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Type: Explained

These Newscards correspond to the explained section of various newspapers. They become immensely important for both prelims and mains and special attention needs to be paid to them

  • Govt leverage in Covid-19 vaccine pricing

    How government regulate prices of drugs

    • The Supreme Court flagged the issue of differential pricing for vaccines among States and the Centre and directed the central government to clarify it in an affidavit.
    • To ensure accessibility, the pricing of essential drugs is regulated centrally through The Essential Commodities Act, 1955.
    • Under Section 3 of the Act, the government has enacted the Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO).
    • The DPCO lists over 800 drugs as “essential” in its schedule, and has capped their prices.
    • The capping of prices is done based on a formula that is worked out in each case by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), which was set up in 1997.

    So, why the government is not regulating price of vaccines through DPCO

    • This is because the regulation through DPCO is not applicable for patented drugs or fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs.
    • This is why the price of the antiviral drug remdesivir, which is currently in great demand, is not regulated by the government.
    • To bring vaccines or drugs used in the treatment of Covid-19 such as remdesivir under the DPCO policy, an amendment can be brought.

    What other options government can explore to deal with the vaccine price issue

    1) Patent Act 1970

    • The Patent Act 1970 has two key provisions that could be potentially invoked to regulate the pricing of the vaccine.
    • Section 100 of the Patents Act gives the central government the power to authorise anyone (a pharma company) to use the invention for the “purposes of the government”.
    • It enables the government to license the patents of the vaccine to specific companies to speed up manufacturing and ensure equitable pricing.
    •  Under Section 92 of the Act, which deals with compulsory licensing, the government can, without the permission of the patent holder, license the patent under specific circumstances prescribed in the Act.
    • Section 92 can be invoked in case of circumstances of national emergency or in circumstances of extreme urgency or in case of public non-commercial use.
    • After the government issues a notification under Section 92, pharma companies can approach the government for a licence to start manufacturing by reverse engineering the product.
    • However, in the case of biological vaccines like Covid-19, even though ingredients and processes are well known, it is difficult to duplicate the process from scratch.
    • The process will also entail new clinical trials to establish safety and efficacy, which makes compulsory licensing less attractive.

    2) The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897

    • Section 2 of this law gives the government “power to take special measures and prescribe regulations as to dangerous epidemic disease”.
    • These broad, undefined powers can be used to take measures to regulate pricing.
    • However, the law lacks the teeth to implement such an important policy framework.
    • Violation of the Act is penalised under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with “disobedience to order duly promulgated by (a) public servant”.

    3) Direct procurement by the Centre

    • Apart from these legislative options, experts suggest that the central government procuring directly from the manufacturers could be the most beneficial route to ensure equitable pricing.
    • As the sole purchaser, it will have greater bargaining power.

  • Major seismic hazard along Assam faultline

    Location of epicentre

    • An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 on the Richter scale hit Assam around 8 am on Wednesday.
    • The primary earthquake had its epicentre at latitude 26.690 N and longitude 92.360 E, about 80 km northeast of Guwahati, and a focal depth of 17 km, the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) said.

    The faultline

    • The preliminary analysis shows that the events are located near to Kopili Fault closer to Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT).
    • The Kopili Fault is a 300-km northwest-southeast trending fault from the Bhutan Himalaya to the Burmese arc.
    • The fault is a fracture along which the blocks of crust on either side have moved relative to one another parallel to the fracture.
    • The area is seismically very active falling in the highest Seismic Hazard zone V associated with collisional tectonics where Indian plate sub-ducts beneath the Eurasian Plate the NCS report said.
    • HFT, also known as the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT), is a geological fault along the boundary of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

    Need for earthquake preparedness

    • The Northeast is located in the highest seismological zone, so we must have constant earthquake preparedness at all levels.
    • Continuous tectonic stress keeps building up particularly along the faultlines.
    • Today’s earthquake was an instance of accumulated stress release — probably, stress was constrained for a fairly long time at this epicentre, and hence the release was of relatively higher intensity.

  • Understanding the Ct value in a Covid-19 test

    Recently, the Maharashtra government sought clarity from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on the threshold Ct value to treat a person Covid-negative.

    What is Ct value

    • Short for cycle threshold, Ct is a value that emerges during RT-PCR tests.
    • In an RT-PCR test, RNA is extracted from the swab collected from the patient.
    • It is then converted into DNA, which is then amplified.
    • Amplification refers to the process of creating multiple copies of the genetic material — in this case, DNA.
    • Amplification takes place through a series of cycles — one copy becomes two, two becomes four, and so on.
    • Put simply, the Ct value refers to the number of cycles after which the virus can be detected.
    • The lower the Ct value, the higher the viral load — because the virus has been spotted after fewer cycles.

    Why Ct value is important

    • According to the ICMR, a patient is considered Covid-positive if the Ct value is below 35.
    • If the benchmark were to be lowered to 24 — the value mentioned in Maharashtra’s letter — it would mean that Ct values in the range 25-34 would not be considered positive.
    • A benchmark of 35, therefore, means that more patients would be considered positive than we would get if the benchmark were 24.
    • The ICMR has said lowering Ct threshold parameter may lead to missing several infectious persons.

    Does Ct score indicate the severity of disease

    • A small study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology in January this year found that there was no correlation between Ct values and severity of disease or mortality in patients with Covid-19 disease.
    • It found that the time since the onset of symptoms has a stronger relationship with Ct values as compared to the severity of the disease.
    • The Ct value tells us about the viral load in the throat and not in the lungs.
    • The Ct value does not correlate with severity – only with infectivity.

  • Complexities of herd immunity

    What is herd immunity

    • The herd immunity concept is based on lowering the number of susceptible individuals.
    • If sufficient individuals in the population are immune either through vaccination or a prior exposure, then the number of susceptible individuals drops.
    • For example, if the immune population is 70%, then the susceptible population is 30%.

    Does herd immunity really protect from subsequent waves?

    • The number of daily cases depends on three factors: The number of infectious people in the population, the number of susceptible individuals, and the rate of transmission of the virus.
    • The rate of transmission is dependent on the nature of the virus and the extent of contact between individuals.
    • So, if the rate of transmission increases due to change in social behaviour and increased contact then even with a large percentage of the immune population, a significant number of daily cases can result.
    • The “herd immunity” number is not a static number but it changes depending on the rate of transmission of the virus and the extent of virus present.

    Estimating exposures in metro cities

    • Serosurveys indicated that Covid had touched 56% of population in Delhi by January; 75% in some slums Mumbai in November, and about 30% in Bengaluru in November.
    • The population touched by Covid can also be estimated by the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR).
    • This is the total number of deaths divided by the total people infected. In India, the estimate is 0.08%.
    • So this number can be used to back-calculate the number of infections based on the number of deaths in the different cities.
    • The table given below shows the number of people exposed to Covid in some metros until January 31 using the method above.

    What are the reasons behind the recent surge

    • The reasons behind the recent surge are not fully understood.
    • The one factor that is not in doubt, however, is that interaction and contact with the population has increased since February.
    • Such increased contact increased the virus in circulation and led to increased cases in the susceptible population.

  • What the US’s recognition of killings of Armenians as genocide mean

    What is genocide

    • According to Article II of the UN Convention on Genocide of December 1948, genocide has been described as carrying out acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

    Why Armenians were targeted

    • In a way, the Armenians were victims of the great power contests of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
    • The resentment started building up after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 in which the Turks lost territories.
    • In the Treaty of Berlin, big powers dictated terms to the Ottomans, including putting pressure on Sultan Abdülhamid II to initiate reforms “in the provinces inhabited by Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds.”
    • The Sultan saw this as a sign of strengthening ties between the Armenians and other rival countries, especially Russia.
    • Post the treaty, there were a series of attacks on Armenians by Turkish and Kurdish militias.
    • In 1908, the Young Turks wrested control from the Sultan and promised to restore imperial glory.
    • Under the Turks, the empire became more and “Turkik” and persecution against the ethnic minorities picked up.
    • In October 1914, Turkey joined the First World War on the side of Germany.
    • In the Caucasus, they fought the Russians, their primary geopolitical rival.
    • But the Ottomans suffered a catastrophic defeat in the Battle of Sarikamish by the Russians in January 1915.
    • The Turks blamed the defeat on Armenian “treachery”.

    How the killings took place

    • As the War was still waging, the Ottomans feared that Armenians in eastern Anatolia would join the Russians if they advanced into Ottoman territories.
    • First, Armenians in the Ottoman Army were executed.
    • On April 24, the Ottoman government arrested about 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. Most of them were later executed.
    • The Ottoman government passed legislation to deport anyone who is a security risk.
    • Then they moved Armenians, including children, en masse to the Syrian Desert. That was a march of death.
    • Before the First World War broke out in 1914, there were 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
    • According to a study by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, in 1922, four years after the War, the Armenian population in the region was about 387,800.
    • This has led historians to believe that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the course of the War.

    What is Turkey’s response

    • Turkey has acknowledged that atrocities were committed against Armenians, but denies it was a genocide which comes with legal implications.
    • Turkey also challenges the estimates that 1.5 million were killed.
    • The Turkish Foreign Ministry has issued a strong statement to Mr. Biden’s announcement saying it doesn’t not have “a scholarly and legal basis, nor is it supported by any evidence”.
    • Turkey has called on the U.S. President to correct the mistake of recognition as genocide.

  • Amid concerns in India and Brazil, the unused vaccine stockpile in US

    Issue of diverting the vaccine stock to India

    • Epidemiologists to industry leaders are urging the Biden administration to release the reserve to countries like India and Brazil, given the assertion that the doses won’t be used in the US.
    • According to Brown University School of Public Health Ashish Jha, the US is “sitting on 35-40 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine Americans will never use”.
    • In early April, US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said the US will likely not need the AstraZeneca shot. 
    • The AstraZeneca vaccine has not been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA).
    • With documented cases of blood clots in younger women in Europe correlated with the vaccine, FDA authorisation may be further delayed.

    What has the US said in response

    • Co-ordinator of the US Covid-19 taskforce that the Quad partnership and team is providing assistance across government to the country.
    •  He also stated that as their confidence around our supply increases, we will explore the option of exporting the vaccines.

    Vaccine inequality

    • According to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker, highest-income countries are vaccinating at a pace 25 times faster than the lowest ones.
    • The US has 22.9% of the world’s vaccines but only 4.3% of the world’s population.
    • China has 21.9% and 18.2% respectively, and India 13.8% and 17.7%, according to the tracker.
    • Almost half of all vaccines have gone to 16% of the world’s population.
    • The Washington Post reported that the world’s poorest 92 countries may not be able to vaccinate even 60% of their population for another three years.
    • India has vaccinated 8% per cent of the population with one dose and 1% with two. Brazil has vaccinated less than 12% with one.

    Impact on vaccination in African nations

    • India’s stalled vaccine exports have domino effects on the rollouts in African nations and other developing countries, as Serum’s productions were fuelling efforts globally before India’s second wave.

  • Understanding infections after Covid-19 vaccination

    Breakthrough infections

    • There have been several cases of Covid-19 vaccinated people, even those who have received both doses, testing positive for the virus.
    • Such cases are referred to as “breakthrough” infections, indicating that the virus has been able to break through the defences created by the vaccine.
    • Such cases have led to some doubts being expressed about the effectiveness of the vaccine, and contributed to the already prevailing vaccine hesitancy. 
    • However, vaccines protect not against the infection, but against moderate or severe disease and hospitalisation.
    •  It typically takes about two weeks for the body to build immunity after being vaccinated.
    • So, the chances of a person falling sick during this period are as high — or as low — as the chances for any person who has not been vaccinated.
    •  Also, those in the priority list of vaccination, such as healthcare workers and frontline workers, have been prone to getting infected due to prolonged occupational exposure to the virus

    Full protection not possible

    • It is very well understood that no vaccine offers 100% protection from any disease.
    • However, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) in the United States, vaccinated people are much less likely to get sick, but it is never entirely ruled out.
    • Then there is the emergence of new variants of the virus.
    • Some variants of the virus are able to evade the human immune response, and therefore have a greater chance to break through the defences created through the vaccine.

    Breakthrough cases in India

    • Among 10.03 crore people who had taken only the first dose of Covishield vaccina, 17,145 had got infected.
    • That translates into a 0.02% prevalence.
    • Among the 1.57 crore people who received the second dose as well, 5,014, or about 0.03%, had got infected later.
    • About 1.1 crore doses of Covaxin have been administered until now.
    • Of the 93.56 lakh who took only the first dose, so far 4,208 have got the infection.
    • That is about 0.04% of the total.
    • Among the 17.37 lakh who have taken the second shot, only 695 had been infected, again 0.04%.

    Challenges

    • “Given the scope of the pandemic, there’s a huge amount of virus in the world right now, meaning a huge opportunity for mutations to develop and spread.
    • That is going to be a challenge for the developers of vaccines.

  • How & why of oxygen therapy

    How Covid-19 leads to shortness of breath?

    • Shortness of breath occurs because of the way Covid-19 affects the patient’s respiratory system.
    • When a person inhales, the tiny air sacs in the lungs — alveoli — expand to capture this oxygen, which is then transferred to blood vessels and transported through the rest of the body.
    • Respiratory epithelial cells line the respiratory tract.
    • Their primary function is to protect the airway tract from pathogens and infections, and also facilitate gas exchange.
    • And the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus can infect these epithelial cells.
    • To fight such infection, the body’s immune system releases cells that trigger inflammation.
    • When this inflammatory immune response continues, it impedes the regular transfer of oxygen in the lungs.
    • Simultaneously, fluids too build up.
    • Both these factors combined make it difficult to breathe.
    •  Low levels of oxygen triggered by Covid-19 are inflammatory markers, which include elevated white blood cell counts and neutrophil counts.

    Does a patient always show Covid symptoms when their oxygen levels drop?

    • No.
    • According to the FAQs on Covid-19 from AIIMS e-ICUS, sudden deaths have been reported at presentation to the emergency department, as well as in hospital.
    • AIIMS has said that the reasons that have been proposed include a sudden cardiac event, preceding “silent hypoxia” that went unnoticed, or due to a thrombotic complication such as pulmonary thromboembolism.
    • In silent hypoxia, patients have extremely low blood oxygen levels, yet do not show signs of breathlessness.

  • President’s address in Parliament

    Many Opposition parties announced their decision to boycott the President’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament at the start of the Budget session in solidarity with the farmers protesting against the three farm laws.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. The President’s address is one of the most solemn occasions in the Parliamentary calendar. Discuss. Highlight its importance in Parliamentary Democracy.

    President’s address

    • The Constitution gives the President the power to address either House or a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament.
    • Article 87 provides two special occasions on which the President addresses a joint sitting. The first is to address the opening session of a new legislature after a general election.
    • The second is to address the first sitting of Parliament each year. A session of a new or continuing legislature cannot begin without fulfilling this requirement.
    • When the Constitution came into force, the President was required to address each session of Parliament.

    In the UK, the history of the monarch addressing the Parliament goes back to the 16th century.  In the US, President Gorge Washington addressed Congress for the first time in 1790.

    History & precedent

    • In India, the practice of the President addressing Parliament can be traced back to the Government of India Act of 1919.
    • This law gave the Governor-General the right of addressing the Legislative Assembly and the Council of State.
    • The law did not have a provision for a joint address but the Governor-General did address the Assembly and the Council together on multiple occasions.
    • There was no address by him to the Constituent Assembly (Legislative) from 1947 to 1950.
    • And after the Constitution came into force, President Rajendra Prasad addressed members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for the first time on January 31, 1950.

    By the govt, about the govt

    • The President’s speech essentially highlights the government’s policy priorities and plans for the upcoming year. The address provides a broad framework of the government’s agenda and direction.
    • There is no set format for the President’s speech. The Constitution states that the President shall “inform Parliament of the cause of the summons”.

    How it is done in India?

    • The speech that the President reads is the viewpoint of the government and is written by it.
    • Usually, in December, the PM’s Office asks the various ministries to start sending in their inputs for the speech.
    • A message also goes out from the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs asking ministries to send information about any legislative proposals that need to be included in the President’s address.
    • All this information is aggregated and shaped into a speech, which is then sent to the President. The government uses the President’s address to make policy and legislative announcements.

    Assembly debates on the matter

    • During the making of the Constitution, Prof K T Shah wanted the President’s address to be more specific.
    • He suggested that the language be changed to specify that the President shall inform Parliament “on the general state of the Union including financial proposals, and other particular issues of policy he deems suitable for such address”.
    • His amendment was inspired by the US Constitution, according to which the President gives to Congress information on the State of the Union, and recommend measures as he shall judge necessary.
    • But Shah’s amendment was rejected by the Constituent Assembly.
    • The address of the President follows a general structure in which it highlights the government’s accomplishments from the previous year and sets the broad governance agenda for the coming year.

    Notable addresses till date

    • In 1985 President Giani Zail Singh announced that PM Rajiv Gandhi’s government intended to introduce a new national education policy and the anti-defection law.
    • In 1996, PM Vajpayee’s 13-day government announced its intention of giving statehood to Uttaranchal and Vananchal (Jharkhand) and 33 percent reservation to women in legislatures.
    • During his second stint in 1999, Vajpayee’s government mooted the idea of a fixed term for Lok Sabha and State Vidhan Sabhas.
    • After the devastating tsunami of 2004, PM Manmohan Singh’s government used the President’s Address to announce the creation of a national law for disaster management.

    Procedure & tradition

    • In the days following the President’s address, a motion is moved in the two Houses thanking the President for his address.
    • This is an occasion for MPs in the two Houses to have a broad debate on governance in the country.
    • The PM replies to the motion of thanks in both Houses and responds to the issues raised by MPs.
    • The motion is then put to vote and MPs can express their disagreement by moving amendments to the motion.

    Role of the opposition

    • Opposition MPs have been successful in getting amendments passed to the motion of thanks in Rajya Sabha on five occasions (1980, 1989, 2001, 2015, 2016).
    • They have been less successful in Lok Sabha. For example in 2018, Lok Sabha MPs tabled 845 amendments of which 375 were moved and negated.

    Significance of the address

    • The President’s address is one of the most solemn occasions in the Parliamentary calendar.
    • It is the only occasion in the year when the entire Parliament, i.e. the President, Lok Sabha, and Rajya Sabha come together.
    • The event is associated with ceremony and protocol.
    • The Lok Sabha Secretariat prepares extensively for this annual event.
    • In the past, it used to get 150 yards of red baize cloth from the President’s house for the ceremonial procession.

  • Comparison between India- Bangladesh per capita GDP

    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.