The Mumbai police last week began “chapter proceedings” against the Editor-in-Chief of a news channel.
Can you relate the philosophy behind chapter proceedings and preventive detention?
What exactly are “chapter proceedings”?
Chapter proceedings are preventive actions taken by the police if they fear that a particular person is likely to create trouble and disrupt the peace in society.
These proceedings are unlike punitive action taken in case of an FIR with an intention to punish.
Here, the police can issue notices under sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure to ensure that the person is aware that creating nuisance could result in action against him.
What are the sections using which these notices are served?
Generally, a notice is issued to a person under section 111 of the CrPC whereby he is asked to present himself before the Executive Magistrate – an ACP-rank officer in a Commissionerate of a Dy. the collector in rural areas – who has issued the notice.
The person has to explain why he should not be made to sign a bond of good behaviour.
If the Executive Magistrate is not satisfied with the answer, the person is asked to sign a bond of good behaviour and produce sureties vouching for his/her good behaviour.
A fine amount is also decided – in accordance with the crime and the person’s financial capability – which the person would have to pay if he violates the conditions set in the bond.
Legal immunities against such proceedings
On receiving the notice under section 111, a person can appeal the notice before the courts.
In fact, in the past, courts have come down strongly against chapter proceedings in some cases.
The Central government has notified the Director-General of Shipping as the national authority for recycling of ships under the Recycling of Ships Act, 2019.
The ‘Hong Kong Convention’ is the odd man out here. Read more about the convention at:
The national authority of ship recycling will be set up in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
The location of the office will benefit the ship recycling yard owners situated in Alang, Gujarat which is home to the largest ship recycling industry in the world.
DG Shipping is authorized to administer, supervise and monitor all activities relating to ship recycling in the country.
DG Shipping will oversee the sustainable development of the ship recycling industry, monitoring the compliance to environment-friendly norms and safety and health measures for the stakeholders.
DG Shipping will be the final authority for the various approvals required by the ship-recycling yard owners and state governments.
Recycling of Ships Act, 2019
Under the Ship Recycling Act, 2019, India has acceded to the ‘Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships’.
This was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
DG Shipping is a representative of India in the IMO and all the conventions of IMO are being enforced by DG Shipping.
The CRISPR-Cas9 system has revolutionized genetic manipulations and made gene editing simpler, faster and easily accessible to most laboratories.
To its recognition, this year, the French-American duo Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have been awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for chemistry for CRISPR.
Gene editing using CRISPR technology
The CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, developed in the year 2012
CRISPR has made gene editing very easy and simple, and at the same time extremely efficient.
The technology works in a simple way — it locates the specific area in the genetic sequence which has been diagnosed to be the cause of the problem, cuts it out, and replaces it with a new and correct sequence that no longer causes the problem.
The technology replicates a natural defence mechanism in some bacteria that use a similar method to protect it from virus attacks.
Working of CRISPR
An RNA molecule is programmed to locate the particular problematic sequence on the DNA strand.
A special protein called Cas9, often described in popular literature as ‘genetic scissor’, is used to break and remove the problematic sequence.
A DNA strand, when broken, has a natural tendency to repair itself. But the auto-repair mechanism can lead to the re-growth of a problematic sequence.
Scientists intervene during this auto-repair process by supplying the desired sequence of genetic codes, which replaces the original sequence.
It is like cutting a portion of a long zipper somewhere in between and replacing that portion with a fresh segment.
Because the entire process is programmable, it has remarkable efficiency and has already brought almost miraculous results.
A promising technology for the future: With many Applications
The gene-editing technology has opened up a vast window of opportunity.
Human health: In the last six years, the tool has enabled scientists to edit human DNA in a dish and early-stage clinical trials are being attempted to use the tool to treat a few diseases, including inherited disorders/diseases and some types of cancer.
Agricultural productivity: The tool is being extensively used in agriculture. It is being tried out in agriculture primarily to increase plant yield, quality, disease resistance, herbicide resistance and domestication of wild species.
How safe is CRISPR?
Last year, a study by Stanford University, U.S., found that the CRISPR-Cas9 system introduces unexpected off-target (outside of the intended editing sites) effects in mice.
There is a growing fear that the CRISPR system is being prematurely rushed for clinical use lingers.
Some researchers have highlighted that CRISPR-Cas9-edited cells might trigger cancer.
Another study found that both the mouse and the human gene-edited cells suffered from large DNA deletions far from the intended editing sites.
Issues with CRISPR
The many potential applications of CRISPR technology raise questions about the ethical merits and consequences of tampering with genomes.
1) Ecological dis-equilibrium: An introduced trait could spread beyond the target population to other organisms through crossbreeding. Gene drives could also reduce the genetic diversity of the target population. There is a danger that CRISPR’s affordability and efficiency could run roughshod over long‐standing and valid concerns about the generation and release of GMOs.
2)Threats to species: There is another, potentially much more dangerous and controversial, application of CRISPR, namely to potentially eradicate disease by eradicating disease vectors and invasive species. Such methods could effectively destroy an entire species and could have significant environmental consequences.
3) Germline editing concerns: Making genetic modifications to human embryos and reproductive cells such as sperm and eggs is known as germline editing. Since changes to these cells can be passed on to subsequent generations, using CRISPR technology to make germline edits has raised a number of ethical concerns.
4)Biosafety concerns: It is not unreasonable to think that, in the wrong hands, CRISPR could be used to make dangerous pathogens even more potent. There exist some concerns about the accidental or deliberate release of GE microorganisms or viruses into the environment.
5) Regulatory bypass: Editing the genomes of crops and trees is not new, and debates over the pros and cons of genetically modified (GM) plants have gone on for decades. What makes CRISPR different from other methods of agricultural genetic engineering is that it no longer requires the insertion of foreign DNA into the plant. Hence traditional GM crops/organisms would no longer classify as transgenic.
Ethical concerns
In November 2018, a Chinese researcher in Shenzen created an international sensation with his claim that he had altered the genes of a human embryo that eventually resulted in the birth of twin baby girls.
This was the first documented case of a ‘designer babies’ being produced using the new gene-editing tools like CRISPR.
1) Safety
Due to the possibility of off-target effects (edits in the wrong place) and mosaicism (when some cells carry the edit but others do not), safety is of primary concern.
2) Informed Consent
Some people worry that it is impossible to obtain informed consent for germline therapy because the patients affected by the edits are the embryo and future generations. Bioethicists also worry about the possibility of obtaining truly informed consent from prospective parents as long as the risks of germline therapy are unknown.
3) Justice and Equity
As with many new technologies, there is concern that genome editing will only be accessible to the wealthy and will increase existing disparities in access to health care and other interventions. Some worry that taken to its extreme, germline editing could create classes of individuals defined by the quality of their engineered genome.
Regulation in India
In India, several rules, guidelines, and policies are notified under the Environment Protection Act, 1986 to regulate genetically modified organisms.
The above Act and the National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research involving human participants, 2017, by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and the Biomedical and Health Research Regulation Bill implies regulation of the gene-editing process.
This is especially so in the usage of its language “modification, deletion or removal of parts of heritable material”.
However, there is no explicit mention of the term gene editing.
Way forward
CRISPR technology continues to mature, and existing systems are being engineered to contain innovative capabilities.
The potential benefits of such revolutionary tools are endless. Currently, this is difficult because many international laws discourage or ban such research and/or inhibit its funding for certain types of investigation.
Thus, wide spread and reliable data about benefits and risks are unavailable.
Going forward, many support establishing an organization that will decide how best to address the aforementioned ethical complexities.
Many countries have advocated for the development of an international and interdisciplinary “global observatory for gene editing.”
However we must not forget that the risk cannot be justified by the potential benefit.
Conclusion
Genetic ‘determinism’ holds that the DNA sequence is the prime cause of all human traits, normal and abnormal (health and disease). We should do away with this idea, very first.
It will take years before the CRISPR system is ready for prime time and clinical use.
An important issue in its research is that benefits must be greater than risks. Here greater attention needs to be placed on risks, since they may damage living beings or the environment.
Concerning its regulation, it is time for our policymakers to come up with a specific law or put out guidelines for conducting gene-editing research giving rise to modified organisms.
The principle of solidarity and consideration of the public good deserve far greater consideration in making sure that these rapid advances become shared benefits for all. This should be our ultimate goal.
The lack of formalisation has several implications for MSMEs. Registering them could help them in various ways. The article deals with the issue of formalisation.
Please read the link shared below for issues related to MSME
UAM: In 2015, the government notified the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM), an online filing system for MSMEs.
As of January, 86 lakh MSMEs had registered on the UAM portal.
In 2016, the government notified rules under which MSMEs had to furnish information relating to their enterprises, online, in an MSME databank.
As of January, only 1.6 lakh units registered on it.
A new process of classification and registration for small businesses took off on July 1 called as “Udyam”.
As of October 1, the MSME ministry has confirmed that only 7 lakh registrations have taken place using the new system.Nudge by the government
In an attempt to nudge more enterprises to become lifetime Udyam, the government has integrated the system with the Trade Receivables Electronic Discounting System (TReDS) and the Government e-Marketplace (GeM).
In its updated Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines, the RBI has established that for the purposes of PSL, MSMEs will be identified as per the gazette notification laying down the new process of classification and registration.
Addressing the concerns
While the Udyam initiative holds more promise, it is important to assess if this will be detrimental to accessing formal finance.
To this end, the government and RBI should consider whether the registration requirement can be exempted for units with investment and turnover that falls in the lower end of the criteria.
In 2018, the International Finance Corporation estimated that the overall supply of finance from formal sources met only one-third of the credit demand of the MSME sector.
Enabling strategies such as PSL could provide a fillip to priority sectors including MSMEs which require increased formal financing.
Conclusion
The costs of formalisation and compliance are high and onerous in many states in India. In such an ecosystem, there are perverse incentives to remaining small and informal. Governments’ efforts towards formalisation should be directed towards addressing these issues.
Multilateralism faces several challenges at the time when it is needed the most. The article highlights the need for more of it in the face of global challenges.
Lack of international collaboration to deal with Covid
As COVID-19 recognises no boundaries, one would have expected that countries with technological and financial capabilities, would agree to pool their resources together to work on an effective and affordable anti-virus vaccine.
Instead, there are several parallel national efforts underway even as the World Health Organization (WHO) has put together a Covax alliance for the same purpose.
Active collaboration would have enhanced our collective ability to overcome what has become a public health-cum-economic crisis.
But we live in an era when nationalist urges, fuelled by a political opportunism, diminish the appeal of international cooperation.
The post-pandemic world will have the awful dilemma of global integration without solidarity.
Trends in the global order that suggests the need for multilateralims
1) Global food crisis
The World Food Program has been awarded this year’s Noble Peace Prize.
The award is sending a message to the world — that we need multilateralism as an expression of international solidarity.
According to the WFP, 132 million more people could become malnourished as a consequence of the pandemic.
To the 690 million people who go to bed each night on an empty stomach, perhaps another 100 million or more will be added.
The Nobel Prize to the WFP will hopefully nudge our collective conscience to come together and relieve this looming humanitarian crisis.
2) Despite issues, U.N. is still important
The United Nations is at the centre of multilateral institutions and processes and kept alive the notion of international solidarity and cooperation.
But it suffers from several disabilities due to the fault of its most powerful member countries.
They have deprived the UN of resources.
They have resisted efforts to institute long-overdue reforms.
Its structure no longer reflects the changes in power equations that have taken place and country such as India continues to be denied permanent membership of the Security Council.
And yet, the UN is now an essential part of the fabric of international relations for two reasons:
1) The salience of global issues has expanded.
2) The need for multilateral approaches in finding solutions has greatly increased.
3) Multilateral institutions have become platform for contestation
In the network of multilateral institutions, several belong to the UN system, others are inter-governmental, still others may be non-governmental of a hybrid character.
This network performs two important tasks:
1) Enable governance in areas which require coordination among nation-states.
2)Set norms to regulate the behaviour of states so as to avoid conflict and to ensure both equitable burden-sharing and, equally, a fair distribution of benefits.
While there are multilateral institutions they have become platforms for contestations among their member states.
There is recognition of the need to cooperate but this is seen as a compulsion rather than desirable.
4) Globalisation driven by technology will remain here
Globalisation may have stalled, but as we become increasingly digitised, there will be more, not less, globalisation.
The pandemic has triggered galloping globalisation in the digital economy.
Globalisation is driven by technology and as long as the technology remains the key driver of economic growth, there is no escape from globalisation.
In the contemporary world, the line separating the domestic from the external has become increasingly blurred.
In tackling domestic challenges deeper external engagement is often indispensable. This is certainly true of climate change.
The pandemic originated in a third country but soon raged across national borders.
If there had been a robust and truly global early warning system, perhaps it could have been contained.
5) Interconnectedness of challenges
We must also take into account the inter-connectedness among various challenges, for example, food, energy and water security are inter-linked with strong feedback loops.
Enhancing food security may lead to diminished water and energy security.
It may also have collateral impact on health security.
It is in recognition of these inter-connections that the international community agreed on a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDGs are cross-domain but also cross-national in character, and hence demand greater multilateral cooperation in order to succeed.
6) Need for more democratic world
The lack of cooperation from even a single state may frustrate success in tackling a global challenge.
A fresh pandemic may erupt in any remote corner of the world and spread throughout the globe.
Prevention cannot be achieved through coercion, only through cooperation. It is only multilateralism that makes this possible.
Conclusion
It is a paradox that precisely at a time when the salience of cross-national and global challenges has significantly increased, nation-states are less willing to cooperate and collaborate in tackling them. So, there is a need for more of multilateralism to deal with the issues of global level.
UPSC has released the marksheet for UPSC 2019 CSE exams for both written qualified candidates and for those who couldn’t qualify. Marksheet of UPSC 2019 prelims exam has also been released.
Reviews will be provided in a week. (In the order of submission- First come first serve basis). In case the answer is submitted late the review period may get extended to two weeks.
*In case your answer is not reviewed in a week, reply to your answer saying *NOT CHECKED*. If Parth Sir’s tag is available then tag him.
For the philosophy of AWE and payment, check here: Click2Join
In IMF’s latest Economic Outlook, Bangladesh has overtaken India in GDP per capita. This has caught everyone’s attention.
Do you know?
In the 2019 edition of Transparency International’s rankings, Bangladesh ranks a low 146 out of 198 countries (India is at 80th rank; a lower rank is worse off).
In the latest gender parity rankings, out of 154 countries mapped for it, Bangladesh is in the top 50 while India languishes at 112.
Bangladesh surpasses India
Typically, countries are compared on the basis of GDP growth rate, or on absolute GDP.
For the most part since Independence, on both these counts, India’s economy has been better than Bangladesh’s.
This can be seen from Charts 1 and 2 that map GDP growth rates and absolute GDP — India’s economy has mostly been over 10 times the size of Bangladesh, and grown faster every year.
However, per capita income also involves another variable — the overall population — and is arrived at by dividing the total GDP by the total population.
What made India lag behind?
There are three reasons why India’s per capita income has fallen below Bangladesh this year:
The first thing to note is that Bangladesh’s economy has been clocking rapid GDP growth rates since 2004.
Secondly, over the same 15-year period, India’s population grew faster (around 21%) than Bangladesh’s population (just under 18%).
Lastly, the most immediate factor was the relative impact of Covid-19 on the two economies in 2020. While India’s GDP is set to reduce by 10%, Bangladesh’s is expected to grow by almost 4%.
How has Bangladesh managed to grow so fast and so robustly?
Freshly start: In the initial years of its independence with Pakistan, Bangladesh struggled to grow fast. However, moving away from Pakistan also gave the country a chance to start afresh on its economic and political identity.
Diverse labour participation: As such, its labour laws were not as stringent and its economy increasingly involved women in its labour force. This can be seen in higher female participation in the labour force.
Textile boom: A key driver of growth was the garment industry where women workers gave Bangladesh the edge to corner the global export markets from which China retreated.
Less dependence on Agriculture: It also helps that the structure of Bangladesh’s economy is such that its GDP is led by the industrial sector, followed by the services sector. Both of these sectors create a lot of jobs and are more remunerative than agriculture.
Better social capital: Bangladesh improved a lot on several social and political metrics such as health, sanitation, financial inclusion, and women’s political representation.
Retaining the lead
The IMF’s projections show that India is likely to grow faster next year and in all likelihood again surge ahead.
But, given Bangladesh’s lower population growth and faster economic growth, India and Bangladesh are likely to be neck and neck for the foreseeable future in terms of per capita income.
The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) recently published its report titled “The Human Cost of Disasters”.
The report holds much significance for prelims as well as mains. Just for the sake of information, we must be aware of the report.
Highlights of the report
7,348 major disaster events had occurred between 2000 and 2019, claiming 1.23 lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and costing the global economy some $2.97 trillion.
Of this, China (577 events) and the US (467 events) reported the highest number of disaster events followed by India (321 events).
Climate change is to be blamed for the doubling of natural disasters in the past 20 years says the report.
There had also been an increase in geophysical events like earthquakes and tsunamis that are not related to climate but are particularly deadly.
Back2Basics: UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
The UNDRR was established in 1999 as a dedicated secretariat to facilitate the implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).
It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
It is mandated to serve as the focal point in the UN system for the coordination of disaster reduction and to ensure synergies among the disaster reduction activities.
It has a vision to substantially reduce disaster risk and losses for a sustainable future with the mandate to act as the custodian of the Sendai Framework to which India is a signatory.
In a bid to improve its functioning, the RBI has decided to move to the Next Generation Treasury Application (NGTA) for managing the country’s foreign exchange and gold reserves.
Aspirants must make a note here:
1.Authority managing FOREX in India
2.Components of FOREX
3.IMF’s SDRs
4.Emergency use of FOREX
What is NGTA?
The NGTA, according to the RBI, would be a web-based application providing scalability, manoeuvrability and flexibility to introduce new products and securities, besides supporting multi-currency transactions and settlements.
It would be supporting various transactions in asset classes like Fixed Income (FI), Forex (FX), Money Market (MM) and Gold.
It would be used for managing the foreign exchange reserves in a more efficient way, mitigate risk, achieve operational efficiencies, dealing in various asset classes and reporting.
Objectives of NGTA
The objectives of the proposed system include:
dealing in various asset classes (like Fixed Income Securities, Forex, Money Market, Gold);
integration with various third-party and in-house systems; and dashboards, reports, widgets.
Features of NGTA
The NGTA shall automatically fetch all the relevant details of a security/contract from a trading platform.
It shall support all internationally accepted conventions pertaining today count, interest computation, holiday logic, shut period-dividend, ex-dividend, cash flows, and odd coupon.
With respect to transactions in gold, the NGTA shall support purchase, sale, deposit (including rollover and premature withdrawal).
On maturity of a gold deposit, there can be exact, under or over delivery.
Back2Basics: Forex Reserves
Reserve Bank of India Act and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 set the legal provisions for governing the foreign exchange reserves.
RBI accumulates foreign currency reserves by purchasing from authorized dealers in open market operations.
The Forex reserves of India consist of below four categories:
Foreign Currency Assets
Gold
Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)
Reserve Tranche Position
The IMF says official Forex reserves are held in support of a range of objectives like supporting and maintaining confidence in the policies for monetary and exchange rate management including the capacity to intervene in support of the national or union currency.
It will also limit external vulnerability by maintaining foreign currency liquidity to absorb shocks during times of crisis or when access to borrowing is curtailed.
