CURRENT AFFAIRS Newspaper Analysis and Summary – 27th September 2013 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Nuclear waste could supply 800 years of power -The Hindu In a drab one-story building here, set between an indoor tennis club and a home appliance showroom, dozens of engineers, physicists and nuclear experts are chasing a radical dream of Bill Gates: a new kind of nuclear reactor that would be fuelled by today’s nuclear waste, supply all the electricity in the United States for the next 800 years and, possibly, cut the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation around the world. The people developing the reactor work for a startup, TerraPower, led by Mr. Gates and a fellow Microsoft billionaire, Nathan Myhrvold. So far, it has raised tens of millions of dollars for the project, but building a prototype reactor could cost $5 billion — a reason Mr. Gates is looking for a home for the demonstration plant in rich and energy-hungry China. Today’s nuclear reactors run on concentrations of three to five per cent uranium 235, an enriched fuel that leaves behind a pure, mostly natural waste, uranium 238. (A uranium bomb runs on more than 90 per cent uranium 235.) In today’s reactors, some uranium 238 is converted to plutonium that is used as a small, supplemental fuel, but most of the plutonium is left behind as waste. In contrast, the TerraPower reactor makes more plutonium from the uranium 238 for use as fuel, and so would run almost entirely on uranium 238. It would need only a small amount of uranium 235, which would help kick-start the reaction. The result, TerraPower’s supporters hope, is that countries would not need to enrich uranium in the quantities they do now, undercutting arguments that they have to have vast stores on hand for a civilian programme. TerraPower’s concept would also blunt the logic behind a second route to a bomb: recovering plutonium from spent reactor fuel, which is how most nuclear weapons are built. Since so much uranium 238 is available, there would be no reason to use that plutonium, TerraPower says. The engineers working for Gates acknowledge the enormous challenges but say they are convinced that he and they are chasing the solution not only to energy and weapons proliferation but also to climate change and poverty. “If you could pick just one thing to lower the price of — to reduce poverty — by far you would pick energy,” Mr. Gates said as he introduced the reactor idea in a speech in 2010. nuclear fuel. TerraPower is not alone in pursuing a reactor that will turn waste uranium into energy, and if such a concept can be commercialised, Mr. Gates might not be the first to do it. General Atomics, which has decades of experience in nuclear power, is pursuing what it calls an “energy multiplier” reactor module on the same general principal. HEALTH Now five doses will keep rabies away -The Hindu Several years ago, a dog bite meant getting 16 shots of an anti-rabies vaccine on the abdomen. Today, with advanced care, the shots are down to just four or five to prevent the www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 1 CURRENT AFFAIRS onset of rabies, a deadly viral disease. But misconceptions surrounding what to do when bitten by a dog still linger. “Many people continue to follow old remedies that are ineffective. Some apply erukkam paal , coffee powder, mud and cow dung on the dog bite. Some tie a piece of cloth above the wound thinking it will arrest the spread of infection. The only thing to do is wash the wound with soap under running water for 15 minutes. Antiseptic solution can then be applied, but medical help must be sought immediately,” said S. Raghunanthanan, professor of medicine, Madras Medical College (MMC) and Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (GH). Globally, 55,000 people die every year due to rabies. Sixty per cent of these are aged 15 years or below. In India, rabies causes 20,000 deaths every year. At GH, 95 per cent of animal bite cases are dog bites. The hospital receives 50 to 70 cases of animal bites a day, Dr. Raghunanthanan said. To prevent rabies, four to five doses of anti-rabies vaccine are administered on the 0, 3{+r}{+d}, 7{+t}{+h}, 14{+t}{+h}and 28{+t}{+h}days of a bite. “We abandoned the 16-dose vaccine years ago. The present vaccine is safe and it’s the only way to prevent rabies. Rabies is fatal, but 100 per cent preventable. People should not wait to see if the dog lives for 10 days as is done in many cases,” Dr. Raghunanthanan added. In a study undertaken among school and college students and the adult population in the community, MMC’s Institute of Community Medicine found that among school students, 37.3 per cent thought that rabies could spread through an animal’s licks. While 42.8 per cent knew rabies was a killer disease, only 15 per cent knew that it cannot be cured. In the community, 33 per cent were aware of the mode of spread and 47 per cent knew it was a killer disease. No treatment is required if a person feeds or touches a rabies-affected dog or if the dog licks intact skin, said Dr. Raghunanthanan. Doctors say misconceptions about dog bites linger, more awareness needed in the community POLITY AND GOVERNANCE Extremely low rate of conviction for politicians -The Hindu An extremely slow rate of conviction has marked the criminal cases of sitting Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies, says the data available with the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO working for transparency in governance. Only 0.5 per cent — 24 out of 4,807 MPs and MLAs — have declared in their affidavits to the Election Commission since 2008 that they were convicted at some point in a court of law. When it comes to candidates who have contested various elections, the conviction rate goes down to 0.3 per cent. Only 155 out of the total 47,389 candidates since 2008 have declared in their affidavits that they were convicted at some point in a court of law. In the elections since 2008 — including the 2009 Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections — of the 4,807 elected MPs and MLAs, 30 per cent (1,460) have declared criminal cases against them, 14 per cent of which are serious criminal cases. The percentage for contesting candidates is 17 per cent, of which around eight per cent are serious criminal cases. www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 2 CURRENT AFFAIRS The ADR regarded the “excruciatingly” slow pace of court proceedings as one of the reasons for a very low rate of conviction. It did not rule out the possibility of suppression of information about conviction by those contesting elections because as of now there is no reliable mechanism in place to scrutinise these affidavits. The ADR argued that in case of an appeal in the higher courts, a candidate may merely mention that an appeal is pending in a court and may not declare the conviction in the appropriate section of the affidavit. Prof. Trilochan Sastry of the ADR said: “The current status of convictions declared by candidates as to whether they have been turned down or stayed by a higher court in not available in public. We will only get to know this when these candidates file fresh affidavits with the Election Commission, if and when they choose to contest a fresh election.” Odisha is the most backward, Bihar comes next, Gujarat is less developed, says Raghuram panel -The Hindu A panel headed by Raghuram Rajan has recommended a new index of backwardness to determine which States need special assistance. The new methodology ranks Odisha as India’s most backward State, Bihar, which has been seeking ‘special’ status, as the second most backward, and Gujarat as one of the “less developed” States. Goa is the most developed State. In May this year, the Union government constituted the committee headed by Mr. Rajan, now RBI Governor, to suggest ways to identify indicators of the relative backwardness of the States for equitable allocation of Central funds. Central allocations are governed by the Gadgil-Mukherjee formula that places the greatest weight on the State’s population, followed by other factors like per capita income and literacy. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s demand for a ‘special category status’ for Bihar has further pushed the government to review how the Centre allocates funds. The report, which the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister have reviewed, was made public on Thursday. The committee has proposed an index of backwardness composed of 10 equally weighted indicators of monthly per capita consumption expenditure, education, health, household amenities, poverty rate, female literacy, percentage of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe population, urbanisation rate, financial inclusion and physical connectivity. The 10 States that score above 0.6 (out of 1) on the composite index have been classified as the “least developed,” the 11 States that scored from 0.4 to 0.6 are “less developed” and the seven that scored less than 0.4 are “relatively developed.” The report recommends that each of these 28 States get 0.3 per cent of overall Central funds allocated and of the remaining 91.6%, three-fourths be made allocations based on need and one-fourth based on the State’s improvements on its performance, to be reviewed every five years. Since States now classified as a ‘special category’ will “find their needs met” through the new allocations, the term ‘special category’ will be retired.