The • He hails from Assam and has served as the tenure of the Chairperson and the members of former Union power secretary the CBFC will be of three years. • He was appointed as an Election The Chairman and the members were Commissioner on 25 August 2010 appointed in accordance with the sub-section After J.M. Lyngdoh, Brahma is the second (1) of Section 3 of the Cinematograph Act, officer from northeast to be appointed to this 1952 and Rule 3 of the Cinematograph post. (Certification) Rules, 1983. About Election Commission- Election Commission of India is a Appointed members of the board are- permanent Constitutional Body. It was • Film director Dr. Chandra Prakash Dwivedi – established in accordance with the Constitution he is known for his epic TV serial Chanakya on 25 January 1950. and critically acclaimed national award Originally the commission had only a Chief winning film Pinjar Election Commissioner, but now it is a three- • BJP leader Vani Tripathi Tikoo - she acted in member body, including the CEC and two films like Chalte Chalte and Dushman election commissioners. • Kashmiri activist and filmmaker Ashoke For the first time two additional Pandit - he is known for films like And the Commissioners were appointed on 16 October World Remained Silent and Sheen 1989 but they had a very short tenure till 1 • Dalit RSS activist Ramesh Patange – he January 1990. Later, on 1 October 1993 two authored Me, Manu anee Sangh (I, Manu, and additional Election Commissioners were Sangh) appointed. The concept of multi-member • Gujarat Central University Vice-Chancellor Commission has been in operation since then, Syed Abdul Bari with decision making power by majority vote. • Bengali actor George Baker • Tamil actor Sattanathapuram Venkataraman Alur Seelin Kiran Kumar appointed Shekhar • Telugu actor Jeevitha as Chairman of ISRO • Writer Mihir Bhuta Alur Seelin Kiran Kumar was on 12 January 2015 appointed as Chairman of Indian Space Hari Shankar Brahma appointed as Research Organisation (ISRO). Kiran Kumar became eighth Chairman of ISRO after the New Chief Election Commissioner succeeding K Radhakrishnan who retired on 31 Hari Shankar Bramha was appointed as the December 2014. new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) by President Pranab Mukherjee on 15 January 26

He was re-employed on contract basis for a • In March 2013, she was appointed as tenure of three years from the date of Secretary of the Planning Commission on assumption of the charge of post. Kiran Kumar contract basis for two years. will also be the Secretary of the Department of Space and also the Chairman of Space Background- Commission. Union Government on 1 January 2015 His appointment was approved by the replaced the decades old Planning Commission Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. with a new institution named National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Background- Aayog). The institution will be chaired by the Former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan Prime Minister Narendra Modi. had retired on 31 December 2014. Following Noted Economist Arvind Panagariya was his retirement, Secretary of the Ministry of appointed as the Vice Chairman of the NITI Earth Sciences Shailesh Nayak was given the Aayog. Economist Bibek Debroy and former additional charge of ISRO till the appointment DRDO chief V K Saraswat were appointed as of a new head. full-time members of NITI Aayog. Kiran Kumar Alur Seelin- • A Physics graduate from the National College Jyotsna Suri elected as the President of Bangalore University, Kumar started his of the FICCI ISRO career with the Space Application Centre Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson of Bharat Hotels, on in 1975. 20 December 2014 was elected as the President • He played a crucial role in developing image of the Federation of Indian Chambers of sensors for Bhaskara, India's first remote Commerce & Industry (FICCI). sensing satellite launched in 1979. She was elected as the President at the • He was appointed as the Director of Space conclusion of the FICCI 87th annual general Applications Centre, Ahmedabad in 2012 for meeting. Space borne Electro-optical imaging systems. She succeeded Sidharth Birla, Chairman of • Credited with developing key components of Xpro India Limited and Digjam Limited. India's Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan Also, Ambuja Neotia group Chairman missions, Kumar was awarded the Padma Harshavardhan Neotia was elected Senior Vice Shree in 2014. President and Zydus Cadila Chairman Pankaj R. Patel as Vice President. Sindhushree Khullar appointed as the About Jyotsana Suri- Chief Executive Officer of NITI Jyotsana Suri has been the Chairperson of Aayog the FICCI tourism committee since last five Senior bureaucrat Sindhushree Khullar was years and is the only Indian member on the on 10 January 2015 appointed as the Chief International Executive Committee of the Executive Officer (CEO) of National World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Under her direction, FICCI introduced The Aayog with effect from 1 January 2015. She Great India Travel Bazaar in the year 2008 and will serve the position for one year. The Great Domestic Tourism Bazaar in the Her appointment was approved by the year 2011. Appointment Committee of the Cabinet. She has won many awards and accolades. Few among them includes Sindhushree Khullar- • Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the • Sindhushree Khullar is 1975-batch officer of Warwick University, the UK the Indian Administrative Service’s (IAS) • World Travel Market Global Award (2011) Union Territories cadre. • Asia’s Leading Woman in Hospitality Award • She became the Member-Secretary of at the Women in Leadership (WIL) Asia Planning Commission in April 2012 by Awards 2012 replacing Sudha Pillai.

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2014 PERSON OF THE YEAR: little there was to know about Ebola virus— symptoms, modes of transmission, treatment THE EBOLA FIGHTERS options. In its early stages, Ebola looked like On the outskirts of Monrovia, the any number of human infections common in capital of Liberia, on grassy land among palm that part of the world, including malaria; fever, trees and tropical hardwoods, stands a cluster achiness, a general sense of malaise. By the of one-story bungalows painted cheerful time it produced more shocking symptoms— yellow with blue trim. This is the campus of uncontrollable vomiting, torrential diarrhea, Eternal Love Winning Africa, a organ failure and sometimes bleeding—the nondenominational Christian mission, patient's chance of survival was small. comprising a school, a radio station and a The best news Eisenhut found was that hospital. It was here that Dr. Jerry Brown, the Ebola virus does not pass through the air; hospital's medical director, first heard in March transmission requires direct contact with the that the fearsome Ebola virus had gained a body fluids of symptomatic patients. As for toehold in his country. Patients with the rare treatments, her findings were meager: fluids to and deadly disease were turning up at a clinic stave off dehydration and Tylenol for pain. in Lofa County—part of the West African And to prevent its spread, chlorine bleach borderlands where Liberia meets Guinea and solution to disinfect skin, clothes, bedding and Sierra Leone. "It was then that we really started floors. There was no known cure. panicking," says Brown. Eisenhut's findings made it clear that Even in ordinary circumstances, the Ebola patients must be separated from the rest doctor's workday was a constant buzz of people of the hospital population and treated by staff seeking answers: Can you help with this wearing protective gear. And this posed further diagnosis? Would you have a look at this X- questions for Brown. The Eternal Love ray? What do you make of this rash? Winning Africa (ELWA) hospital didn't have Inevitably, Brown would raise his eyebrows an isolation ward, nor was there time or money and crease his forehead as if surprised that enough to build one. No hospital in Liberia had anyone would thin k he might know the an- one. Looking around the compound for a swer. Just as inevitably, he would have one. solution. Brown's eye settled on the modest Ebola was different. On this subject, chapel, bare but for a few battered wooden Brown had more questions than answers. He pews and a lectern that served as a pulpit, knew the virus was contagious and highly "Well, of course, turning the chapel into lethal—fatal in up to 90% of cases. But why an Ebola unit was not welcomed by the staff of was it in Liberia? Previous Ebola outbreaks the institution. The bulk of them said, 'Why had been primarily in remote Central Africa. should we turn the house of God into a place Could the disease be contained in the rural where we put people with such a deadly north? The membrane between countryside and disease?'And some said, 'Where will you city in Liberia was highly porous; people provide for us to worship in the morning?'" flowed into Monrovia in pursuit of jobs or Brown recalls. (His story, like all the accounts trade and flowed "back to their villages, quoted here, was shared in an interview.) families and friends. "Sooner or later," Brown Dr. John Fankhauser, another volunteer, remembers thinking, "it might reach us." And a family physician from Ventura, Calif., had a what then? A poor nation still shaky after years ready answer to those objections. Jesus himself of civil war, Liberia—population 4 million- treated patients in the house of God, plus—had just a handful of ambulances in Fankhauser noted. Still, the idea remained operation. How could Liberia possibly deal unpopular, so Brown tried a more personal with Ebola? brand of persuasion. One by one, or in small Because he couldn't answer these groups, he asked the upset hospital workers, imponderables, Brown focused on what he "What if you get sick with Ebola, or a member could do. At a staff meeting, he assigned Dr. of your family? If the ELWA facility is not Debbie Eisenhut, an American with Serving in prepared to treat patients, where will you go?" Mission (SIM), to research the disease. By Eventually, as Brown recalls, "a couple of them combing the Internet, Eisenhut found what saw reason." 28

Brown arranged for staff training and catastrophic. The number of Liberians with stockpiled bleach. Eisenhut took charge of the jobs fell by nearly half as "businesses and chapel conversion, assisted by Dr. Kent markets closed in fear of Ebola. Sierra Leone's Brantly, a physician from Texas who had meager health care network simply collapsed: moved to Liberia with his family as part of the Ebola patients were told by the government to Christian relief group Samaritan's Purse. The stay home rather than look for a hospital bed. doctors found room for six beds, which seemed In Guinea, the epidemic stoked distrust of like plenty, because they assumed that Liberia's government and aid workers. Medical Ministry of Health would eventually create a missionaries were driven from villages by proper Ebola treatment facility. The chapel violence and threats. would be needed only as a safe place to hold Ebola should not have been a surprise. infected patients while they awaited test results The steady expansion of human habitat brings and transfers. people into contact with remote reservoirs of "Vast and tragic questions lie behind poorly understood diseases, and mobile that mistaken assumption. The Ministry of populations allow pathogens to infect large Health did virtually nothing. Why did it fail to numbers in a short time. The story of Ebola is take timely action? And why was the failure the story of SARS, of MERS—and most of all, replayed in Guinea and Sierra Leone? Why it is the story of HIV and its nearly 80 million weren't these governments encouraged and victims, roughly half of whom have died. AH supported by international watchdogs like the are animal-borne viruses that crossed to World Health Organization! WHO)? Why were humans; HIV and Ebola even come from the so many officials from Washington to Geneva same region of Central Africa. to Beijing unable to see what Brown could see, But lessons are easily forgotten, it unable to prepare as he prepared? Why didn't seems, in the face of feckless African the news from the borderlands produce governments and complacent Western powers, immediate official action in March, when the rival healers and turf-guarding bureaucrats. worst Ebola epidemic in history—by far— National and global health authorities would might have been contained and snuffed out? wait five months beyond March to Why, in short, was the battle against acknowledge the unfolding disaster. Health Ebola left for month after crucial month to a ministries would ignore the warnings of ragged army of volunteers and near volunteers: doctors who were seeing the hot zone firsthand. doctors who wouldn't quit even as their WHO would initially rebuff efforts by the U.S. colleagues fell ill and died; nurses comforting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention patients while standing in slurries of mud, (CDC) to help. By the time the authorities vomit and feces; ambulance drivers facing woke up, the epidemic was galloping away down hostile crowds to transport passengers from them. teeming with the virus; investigators tracing There will be time, when the still raging chains of infection through slums hot with epidemic is finally conquered, to dissect the disease; workers stoically zipping contagious failures. For now, consider the stories of corpses into body bags in the sun; patients individuals who stood up to Ebola and, by meeting death in lonely isolation to protect doing so, raised hopes that victory is possible. others from infection? In the memorable words of an essay by one According to official counts, more than r7,8oo volunteer, Ella Watson-Stryker, they found people have been infected with Ebola virus in themselves "fighting a forest fire with spray this epidemic and more than 6300 have died bottles." They did not give up. since this outbreak's first known case in rural Guinea in December 2013. Many on the front A HOSTILE WELCOME lines believe the actual numbers are much WHILE ELWA WAS GEARING UP higher—and in any event, they continue to rise IN MARCH, across the border in Guinea the steeply. The virus has traveled to Europe and .Ebola crisis had galvanized the group Doctors North America, where the resulting fear Without Borders' Medecins Sans Frontieres exceeded any actual threat to public health. In (MSF). The nearest modern medical facility to West Africa, however, the impact has been the original outbreak was an MSF clinic in 29

Gueckedou intended primarily to treat malaria. movement pledged to deliver quality care to In February patients began arriving at the clinic patients in remote and troubled places. The with high fevers. group, which was honored with the 1999 Nobel Clinic doctors flashed word to MSF Peace Prize, is fiercely independent, with the headquarters in Geneva. Alarmed, the higher- vast majority of its budget coming from private ups dispatched a small team of investigators to donations. In 2or3, MSF amassed more than si bring back blood samples for testing. "We billion globally. Having a large and thought it could be Lassa fever," the unrestricted revenue stream allows MSF to organization's president, Dr. Joanne Liu, shun red tape and to speak honestly about recalls. Like Ebola, Lassa can cause pain and conditions in the places where its medics bleeding. Unlike Ebola, Lassa was known to be venture. The organization is often among the common in West Africa. Though somewhat first and loudest reporters of bad health news less deadly, Lassa is still a matter of grave that local officials would prefer to keep quiet. concern. Even before the test results were back, Being effective did not guarantee a MSF assembled a sort of infectious disease warm welcome, however. The MSF team SWAT team to head off an epidemic. Watson- encountered a local population hostile to Stryker, a veteran public-health educator, got outsiders. After decades, even centuries, of the call at her apartment in New York and strife and misrule, the civil fabric of Guinea within days was on a jet to Geneva for was badly frayed, and now this mysterious briefings. disease fired all sorts of rumors, Guineans While changing planes, she checked her could not help noticing that the foreigners and phone and learned that the lab results were the Ebola virus had entered their lives almost back and the samples contained Ebola. "Very simultaneously. "You saw the fear in people's briefly, I thought about getting hack on the faces. They didn't understand what was going plane and going back to New York," she says, on," Watson-Stryker says. but she continued on to Geneva with her mind And the scene around Gueckedou was unspooling "the graphic movie version of indeed unsettling. On land near the clinic, Ebola, of people bleeding from their faces." construction crews were pouring concrete At headquarters, Watson-Stryker's fears floors for tents to be filled with Ebola patients were tempered by MSF doctors who had dealt who had yet to materialize. Figures clad head- with earlier Ebola outbreaks. She set off for the to-toe in waterproof protective suits, bug-eyed forest of Guinea, as part of a team that would in goggles, went house to house with sprayers not only treat patients but also trace their pumping who knows what onto the ground contacts and educate their families and from tanks on their backs. It was chlorinated neighbors on the nature and prevention of the water to kill the virus, but some locals disease. The team would also try to get a concluded that MSF workers were in picture of how widespread the problem might Gueckedou to kill them. A young driver be. employed by MSF told Watson-Stryker that his Their two-car convoy jounced and father had stopped speaking to him because he slogged for two days over bad roads to tea the was involved with the clinic. More than once, clinic in Gueckedou. "When wt got there, the her car was stoned. As she approached one tiny crew of people who hail been handling home, the man of the house emerged holding a everything were very happy to see us," knife that he tapped menacingly against his Watson-Stryker recalls. "One of the women— thigh. she was in charge of the project—I don't think Thwarted by rampant suspicion, anyone has looked that happy to see me ever in Watson-Stryker hired local Guineans as her my life. They were really exhausted." Other aid eyes and ears, sending them into villages to get organizations in the region were evacuating a sense of the outbreak's impact on people so their staffs, according to Watson-Stryker; only she could help prepare for local interventions. MSF was expanding. They would talk and listen with village leaders, Arguably the most effective—and in- often returning with alarming reports. "There's arguably the cockiest—medical-relief or- a lot of sick people in that village," one might ganization in the world, MSF is a global say. 30

By this careful but urgent process, the patients. By then, however, the challenge MSF team determined that something new and would be incalculably greater. dangerous was going on in the borderlands. Frieden says he intervened personally with Previous Ebola outbreaks had been isolated in WHO's top leadership. "I had to get directly a single area, but now the virus was involved," he explains, telling his counterparts, widespread. As MSF's Liu puts it, "Already "Let our team in. This is ridiculous." (A there were multiple locations of clusters" up to spokesperson from WHO told TIME that "no 100 miles (160 km) apart. In raw numbers, the one in Geneva knows of anything regarding Ebola outbreak might have seemed small CDC" being asked to leave Guinea in March.) compared with the chronic contagions of The CDC specialists believed they had a cholera and malaria in West Africa. But an chance to control the epidemic if they worked epidemic of Ebola, with its ghastly effects, with local health authorities and other groups could corrode civil society by spreading panic. in the region. But Frieden's protests changed The disease leaped to the top of MSF's nothing. "They wanted to do it themselves— priorities. there was resentment." Summing it up, he says, But few officials wanted to hear it. Liu "WHO didn't want us there, so we left." recalls fruitless conversations in March with ministries of health in the region, "pushing TRACING THE WEB them and telling them that this was going to be In Monrovia, Terry Brown found different." Again and again, health officials himself wondering if he had converted the hos- complained that the doctors—not the disease— pital chapel in vain. April turned to May, and would panic the populace. "We were quickly still Ebola had not reached the capital. There told by a variety of agencies that we were was one close call: an infected traveler from crying wolf," Liu says. Lofa County commuted through the city on her One skeptic—perhaps the most way to the town of Harbel, where she died. But influential and thus the most disastrous—was Dr. Mosoka Fallah, a Harvard-educated WHO, the health arm of the U.N. Underfunded Liberian epidemiologist, rushed to the home of and overly bureaucratic, WHO is, in the eyes of the taxi driver who had picked up the traveler its many critics, woefully inadequate in dealing and persuaded him to accept a 21-day with rapidly emerging threats like Ebola. quarantine The three weeks passed—the full Worse perhaps, the agency's local incubation period for Ebola—with no new representatives are notoriously jealous of their sign; of disease. Monrovia remained untouched turf and prerogatives. At this same critical Brown contacted the Ministry of Health in moment, WHO offices in West Africa turned early June to ask if he should dismantle away a team of experts from the CDC working ELWA's isolation unit. The official who took in Guinea, insisting that their help was not his call suggested waiting a few more days, just needed, says CDC director Dr. Thomas in case. Frieden. The CDC, a large and very well- On June 12, after a late evening in regarded public-health agency, is unsurpassed surgery, Brown emerged from the operating in its capacity for action, maintaining some room to find a string of missed calls on his cell 2,000 field workers in 6o countries around the phone. Ringing back, he reached the same world. Those workers in turn can often official, who asked if the chapel facility was summon resources from the U.S. to smother still ready. Two patients visitors from Sierra epidemics in their infancy abroad. Leone who were staying in New Kru Town, an Teamwork at this early moment might area populated by immigrants, had turned up at have saved thousands of lives and ultimately the government-run Redemption Hospital in billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs Monrovia with suspicious symptom?. Medical stemming from the Ebola epidemic. Instead, staff examined them without protective gear. WHO closed the door, says Frieden. "They most likely have Ebola," the ministry The CDC would be back in the official said, according to Brown. "And the summer, when Ebola was running wild, to train only place I thought about that we could keep local volunteers in the crucial techniques of them until we have an investigation done is at tracing and evaluating the contacts of Ebola your center." 31

Brown dreaded the impact of welcom- "This was a six-bedroom house, but in ing Ebola into his hospital, but he felt he had New Km Town, typically every room is a no moral choice but to absorb it. He knew his household," Fallah says. "And we were fellow doctors would stand with him, but the counting between five to 10 or so in a room. So nurses were another matter. They initially we're looking at between 30 to 60 persons." refused to mix disinfectant and don protective Through dogged investigation, Fallah gear for the work unit. "If you want ray soon learned the identity of the person who resignation, I will give it to you," one told drove the patients to Redemption Hospital and Brown. "I would rather leave than attend to an confirmed that the driver's sister was dead of Ebola patient." Another nurse said she felt too the disease. He learned that the driver had sick to stay at work. "I developed a headache a disappeared. And he determined that those couple of minutes ago," she said. contacts had other contacts—the strands of a With all their work thus far at stake, the web that Fallah followed until he discovered doctors tried personal appeals to their favorite the identity of a contact who had been vomiting nurses. Brantly circled around to the nurse with in the street. Yet other contacts (his heart fell the headache, and after a little cajoling, she when he realized this) had visited "a communal agreed to work in the isolation unit—but not bathroom that all the houses use." This is a alone. The doctors continued to plead with staff classic example of contact tracing, and it's until they found a nurse's aide and an critical to fighting infectious disease. Watson- operating-room technician willing to suit up. Stryker and others were doing much the same Covered head to toe in Tyvek gear, thing in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The network goggles and masks, this cobbled-together team of contacts that Fallah unearthed revealed that was ready when the ambulance from Ebola had been simmering in Monrovia for Redemption pulled into the ELWA compound some time. "Things were going on that we two hours after the official's call. Brown was didn't know about," he says. "People visiting shocked to see the ambulance crew dressed in clinics. Some of them went to the church." But ordinary scrubs. none of it had been reported. Fear, shame and One of the patients lay dead inside the ignorance combined to keep Ebola shrouded. vehicle. Brantly rushed the other patient into This was a terrible revelation, says Fallah. "It the chapel; that patient died a couple of days blew our minds." later, according to Brown. A nurse from the ambulance was likewise doomed, along with a A CHAIN REACTION doctor who did the initial screening at EBOLA'S LURKING PRESENCE IN THE Redemption. Ebola had reached the city. CAPITAL gave it a head start once it revealed But it was even worse than that, as the itself in mid-June, and Monrovia's fragile Liberian epidemiologist Fallah quickly-Lame patchwork of health care providers was quickly to understand. He knew that an epidemic is not overwhelmed. a simple matter of the sick people you can see. The meltdown began in early July at Even more important is the web of individuals Redemption, a single-story structure painted who touch the sick or are touched by them. To swimming-pool green and blazoned with control a contagion, it's not enough to treat the murals that explain the importance of personal visible patients; you must find and contain hygiene and antimalarial mosquito nets. every strand and tendril of the web. Redemption Hospital's lack of preparation Fallah retraced the steps of the patient ignited a chain reaction of infection and death: who died in ELWA's chapel to a house in the a nurse, a doctor, a medical aide. Frightened Monrovia slum of New Km Town, home to staff members vanished from their posts, many Sierra. Leonean immigrants, where he forcing the hospital to close temporarily at a encountered "a strong feeling of denial" about time of desperate need. the virus. One woman he approached gave a Other health workers at other clinics typical reply: "If anyone says they have Ebola quickly followed. (Brown and his colleagues in this house, I will give you a slap." To ac- somehow managed to keep ELWA knowledge the disease was to invite social functioning.) Institutions that might have taken stigma and financial ruin. up some slack as clearinghouses for 32

information to fight the epidemic— schools because the suit "stares people, and they won't and government offices—also began shutting necessarily tell you the truth," he explains. down, and many senior bureaucrats fled the During the examination, the woman's country. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf mother needed help from her daughter in appeared stunned, frozen in place, unable to making an urgent trip to the bathroom. Brantly declare an emergency until seven weeks after suspected Ebola. He took the woman aside to the Redemption disaster. It was alarming how explain why her mother needed to go to the rapidly the yoked contagions of virus and fear ETU. "I had to counsel her extensively to unhinged Monrovia. reassure her that we were trying to do what was Within days of the June 12 call, best for her mother—we were not abandoning ELWA's six-bed chapel was overwhelmed. The her," the doctor says. "I took off my mask, Ministry of Health scrambled to create a gloves and apron when I talked to her, and 1 rudimentary 20-bed Ebola treatment unit probably held her hands or put my arm around (ETU) at the state-run John F. Kennedy her shoulder, as I often do." Brantly doesn't Hospital, and the new facility was beyond think he was infected by the mother. But the capacity almost as soon as it opened. At least daughter had taken her to the toilet, and there's two dozen people died in Monrovia in the early a chance she hadn't washed her hands days after Ebola's arrival. afterward. More beds were needed. Brown decided There was more bad news for Brown. to convert the brand-new kitchen and laundry On July 26, ELWA's personnel coordinator, building donated by Samaritan's Purse. An Nancy Writebol—a medical aide from North emergency check from the organization, which Carolina who worked with Serving in was founded by the Rev. Franklin Graham— Mission—tested positive for Ebola. Within a son of the evangelist Billy Graham—provided few days, two other employees had been for building materials and more protective infected. Once again. Brown had to talk his gear. Samaritan's Purse also sent its director of way through a possible staff walkout. disaster response. Dr. Lance Plyler, to join the It was late July now, and Ebola had battle. Hastily completed in July, ELWA 2, as pushed Jerry Brown and his hospital to its the facility became known, had room for an breaking point. On a. personal level, he was additional 20 beds. now forced to do something he had promised Still, it wasn't enough. "Within a week his wife he would not do: suit up in it was filled," Brown says. "People were now Tyvekandgo to work in the ETU. Every willing in the corridors, under the eaves of the hand was needed, and the fearful staff must see building. Patients were just pouring in on a that the boss had enough courage to do as daily basis." much as he asked of them, he says. Brown and Brantly had agreed early on Brown also made a painful decision to that Brantly would handle the Ebola cases close the main hospital for a few days and limit while Brown kept the rest of the hospital going. some services after that. Though malaria As July crept along one wretched day after season was coming on and expectant mothers another, matters became so chaotic at ELWA counted on ELWA for childbirth, Brown felt he that Brown didn't immediately notice when had no choice. Not after one of his own nurses, Brantly went missing from the treatment unit. down with Ebola, was turned away for want of When, late in the month., he noticed and asked abed. for an explanation, Dr. Fankhauser broke the news that their colleague was feverish and had ANATOMY OF A VIRUS put himself in quarantine at home. IN HIS WHITE LAB COAT AND Evidently, Brantly had been exposed to EYEGLASSES, Dr. Bruce Ribner looks the virus while performing triage in ELWA's nothing like a biblical patriarch, but for many emergency room. During an overnight shift, a years he felt like Noah building his ark. As woman brought her suffering mother into the medical director of the Serious Communicable ER for help. Brantly wore a gown, gloves and Disease Unit at Emory University Hospital in face mask but not the full protective suit, Atlanta, Ribner began work in 2001 on a meticulously safe and secure facility where 33

patients suffering from lethal contagious Chastened, the Department of Defense diseases—like Ebola—could be treated with accelerated its own research. For Thomas minimal risk. At the time, the only remotely Geisbert, a scientist at the U.S. Army's high- comparable unit in the U.S. was a locked room, security USAMRI ID infectious-disease lab in nicknamed the Slammer, at an Army research Maryland, this was a career-making de- lab in Maryland. velopment. Having made Ebola his virus of Ribner built his safety pod at a time choice, he became a point man on a very when few others could see a need for it. "The important pathogen almost overnight. And unit was open for 12 years, and we had all of when 9/11 brought home the potential danger two activations—which both turned out to be of Ebola in the hands of terrorists, Geisberf’s negative," he recalls. His critics asked whether research budgets grew again. He focused on the money spent to maintain the unit and train developing drugs to attack the virus, one of and drill the staff was being wasted. Even which eventually became something called Ribner came to think of his creation less as a TKM-Ebola, as well as a vaccine. Still, despite vital part of a working hospital than as "an remarkable results in monkeys, "that's where it insurance policy." stopped," Geisbert says. There wasn't money or Then, on Tuesday morning, July 29, his interest from drug companies to "take those unit received a visit from "some government products across the finish line." people" who took a look around but said little. Over the years, he and other Ebola The next day, Ribner's telephone rang. The scientists made progress in understanding the government people wanted to know if Emory roles played by each of the virus's seven could receive an American Ebola patient from structural proteins in capturing certain human Liberia. cells and converting them into Ebola- "Of course!" the doctor replied. "That's replication factories. Why does Ebola do this? what we're in business for. If you get them It has no reason: a virus is not even a life form. here, we'll take care of them." After hanging It's like a gear that by itself can't accomplish up, Ribner reaped that he should let hospital anything. But when it drops just so into a larger management know that Ebola was on its way to machine, the machine becomes an accomplice North America. and begins cranking out copies of the gear. The Ebola virus (Zaire strain) was dis- The sole purpose of one of Ebola's covered in 1976 by Belgian microbiologist Dr. proteins, the glycoprotein (GP), is to distort the Peter Piot, but it entered the broader American immune response in primates. The Ebola GP consciousness only in 1995, through the can take two forms, one of which is good at runaway success of Richard Preston's The Hot binding to and disintegrating so-called sentinel Zone. Preston's book told the somewhat cells whose job is to raise the alarm about hyperbolic story of a mysterious disease (and invading agents like Ebola. At the same time, its cousin virus, Marburg) among lab monkeys another viral protein shuts down the immune at a facility in Reston, Va. The cause proved to system's ability to produce interferons, which be a new strain of Ebola that, thankfully, was normally act as potent virus killers. As Ebola harmless to humans. Though the Reston crisis continues to replicate and thwart the immune faded, no one who read Preston's descriptions defenses, it launches into the blood to reach of viruses spreading invisibly through critical infection-fighting tissues like the lymph passenger jets or terminal patients bleeding nodes. The result: sky-high fever, agonizing from every orifice ever entirely lost their dread aches and pain, deluges of vomiting and of Ebola. diarrhea—all of which can send the body into By coincidence, the virus caught the shock. Dehydration, low blood pressure, attention of America's national-security electrolyte imbalances and organ failure all apparatus at about the same time. In the early may contribute as causes of death. Basically, '90s, a defector from the former Soviet Ebola tricks your body into surrendering itself. bioweapons program testified before Congress When Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an Iranian- that his government had been studying Ebola American geneticist at Harvard, was 19, she as a possible weapon. read Preston's book and said, "Oh wow, I want to do that!" she recalls. Her chance came in 34

March. After years of working with lab In a rush, Gallah donned his protective samples of Lassa and Ebola, she and her team gear and scooped up the boy, who immediately were presented with boxes of blood in vials, vomited all over him. "Maybe there was an fresh from patients in West Africa. By opening somewhere that I didn't know," he sequencing the genome of each virus sample, suggests. Thanks to Gallah's efforts, the boy Sabeti and her team were able to track small eventually recovered, but within days of the mutations in the virus from one patient to the rescue, Gallah's temperature rose. Then the next. pain hit. "I had head aches before, but the This work proved highly valuable be- headaches of Ebola, they don't break," he says. cause it ruled out the possibility that the disease "You take some ibuprofen to cool it down and was being spread thro ugh repeated contact it escalates. with infected animals. Instead, it was moving "I have never experienced anything like from person to person. Her conclusion gave an I experienced with Ebola," he continues. added boost to the strategy of tracing patient "Ebola pain, it don't stop. It makes you want to contacts to corral the epidemic. give up. I used to be a strong man, and this just Unfortunately, the genome revealed no broke me down." magic bullet to fire at the heart of Ebola, which Salome Karwah, then a trainee nurse at ended up killing one of Sabeti's colleagues, Dr. her parents' modest medical clinic near Sheik Humarr Khan. Khan, a storied researcher Monrovia's airport, suffered the same and physician in Sierra Leone, died in July excruciating headaches when her whole family after getting infected while treating Ebola came down with Ebola after an infected uncle patients. sought her father's medical care in late August. But that was nothing compared with the agony BRUSHES WITH DEATH of watching both parents die in front of her at WHAT IS IT LIKE TO DIE OF the MSF-run Ebola treatment center. "I went EBOLA? FODAY Gallah came close enough out of my mind for about one week. I was to know. A gregarious man with a level gaze, going mad. I just felt that everything is over," Gallah ran an ambulance in Monrovia, an Karwah and her sister survived. exhausting and traumatizing service. Ebola has Soon after, MSF was looking to employ no power that he has not witnessed many Ebola survivors in the treatment center. times. His own infection came on the day that Scientists stop short of saying for certain that he saved a little boy's life. Ebola renders a person "immune" if he or she Gallah's ambulance was summoned in survives—but that's their suspicion. There's not early September to the home of a large family one known case in the decades since Ebola was who had all been exposed to Ebola. He found discovered of a person contracting the disease the mother and two of her children wretchedly more than once. So when MSF asked, Karwah symptomatic. Gallah eased them into his was one of the first to step forward. vehicle but left the rest of the family behind. "The first day I came here for an inter- With beds in short supply, hospital staff would view, I saw people carrying bodies. I started surely send away the ones without symptoms. crying. I told my friend, 'I can't make it.' But Soon, he was called back to that house. when I went the next day 1 said, 'Sitting and "When 1 got there, it was the grandmother, the crying won't help me. So it's better I go and father and the two sons. They were dehydrated. work. The more I interact with people, the They were weak." All four would die, just like more I will forget about my sad story.' So I the first three family members he transported. decided to make myself very much busy to This left one small child all alone. help others survive." Gallah urged the neighbors to call him For Kent Brantly, near death in late the moment the child showed symptoms. He July, the worst part was the helplessness. remembers the ringing of his phone. "When I "Ebola is a humiliating disease that strips you got there, the boy was lying in a pool of of your dignity," he says. "You are removed vomit,"he recalls."He's a 4-5-year-old child, from family and put into isolation where you right? Very dehydrated and weak. He couldn't cannot even see the faces of those caring for move." you due to the protective suits—you can only 35

see their eyes. You have uncontrollable colleagues. It reminded him of O.J. Simpson's diarrhea, which is just embarrassing." white Ford Bronco—an otherwise mundane With his temperature high, his heart image packed with mystery and tension. A racing and fluid collecting in his lungs, Brantly crisis that had been building for months was lay in his room at the ELWA compound, just somehow encapsulated in that vehicle, for "trying to rest and not die" while awaiting better or for worse. transfer to Ribner's unit in Atlanta. As his Week by week through the summer, Geisbert laptop played passages of Scripture set to had absorbed the enormity of the epidemic. music, words of the Apostle Paul settled on his Now signs of complete collapse were coming ears: "For I am convinced that neither death from West Africa. MSF saw them first. In nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the June, the group issued a fresh warning that present nor the future, nor any powers, neither Ebola was "totally out of control." Normally height nor depth, nor anything else in all wary of bigfoot interventions, MSF now creation, will be able to separate us from the pleaded for action on a scale that only the love of God." He clung to that hope like a Pentagon can provide. The warning was soon lifeline. validated. On July 25, the virus was found in As he was waiting, word came of an Freetown, the crowded capital of Sierra Leone. experimental drug called ZMapp, developed by A few days later, Liberian President Sirleaf at Canadian scientist Dr. Gary Kobinger. Like last took action, closing her country's borders Geisbert's TKM-Ebola, the drug showed and authorizing quarantines. On July 30, the promise in primates but had never been tested Peace Corps pulled its volunteers out of on humans and therefore hadn't been approved infected West African countries. for widespread use. Despite this litany of suffering, for Unfortunately, Dr. Plyler from Samari- many Americans it was the sight of that tan's Purse was able to get his hands on only airplane floating downward, bearing their enough ZMapp—three doses—to treat one Ebola-stricken countryman, that finally brought patient. Aware that Nancy Writebol was in home the pain. Walking to awaiting ambulance even worse condition than he, Brantly asked in his Halloween version of a space suit, that the first injection be given to her. But then Brantly carried the virus across the ocean— Brantly grew sicker, and Plyler worried that he both real and psychic— that separates Fortress wouldn't survive the transfer. He decided to America from the sorrows of distant masses. split the doses: Brantly would receive one Psychologists have shown that most humans injection and travel first; Writebol would feel the agony of an individual more intensely receive two and go on the next flight. The hope than the suffering of a large group. For many being, of course, that this would sustain them Americans, Brantly moved Ebola from ab- long enough to get them to Emory University straction to reality. Hospital in Atlanta. Even an American who has given nine THE PROBLEM TURNS VISIBLE years of her life to Liberia felt it, though she ON AUG. 2, NEAR NOON, A was disgusted with herself for the feeling. "I CHARTERED JET with a specially designed think definitely when an American got Ebola, biohazard unit inside began its final approach now it's like, anybody tan get it," says Katie into Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Meyler, founder of the More Than Me Atlanta. Inside was Brandy, so weak and Academy for the girls of West Point, a febrile that he had barely been able to climb the massively crowded Monrovia slum. "As short stairs onto the plane in Liberia. (Writebol messed up as that is and as frustrating as that would follow him three days later, in equally is, I definitely was guilty of a little bit of that miserable condition.) Television cameras on too." But there was something good to be said the ground in Georgia fed live images of the for the reaction. "It became international landing to satellite trucks, which bounced the news," Meyler says, "and 1 think that's when pictures to viewers around the world. the fight was on." Geisbert, the Ebola scientist, now at the Frozen pipelines of international action University of Texas Medical Branch, watched began to thaw. Dozing bureaucracies stirred. the scene on a TV set in Galves-ton with Within days after Brantly's evacuation, the 36

World Bank pledged $200 million and the perhaps most of all, money— actual cash, not CDC jolted awake its emergency-operations just pledges. unit, and on Aug. 8, WHO declared an Fighting a virus is not the same as emergency of international importance. responding to an earthquake or a tsunami. But as West Africans—and eventually Instead of a defined and visible problem, there the whole world- -would learn, there "was a lot is a mutating, invisible problem. Disaster relief of slack in the international response deals with aftermath; this battle was ongoing. The ringing of alarm bells in early August Eventually, the humanitarian efforts would would produce in September a promise of U.S. begin to get traction, but never as quickly as troops to build treatment units and an the humanitarians hoped. unprecedented U.N'. mission to attack the When Dec. 1 arrived— Banbury's tar- contagion. These steps would produce scouting get date for getting the upper hand on the trips several weeks later, followed by initial epidemic—he would have to acknowledge that deployments. (The first U.S.-built ETU went the target would not be met. There was online in early November.) A shocking progress, but the number of people infected and projection by the CDC warned that without killed was inevitably going to grow further. immediate and effective action, as many as 1.4 The failures of the official institutions to deal million people could be infected by January. with Ebola in a timely way had doomed the And still the response moved as if through effort to a long slog. "I'm proud of what we've mud. accomplished so far," Banbury ventures, "but Joanne Liu of MSF grew so frustrated in retrospect, the whole world wishes we had that she delivered a scathing attack at U.N. done more and we had done it earlier." headquarters in early September, decrying the "coalition of inaction" that was permitting people to die by the hundreds in the streets of THOSE WHO STAND UP Sierra Leone. In response, Anthony Banbury IN THE KILLING HEAT OF was summoned to his boss's office at the U.N. AUGUST, WITH Ebola uncontrolled, with no and ordered to lead the international Ebola sign of help on the way from local or national mission. or international cavalry, the time came for A veteran of some of the largest choosing. Who would run away? Who would famine-relief efforts in recent history, Banbury stand and fight? The choice was deeply has a knack for both the logistics and Ihe personal, one heart at a time. diplomacy involved in getting massive Katie Meyler made the choice, along amounts of help lo people with everything with Iris Martor, the nurse at More Than Me stacked against them: natural disasters, academy. Meyler, a tornado of energy, is a government corruption, nonexistent New Jersey native who set out for Liberia on a infrastructure. But he now says that nothing Iwo-month mission and now considers it home. prepared him for the complexity of fighting Martor has a tranquil face and—as time would Ebola. This was the first all-out international show —reservoirs of courage behind it. mission to fight an outbreak of infectious Like others in Liberia, the school col- disease. There was no precedent. leagues learned of the Ebola outbreak in Consider all that is needed: scores of March. Martor recalls overhearing a heated small ETUs spread across thousands of square conversation on a bus crowded with miles; trained doctors, nurses and support staff commuters. If there were 200 people on that to operate them; diagnostic laboratories and the bus, Martor estimates, 198 of them believed power sources lo feed them; supplies to keep that the government was lying about Ebola in them going; food to replace the crops untended hopes of squeezing money from international by dying farmers and farmers unwilling to aid groups. work in groups to harvest; offices staffed by The two women had no such illusions. experienced diplomats to coordinate efforts Knowing the basics of Ebola and the nature of among national governments, local slum life, they feared that, as Meyler puts it, "if governments, tribal leaders, NGOs and this ever got to West Point, it would be the end homegrown legions of Ebola fighters; and of Liberian existence. So many people live on 37

top of each other. If 100,000 people get Ebola organized a team from the More Than Me and they go out and spread it, it's a threat to the school to visit the homes of every student. existence of the Liberian people." "Praise be to God," she recalls, "none of them A low and crowded labyrinth on the had gotten sick." west side of Monrovia, on a peninsula that juts But Martor realized their health was fleeting if into the Atlantic like a thumb, West Point is the virus infected their neighbors. She went to home to at least 80,000 people, maybe more. Meyler with the suggestion that More Than Me The slum has no running water and virtually no sponsor teams of locals who could canvass as electricity; a U.N. agency study in 2009 found much of West Point as they could, house by just four public toilets serving a then estimated house. Wearing boots and rain gear provided 70,000 residents. Living seven or more to each by the school, the "case finders" slogged tiny room in makeshift shanties of corrugated through the muddy, viral streets. Martor's team metal and concrete blocks, the people of West followed Meyler's in their wake, keeping an Point are so densely packed that asking them to eye out for developing Ebola cases but tending avoid close contact with other humans is like to other health issues in the community too. It asking fish to avoid touching the sea. Ebola was dangerous work because no one knew arrived in West Point on Aug. r 2. which houses were contaminated. "Don't Meyler was home in New Jersey for a touch," Martor instructed her nurses. "Don't round of fundraising and a family vacation sit." when she noticed a story in the morning paper. Late in August, Martor's infant daugh- It was mid-August and West Point residents, ter spiked a fever, followed by vomiting and furious about the establishment of an Ebola diarrhea, and Martor was awash with fear that holding center in their neighborhood, looted she had brought death into her own home. But the building one night and made off with it wasn't Ebola, and the child recovered, potentially contaminated bedding. Concerned leaving Martor to reflect on the risks she was that the virus might spread out of control, taking and why she would do such a thing. President Sirleaf ordered the entire West Point "Initially, I was afraid. 1 should admit section cordoned off on Aug. 19. The next day, that," she says. "But then thinking and looking the quarantined residents rioted. Soldiers fired at it critically—if I don't help, I will still not be on the crowd, killing a teenage boy. free." Ebola would pose a danger until it is The photo alongside the article featured stamped out, and why shouldn't she be part of one of Meyler's students. She made her choice: the effort? "If someone from America comes to "I took the next flight to Liberia." She arrived help my people, and someone from Uganda, to find Liberia in chaos. Schools and then why can't I? This is my country. I should government offices were shuttered. Senior take the first step." officials had fled the country. Ebola was The same spirit sustains Ebola fighters everywhere: in the scenes of dying patients in throughout West Africa. It was in the bogs of waste outside the over-full hospitals, in international team of researchers who chased the stench of the rotting dead awaiting burial the virus to its source in Guinea— five of crews, in the dread that hung over the city like whom died in the epidemic before their a pall. findings could be published. It is in the Meyler and Martor became Ebola fight- personage of Nelson Sayon, who ran a ers because there was no one else to turn to. motorbike taxi service in Monrovia until Ebola. Overnight, they converted the school into an ad Like Meyler and Martor, he could have said no hoc disaster-response center, holding meetings, when the world fell short and left Ebola organizing food distribution and even setting untended. But he said yes. "I volunteered up an ambulance service for West Point with myself to help my country," he says, by joining funds from a wealthy donor. "It's like, we don't a burial team run by the Liberian Red Cross. have an organization if we don't have students His first day on the job, Aug. 2, Sayon who are alive," Meyler says. While she collected more than 10 contagious corpses, established a temporary orphanage and some of them left for days in the heat. People quarantine program for children whose families threw rocks as his vehicle passed by. were in treatment or wiped out, Martor Everything and everyone associated with Ebola 38

was being attacked; even Savon's parents were progress against the epidemic, there is at least worried about his work. one sign that the crisis is not over. There are In Maine, Kaci Hickox, an American empty beds in ETUs around Monrovia today, nurse, stood up to fight Ebola, answering a with cases declining in Liberia as a whole. But September plea for experienced volunteers Sierra Leone is failing to keep pace with its from MSF. Hickox had been dashing toward cases, and Guinea, scene of the original fires with MSF for years, but Ebola was outbreak, isn’t in the clear yet either. And now something different, she says. "It's one of those Mali is scrambling to prevent the virus from diseases that will infect an entire family and running away. "I'm not that optimistic yet." leave children as orphans and mothers without says Ella Watson-Stryker. "We still have cases their children." And it will kill health care coming in every day." workers for the smallest slip with protective Nevertheless, something significant has gear or an IV needle. (More than 600 doctors, been accomplished in the fight against Ebola. nurses and other medics have been infected in The same Liberian clinics that were turning the epidemic so far, while more than 300 have patients away in October, dooming them to die died.) During the time she was in training with in misery on filthy plastic tarps, now have beds MSF, Hiekox recalls, a worker at one of the standing empty, un-needed. Two possible group's Ebola facilities was infected—a first vaccines are on a fast track for widespread for MSF—but not a single member of her class trials in the African hot zone. The time needed quit. to test for Ebola is shrinking from days to Deployed to Bo, Sierra Leone's second minutes. The prospect of mass contagion largest city, Hiekox stepped into a grueling moving into the U.S. and Europe has paled. In routine. "International staff typically works i2- other words, victory appears possible, at the to-i4-Hourshiftssixdays a week," she says. "It end of a clear, if difficult, path. was in the high 90s when I was there and the There is hope. And hope has proved to suit is not breathable, because it's made to not be the most potent weapon yet discovered be absorbent. You can only be in the suit for against Ebola. With so much gruesome about an hour because of the heat—but on days practice, doctors have learned a great deal when we had 35 patients in the unit and maybe about treating the disease, and survival rates nine health workers, you have a very limited are going up. Instead of visiting traditional time to meet the patients' needs." healers, who became unwitting vectors of How can you properly comfort and infection, more Africans are now going encourage a patient who is moaning in agony voluntarily into ETUs because they have seen when you're peering through fogged-up survivors coming out. "Instead of saying, 'If goggles and shouting through a double mask? you get Ebola, you die,' it became 'If you report Fighting Ebola, in other words, means living at the Ebola treatment unit early, you stand a with "such a terrible feeling," Hiekox says, a chance,'" says Brown, the ELWA director. It is sinking, haunted sensation that no matter how the faint light before dawn. much you've done, you could have done more. We are left with lessons to be learned, Foday Gallah, the ambulance supervi- and the Ebola fighters can teach them. One has sor who saved a little boy's life and nearly lost to do with readiness: there wasn't any. Some of his own, recalled the fear he felt in choosing to the poorest governments on earth weren't ready stand up. But he says now that he really had no for Ebola, and neither were the wealthiest. choice. "We have to do it. Nobody had come" When a Liberian man named Thomas Eric to help, he says. "So we are the ones to pick up Duncan arrived at a Dallas hospital with Ebola, the cost. Fear was there, but it didn't overtake he was sent home with antibiotics. When he us." returned, the hospital staff was inadequately protected. Infectious disease is a flash flood VICTORY IN SIGHT moving somewhere beyond the horizon. We THE EBOLA FIGHTERS HAVE NOT must prepare while the sun is shining, because YET WON the battle. For every recorded when the rain starts falling, it's too late. infection, the CDC estimates that an additional Another lesson has to do with the im- 1.5 cases go unreported. And for every sign of portance of having promising medical 39

interventions ready to attack a virus before it the next one comes, remember the Ebola spreads. Scientists have been working on Ebola fighters and hope that we see their like again. for more than 20 years, but none made it to the drug-approval process because there was no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to Dr. Jerry Brown mass-produce therapies that we might only 46, MEDICAL DIRECTOR AND GENERAL need "just in case." SURGEON For instance, Nancy Sullivan and Gary AT THE ETERNAL LOVE WINNING Nebel, virologists at the U.S. National AFRICA HOSPITA. MONROVIA Institutes of Health, have worked for more than When it all started and we had a treatment unit a decade on an Ebola vaccine that was rushed set up, my wife did warn me not to enter the into human trials in August. Two other unit. So I didn't tell her. I had been in the unit vaccines aren’t far behind. And the companies two week without her knowing. I went home behind the drugs ZMapp and TKM-Ebola are one evening and started discussing a few things scrambling to produce enough doses for further about Dr. Abraham Borbor, my role model, trials. especially when I was in medical school—how Yet another lesson has to do with fear he was now ill, and how I was feeling so sorry and suspicion. Americans didn't throw stones at for him, and how his condition was not Ebola fighters or threaten them with machetes, improving despite what we were doing. And as happened in West Africa, but New Jersey she paused and asked "You are not working in Governor Chris Christie did try to force Hickox the unit. How do you know these things?" and l into an unnecessary quarantine when she caught myself. A few days later she noticed returned home. Dr. Craig Spencer, who changes in the color of my boxers from the volunteered with MSF in Guinea, was reduced chlorine solution used for disinfection when to a political football on cable TV when he leaving the unit. She said, "Ah, what is this?" I tested positive for Ebola upon his return. And had no option but to confess. We talked about Amber Vinson, a nurse who was infected while it for some time, and then she accepted it. What caring for Duncan in Dallas, was shocked to she said was, "I can't stop you. I realize this is see her photograph on TV just hours after something you like, so I am not going to stop being diagnosed herself. She then endured the you. But just be careful." pain of reading hostile online comments while she suffered through her recovery from the Katie Meyler 32, FOUNDER OF MORE disease. THAN ME, A SCHOOL FOR And always, there is the lesson of grati- VULNERABLE GIRLS FROM THE WEST tude for those who willingly, even eagerly, do POINT SLUM IN MONROVIA the jobs no one wishes to do. Jobs that involve More Than Me, before Ebola, was an risking a horrible death on behalf of strangers organization, that would help young girls get who repay you with hatred. Jobs that involve off the street and into school. Then Ebola hit. exposing your heart to unfathomable grief. Our mission changed from helping these young Jobs that involve giving your all while girls go to school and making sure they have knowing that you will never feel it was enough. real choices when they graduate to keeping Early in the epidemic, CDC director these children alive. Frieden spoke of Ebola's "fog of war." Its [On Sept. 24] I went to Jerry Brown's ETU shroud covers the battlefield. Eventually— [Ebola treatment unit]. He was having one of though no one can say when—the Ebola these graduation ceremonies that he often has fighters are going to be victorious. The fog will for survivors. There's all these family members clear, leaving the hard truth in view: this won't waiting to receive their survivors. People are be the last epidemic. And when the next one singing and praying and celebrating that they comes, the world must learn the lessons of this had lived. And there's this little girl with her one: Be better prepared, less fearful, less face down, and she's just bawling. And I was reactive. Run toward the fire and put it out like, "What's wrong with this j girl? She together. Even more important, though, when survived Ebola. Why I isn't she happy?" The other survivors explained to me that when she 40

woke up from a coma, het whole family was watch entire villages die. There was a village in dead. No one to pick her up. Hei name was Guinea where the entire left side of the road, Esther. the houses were empty. It was an entire I told the social worker from the extended family. And there was a graveyard in Ministry of Health, "We have this home, and the village, and I knew all of the graves. until you can figure out where her family is, let The darkest day [was] probably in Guinea. The us take care of her." beginning of May. An important person had There were nights when she couldn't come back to the village. He had been at a sleep. I would breathe with her to help her calm funeral. And because he was very respected in down. And through that experience we bonded. the village, when he died everyone came to the When you say "Ebola," I know that the world funeral, 1 think it's very normal for humans will think number or moon suits. But when you that we don't want to bury someone covered in say "Ebola" to me, I think about Esther. vomit and feces. We want to wash the body. So the first week, all of his male relatives came EllaWatson-Stryker in, and all of them died. Then all of his female 34, HEALTH PROMOTER WITH DOCTORS members of the family came in, and all of them WITHOUT BORDERS/MEDECINS SANS died. And then the children came in. We had FRONTIERES (MSF) three young children in the treatment center, Guinea broke my heart. I w as not prepared for completely alone. The 12-year-old, she turned the level of mortality. I wasn't prepared to her face to the wall and she wouldn't speak and watch entire families die. I wasn't prepared to she wouldn't eat. She was so devastated by the watch entire villages die. There was a village in loss of her entire family that the only thing she Guinea where the entire left side of the road, would say to us was "Just let me go join my the houses were empty. It was an entire mother." extended family. And there was a graveyard in the village, and I knew all of the graves. *** The darkest day [was] probably in Guinea. The beginning of May. An important person had come back to the village. He had been at a funeral. And because he was very respected in the village, when he died everyone came to the funeral, 1 think it's very normal for humans that we don't want to bury someone covered in vomit and feces. We want to wash the body. So the first week, all of his male relatives came in, and all of them died. Then all of his female members of the family came in, and all of them died. And then the children came in. We had three young children in the treatment center, completely alone. The 12-year-old, she turned her face to the wall and she wouldn't speak and she wouldn't eat. She was so devastated by the loss of her entire family that the only thing she would say to us was "Just let me go join my mother."

EllaWatson-Stryker 34, HEALTH PROMOTER WITH DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS/MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES (MSF) Guinea broke my heart. I w as not prepared for the level of mortality. I wasn't prepared to watch entire families die. I wasn't prepared to 41