Current Affairs Question - 23 January 2020

Explanation :

• Scientists in the United States have named the millimetre-wide robots Xenobots (world’s first living machines) — after the species of aquatic frog found across sub-Saharan Africa from Nigeria and Sudan to South Africa,Xenopus laevis.
• Scientists have repurposed living cells scraped from frog embryos and assembled them into entirely new life-forms.

Application

• The xenobots can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient) — and heal themselves after being cut.

Explanation :

• The Anti-Defection Law was passed in 1985 through the 52nd amendment to the Constitution. It added the Tenth Schedule to the Indian Constitution.
• It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House.
• A legislator is deemed to have defected if he either voluntarily gives up the membership of his party or disobeys the directives of the party leadership on a vote.
• The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.
• The law does not specify a time-period for the Presiding Officer to decide on a disqualification plea. Given that courts can intervene only after the Presiding Officer has decided on the matter, the petitioner seeking disqualification has no option but to wait for this decision to be made.