Drugs Controller General of India:
- DCGI under gamut of Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) is responsible for approval of licenses of specified categories of drugs such as blood and blood products, vaccines, IV fluids and sera in India.
- DCGI lays down standards and quality of manufacturing, selling, import and distribution of drugs in India.
- It acts as appellate authority in case of any dispute regarding quality of drugs.
- It prepares and maintains national reference standard.
- It brings about uniformity in enforcement of Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
Minimum Support Price:
- The MSP is the rate at which the government buys grains from farmers.
- Reason behind the idea of MSP is to counter price volatility of agricultural commodities due to the factors like variation in their supply, lack of market integration and information asymmetry.
Fixation of MSP
- The MSP is fixed on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
- Factors taken into consideration for fixing MSP include:
-Demand and supply;
-Cost of production (A2 + FL method)
-Price trends in the market, both domestic and international;
-inter-crop price parity;
-Terms of trade between agriculture and non-agriculture;
-A minimum of 50% as the margin over cost of production; and
-Likely implications of MSP on consumers of that product.
Taxation:
- Taxation is the means by which a government or the taxing authority imposes or levies a tax on its citizens and business entities. From income tax to goods and services tax (GST), taxation applies to all levels.
- The Central and State government plays a significant role in determining the taxes in India.
- To streamline the process of taxation and ensure transparency in the country, the state and central governments have undertaken various policy reforms over the last few years.
- One such change was the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which eased the tax regime on the sale and deliverance of goods and services in the country.
RT-PCR Test:
- Under this, copies of a segment of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are created using an enzyme called Polymerase.
-The ‘chain reaction’ signifies how the DNA fragments are copied, exponentially — one is copied into two, the two are copied into four, and so on.
- A fluorescent DNA binding dye called the “probe” is added to DNA, which shows the presence of the virus on a fluorometer.
- However, coronavirus is made of RNA (ribonucleic acid).
- Therefore to detect coronavirus, RNA is converted into DNA using a technique called reverse transcription. A ‘reverse transcriptase’ enzyme converts the RNA into DNA.
- Copies of the DNA are then made and amplified.
Bru tribe:
- Bru or Reang is a community indigenous to Northeast India, living mostly in Tripura, Mizoram and Assam. In Tripura, they are recognised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group.
- In Mizoram, they have been targeted by groups that do not consider them indigenous to the state.
- In 1997, following ethnic clashes, nearly 37,000 Brus fled Mamit, Kolasib and Lunglei districts of Mizoram and were accommodated in relief camps in Tripura.
Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups:
- PVTGs are more vulnerable among the tribal groups. Due to this factor, more developed and assertive tribal groups take a major chunk of the tribal development funds because of which PVTGs need more funds directed for their development.
- In 1973, the Dhebar Commission created Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) as a separate category, who are less developed among the tribal groups. In 2006, the Government of India renamed the PTGs as PVTGs.
- In this context, in 1975, the Government of India initiated to identify the most vulnerable tribal groups as a separate category called PVTGs and declared 52 such groups, while in 1993 an additional 23 groups were added to the category, making it a total of 75 PVTGs out of 705 Scheduled Tribes.
- PVTGs have some basic characteristics – they are mostly homogenous, with a small population, relatively physically isolated, absence of written language, relatively simple technology and a slower rate of change etc.