Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2022

• Vaid's ICS, Lucknow
• 12, Jan 2022

In News

• The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) is observed and celebrated on 9 January across the country.
• It is a day to acknowledge and mark the contribution of the Indian community staying abroad in the development of the country.

About Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD)

• The theme of 16th PBD Convention 2021 is: “Contributing to Atma Nirbhar Bharat ”.
• Significance of this day: Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa, is celebrated grandly to strengthen the engagement of the Government of India with the overseas Indian community.
• Following his return, the father of the nation began and headed India’s freedom struggle and changed the lives of millions of Indians forever.
• The main idea: behind this event is to reconnect the Non-Resident Indian community with their original roots.
• The PBD holds the event with a vast overseas Diaspora to let them share their knowledge, skills and expertise on a common platform.
• History: Since 2003, the PBD Convention has been organizing this Divas from 7 to 9 January every year in the national capital.
• Later on, in 2015, the format was revised to mark and observe the PBD convention once every two years.
• The organizers further decided to hold theme-based conferences with participation from policymakers, stakeholders and overseas diaspora experts.
• Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards: are conferred to select Indian diaspora members to recognize their achievements and honor their contributions to various fields both in India and abroad.
• Bharat ko Janiye Quiz: was launched in 2015-16 in order to strengthen the engagement with young overseas Indians and encourage them to know more about their country of origin.

Facts for Prelims

LIQUID MEDICAL OXYGEN (LMO):

Indian Railway has transported more than 14 thousand tons of Medical Liquid Oxygen, LMO to the Hospitals and Covid care centers in the state of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand and Delhi through its 8 hundred 58 Special freight trains run by Northern Railway.

• Oxygen is crucial for the treatment of patients with severe COVID-19, since the disease affects lung functioning.
• One of the ways in which this oxygen can be supplied is through Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO). LMO is nothing but high purity oxygen used for medical treatment, and is developed for use in the human body.
• Why in liquid state? Due to its low melting and boiling points, oxygen is in a gaseous state at room temperature. Liquification enables storage in larger volume and easier transportation.

How Liquid Medical Oxygen is produced?

• There are several methods. The most common production method is separation of oxygen in what are known as Air Separation Units or ASUs.
• ASUs are basically plants that separate large volumes of gases. They use a method called Fractional Distillation Method to produce pure oxygen from atmospheric air, which consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen – 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and remaining 1% other gases including argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and hydrogen.
• In this method, gases from the air are separated into various components after cooling them into a liquid state and then liquid oxygen is extracted from it.
• Atmospheric air is first cooled to –181°C. Oxygen liquifies at this point. Since, the boiling point of Nitrogen is -196°C, it remains in a gaseous state. But Argon has a boiling point similar to that of oxygen (–186°C) and hence a significant amount of Argon liquifies along with Oxygen.

The resultant mixture of Oxygen and Argon is drained, decompressed and   passed through a second low-pressure distillation vessel for further purification.

We then get the output as final purified liquid oxygen, which is then transported using cryogenic containers