22 June 2024, The Hindu
Patent filings credit Bharat Biotech as ‘inventor’ of Covaxin, omit ICMR
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Prelims syllabus: Current events of national and international importance
- India’s first indigenously developed coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin, was a joint collaboration between the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) with intellectual property (IP) rights jointly shared between the two organisations.
- That is what the public record states. However, filings by the BBIL at patent offices in India, the United States and Europe suggest that only its scientists and personnel are credited as ‘inventors’ of the vaccine with no mention of ICMR scientists.
- The Hindu has viewed documents detailing these patent applications.
- If BBIL personnel, credited in applications as Deepak Kumar and Krishna Murthy Ella — Chairman and Founder, BBIL— are indeed the only inventors, it contradicts a statement by the Union Health Ministry, the nodal Ministry of the ICMR, in the Rajya Sabha, which claimed that the IP rights are “jointly owned”.
‘Record number of deaths of homeless in Capital due to heat, lack of amenities’
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Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Data from the Zonal Integrated Police Network and the Ministry of Home Affairs show that a record number of homeless people died in the Capital between June 11 and June 19, according to a report by the Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), a non-profit organisation (NGO) that works to provide support to the homeless.
- The report was released on June 19, a day before Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj confirmed the deaths of 14 persons due to heatstroke, of whom many had pre-existing diseases.
- The NGO, which is a member of the National Forum For Homeless Housing Rights — a coalition of 50 organisations, lawyers, and activists working across the country on issues affecting homeless people — said it has never recorded as many deaths among the destitute during the nine-day period since it started collating data 22 years ago.
A mandate for a new economic approach
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
- The results of the just concluded general election may partly be interpreted as signalling a discontent with economic conditions.
- The substantial drop in the number of seats won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh — which is among India’s poorest and most rural States — aligns with this view.
- Dissatisfaction with governance is bound to be high at a time of unemployment and persistent inflation.
- Food-price inflation, in particular, has remained elevated for five years. It is highest for cereals and pulses, which are staples.
- For households at the bottom of the income distribution, food constitutes close to half their household expenditure.
- Past experience suggests that the price of food can be a determinant of how the electorate votes.
- For instance, historically high food-price inflation towards the end of its decade-long tenure had preceded the end of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government in 2014.
A progressive Indian policy on Myanmar outlined
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GS 2: International Relations- India and its neighbourhood
- Three years on, the military in Myanmar, which overthrew the elected civilian government in February 2021, continues to kill, maim and displace its own people.
- India has steadfastly maintained formal relations with this regime, which has so far murdered more than 5,000 people and displaced some 2.5 million people.
- In its second tenure, the Narendra Modi government did very little to engage with the pro-democracy resistance, which now has both political and military wings.
- Indian foreign policy scholars and practitioners have doggedly defended this policy by arguing that India needs to work with the junta if it has to protect its “interests” in Myanmar and not get swayed by an idealistic preoccupation with “values”.
- But, in foreign policy, there is no clear line between “values” and “interests” simply because neither has a standard definition.
- It all depends on how a country defines these terms. This is also the case with India’s Myanmar policy. New Delhi has long defined its “interests” in the Southeast Asian country in narrow strategic terms.
- But now, it needs to leverage a unique set of “values” to better defend its interests. It is possible for India to put in place a more progressive, values-driven Myanmar policy that works in favour, and not against, its national interests.
Testing times
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- The cancellation of the UGC-NET examination on Wednesday, just a day after its supposed “successful conduct” by the National Testing Agency (NTA), is one more load of straw threatening to break the agency’s creaking reputation.
- Coming as it did after irregularities in this year’s NEET-UG (medicine), and complaints about the JEE (engineering), the NTA is under intense pressure.
- In some ways, the Education Ministry’s actions are in stark contrast to its response to the ongoing NEET fiasco, and seem to indicate that it has learnt some lessons.
- It took suo motu action on the basis of the Home Ministry’s cybercrime team’s inputs, even without any formal complaints from candidates, unlike in the NEET case where it has dragged its feet through committees and court cases despite multiple allegations and police complaints of paper leaks.
- The Ministry immediately cancelled the UGC-NET and promised a fresh examination.
- It has asked the CBI to probe the case, while not heeding the persistent demand of NEET aspirants for a similar probe.
- However, for the over nine lakh UGC-NET candidates who studied for months, and then travelled long distances to their examination centres, some taking loans to cover their costs, this is little consolation.
Act punishing organised cheating comes into effect
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024 that has provision for up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹1 crore for malpractices and organised cheating in government recruitment exams was notified by the Union government to come into effect from June 21.
- The University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test 2024 (UGC-NET) examination that was cancelled on June 19 on grounds of being compromised and is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation will however not be covered by the newly enacted law.
‘Peer support from TB survivors aids treatment of over four lakh patients’
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- Over four lakh people with tuberculosis across India received essential peer support and person-centred care from 2,000 TB survivors trained as ‘champions’, said the Resource Group for Education and Advocacy for Community Health (REACH), a non-profit organisation working on TB, at the national dissemination meeting of the Unite to ACT Project in New Delhi on June 21.
- At the meeting, former NITI Aayog member and public health expert Vinod Kumar Paul emphasised the vital role of community engagement in eliminating TB in India and appreciated REACH for developing a model worthy of emulation, with the ‘TB Champions’ at the forefront, according to a press release from REACH.
‘Growth sacrifice’ view grows in MPC
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- Ashima Goyal and Jayanth R. Varma, the two external members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) who voted as a minority for a 0.25% rate cut at the last MPC meeting earlier this month, had warned about the rising risks of ‘status quosim’ and ‘growth sacrifice’ as a result of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) persisting with its tight monetary policy approach, the minutes of the June 5-7 meeting released by the RBI on Friday show.
- “Headline inflation has been around 5% since January... while core inflation has been below 4% since December 2023. Volatile commodity prices, El Nino and heat waves have not been able to reverse the approach to target,” Dr. Goyal wrote in her statement.
- “The headline inflation projection of 4.5% for 2024-25 gives an average real repo rate of 2% implying that the real repo rate will be above neutral for too long if the repo rate stays unchanged,” she pointed out.
RBI’s Rao stresses on customer protection in NBFC sector
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Executive Director R. Lakshmi Kanth Rao on Friday stressed the importance of compliance and customer protection in the non-banking financial company (NBFC) sector.
- “NBFCs are a critical part of the financial system, contributing to diversification and innovation.
- However, their growing size necessitates a shift from pure activity-based regulation to a framework that considers both activity and scale to effectively manage risk,” he said while addressing at the Assocham 10th National Summit on NBFCs & Infrastructure Financing held in Mumbai.
‘Private sector activity perks up; business optimism falls’
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- Manufacturing as well as services activity picked up pace in June compared with May, as per the HSBC Flash India Purchasing Managers’ Indices (PMI) released on Friday, but business optimism levels slumped sharply for both sectors despite an improvement in margins amid a marked reduction in input costs.
- Rising demand and capacity pressures compelled manufacturing as well as services businesses surveyed for the PMI to ramp up staffing levels and input buying, with hiring reckoned to have grown at the fastest pace in 18 years.
