BioE3 (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) Policy

News:

• Cabinet approves BioE3 (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) Policy for Fostering High Performance Biomanufacturing.

Salient features of BioE3 policy:

• Innovation-driven support to R&D and entrepreneurship across thematic sectors.
• Accelerate technology development and commercialization by establishing Biomanufacturing & Bio-AI hubs and Biofoundry.
• Along with prioritizing regenerative bioeconomy models of green growth, this policy will facilitate expansion of India’s skilled workforce and provide a surge in job creation.

High performance biomanufacturing:

• It is the ability to produce products from medicine to materials, address farming and food challenges, and promote manufacturing of bio-based products through integration of advanced biotechnological processes.
• To address the national priorities, the BioE3 Policy would broadly focus on the following strategic/thematic sectors:
• High value bio-based chemicals, biopolymers & enzymes
• Smart proteins & functional foods
• Precision biotherapeutics
• Climate resilient agriculture
• Carbon capture & its utilization
• Marine and space research

Need:

• Present era is an opportune time to invest in the industrialization of biology to promote sustainable and circular practices to address some of the critical societal issues-such as climate change mitigation, food security and human health.
• It is important to build a resilient biomanufacturing ecosystem in our nation to accelerate cutting-edge innovations for developing bio-based products.

Conclusion:

• This policy will further strengthen Government’s initiatives such as ‘Net Zero’ carbon economy & ‘Lifestyle for Environment’ and will steer India on the path of accelerated ‘Green Growth’ by promoting ‘Circular Bioeconomy’.
• The BioE3 Policy will foster and advance future that is more sustainable, innovative, and responsive to global challenges and lays down the Bio-vision for Viksit Bharat.

PYQ (2021):

• What are the research and developmental achievements in applied biotechnology? How will these achievements help to uplift the poorer sections of the society?

New-age gateway devices, the latest health threat

Introduction:

• New-age gateway devices such as e-cigarettes, vaping pens, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), heat-not-burn (HNB) devices and other heated tobacco products (HTPs) were portrayed to offer a healthier alternative to smoking that would make it easier to quit tobacco.
• But the reality is quite different. Instead, they have caused a public health crisis, causing physical harm and affecting the mental well-being of children.

A new pandemic:

• Instead of helping people quit tobacco, the manufacturers of these new-age gateway devices have discovered a lucrative market – children.
• This has led to a surge in youth vaping, creating a new pandemic.
• These devices are now getting a new generation hooked on nicotine and exposing them to potential long-term health consequences.
• Children have been lured into trying and becoming addicted to e-cigarettes and vaping devices through a targeted marketing of flavours such as strawberry, cotton candy, pop rocks, and lemonade.
• In addition to alleged predatory marketing tactics, mental health issues and the negative effects of excessive technology use are also driving some children towards these devices.
• Children are increasingly susceptible to new-age devices from an early age.
• What was once an adolescent concern, for engaging in distracting activities and developing addictive tendencies, has shifted, with even those under 10 years of age now showing signs of vulnerability.
• The colourful imagery created by these new-age gateway devices suggests that these products will bring happiness and elevate one’s social status in the lives of targeted children.
• In their eagerness to fit in, children often prioritise peer preferences over their own, leading them to embrace vaping and other harmful behaviours.
• Those who vape are more likely to experience feelings of loneliness and social isolation when compared to their peers who abstain from these.
• These psychological factors contribute to a troubling surge in children being drawn to enticing electronic devices such as vapes and e-cigarettes.

A gateway to danger:

• While physical impacts such as lung damage and the spread of e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI) have become evident, we also need to shine the spotlight on the mental impact on children due to these new-age gateway devices.
• Evidence indicates that vaping has negative effects on people who use e-cigarettes.
• With increasing rates of e-cigarette usage worldwide, such new-age gateway devices are associated with mental health challenges such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, perceived stress, and suicide-related behaviours among adolescents.
• E-cigarettes are highly addictive, particularly for individuals up to around the age of 25.
• This is a developmental stage which makes them especially vulnerable to structural and chemical changes induced by nicotine addiction.
• Once addiction takes root, it can increase the likelihood of developing other substance use disorders later in life, creating a cycle.

What is inside these new-age gateway devices that is causing more addiction?

• A recent survey finds that more adolescent e-cigarette users reported using their first tobacco product within five minutes of waking when compared to users of cigarettes and other tobacco products combined.
• This finding highlights the strong grip that nicotine addiction has on the adolescent brain.
• The study further said that e-cigarettes are highly engineered drug delivery devices designed to create and sustain addiction.
• Later versions of e-cigarettes, especially after 2015, started a more efficient delivery of nicotine.
• The addition of benzoic acid to the nicotine e-liquid produces protonated nicotine, which enhances the addictive potential by making it easier for users to inhale significant quantities of nicotine levels that are difficult to achieve with traditional cigarettes or earlier e-cigarette models.
• This results in heightened addiction and an increased mental dependency on these devices.

Conclusion:

• These new-age gateway devices are also being used to experiment with harder substances such as cannabis, and even cocaine and heroin.
• Many children, teenagers, and even parents mistakenly believe that vaping only involves harmless water vapour and pleasant flavours. The reality is far more sinister and can lead to a lifetime of substance abuse issues.

What did the 2013 panel say on death penalty for rape?

Introduction:

• After the brutal rape and murder of a doctor on duty in Kolkata, there has been a clamour of voices seeking the death penalty for the accused.
• The Justice J.S. Verma Committee recommendations, which led to the amendment of criminal laws in 2013, had specifically said it was not inclined to recommend the death penalty for rape even for the rarest of rare cases. “…seeking of [the] death penalty would be a regressive step in the field of sentencing and reformation,” the committee pointed out.

Justice Verma Committee:

• The committee to amend criminal laws was set up after the gang rape of a paramedic student in Delhi in December, 2012.
• Led by Justice J.S. Verma (retired), the committee submitted its recommendations in January, 2013.
• One of its key suggestions that the death penalty does not necessarily act as a deterrent against such crimes was overlooked.

2013 Amendment:

• The Union Cabinet did not take the recommendation on the death penalty when it cleared an ordinance on sexual assault in 2013, and signed the criminal amendments into law.
• Key amendments were brought in to provide the death penalty for rape that led to death of the victim or reduced her to a persistent vegetative state (Section 376A of the Indian Penal Code) and anyone found guilty of rape more than once (Section 376E).
• In 2018, further changes introduced death as the maximum punishment for every participant in a gang rape when the victim is less than 12 years old (Section 376DB), and life-long imprisonment if the victim is less than 16 (Section 376DA).

BNS:

• Under the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), punishment for rape is laid down in several Sections including 64, 65 and 70(2), which notes the punishment for gang rape of a woman under the age of 18 is the death penalty.

Justice Verma Committee recommendations:

• Verma Committee provided for enhanced sentences for rape, increasing it from 7 years to 10 years, 20 years, and life, but “short of death”.
• “Whoever causes the person to be in a persistent vegetative state shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than twenty years, but may be for life, which shall mean the rest of that person’s natural life,” it noted.
• The committee pointed out that “there is considerable evidence that the deterrent effect of death penalty on serious crimes is actually a myth.
• According to the Working Group on Human Rights, the murder rate has declined consistently in India over the last 20 years despite the slowdown in the execution of death sentences since 1980.”

Verma Committee on marital rape:

• The Verma Committee recommended that the exception to marital rape be removed, pointing out that “a marital or other relationship between the perpetrator and victim is not a valid defence against the crimes of rape or sexual violation.”
• Concurring with the judgment of the European Commission of Human Rights in C.R. vs U.K., the Verma Committee endorsed the conclusion that a rapist remains a rapist regardless of his relationship with the victim.
• The Union government did not go by this recommendation and refused to criminalise marital rape.
• Under the BNS, exception 2 of Section 63 states that “sexual intercourse or acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being under 18 years of age, is not rape.”

Gender rights:

• The Verma Committee pointed out that “the ethos of empowerment of women does not limit itself to political equality, but also extends, in equal terms, to social, educational, and economic equality. If true empowerment of women were to mean anything, it is necessary that law, as well as public policy, must be capable of engaging substantially with women’s rights, opportunities, acquisition of skills, the ability to generate self-confidence and insist on total equality in relationships, both with society and the state.”
• The correction of social mindsets of its gender bias depends more on social norms, it observed, noting that “the deficiency has to be overcome by leaders in society aided by the necessary systemic changes in education and societal behaviour.”

Vaccine-derived Polio

Context:

• A two-year-old child in Meghalaya has been infected with vaccine-derived polio.
• This is not a case of wild poliovirus, but an infection that presents in some people with low immunity.

Vaccine-derived polio:

• It is a rare condition that occurs when the weakened (attenuated) strain of poliovirus used in the oral polio vaccine (OPV) mutates and regains the ability to cause paralysis.
• OPV contains a live, attenuated virus that is used for immunisation against the disease.
• This weakened virus triggers an immune response when administered, thus protecting people from the disease.
• The attenuated virus replicates in the intestines for a limited period and is excreted in the stool.
• In rare cases, the virus can mutate enough to cause the disease again and circulate in areas where either immunisation is low, where immunocompromised people reside, or where sanitation and hygiene are poor. This is how vaccine-derived polio virus (VDPV) spreads.
• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus is classified as “circulating” (cVDPV2) if it is detected in at least two different sources, at least two months apart, which are genetically linked, showing evidence of transmission in the community.

Types of poliovirus:

• Polioviruses are enteroviruses that are transmitted primarily by the faecal-oral route.
• Three types: Wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1), wild poliovirus type 2 (WPV2), and wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3) have been known to exist.
• Symptomatically, all these strains are identical.

Polio vaccines:

• The first successful polio vaccine for poliovirus was made by Jonas Salk in the early 1950s.
• Salk inactivated the virus using formaldehyde and injected it into the muscles of test subjects.
• This inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) induced systemic immunity (relating to the blood, brain, and all other organ systems) in the subjects.
• Albert Sabin developed another vaccine that contained live polio strains weakened by growing them serially in macaque cells, making them unfit for human infection.
• Since this vaccine contained the live virus, it had to be administered through its natural mode of infection-in this case, oral. This is what we today known as the OPV.

OPV vs. IPV:

• OPV is usually preferred over IPV because of its ease of administration.
• It does not require syringes or medical training and is inexpensive.
• However, the weakened virus in OPV can occasionally revert, causing the disease it is meant to prevent.
• IPV, on the other hand, is a less potent vaccine, but contains inactivated virus particles and hence has no risk of causing vaccine-associated paralytic polio myelitis (VAPP)-a rare, adverse reaction to OPV.
• IPV is comparatively tougher to manufacture as it contains a chemically inactivated virus.

Other facts:

• On World Polio Day, October 24, 2019, the WHO declared that WPV3 has been eradicated worldwide.
• The last case was detected in Nigeria in 2012, the WHO said.
• WPV2 was officially declared eradicated in 2015.
• However, more than 90% of vaccine-derived polio virus outbreaks are due to the type 2 virus present in oral polio vaccines.
• VAPP constitutes 40% of cases caused by the type 2 oral polio vaccine.
• Many cases of VAPP from the type 3 virus also occur in countries using OPV.
• The Indian government does not count VAPP as polio since these cases are sporadic and pose little or no threat to others, even though the number of VAPP-compatible cases showed a rising trend.
• After the global switch from trivalent (containing all three variants) to bivalent (type 1 and type 3) oral polio vaccine in 2016 to prevent any more type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus, the number of vaccine derived type 2 poliovirus out breaks has only increased sharply.
• The WHO authorised a genetically modified type 2 novel oral polio vaccine under Emergency Use Listing in November 2020, it was first used in the field in March 2021, and received WHO prequalification in December 2023.
• The vaccine is less likely to revert to neurovirulence unlike the Sabin vaccine and therefore cause less type 2 VDPV.

Libya

Context:

• The North African country still struggling to recover from years of conflict after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising overthrew Moamer Kadhafi.

Libya:

• It is a country located in Maghreb region of North Africa.
• Most of the country lies in the Sahara desert, and much of its population is concentrated along the coast.
• Before the discovery of oil in the late 1950s, Libya was considered poor in natural resources and severely limited by its desert environment.
• Land: Libya is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the north, Egypt on the east, Sudan on the southeast, Niger and Chad on the south, and Tunisia and Algeria on the west.
• The Saharan plateau makes up about nine-tenths of Libya.
• There are no permanent rivers in Libya.
• The Great Man-Made River was one of the more ambitious projects designed to make use of the underground reserves.
• Libya’s climate is dominated by the hot arid Sahara, but it is moderated along the coastal littoral by the Mediterranean Sea.
• Almost all Libyans speak Arabic, the country’s official language.
• Most Libyans are Muslim, and the vast majority are Sunnis.
• Colonial Influence and Independence:
• Libya was under Ottoman rule for centuries and became an Italian colony in the early 20th century.
• After World War II, Libya gained independence in 1951 and became a monarchy under King Idris.
• Moamer Kadhafi:
• Although Libya’s long-ruling leader Muammar al-Qaddafi (Moamer Kadhafi) espoused an idiosyncratic political ideology rooted in socioeconomic egalitarianism and direct democracy, Libya in practice remained an authoritarian state, with power concentrated among members of Qaddafi’s inner circle of relatives and security chiefs.
• Opposition to the Qaddafi regime reached an unprecedented level in 2011, developing into an armed revolt that forced Qaddafi from power.
• Post-Qaddafi Challenges:
• After Qaddafi’s fall, Libya struggled with governance issues, the rise of militias, and tribal divisions.
• The country essentially split into multiple factions, with the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in the west and the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar in the east.