News in Short

• Former Chief Secretary of Delhi M.M. Kutty was appointed chairperson of the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas.
• Other full-time members include Mukesh Khare, of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, and Ramesh K.J., Ex-Director General, India Meteorological Department, and A.K. Nautiyal, a joint secretary in the Ministry.
• Ajay Mathur, Director General, The Energy Resources Institute, and Ashish Dhawan of the Air Pollution Action Group were also appointed members as representatives of members from non-government organisations.

• The Delhi government has imposed a blanket ban on firecrackers, including those branded ‘green’, between November 7 and 30, with the city reeling under the impact of hazardous air quality.
• The Supreme Court had in October, 2018, prohibited the sale and use of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR, allowing only green crackers which are supposed to be made of less polluting substances and trigger limited smoke and noise.
• Green crackers are supposed to be labelled with specially identifiable ‘green logos’ and bought by retailers from certain authorised companies.

• The amount and type of antibodies produced by children and adults as a response to COVID-19 infection may differ. This difference could also be the cause of the difference in the course of infection, and immune response in both age groups.
• In kids, the infectious course is much shorter and probably not as disseminated as in adults. Kids may clear this virus more efficiently than adults and they may not need a strong antibody immune response to get rid of it.
• A pattern that has been observed in children infected with COVID-19 all around the world is that they do not struggle with severe symptoms of the infection, while older people can find themselves with COVID-19 symptoms for weeks, and even at a high risk of death due to the complications.

• All insults or intimidations to persons belonging to Dalit or tribal communities will not be an offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
• An offence is made out under the statute only if the insults or intimidations were made on account of the victim belonging to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe.
• It is intended to punish the acts of the upper caste against the vulnerable section of the society for the reason that they belong to a particular community.

• Army Chief Gen M M Naravanewas conferred the rank of Honorary General of the Nepal Army by President Bidya Devi Bhandari.
• This tradition of each country bestowing the honorary title on the Army Chief of the other goes back decades. Commander-in-Chief Gen KM Cariappa was the first Indian Army chief to be decorated with this title in 1950.
• The Chief of the Nepal Army, Gen Purna Chandra Thapa, was earlier given the same rank by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony in New Delhi.