News in Short

• Flu during childhood plays a pivotal role in deciding the immunity system against similar illness later in life.
• Scientists have found that people's ability to fight off the flu virus is determined not only by the subtypes of flu they have had throughout their lives but also by the sequence in which they have been infected by the viruses.
• The research offers an explanation for why some people fare much worse than others when infected with the same strain of the flu virus, and the findings could help inform strategies for minimising the effects of the seasonal flu.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi  inaugurated the country's five-day defence exhibition, DefExpo, in Lucknow.
• India is eyeing defence export of USD 5 billion in the next five years and has made efforts to increase manufacturing units in the country through FDI.
• PM asserted that defence preparedness is not aimed at any country as India is a reliable contributor to world peace but has a responsibility to ensure security of not only India but countries in the neighbourhood as well.

• The third Scorpene submarine, Karanj, will be delivered to the Indian Navy by December and all six submarine deliveries would be completed by 2022.
• There are also discussions to fit AirIndependentPropulsion (AIP) modules on all Scorpenes beginning 2023.
• Karanj was launched into water in January 2018 and is currently in advanced stages of sea trials. The first Scorpene, Kulvari, was commissioned in 2018 and it would go for a normal refit after six years in 2023. Second Scorpene Khanderi was inducted in September 2019

• Hollywood actor Kirk Douglas, who played many tough-guy roles in mid 50’s and 60’s passed away at the age of 103.
• Douglas made more than 90 movies in a career that stretched across seven decades and films such as “Spartacus” and “The Vikings” that made him one of the biggest box-office stars.
• He also played a major role in breaking the Hollywood blacklist - actors, directors and writers who were shunned professionally because of links to the communist movement in the 1950s.

• President Donald Trump has been cleared in his impeachment trial, ending a congressional bid to remove him from office.
• Only the third US leader ever placed on trial, Trump readily defeated the effort to expel him from office for having illicitly sought help from Ukraine to bolster his 2020 re-election effort.
• Republicans stayed loyal and mustered a majority of votes to clear the president of both charges, by 52 to 48 on the first, 53 to 47 on the second, falling far short of the two-thirds supermajority required for conviction.