Parliament is set to pass a law to regulate the use of DNA technology. Since the DNA of a person is unique, it can be used to accurately identify a person’s identity. Globally, DNA technology is used to help enforcement agencies identify both perpetrators and victims in criminal cases. In medicine, DNA is used to identify the susceptibility of a person to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. In civilian life, DNA can be used to establish parentage of children or sibling relationships.
However, the use of DNA technology also raises major concerns relating to consent (i.e. the right to refuse to provide a bodily substance), privacy and data security. Hence, countries the world over have felt the need to strictly regulate the use of DNA. One hopes that the new law would fill a major gap, as the use of DNA technology in India has been left unregulated. Unfortunately, there are major lacunae in the way the new law addresses core issues such as privacy and fundamental rights.
In criminal cases, the law specifies the requirement of written consent before DNA samples are collected for testing from criminal suspects or under trials, offenders, victims of a crime, and missing or unidentified deceased persons.
Once these samples are analysed by a DNA laboratory, they will be stored in a national DNA data bank under various categories depending on whether the DNA has been collected from a crime scene, suspects or offenders, or unidentified deceased persons. For such criminal cases, safeguards are specified on limiting access to the DNA data bank and conditions under which DNA information can be deleted.
However, the new law goes well beyond criminal matters and regulates civilian and medical use of DNA. This is where major concerns arise and affect issues as diverse as parentage disputes, medical negligence, and any matter related to establishing an individual’s identity. On these issues, the new law does not prescribe any safeguards.
For example, the law does not require the consent of an individual while giving DNA samples in civil matters such as a paternity suit. The ethic behind the need for consent is that a person’s bodily substances include DNA, which not only identifies the person, but also reveals her genetic information such as physical and medical traits. Such information may affect her privacy, and so consent offers a safeguard against DNA misuse.
Or consider the provision related to the national DNA database that is being created under the law. As the name suggests, the database is a central repository of DNA information of individuals covered by the law. While the database will have information related to criminal offences, the law is unclear on whether DNA collected for civil cases will be stored in this database.
This is because the law requires all DNA laboratories to share DNA test results with the data bank. Therefore, were a DNA laboratory to analyse a DNA sample in the course of a private dispute between parties (say, an in vitro fertilization clinic and a pregnant woman), would it share this information with the data bank?
The Bill in question does not state that DNA information related to civil matters will not be stored in it. Note that the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) in the US and the National Criminal Intelligence DNA Database in the UK are national DNA data banks with information related only to criminal investigations.
Further, if DNA information related to civil matters is stored in the data bank, it may violate the fundamental right to privacy as laid down by the Supreme Court. The Court has stated that the right to privacy may be infringed only through the enactment of a law, and that law must achieve a public purpose that’s proportionate to the infringement of privacy. Since the storage of DNA profiles for civil matters (such as paternity suits and medical diagnoses) may not serve a public purpose, it may violate the right to privacy.
A more fundamental issue is ambiguity on whether the law intends to regulate DNA tests conducted in medical and diagnostic settings. For instance, many laboratories across the country offer such tests to determine a person’s predisposition to cancer, diabetes and other diseases.
Such testing can also be used to identify an individual. For example, breast cancer can be diagnosed by analysing mutations in the BRCA1 gene, which involve analysis of large parts of an individual’s DNA, which could provide enough information to identify an individual. The law does not address how this DNA data will be stored, for how long, whom it will be shared with (such as a person’s health insurer), and when it will be deleted.
In fact, the gaps in the new DNA law dovetail into the larger issue of the lack of a data privacy law, which was raised by several Members of Parliament opposed to the law. While introducing it, Union minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan stated that the law intends to regulate DNA testing for identifying criminals, victims, missing, and deceased persons.
Clearly, the law goes beyond this objective. It needs rigorous scrutiny by a cross-section of experts and wider consultations. This can be achieved if the Bill is referred to a parliamentary committee. Otherwise, it could be a missed opportunity to effectively regulate the use of DNA technology. Mandira Kala is head of research at PRS Legislative Research
Context: Indian Army declared the Kargil mission successful on July 26, 1999; since then the day has been celebrated annually as Kargil Vijay Diwas. India launched ‘Operation Vijay’ to clear the Kargil sector of infiltration by Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants on the Indian side of the Line of Control.
Background: The war took place between May and July of 1999 in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kargil district. It began with the infiltration of both Pakistani troops and terrorists into Indian territory. The infiltrators positioned themselves in key locations that gave them a strategic advantage during the start of the conflict. Safed Sagar, the Indian Air Force’s operation, was a major part of the Kargil war. It used air power at the height of 32,000 feet for the first time.
About the territorial army: India’s first Governor General Shri C Rajagopalachari formally inaugurated the Indian Territorial Army on October 9 in 1949. It is an organization where volunteers apply for a short period of training every year, so as to be ready to tackle any emergent situation or to serve for the defence of India.
The Territorial Army, also known as the ‘Terriers’, is considered the second line of national defence after the regular Army. The Territorial Army is part of a Regular Army and its present role is to relieve the Regular Army from static duties and assist civil administration in dealing with natural calamities and maintenance of essential services in situations where life of the communities is affected or the security of the country is threatened and to provide units for Regulars Army as and when required. Territorial Army comes under the Defence Ministry.
GII rankings are based on 80 indicators, from traditional measurements like research and development investments and international patent and trademark applications.
Theme for the year 2019 is – Creating Healthy Lives – The Future of Medical Innovation, which aims to explore the role of medical innovation as it shapes the future of healthcare. It is published by a specialized agency of the United Nations – the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in association with Cornell University and graduate business school INSEAD.
India’s performance: India’s rank has been improved as it has reached at 52nd position in 2019. India was at 57th position in 2018. In terms of innovation and newly-emerging technologies India has been performing well and has improved its position by 29 places in the global index since 2015. India had ranked 81 in 2015, which rose to 66 in 2016, 60 in 2017 and 57 in 2018. India continues to be the most innovative economy in central and southern Asia.
Key Findings: Public R&D expenditures, particularly in some high-income countries, are growing slowly or not at all. Global landscape of science, innovation, and technology has undergone important shifts over the last decades. Asian economies especially middle-income one, are rapidly contributing to global research and development (R&D) and international patenting rates via WIPO’s International Patent System.
About Van Dhan Vikas Kendras initiative: The initiative aims to promote MFPs-centric livelihood development of tribal gatherers and artisans.
It mainstreams the tribal community by promoting primary level value addition to MFP at grassroots level. Significance: Through this initiative, the share of tribals in the value chain of Non-Timber Forest Produce is expected to rise from the present 20% to around 60%.
Implementation: The scheme will be implemented through Ministry of Tribal Affairs as Nodal Department at the Central Level and TRIFED as Nodal Agency at the National Level.
At State level, the State Nodal Agency for MFPs and the District collectors are envisaged to play a pivot role in scheme implementation at grassroot level. Locally the Kendras are proposed to be managed by a Managing Committee (an SHG) consisting of representatives of Van Dhan SHGs in the cluster. Composition: As per the plan, TRIFED will facilitate establishment of MFP-led multi-purpose Van Dhan Vikas Kendras, a cluster of 10 SHGs comprising of 30 tribal MFP gatherers each, in the tribal areas.
Significance of MFP: Minor Forest Produce (MFP) is a major source of livelihood for tribals living in forest areas. The importance of MFPs for this section of the society can be gauged from the fact that around 100 million forest dwellers depend on MFPs for food, shelter, medicines and cash income.
It provides them critical subsistence during the lean seasons, particularly for primitive tribal groups such as hunter gatherers, and the landless. Tribals derive 20-40% of their annual income from MFP on which they spend major portion of their time.
This activity has strong linkage to women’s financial empowerment as most of the MFPs are collected and used/sold by women. MFP sector has the potential to create about 10 million workdays annually in the country.
Aims: The NDQF aims at establishing protocols and good practices when dealing with data collection, storage, use and dissemination that can be applied to health and demographic data, as well as replicated across industries and sectors.
The NDQF aims to do brainstorming, piloting and employ advanced modeling techniques in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and big data analytics along with using technology-based solutions to improve data quality.
Roles and functions: NDQF will integrate learnings from scientific and evidence-based initiatives and guide actions through periodic workshops and conferences. It will fetch quality data in upcoming health studies and surveys such as National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
Benefits and significance: Its activities will help establish protocols and good practices of data collection, storage, use and dissemination that can be applied to health and demographic data, as well as replicated across industries and sectors noted a release issued by ICMR.
Need: Data on health and demographics in India is plagued by incomplete information, overestimation, and under- and over-reporting that lead to hindrance in policy planning.
Challenges present: lack of comparability and poor usability of national level data sources. discordance between system and survey level estimates. increased questionnaire length and questions on socially restricted conversation topics that translate to poor data quality.
age-reporting errors or non-response and intentional skipping of questions. underreporting due to subjective question interpretation and incompleteness. paucity of data to generate reliable estimates on mortality as major barriers to quality data.
AP Employment of Local Candidates in Industries and Factories Bill, 2019- highlights: The bill seeks to provide 75% reservation for locals in factory jobs.
Coverage: The reservation in jobs for local people of the state will extend to industries, factories, joint venture units and projects taken up under Public-Private Partnership initiatives. The concerned factories will need to take up training programmes of the local workforce in case they don’t have the requisite skills.
Rationale behind this move: With growth in industries, the demand for land has been increasing. Since most of the land requirement is met by acquiring private agricultural lands, the land owners are being displaced and deprived of their occupation and thereby loss of income.
Local people have complained that industrialisation in their areas have deprived them of means of livelihood. To address this gap, the government has brought this legislation.
Will it help? The Andhra Pradesh government’s proposed law to enforce 75 percent reservation for local candidates in private sector jobs may be right in intent, but conceptually flawed and may have little practical value beyond political jingoism.
This would mean irrespective of the availability, all private sector enterprises will have to ensure a minimum of 75 percent employment for local candidates. In the absence of local candidates of a particular skill level, the law would force the employers to recruit them anyway and train them. The government has promised help to upskill the staff, but this could be time-consuming.
Businesses that have to remain nimble to adapt their business strategies to changing market situations may find it tough to meet this requirement. A provision of such sweeping import could in fact hinder the state’s economic growth by affecting the ease of doing business. Ease of recruiting talent is a major aspect that influences the index. If job creation is the intention, the move may become counterproductive.
What is rooftop solar? Rooftop solar installations — as opposed to large-scale solar power generation plants — can be installed on the roofs of buildings. As such, they fall under two brackets: commercial and residential. This simply has to do with whether the solar panels are being installed on top of commercial buildings or residential complexes.
What are the benefits? Rooftop solar provides companies and residential areas the option of an alternative source of electricity to that provided by the grid. While the main benefit of this is to the environment, since it reduces the dependence on fossil-fuel generated electricity, solar power can also augment the grid supply in places where it is erratic.
Rooftop solar also has the great benefit of being able to provide electricity to those areas that are not yet connected to the grid — remote locations and areas where the terrain makes it difficult to set up power stations and lay power lines.
What is the potential for rooftop solar in India? The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has pegged the market potential for rooftop solar at 124 GW. However, only 1,247 MW of capacity had been installed as of December 31, 2016. That is a little more than 3% of the target for 2022, and 1% of the potential.
Why is it not being adopted widely? One of the major problems with rooftop solar — and what affects solar energy generation in general — is the variability in supply. Not only can the efficiency of the solar panels vary on any given day depending on how bright the sunlight is, but the solar panels also produce no electricity during the night. Arguably, night is when off-grid locations most need alternative sources of electricity.
Storage is one solution. Storage technology for electricity, however, is still underdeveloped and storage solutions are expensive. Most residential customers will find the cost of installing both rooftop solar panels and storage facilities prohibitive. Residential areas also come with the associated issues of use restrictions of the roof — if the roof is being used for solar generation, then it cannot be used for anything else.
Another major reason why rooftop solar is not becoming popular is that the current electricity tariff structure renders it an unviable option. Many states have adopted a net metering policy, which allows disaggregated power producers to sell excess electricity to the grid. However, the subsidised tariffs charged to residential customers undermine the economic viability of installing rooftop solar panels. The potential profit simply does not outweigh the costs.
About the UK India Education & Research Initiative (UKIERI) Mobility Programme: Study in India: It will be a bilateral pilot programme which will support UK universities to collaborate with Indian partners to send UK students to India as part of their studies.
It provides flexible grants to UK higher education institutions (HEIs) and their Indian partner institutions to design and deliver academically rigorous short-term mobility opportunities in India for undergraduate students from UK HEIs.
The aims and objectives of the Programme: Increase the levels of outward student mobility from the UK. Enhance the employability of UK graduates, recognizing the positive correlation between international experience, academic performance and graduate employability.
Support the internationalization of Indian higher education institutions in line with the Government of India’s ‘Study in India’ programme through the diversification of the student body, and through establishing links with the potential to seed deeper institutional partnerships and research collaboration.
Proahaetulla antiqua: What is it? It Is a new species of vine snake discovered recently by researchers from the Western Ghats that dates back 26 million years. The species, endemic to southern Western Ghats, is thought to have evolved during the mid-Oligocene.
Context: IIT Kharagpur team develops app CARE4U for elderly people. Key features of the app: The android-based app will connect the caregiver to the elderly person. The app has a record of medical histories, allergies’ account, an SOS button, real time location tracking and so on.
The network-based fall detection algorithm in the app installed on the phone of the elderly can detect whether the elderly has fallen down. If there is a fall, it automatically calls the caregiver and emergency services along with the exact location of the elderly person.
CARE4U can also detect emotions and whenever the elderly opens the app, the phone takes his picture and a mood index is calculated. This detects whether the person is sad or not and automatically updates the caregiver with the time stamp. It has a ‘Medicine Reminder’ feature to remind both the elderly as well as the caregiver that it is time for the former to take medicine.
Jute fibre converted into low-cost bio-degradable cellulose sheets: Context: Scientists in Bangladesh have developed a method to convert Jute fibre into low-cost bio-degradable cellulose sheets named ‘Sonali’ which can be used as wrapping material and carrying bag. Uses: The Eco-friendly jute poly bags made up of Sonali can be used in garments and food packaging work and they are not harmful for human health.
A floor test is a constitutional mechanism. It is used to determine if the incumbent government enjoys the support of the legislature.
How it takes place? This voting process happen in the state’s Legislative Assembly or the Lok Sabha at the central level. Technically, the chief minister of a state is appointed by the Governor. The appointed chief minister usually belongs to the single largest party or the coalition which has the ‘magic number’. The magic number is the total number of seats required to form a government, or stay in power.
It is the half-way mark, plus one. In case of a tie, the Speaker casts the deciding vot However, at times, a government’s majority can be questioned. The leader of the party claiming majority has to move a vote of confidence. If some MLAs remain absent or abstain from voting, the majority is counted on the basis of those present and voting. This effectively reduces the strength of the House and in turn brings down the majority-mark.
The voting process can happen orally, with electronic gadgets or a ballot process. The Governor can also ask the Chief Minister to prove his or her majority in the House if the stability of the government comes into question.
Composite floor test: While there is another test, Composite floor test, which is necessitated when more than one person stake the claim to form the government and the majority is not clear. Governor may call a special session to assess who has the majority. The majority is counted based on those present and voting and this can be done through voice vote also.