1 April 2013 Current Affairs
Jonty Rhodes named South African tourism ambassador in India
Former cricketer Jonty Rhodes was named as the brand ambassador of South African Tourism in India.
PM to inaugurate CII national conference
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the two-day national conference and annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi on 03 April 2013.Around 1,500 industrialists from across the country will attend the meeting. The theme for this year’s deliberations is “India tomorrow: Imperatives of growth, security and governance”.
Cicada’s Insect Wing’s Kills Bacteria
Human eye cells have been grown on cicadas’ wings after it was found that the wings’ surface kills bacteria and boosts cell growth.Dr Greg Watson, a researcher at James Cook University in Cairns, began looking more closely at cicadas after noticing, while out on a walk more than a decade ago, that their wings took much longer to decompose than their bodies.It is the first time scientists have found that tiny features found on a natural surface, rather than chemicals, kill bacteria.
Supreme Court of India Rejected Novartis’ Patent Plea for Cancer Drug Called Glivec
The Supreme Court of India on 1 April 2013 rejected the plea of Novartis, the Swiss drug maker, to patent the updated version of cancer drug called Glivec. A bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai dismissed the patent plea to Novartis on the basis that there was no inventiveness or novelty in the new version of the drug. In its ruling, the Supreme Court of India declared that because the application for patent on beta-crystalline salt did not meet any inventiveness or novelty standard, therefore the company’s plea for patent was dismissed.