current affairs 17 march 2021

1. Nokia and Google Cloud partner to develop cloud-based 5G radio solutions

• The two companies will collaborate on joint solutions combining Nokia’s Radio Access Network (RAN), Open RAN, Cloud RAN (vRAN) and Edge cloud technologies, with Google’s Edge Computing platform and applications ecosystem.
• The collaboration will lead to the development of solutions and use cases to solve key 5G scenarios for businesses worldwide.
  
  
  

2. NPCI launches UPI-Help on BHIM app

• National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella entity for digital payments in India, has gone live with “UPI-Help” on BHIM UPI, which will act as a grievance redressal mechanism for the users of the BHIM application
• This will enable the users to check the status of the pending transactions, raise complaints against transactions that have not been processed or the money has not reached the beneficiary
  
  
  

3. Rajya Sabha passes National Institutes of Food Technology Bill 2019

• The Rajya Sabha on Monday passed the National Institutes of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management Bill, 2019 moved by Agriculture & Food Processing Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
• The Bill declares two food technology institutes at Kundli in Haryana and Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu as national institutes.
  
  
  

4. NGT sets up 12-member Oversight Committee to prevent unscientific mining in Meghalaya

5. AEG12 Mosquito Protein

• A mosquito protein, called AEG12, strongly inhibits the family of viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, West Nile, and Zika, and also weakly inhibits coronaviruses
•  AEG12 works by destabilising the viral envelope, breaking its protective covering. The protein does not affect viruses that do not have an envelope.