World Iodine Deficiency Day
Context : World Iodine Deficiency Day is observed on 21 October.
Aim : To create awareness of the adequate use of iodine among the people. The day also highlights the consequences of iodine deficiency.
About Iodene : Iodine is required for the synthesis of the thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). It is essential for the normal growth and development and well-being of the human being. The micronutrient is required around 100-150 micrograms in the body.
Iodine deficiency disorders :
- Deficiency in Iodine is a major cause of preventable mental retardation.
- The deficiency is especially damaging during pregnancy and in early childhood. In acute forms of IDDs will lead to cretinism, stillbirth, and miscarriage.
- Even a mild deficiency of iodine will cause a significant loss of learning ability.
Need :
Disorders caused due to iodine deficiency have become a major public health problem worldwide. It was observed that almost one-third of the world population is at the risk of iodine deficiency disorders. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 54 countries are still iodine deficient.
Interpol
Context: The Central Bureau of Investigation will host the 91st General Assembly of Interpol in 2022 as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of India’s Independence.
What is Interpol?
- The International Criminal Police Organisation, or Interpol, is a 194-member intergovernmental organisation.
- headquarteredin Lyon, France.
- formed in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, and started calling itself Interpol in 1956.
- India joined the organisation in 1949, and is one of its oldest members.
- Interpol’s declared global policing goals include countering terrorism, promoting border integrity worldwide, protection of vulnerable communities, providing a secure cyberspace for people and businesses, curbing illicit markets, supporting environment security, and promoting global integrity.
What is the Interpol General Assembly?
- It is Interpol’s supreme governing body, and comprises representatives from all its member countries.
- It meets annuallyfor a session lasting approximately four days, to vote on activities and policy.
- Each country is represented by one or more delegates at the Assembly, who are typically chiefs of law enforcement agencies.
- The Assembly also elects the members of the Interpol Executive Committee, the governing body which “provides guidance and direction in between sessions of the Assembly”.
IMF Quotas
Context: As per the latest deal, Members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to maintain its funding at $ 1 trillion but postponed changes to its voting structure.
Outcomes of the recent meet:
- The deal is a compromise with the U.S., the Fund’s largest shareholder, which has resisted changes to the organisation’s voting structure as well as increases in its permanent resource base.
- It will allow an extension of non-permanent, supplementary sources of funds – such as the New Arrangement to Borrow (NAB), a renewable funding mechanism that has existed since 1998, and bilateral borrowings from countries – the IMF had entered into these after the 2008 financial crisis to increase its lending ability.
- The agreement extended the bilateral borrowing facility by a year – to the end of 2020 and a potential doubling of the NAB.
Impact:
Specifically, the agreed package will leave IMF quotas (the primary source of IMF funds), which determine voting shares, unchanged. Instead, these will be reviewed before the end of 2023.
What are IMF Quotas?
The IMF is a quota-based institution. Quotas are the building blocks of the IMF’s financial and governance structure.
- An individual member country’s quota broadly reflects its relative position in the world economy. Quotas are denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the IMF’s unit of account.
How is it determined?
IMF quotas are distributed according to a four pronged formula that considers a member country’s GDP, its economic openness, its “economic variability” and international reserves.
Multiple roles of quotas:
Resource Contributions: Quotas determine the maximum amount of financial resources a member is obliged to provide to the IMF.
Voting Power: Quotas are a key determinant of the voting power in IMF decisions. Votes comprise one vote per SDR100,000 of quota plus basic votes (same for all members).
Access to Financing: The maximum amount of financing a member can obtain from the IMF under normal access is based on its quota.
SDR Allocations: Quotas determine a member’s share in a general allocation of SDRs.
Quota reviews:
The IMF’s Board of Governors conducts general quota reviews at regular intervals.
Any changes in quotas must be approved by an 85% majority of the total voting power, and a member’s own quota cannot be changed without its consent.
DNA technology Bill
Context: The DNA Technology Regulation Bill, which seeks to control the use of DNA technology for establishing the identity of a person, has been referred to a parliamentary standing committee for examination.
Need for the legislation and its significance:
The utility of DNA based technologies for solving crimes, and to identify missing persons, is well recognized across the world. Therefore, the new bill aims to expand the application of DNA-based forensic technologies to support and strengthen the justice delivery system of the country.
Highlights of the Bill:
- As per the Bill, national and regional DNA data banks will be set up for maintaining a national database for identification of victims, suspects in cases, undertrials, missing persons and unidentified human remains.
- Punishment: According to it, those leaking the DNA profile information to people or entities who are not entitled to have it, will be punished with a jail term of up to three years and a fine of up to Rs. 1 lakh. Similar, punishment has also been provided for those who seek the information on DNA profiles illegally.
- Usage: As per the bill, all DNA data, including DNA profiles, DNA samples and records, will only be used for identification of the person and not for “any other purpose”.
- The bill’s provisions will enable the cross-matching between personswho have been reported missing on the one hand and unidentified dead bodies found in various parts of the country on the other, and also for establishing the identity of victims in mass disasters.
- The Bill establishes a DNA Regulatory Board to accredit the DNA laboratories that analyse DNA samples to establish the identity of an individual.
Benefits of the Bill:
- By providing for the mandatory accreditation and regulation of DNA laboratories, the Bill seeks to ensure that with the proposed expanded use of this technology in the country.
- There is also the assurance that the DNA test results are reliable and the data remain protected from misuse or abuse in terms of the privacy rights of our citizens.
DNA technology- significance:
- DNA analysis is an extremely useful and accurate technology in ascertaining the identity of a person from his/her DNA sample, or establishing biological relationships between individuals.
- A hair sample, or even bloodstains from clothes, from a scene of crime, for example, can be matched with that of a suspect, and it can, in most cases, be conclusively established whether the DNA in the sample belongs to the suspected individual. As a result, DNA technology is being increasingly relied upon in investigations of crime, identification of unidentified bodies, or in determining parentage.
- It is expected that the expanded use of DNA technology would result not only in speedier justice delivery but also in increased conviction rates, which at present is only around 30% (NCRB Statistics for 2016).
Concerns:
Prone to misuse: Information from DNA samples can reveal not just how a person looks, or what their eye colour or skin colour is, but also more intrusive information like their allergies, or susceptibility to diseases. As a result, there is a greater risk of information from DNA analysis getting misused.
Safety issues: There’s also the question of whether the DNA labs accredited by the Regulatory Board are allowed to store copies of the samples they analyse. And if so, how the owners of those samples can ensure the data is safe or needs to be removed from their own indices.
Issues over storage: It’s not clear if DNA samples collected to resolve civil disputes will also be stored in the databank (regional or national), although there is no index specific for the same. If they will be stored, then the problem cascades because the Bill also does not provide for information, consent and appeals.
Digital Bharat Digital Sanskriti
Context : The E-Portal of CCRT ‘Digital Bharat Digital Sanskriti’ and CCRT YouTube Channel has been launched .
Highlights :
- It will enable dissemination of cultural education through digital interactive medium into the classrooms all over the country.
- CCRT should provide a platform for specifically dropout children so that they can join the mainstream so o that they can pursue their dreams and make a career out of it be it music, painting, theatre, martial arts or any other art forms.
- For this initiative, CCRT has tied up with Routes 2 Roots, an NGO, for connecting seamlessly all the CCRT Regional Centres