Dhamma Chakra Day celebrations on Asadha Purnima, Unique Urban Forest, Drug Discovery Hackathon 2020 (DDH2020)
1. Inaugurate the Dhamma Chakra Day celebrations on Asadha Purnima on July 4 , 2020
- The International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) in partnership with Ministry of Culture, Government of India, is now celebrating the upcoming Asadha Poornima on July 4, 2020 as Dharma Chakra Day.
- It will be the annual flagship event of IBC.
- In keeping with the historical legacy of India being the land of Buddha’s enlightenment and awakening, his turning of the wheels of Dhamma, and Mahaparinirvana, the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind will inaugurate the Dhamma Chakra Day celebrations.
- Royalties, Supreme heads of the Buddhist Sanghas and Eminent Masters and Scholars from around the world and IBC chapters, member organizations are participating.
- The auspicious day of Asadha Poornima which falls on the first full moon day of the month of Asadha.
- As per Indian sun calendar is also known as Esala Poya in Sri Lanka and Asanha Bucha in Thailand.
- It is the second most sacred day for Buddhists after the Buddha Poornima or Vesak.
- The day marks Buddha’s first teaching after attaining Enlightenment to the first five ascetic disciples (pañcavargika) on the full-moon day of Asadha at ‘Deer Park’, Ṛiṣipatana in the current day Sarnath, near Varanasi, India.
- This teaching of Dhamma Cakka- PavattanaSutta (Pali) or Dharma chakra Pravartana Sutra (Sanskrit) is also known as the First Turning of Wheels of Dharma and comprised of the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path.
- The Rainy Season retreat (Varsha Vassa) for the Monks and Nuns also starts with this day lasting for three lunar months from July to October, during which they remain in a single place, generally in their temples dedicated to intensive meditation.
- They are served during this period by lay community who also observe Uposatha i.e. to observe eight precepts and meditate under the guidance of their teachers.
- The day is also observed as Guru Poornima by both Buddhists and Hindus as a day to mark reverence to their Gurus.
- Due to prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, the event will be held under strict adherence of norms and regulations as both virtual and from the sacred grounds treaded by footsteps of Buddha. In addition ceremonies and Chanting of Dhamma Cakka PavattanaSutta in both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions from several countries around the world will also be live streamed.
2. Unique Urban Forest inaugurated
- Over the years, the Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi has become an increasing cause of concern.
- Further, the ITO crossing of New Delhi has recorded particularly high air pollution levels.
- In response to these developments and keeping in view its community responsibilities, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India which is located at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg has taken steps to establish an Urban Forest in the Office Park.
- Keeping in view the limited area, local material was adopted to enable intensive afforestation.
- The forest is made up of trees which are native to the area and are three dimensional, multi-layered communities having 30 times the surface area of the greenery of single-layered lawns, and have more than 30 times the ability to protect against natural disasters and to conserve the environment.
- The importance of Urban forests is the lungs of the cities and act as an oxygen bank and Carbon Sink.
- The Environment Minister appreciated that the Miyawaki method of forest creation is employed which could help in reducing the temperature by as much as 14 degree & increase the moisture by more than 40%.
- With minimal maintenance, including watering and de-weeding, the urban forest will be self-sustainable by October 2021.
- The Urban forest has an ecosystem which has the capacity to restore habitat for birds, bees, butterflies and microfauna. These are essential for pollination of crops and fruits and to help maintain a balanced ecosystem.
- A dense forest ecosystem has been created in an area that is little over 1 acre in size. The multi-layered forest has shrubs, small to medium-size trees and tall trees carefully arranged as peripheral and core plant communities.
- Some of the rare native species planted here include Anogeissus pendula (Dhonk), Diospyros cordifolia (Bistendu), Ehretia laevis (chamrod), Wrightia tinctoria (Doodhi), Mitragyna parvifolia (Kaim), Butea monosperma (Palash), Prosopis cineraria (Khejri), Clerodendrum phlomidis(Arni), Grewia asiatica (Falsa), Phoenix sylvestris (Khajoor) and Helicteres isora (Marodphali). The species selected are part of Delhi’s potential natural vegetation and are best suited to the region’s terrain, climate and soil.
- The urban forest sends out an action-oriented message of bringing back lost environmental protection forests.
- In-depth field surveys of potential natural vegetation, well planned native species’ propagation and restoration projects like these are the need of the hour.
- The office of the CAG of India believes that initiatives like these will help us move towards a state of better ecological balance, especially in cities. It is a small yet significant contribution to Delhi’s ecosystem, one that could inspire people to reclaim and restore their natural surroundings.
- It is noteworthy that recently on the occasion of World Environment Day, the government announced implementation of the Nagar van scheme to develop 200 Urban Forests across the country in next five years with a renewed focus on people’s participation and collaboration between Forest Department, Municipal bodies, NGOs, Corporates and local citizens.
3. Union Health Minister jointly launch the Drug Discovery Hackathon 2020 (DDH2020)
- This hackathon is first of its kind national initiative for supporting drug discovery process.
- In this initiative, MHRD’s Innovation cell and AICTE will focus on identifying potential drug molecules through the Hackathon while CSIR will take these identified molecules forward for synthesis and laboratory testing for efficacy, toxicity, sensitivity and specificity.
- The objective is to identify drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2 by in-silico drug discovery through the hackathon and follow up by chemical synthesis and biological testing.
- The Indian government has kick-started Hackathon culture in this country which is very critical for challenging our youngsters to solve some of the daunting problems faced by our nation.
- It will have three phases of three months each and the whole exercise is projected to be completed by April-May 2021.
- At the end of each phase, successful teams will be rewarded.
- The ‘lead’ compounds identified at the end of phase 3 will be taken forward for experimental level at CSIR and other interested organizations.
- Hackathon will primarily focus on computational aspects of drug discovery and will have three Tracks.
- Track-1 will deal with computational modelling for drug design or identifying ‘lead’ compounds from existing databases that may have the potential to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 while Track-2 will encourage participants to develop new tools and algorithms using data analytics and AI/ML approach for predicting drug-like compounds with minimal toxicity and maximal specificity and selectivity. A third track, named Track 3 is a Moon-shot approach which will only deal with novel and out-of-the-box ideas in this field.
Information and Methodology of Hackathon:
- The hackathon consists of challenges that are posted as problem statements and, are based on specific drug discovery topics which, are open to the participants to solve.
- My Gov portal is being used and any Indian student can participate.
- Professionals and researchers from anywhere in the world can participate.
- Two kinds of challenges problem statements (PS) are being offered and a total of 29 have been identified.
- Track 1 will primarily deal with drug design for anti-COVID-19 hit/lead generation: this is done using tools such as molecular modeling, pharmacophore optimization, molecular docking, hit/lead optimization, etc.
- Track 2 will deal with designing/optimizing new tools and algorithms which will have an immense impact on expediting the process of in silico drug discovery.
- here is also a third track called “Moon shot “which allows for working on problems which are ‘out of the box’ nature.
