Category: Featured Editorials

Context: National Agri-Market is slowly transforming the way India trades in Agri-Products. Background: APMRA during 1960-70: – The Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act brought radical changes and significant improvement in almost all aspects of marketing of farm produce. Appointment of an Expert Committee in 2000: – Found stringent controls on the storage and movement of… Continue reading E-NAM: Sowing of seeds for future

“A grain saved is a grain produced” Context: Poor Food grain storage and resultant food wastage has been a persistent problem in India Extent of the Problem: According to Food Corporation of India (FCI) reply to an RTI activist in 2014 as much as 1.95 Lakh MT of food grains was wasted in India between… Continue reading Food Grain Storage Problem in India

Context: The government has constituted a 5-member expert committee to recommend on the amount of compensation for patients who has suffered from faulty Johnson &Johnson hip-implants. Background of the Case: Deputy International Limited (DePuy), a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson had engineered a metal-on-metal (both the prosthetic ball and socket are made of metals- cobalt… Continue reading The Johnson & Johnson ASR Implant Case

Why in news? Tribal Rights activists have criticised the recently (March 2018) released Draft National Forest Policy on the grounds that it violates tribal rights over forest lands Need for New Policy         Issues with National forest Policy, 1988 Use of obsolete concepts: The principal aim of National Forest Policy, 1988 uses the concepts of ecological… Continue reading Draft National Forest Policy, 2018

context Recently, the RBI has formed Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Research Unit What is Blockchain technology? “A Blockchain is a digital, immutable, distributed ledger that chronologically records transactions in near real time.” In simple words, it is an interlinked and continuously expanding list of records stored securely across a number of interconnected systems. How does a… Continue reading Blockchain Technology

Why in news? Supreme Court imposed fines on some States and the Union Territory for not placing on record their respective policies under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 Basic Concepts: Waste: It is defined as any material that is not useful and does not represent any economic value to its owner, the owner being… Continue reading Solid Waste Management

Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror. George Wald Context A high-level South Korean delegation will fly to North Korea this week to discuss arrangements for an inter-Korean summit Background North Korea was formed in 1948 after the end of the Second World War. It… Continue reading North Korea Issue

Context: The Union Cabinet has approved the policy framework to permit exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons. Background of the issue: Unconventional hydrocarbons are sources of oil and gas which require methods for extraction which are not normally necessary in the conventional extraction of hydrocarbons such as Coal bed Methane, shale gas/oil, tight gas and… Continue reading Unconventional Hydrocarbons

Why in news? Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Government of India has released draft Clinical Trial (CT) Rules 2018 What are clinical trials? Clinical trials are scientific studies conducted to find better ways to prevent, screen for, diagnose, or treat disease. The clinical trials are conducted to know the safety and… Continue reading Clinical Trials

Why in news? According to Economic Survey 2017-18 India’s spending on R&D in terms of % of GDP has been stagnant at 0.6 to 0.7% in the last two decades What is R&D? The UNESCO defines R&D as – ‘R&D is any creative systematic activity undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including… Continue reading R&D in India