Neutralising a mass killer
Rotavirus diarrhoea :
- In India, the disease annually kills over 100,000 children below the age of one, making the country account for a quarter of all global deaths caused by rotavirus diarrhoea.
- The majority of instances of the disease caused by the virus occurs during the first two years of age.
vaccine 116E:
- Indigenous vaccine developed for rotavirus
- Phase 3 trials at 3 centres were found to be safe
- 56.4 per cent efficacy in preventing severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in infants during their first year of life.
- three doses can be co-administered with other vaccines during the routine immunisation schedule makes it all the more attractive.
What government should do:
quickly include it in the national immunisation programme
improve social infrastructure in order to control other pathogen-caused diseases like cholera.
Positives out of development of this vaccine
- Our scientist could isolate human neo-natal rotavirus strain
- conduct of clinical trials in India
1 + 2 = science of vaccine development a much-needed boost.
The Japanese online retailer Rakuten is to end all online sales of whale and dolphin meat by the end of April after the international court of justice ordered Japan to immediately halt its annual whale hunts in the southern ocean.
The decision by Rakuten comes soon after the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) exposed the company as the world’s biggest online retailer of whale products and elephant ivory.
Maoists seek legitimacy
July 2010 - Azad, a member of Communist Party of India (Maoists) was was killed allegedly by AP police ==> this caused the peace negotiations between government and maoist to come to a stop.
Now to start the peace process again Maoist have put forward certain conditions:
1. Realease of all veteran comrades in prison and lifting of cases against them. They should be allowed to meet the central committee to decide on a team to participate in the dialogue with the government.
2. Legitimacy for the party
3. wants the ban on it and frontal mass organisations lifted.
4. want the killers of Azad to be punished. Similarly for other leaders also.
There were at least five attempts, official and informal, by the State and the naxalites since the Telangana armed struggle in the mid-1940s, to strike a framework for a peace talk.
Problems of road developers:
1. Debt serving ability
2. returns of national highway projects
Causes:
1. Less traffic growth
- traffic growth across 15 national highway projects that have been operational for over three years
between fiscals 2008 and 2011: 7-8%
2012: 3-4%
2013: 2-3%
2014 too, the traffic growth has been weak due to sluggish economic activity.
Reason: commercial vehicle traffic, whose slowdown overshadowed a healthy 15 per cent average growth in passenger vehicle traffic during this period.
- Revenues of special purpose vehicles (SPVs) under build-operate-transfer (BOT) model have grown by about 12 per cent in the past couple of years. During this period, toll rates rose by 8-9 per cent per annum as these are linked to the wholesale price . But poor traffic growth negated most of the benefits.
- scenario is unlikely to improve much in the near-term.
- Base traffic (in the first year of a highway’s operation) has been much lower compared to the NHAI draft project report estimates.
2. Execution delays
Of the 78 BOT projects completed between fiscals 2000 and 2013, more than three-fourths or 61 projects faced delays, with the average time overrun at 10.5 months. The situation has only worsened in the last couple of years. Execution hasn’t begun for about 33 projects awarded in fiscal 2012 .
3. Cost overruns
Returns for these road projects are also expected to be 8-14 per cent, much lower than the 22-26 per cent returns based on NHAI traffic and cost estimates.
Government's response:
Recently, the government offered some respite by relaxing exit norms and allowing for premium deferment in the case of stressed projects.
Same old bakwaas as in previous articles about India's abstention form UNHRC's vote against Sri Lanka.
Repercussions of India's abstention
==> Significant Development in India - SL relations
==> Rajapaksa orders release of all Indian fishermen in SL as goodwill gesture
==> Shows Ministry of Ecternal Affairs is in full charge of diplomatic relations
==> Tamil diaspora organisations and sections of northern Tamils said they were deeply disappointed with India
New thing in the article:
Given the renewed possibilities of closer engagement with Sri Lanka, it is now completely up to New Delhi to convert this diplomatic goal to a diplomatic gain.
New Delhi should put political pressure for effective and timely implementation of all the constructive recommendations contained in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission report, including those pertaining to missing persons, detainees, reduction of high security zones, return of private lands by the military and withdrawal of security forces from the civilian domain in the Northern Province.
Other areas which Indian govt can put pressure are:
1. resettlement of war victims
2. reduction in militarization of North
3. Devolution of power as promised in 13th amendment
The Indian general election is inexorably moving towards the wearisomely familiar pattern of sectarian rhetoric and counter-rhetoric.
Sonia Gandhi meets Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, who after that gives a call to Muslims to vote for the Congress nationally and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
Narendra Modi’s sudden interest in meat exports and slaughterhouses is simply a case of reverse demagogy, with Hindus being seen as an exploitable whole.
India needs dual transition:
1. Economic growth
2. Democracy in a true sense
According to the author for this we seek plebiscitary authoritarianism (running an authoritarian government with mass support) as tackling all these demands simultaneously inevitably warrants the concentration of political power in a single office.
But author gives example of Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Thailand who undertook market and governance reforms simultaneously with plebiscitary authoritarian leaders.
What happened in these countries after selection of such leaders was similar:
macroeconomic stability ==> fundamental legal restructuring, encouraging the personalisation of public office ==> corruption, chaos and a slow, but eventual, revival.
India is not a presidential system with a single dominant party and an authoritarian past to go down the path of other countries. Nor are our prime ministerial candidates as brazenly ruthless as their global counterparts. But considering that many of our candidates do follow a “my way or the highway” kind of politics, the experience from other countries serves us well to footnote the dark possibilities of dual transitions.
Gyaan
This can be used in answers to argue why Presidential system is not suitable for India.
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