Protein-rich Rice Developed

· A protein-enriched rice variety has been developed by the Indira Gandhi Krishi

Vishwavidyalay (IGKV) in Chhatisgarh, and researchers hope it would serve as a

boon for malnourished population, especially children, in the tribal-dominated area.

· This variety of rice is rich in protein along with high zinc content. The new developed

rice variety has over 10% protein content, which is 3% more than what is found in

any popular variety and has 30 PPM (parts per million) zinc content.

· Since rice is the staple food of State and consumed on a regular basis, the research

focused on enhancing its micro-nutrients and protein contents.

Significance Of This Discovery

· For majority of the people who do not eat meat products or can't afford pulses, rice

could be a good source of proteins.

· The present varieties of rice in India are not rich in protein content as it is mainly

having carbohydrates, so the new zinc-rich rice varieties along with rich protein

content will help India in fighting against malnutrition. Over 5 lakh children in State

are underweight, with tribal districts like Bastar, Dantewada, Kondagaon and

Narayanpur having a comparatively higher rate of malnourishment than other

districts.

· The Government has been making several efforts with schemes like 'Vazan Tyohar'

(Weight Festival) and Nutritious Meal Week to overcome the malnutrition menace.

Now, development of this variety of rice will further help government in its effort.

Current Affairs For 2017-(October 2016) Page 18

· Need is to focus research in order to increase the protein content of other food

staples such as pulse, wheat etc.

Previous Effort

· In May 2015, Indira Gandhi Agriculture University (IGAU), Raipur had developed

a high zinc-enriched rice called “Chhattisgarh Zinc Rice-1”. It was the first zinc

bio fortified rice variety developed in India.

· This variety of rice has an advantage over others in the sense that Zinc and

other mineral content are not lost upon polishing. The rice has long self-life and

used after keeping it for long time. Even it tastes just as good as the

conventional variety.

Use Of Zinc In The Body

· Zinc is important to the body because over 300 enzymes in our body use it as an

essential component in their action.

· Zinc is essential in supporting our immune system, in synthesising and

degrading DNA, in wound healing and several other activities.

· Our body requires very small amount of Zinc, but if the level falls down to below

normal it may result into growth retardation, diarrhoea, eye and skin lesions and

loss of appetite.   

National Summit on Fortification of Food

· With an aim to promote food fortification and make fortification mandatory, National

Summit on Fortification of Food was inaugurated to address interventions in

combating micronutrient malnutrition in the country.

· The control of micronutrients deficiency is an essential part of the overarching effort

of Government to fight hunger and malnutrition in the country. Ignoring micronutrient

deficiency leads to the cases of hidden hunger.

· Through in-depth presentations, debates and discussions and assessments of

important case studies of food fortification programmes, this summit aimed at

creating effective food fortification delivery system for the future. Schemes like ICDS, Mid Day Meal, Public distribution system (PDS) have potential

to serve fortified food to millions of people in India. We must ensure proper

integration of such food with these schemes. Also we should focus on generating

awareness so as to increase the demand of fortified food.

Feni River MoU - India and Bangladesh

Feni River MoU - India and Bangladesh

The Union Cabinet has approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Bangladesh.
 The MoU was on the withdrawal of 1.82 cusecs of water from the Feni river by India for a drinking water supply scheme for Sabroom town in Tripura.
 The Feni river forms part of the India-Bangladesh border.
 It originates in the South Tripura district.
 The river passes through Sabroom town on the Indian side, and meets the Bay of Bengal after it flows into Bangladesh.
 According to the Indian government, there has been no water-sharing agreement between the countries on the Feni previously.
 The dispute over the sharing of the river water has been long-standing.
 It was taken up between India and Pakistan (before the independence of Bangladesh) in 1958 during a Secretary-level meeting in New Delhi.
 According to the Bangladeshi reports, water has long been drawn from the Feni river through small pumps on the Indian side.
 In August 2019, India and Bangladesh held a water secretary-level meeting of the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC) in Dhaka.
 There, it was agreed to collect data and prepare water-sharing agreements for seven rivers.
 These are Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla, Dudhkumar, and Feni.
 In this regard, an MoU was signed between the two countries during Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina‘s visit to India.
 The Cabinet approval now on this is ex-post facto, or having retrospective effect.
 The present supply of drinking water to Sabroom town on the southern tip of Tripura is inadequate.
 The groundwater in this region has high iron content.
 Given this, the MoU terms would benefit Sabroom town.
 Implementation of the water supply scheme would benefit a population of over 7000 there.
 Other projects on theFeni - In Tripura, a 150-metre long, 4-lane bridge across the Feni is being built between India and Bangladesh.
 It is expected to be completed by March 2020 at an estimated expenditure of Rs 73 crore.
 Once ready, it would connect Tripura with Chittagong port in Bangladesh, which is only 70 km away from the Indo-Bangla border.
 It would also play an important role in the proposed economic corridor through India, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar.
 Sabroom is expected to transform into the largest transit hub in the Northeast after the bridge is ready.
6.5

Vaccine nationalism occurs when a country manages to secure doses of vaccine for its own citizens or residents before they are made available in other countries. This is done through pre-purchase agreements between a government and a vaccine manufacturer. The United States has indicated on various occasions that it would like to secure priority access to doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Other countries, including India and Russia, have taken similar stances. Also, India, alongside the US and Russia, chose not to join the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, which was launched by the World Health Organization to promote collaboration among countries in the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Earlier Instance Of Vaccine Nationalism • Vaccine nationalism is not new. During the early stages of the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, some of the wealthiest countries entered into pre-purchase agreements with several pharmaceutical companies working on H1N1 vaccines. • At that time, it was estimated that, in the best-case scenario, the maximum number of vaccine doses that could be produced globally was two billion. The US alone negotiated and obtained the right to buy 600,000 doses. All the countries that negotiated pre-purchase orders were developed economies. • Only when the 2009 pandemic began to unwind and demand for a vaccine dropped did developed countries offer to donate vaccine doses to poorer economies. Issues With Vaccine Nationalism • Vaccine nationalism is harmful for equitable access to vaccines. It disadvantages countries with fewer resources and bargaining power and deprives populations in the Global South from timely access to vital public health goods. • Taken to its extreme, it allocates vaccines to moderately at-risk populations in wealthy countries over populations at higher risk in developing economies. Without broad access to a vaccine, these   populations will likely continue to suffer more than others, leading to unnecessary disease burden, continued economic problems and potential loss of life. • Vaccine nationalism also runs against the fundamental principles of vaccine development and global public health. With modern vaccines, there are very few instances in which a single country can claim to be the sole developer of a vaccine and most vaccine development projects involve several parties from multiple countries. • Even if that were possible, global public health is borderless. As COVID-19 is illustrating, pathogens can travel the globe and public health responses to outbreaks, which include the deployment of vaccines, have to acknowledge that reality. Conclusion If used appropriately, pre-purchase agreements can be an incentive for companies to manufacture vaccines that otherwise would not be commercialised. Institutions like Gavi use similar mechanisms to guarantee vaccines for developing countries. However, it is important that contracts should not trump equitable access to global public health goods. Hence, developed countries should pledge to refrain from reserving vaccines for their populations during public health crises. Equity entails both, affordability of vaccines and access opportunities for populations across the world, irrespective of geography and geopolitics. Thus, international institutions — including the WHO — should coordinate negotiations ahead of the next pandemic to produce a framework for equitable access to vaccines during public health crises.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Iran Nuclear Deal

  What to study?

For prelims and Mains: Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)- objectives, why US has withdrawn from this, implications and what needs to be done?
Context: Iran has taken further steps away from its crumbling nuclear deal with world powers by announcing it is doubling the number of its advanced centrifuges, calling the move a direct result of the United States' withdrawal from the agreement last year.

What next?

By doing so, Iran is trying to increase the pressure on Britain, France and Germany in particular to find some arrangement that will allow them to sell the oil they were buying when Iran was not under sanctions. That requires some level of US support to waive sanctions against European firms by the United States. So far, the US has no agreed to do that.

What’s happening?

Iran is now operating 60 IR-6 advanced centrifuges. Such a centrifuge can produce enriched uranium 10 times as fast as the first-generation IR-1s allowed under the accord.
By starting up these advanced centrifuges, Iran further cuts into the one year that experts estimate Tehran would need to have enough material for building a nuclear weapon - if it chose to pursue one.

What was the iran nuclear deal?

Iran agreed to rein in its nuclear programme in a 2015 deal struck with the US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany.
Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) Tehran agreed to significantly cut its stores of centrifuges, enriched uranium and heavy-water, all key components for nuclear weapons.
The JCPOA established the Joint Commission, with the negotiating parties all represented, to monitor implementation of the agreement.

Why did Iran agree to the deal?

It had been hit with devastating economic sanctions by the United Nations, United States and the European Union that are estimated to have cost it tens of billions of pounds a year in lost oil export revenues. Billions in overseas assets had also been frozen.

Why has US pulled out of the deal now?

Trump and opponents to the deal say it is flawed because it gives Iran access to billions of dollars but does not address Iran’s support for groups the U.S. considers terrorists, like Hamas and Hezbollah. They note it also doesn’t curb Iran’s development of ballistic missiles and that the deal phases out by 2030. They say Iran has lied about its nuclear program in the past.

Impact of escalated tension between Iran and the US:

1. Iran can make things difficult for the U.S. in Afghanistan as also in Iraq and Syria.
2. The U.S.’s ability to work with Russia in Syria or with China regarding North Korea will also be impacted.
3. And sooner or later, questions may be asked in Iran about why it should continue with other restrictions and inspections that it accepted under the JCPOA, which would have far-reaching implications for the global nuclear architecture.
4. Coming after the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Paris climate change accord and the North American Free Trade Agreement, President’s decision further diminishes U.S. credibility.

Back to life: on the belated acquittal of death row convicts

Back to life: on the belated acquittal of death row convicts

Mains Paper 2: Governance | Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: The news card talks against the death penalty. It supports the argument that there is no point of allowing death penalty.

NEWSCONTEXT

Six members of a nomadic tribe spent 16 years in prison in Maharashtra;three of them were on death row for 13 of these years.A three-judge Bench has now found that unreliable testimony had been used to convict the six men.

Supreme Court’s Judgements

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been limiting the scope for resorting to the death penalty by a series of judgments that recognise the rights of death row convicts.

A few years ago it ruled that review petitions in cases of death sentence should be heard in open court.

Deepening inequality in access to Justice

It is inevitable that the long wait on death row, either for a review hearing or for the disposal of a mercy petition, could ultimately redound to the benefit of the convicts and their death sentences altered to life terms.

In a system that many say favours the affluent and the influential, the likelihood of institutional bias against the socially and economically weak is quite high.

Also, there is a perception that the way the “rarest of rare cases” norm is applied by various courts is arbitrary and inconsistent.

Way Forward

The clamour for justice often becomes a call for the maximum sentence.

In that sense, every death sentence throws up a moral dilemma on whether the truth has been sufficiently established.

In that sense, every death sentence throws up a moral dilemma on whether the truth has been sufficiently established.
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Wiggle space: on SEBI's new rules

Wiggle space: on SEBI's new rules

Mains Paper 3: Economy | Mobilization of resources

From the UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Need for better regulation of CRAs to maintain investor confidence in Indian markets

NEWSCONTEXT

According to new regulations issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), liquid mutual funds holding debt securities with a maturity term of more than 30 days will have to value these securities on a mark-to-market basis.

Changes in rules

Until now, liquid mutual funds could report the value of debt instruments with a maturity term of up to 60 days using the amortisation-based valuation method.

Only debt securities with a maturity term of over 60 days were to be valued on a mark-to-market basis. So the new rule seemingly narrows the scope for amortisation-based valuation.

Amortisation-based valuation, which is completely detached from the market price of the securities being valued, allowed mutual funds to avoid the volatility associated with mark-to-market valuation.

Impact

By exempting securities with a maturity period of up to 30 days from mark-to-market valuation, however, SEBI may be doing no favour to individual investors.

this helps avoid the volatility of mark-to-market accounting and the need to provide a fair account of the value of their investments.

What is likely is a decrease in the yields received on securities maturing in 30 days or less and an increase in the yields on debt instruments with a maturity period of 31 to 60 days.

It will, however, do nothing to make investors in mutual funds become more informed about the real value of their investments.

Contrast with earlier arrangements

The latest SEBI rules are also in direct contrast to the usual accounting practices when it comes to the valuation of securities.

Generally accepted accounting principles mandate securities with the least maturity to be reported on a mark-to-market basis while allowing the amortisation-based method to be employed to value other securities with longer maturity periods.

This makes sense as the profits and losses associated with securities with shorter terms are closer to being realised by investors when compared to longer-term securities.

Conclusion

SEBI would do well to mandate that all investments made by liquid mutual funds should be valued on a mark-to-market basis. Simultaneously, it should work on deepening liquidity in the bond market so that bond market prices can serve as a ready reference to ascertain the value of various debt securities.
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Nitrogen Pollution

Nitrogen Pollution



Mains Paper 3: Environment | Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

Prelims level: N2 Pollution

Mains level: India’s vulnerability to Nitrogen PollutionNews

The annual Frontiers Report 2019 published by the United Nations (UN), has included a chapter on nitrogen pollution in its latest edition.

Pollution caused by the reactive forms of nitrogen is now being recognised as a grave environmental concern on a global level.

Frontiers Report 2019

The report was released by the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi.

It highlights that growing demand on the livestock, agriculture, transport, industry and energy sector has led to a sharp growth of the levels of reactive nitrogen — ammonia, nitrate, nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O) — in our ecosystems.

The report claims that the total annual cost of nitrogen pollution to eco system and healthcare services in the world is around $340 billion.

The report also warns that the scale of the problem remains largely unknown and unacknowledged outside scientific circles.

Nitrogen: A limited necessity

Nitrogen is essential to all life on Earth as it forms an important component of life-building and propagating biochemical molecules like proteins.

But overuse in agriculture in the form of fertilisers and other fields have made this important element more bane than boon.

Some of these forms of nitrogen like N2O can have far reaching impacts for humanity.

N2O is 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2).

Nitrogen: The “new carbon” for India

In 2017, a large team of Indian scientists had come out with The Indian Nitrogen Assessment (INA).

India had become the third country/entity after the United States and the European Union to have assessed the environmental impact of nitrogen on their respective regions comprehensively.

The INA shows that agriculture is the main source of nitrogen pollution in India. Within agriculture, cereals pollute the most.

Rice and wheat take up the maximum cropped area in India at 36.95 million hectares (ha) and 26.69 million ha respectively.

Overuse of Fertilizers

India consumes 17 Mt (million tonnes) of nitrogen fertiliser annually as per the data of the Fertiliser Association of India.

Only 33 per cent of the nitrogen that is applied to rice and wheat through fertilisers is taken up by the plants in the form of nitrates (NO3). This is called Nitrogen Use Efficiency or NUE.

The remaining 67 per cent remains in the soil and seeps into the surrounding environment, causing a cascade of environmental and health impacts.

India is curious about it

The Indian government is leading a resolution on nitrogen pollution in the UNEA in Nairobi that starts from this March 11.

This is a historic event as India has never pushed for a resolution of such importance at any UN congregation before.

And this has happened because India can now leverage its own nitrogen assessment and its strong support to South Asian and other regional assessments with a more inclusive approach.

This would lead a process for faster global consensus and a more realistic programme of action.

Way Forward

All the policy frameworks, which deal with nitrogen, should be studied and a single framework like the one that exists for carbon should be built.

Bringing together nitrogen pollution and benefits under one framework will help in calculating the tradeoffs between the two and informing governments and the public about the total societal cost of using nitrogen.

There should be an international convention and forum for the discussion on nitrogen.
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