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ART of India’s HIV/AIDS response It has been 20 years since the pathbreaking free Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) initiative began in India, and it has lessons for other public health programmes HIV/AIDS epidemic day in India Today, April 1, marks a very important day in the history of response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India.  Twenty years ago, on April 1, 2004, the Indian government had launched Free Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), for Persons living with HIV (PLHIV),  a decision which has proven one of the successful and a key intervention in the fight against HIV/AIDS. पहले क्या थी भारत की कंडीशन ? 1  At the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, the disease was considered a death sentence and was met with a lot of fear, stigma and discrimination.  2  Though the first antiretroviral drug, AZT (zidovudine), was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) in March 1987, three more drugs were approved soon after in 1988 and a new class ...

Finance Commission and public finance in Kerala Asymmetric fiscal rules require wider discussion and debate, as Kerala has highlighted State Govt loan and central gov tax  Public debt management is getting wider attention in Centre-State financial relations, against the backdrop of recently constituted Sixteenth Union Finance Commission.  One of the States in India, Kerala, had filed a suit in the Supreme Court of India against the Centre’s decision on the net borrowing ceiling of States.  The Net Borrowing Ceiling (NBC )  is calculated by  subtracting state liabilities from the total, including those from public accounts .  The NBC also deducts borrowings by state-owned enterprises, where the principal and/or interest are serviced out of the Budget. fiscal deficit to GDP and kerla and other state   In the post-COVID-19 pandemic fiscal strategy, the fiscal deficit to GDP is envisaged as 3.5% for States, with 0.5% tied to power sector r...

​ ursodeoxycholic acid    Administering ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) can stave off / stop the tendency of statins to induce / कारण बनना glucose intolerance and diabetes, a study by a group of researchers in China has found. Statins   1  Statins are prescribed to people with a high risk of cardiovascular disease.  2  They work by blocking the activity of an enzyme involved in the metabolic pathway that produces LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol.  3  Statins are on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and among themost sold drugs worldwide. 4  However, many studies have found statins could increase the risk of developing diabetes. ‘Frank diabetes ’ .  doctors have continued to prescribe them because statins’ benifts are more than  risk”. Nonetheless, the mechanism by which statins have this effect has been unclear. glucose intolerance and astrovastatin  1  In the study, published in Feb...

Bonds, big money and an imperfect democracy In a well-functioning democracy, fighting an election would need neither extravagant funding nor electoral bonds to be bought   in secrecy Why in news ?  1  The electoral bonds scheme that has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of India, was supposed to end the financing of elections with black money. 2  If this had happened, Indian politics would have been transformed with great benefit to the nation. 3  . Elections continue to be fought with an increasingly larger amount of illegal funds being spent by political parties and candidates. Gap between the professed and the actual जिसने पैसा दिया है काम उसी का होगा 1  Elected leaders, mainly serving the interests of those who finance their elections, hardly represent the interests of their constituency.  2  . The vast majority of people see that they hardly gain benefit from government policies while vested interests corner mos...

The human-dog relationship, conflict and coexistence Headline grabbing incidents of ‘dog biting, chasing, or mauling’ represent only a fraction of all human-dog interactions   human-street dog conflict These are usually stories of people, often children, being attacked by street dogs, or of the mistreatment of dogs by humans.  .  Human-dog interactions .  Citizen-based research across various parts of India by ROH-Indies (University of Edinburgh) .  1  extreme instances such as mauling cannot be taken to be representative of the overall human-dog relationship. 2  On other fact  problematic notion that dogs are inherently virtuous creatures who can do no wrong.  3  Dogs, like all other animals, including human beings, are beings whose motivations cannot always be known to us.  4  This means treating dogs as individuals with specific backgrounds and environments, rather than an undifferentiated population mass that i...

Pandemic treaty World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement represents a critical step towards rebuilding trust and coordination between nations, but there are indications that it runs the risk of collapse Why in news ? March 2021, an extraordinary call for a pandemic treaty was issued by 25 heads of government and international agencies, marking a pivotal moment in global health governance.  The ninth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), the final leg of negotiations for the 30-page World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement, commenced last week (March 18).  This is the most momentous time in global health since 1948 As we approach the World Health Assembly in late May, where the final draft will be presented for approval,  the fate of the Pandemic Agreement hangs in the balance, with the risk of collapse looming large amidst contentious debates. The key features The WHO Pandemic Agreement aims   to address the systemic failu...

Understanding India’s coal imports The discourse around coal shortages in India needs course correction electricity shortages rises  again as hot weather descends across the country. In recent years, increasingly unpredictable we9ather patterns and a fast-growing economy have led to big increases in electricity demand, the meeting of which in a reliable way becomes a challenge. More about logistics First, a shortage of domestic thermal coal 1  Coal  the kind used in electricity generation, is primarily blamed for the electricity shortage. 2  Consider August, the month with the greatest electricity shortage in 2023, though the story is similar even in summer months. 3  Electricity shortage in August was about 840 million units due to a poor monsoon, in turn leading to increased demand and reduced supply from some sources.  4  It is pertinent उचित  that this shortage was just 0.55% of demand that month. 5  Moreover, 0.6 million ...

WTO’s investment facilitation negotiations are not illegal India should reconsider its defensive approach towards plurilateral agreements such as the investment facilitation for development agreement investment facilitation for development (IFD) One of the significant developments at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Abu Dhabi was the non-adoption of the agreement on investment facilitation for development (IFD).  History of IFD :  1  Despite opposition from countries such as India,  2  negotiations for an IFD agreement at the WTO were launched in 2017 on a plurilateral basis by 70 countries.  3  This was done through a process known as the Joint Statement Initiative.  4  The IFD agreement was finalised in November 2023.  5  Today, around 120 of 166 WTO member countries (more than 70% of the membership) back the IFD agreement.  6  This agreement aims to create legal...

China-Taiwan conflict India needs to enact tougher policies to serve its own interests China claims Taiwan as its own and is feverishly preparing to seize the island by force if necessary, while the U.S. has increasinglyclearly signaled that it would probably fight to defend Taiwan.  India is highly unlikely to fight in a conflict over Taiwan.  It has vital economic and security interests, and valuable policy levers, to ensure that such a conflict never happens. Maintain the status quo New Delhi has three main reasons to do so 1   India and Taiwan have expanded trade seven-fold since 2001 and are exploring a possible free trade agreement.  The Taiwanese firm, Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, has partnered with the Tata Group to build India’s first semiconductor fabrication plant.  An agreement was signed recently to send Indian workers to Taiwan.  India’s industry, critical supply chains, and overseas population are all in...