Mainly two types of drones are used in India – Fixed wings that need a 50m long runway for landing and are used for survey, and Multi-rotor which is like a helicopter that needs no runway and can hover around taking high resolution photos.
Government has also imposed a customs duty on import of drones.
Drones used to catch poachers in Pench tiger reserve.
Drones for surveillance of agriculture land during losses.
Railway bugdet plans to use drones to survey progress of projects especially the dedicated freight corridor
Traffic monitoring on Pune-Mumbai expressway.
UAV systems used in military include Lakshya, Nishant, Daksh, Rustom, etc for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.
Ethical issues, security issues and India’s drone policy.
Advantages- no manipulation, real time watch, less human labour, high precision of 3cm object,
Need for guidelines of Drones
UAVs or Drones have the potential for use in a large number of civil applications. Its use, besides being a safety issue, also poses a security threat, and has the potential for invading privacy.
The airspace over Indian cities already has a high density of aircraft traffic and unregulated use of drones poses a grave threat for air collisions and accidents.
Espionage and theft
Surveillance by private parties.
Draft Guidelines on UAV
All unmanned aircraft intended to be operated in India will require a Unique Identification Number (UIN) issued from DGCA.
All civil UAVs have to obtain operator permit (UAOP) from DGCA.
UIN to be granted to an Indian citizen or a company whose chairperson and two-thirds of its directors are Indian citizens.
UAVs with an UIN shall not be sold or disposed to any other person or firm without permission from DGCA.
UA operations at or above 200 feet AGL (above ground level) in uncontrolled airspace will require permit from DGCA
International operations of civil UAS (flying across territory) and/or over water shall be strictly prohibited
Driver should be 18 year old and has to get the UAV insured by third party.
US has moved a declaration to stop the misuse of armed UAV for terrorism and organized crime. This is a step towards international cooperation on drones.
Analysis
More restrictive than regulative
The DGCA regulations must provide for a level playing field for the private sector so that innovation, growth and adopting of UAV technologies by end users can become commonplace.
Visual line of sight (VLOS) restrictions should go – it restricts the utility of a UAV fitted with camera and product delivery capability
If Indian companies are to do business by selling drones, restrictions on selling must be eased.
Neutrino
India-based Neutrino laboratory to be located in TN. Project is taken up by DAE in cooperation with Department of Science and Technology. The laboratory will be under control of Tata institute of fundamental research. The laboratory will give India a march over China.
They are second most abound particles in the universe
They interact very little with anything and pass through everything that’s why it’s hard to detect them.
They carry no electrical charge and nearly massless.
It occurs in 3 different types/flavors, separated based on mass (electron-neutrino, muon-neutrino, tau-neutrino).
It is produced in the core of the stars.
They can be used as
They carry cosmic information, including evolution of sub-atomic particles like quarks
nuclear detectors
an option to X-ray to find oil deposits and minerals,
neutrinos can be encoded for faster communication systems,
a way to detect dark matter.
Neutrino-based communication as they pass through any and every object
Neutrinos experience weak nuclear force.
India’s 3 Stage Nuclear Program
It was put up by Dr Homi Bhabha in 1950s to ensure long term energy independence of India
Stage 1- Use of natural uranium U-238 which will transmute to Pu-239 and energy. Plutonium is generated from this stage. PWHR are used
Stage 2- Pu-239 which is recovered from earlier stages is mixed with U238 which creates a regenerative cycle. Moderators are not required in this stage. Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor is being built at Kalapakkam.
Stage 3- U-233 is mixed with Th-232 which also creates a regenerative cycle.
Draft guidelines for stem cell research 2017 talk of prior informed consent in research, protection of IPR in case of new invention.
They are undifferentiated biological cells that can produce differentiated cells and can also multiply through mitosis and form more stem cells. They are also called adult stem cells.
Mainly they are of 2 types- autologous in nature mening they are taken from the embryo of the person and cells from adult tissues like the bone marrow of a person.
This has been used to cure diseases like cancer, skin diseases, blood diseases, etc.
The donor has to match the donee. Mostly, parents and siblings match due to same gene pool. However, it is yet not a proven cure for all diseases.
Govt has come up wity guidelines for Stem Cell Research. Any treatment based on haematological diseases like thalassaemia, blood cancer, etc are allowed. However, treatment in other diseases has restrictions like clearance for clinical trial, patient being given all info and compensation if things go wrong.
It is for this reason that ICMR rule book refuses to call it “therapy”.
Cases like Ludhiana thalassaemia case come up bcoz no strict regulations exist.
Stem cell research is carried on by non govt agencies which are unregulated. Indians also face problems from international donor lists due to different ethnicities.
Costly technology. If stem cells are taken at birth, maintaining them is costly.
Ethical issues – when stem cells are taken from someone else, it indirectly amounts to organ trade.
Importance of Stem cells
Stem cells offer new potentials for treating diseases such as diabetes, and heart disease.
To screen new drugs and to develop model systems to study normal growth and identify causes of birth defects.
Study how an organism develops from a single cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms.
IPR issues deal with having exclusive control over one’s creations and making sure nobody gets access to it without the owner’s permission.
Types of IPR
Patents
Copyrights
Trademarks
Geographical Indicators
Industrial Designs
IPR Policy 2016 – under CIPAM Cell for IPR promotion and management • The policy is entirely compliant with the WTO’s agreement on TRIPS.
The Policy aims to push IPRs as a marketable financial asset, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, while protecting public interest.
The plan will be reviewed every five years in consultation with stakeholders.
In order to have strong and effective IPR laws, steps would be taken- including review of existing IP laws -to update and improve them or to remove anomalies and inconsistencies…
It suggests making the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) the nodal agency for all IPR issues. Copyrights related issues will also come under DIPP’s ambit from that of the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry.
Trademark offices have been modernized, and the aim is to reduce the time taken for examination and registration to just 1 month by 2017.
It will protect traditional medicine knowledge.
Films, music, industrial drawings will be all covered by copyright.
Proposal to create an effective loan guarantee scheme to encourage startups.
It also says “India will continue to utilize the legislative space and flexibilities available in international treaties and the TRIPS Agreement.” These flexibilities include the sovereign right of countries to use provisions such as Section 3(d) and CLs for ensuring the availability of essential and life-saving drugs at affordable prices.
Indian Patents Law was amended in 2005 to include product patent instead of process patent.
Status of Patents in India
Patent applications pending- more than 2 lakh
Every year 30000-35000 are filed.
Shortage of qualified personnel is reason for pendency. Govt recruits almost 500
Plan is to reduce approval time to 6 months from 5-6 yrs.
India is facing exceptional pressure from EU and USA for changing its IPR in favour of MNC from these countries so that they could sell their patented products easily in India. India is opposing it due to its fear that it will increase cost of products, particularly pharmaceuticals.
2 provision have been sighted as problematic by western drug manufacturers – o Section 3(D) of the Indian Patents Act, which checks “ever greening” of Patents on frivolous grounds. o Compulsory Licensing (CL): allowing someone else to produce the patented product or process without the consent of the patent owner.
Another problem is of contradiction between IPR and Competition Law. IPR holders increase prices arbitrarily and take advantage of their market monopolies which goes against Competition Laws.
The Office of United States Trade Representative has put India into “Priority Watch list”(PWL) in its Annual Special 301 report. It has also enacted the trade facilitation and trade enforcement bill 2015.
Data Exclusivity
It means that information concerning a drug’s safety and efficacy is kept confidential for a period of, say, five or ten years. That info is submitted to State to verify the efficacy of the drug.
It is a form of legal monopoly protection for a drug, over and above the patent protections. This is given expressly to compensate for the investment made during clinical trials. It implied that regulators cannot approve a similar drug with similar data for the next five years.
RCEP stuck due to this.
Overall, 2 issues that go beyond TRIPS are called TRIPS plus measures-
Data Exclusivity
Patent term extensions to compensate the company for delays in processing patent applications.
Solar Flares
Solar flares are intense bursts of light from the Sun, created when complicated magnetic fields suddenly rearrange themselves, converting magnetic energy into light through a process called magnetic reconnection. Also called Coronal Mass Ejection
They are charged particles, primarily electrons and protons with speeds as high as 900 km/s and at a temperature of 1 million degrees (Celsius).
It is made of plasma, 4th state of matter. Its particles can escape the Sun’s gravity because of their high energy.
The strongest solar flares can impact Earth’s ionosphere.
Solar flares travel at the speed of light, meaning we get no warning that they are coming.
Effects of solar Flares
The effects of solar winds on the earth that are visible to naked eye are the Aurora Borealis (the Northern lights) at the North Pole and the Aurora Australis (he Southern Lights) at the South Pole.
Astronauts and cosmonauts suffer serious radiation related health conditions if they are caught in the path of solar winds.
Radiation from solar winds is known to cause chromosome damage and cancer, and these conditions may be fatal for humans in outer space.
Radio and television communication and satellite based internet services like GPS are disrupted by solar winds Military satellites are the affected the worst by solar winds.
Geomagnetic storms caused by solar winds are very strong and can destabilize or destroy power grids
Kepler Mission had suggested existence of superflares. Superflares are very strong explosions observed on stars with energies up to ten thousand times that of typical solar flares. An international study has suggested that the Sun could fast be turning into a superflare star.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory are involved in the study of solar flares.
Task force constituted for bringing a regulatory body
Uses – targetted drug delivery, purification, nanofluids, graphene, titanium dioxide for sunscreens, silver nano particles for odourless socks. Titanium dioxide used as photo-catalytic agent for degradation of industrial wastes.
Nano Mission
The Government of India, in May 2007, has approved the launch of a Mission on Nano Science and Technology (Nano Mission) with an allocation of Rs. 1000 crore for 5 years.
The Department of Science and Technology is the nodal agency for implementing the Nano Mission.
Capacity-building in this upcoming area of research will be of utmost importance for the Nano Mission so that India emerges as a global knowledge-hub in this field.
Equally importantly, the Nano Mission will strive for development of products and processes for national development, especially in areas of national relevance like safe drinking water, materials development, sensors development, drug delivery, etc.
Graphene
Graphene is 2D thin layer of carbon. It is thin, lightweight, flexible and strong. Its recent application is in the flexible screen, solar cells in place of indium tin oxide and electric circuits
Applications: Paints and coatings, lubricants, oils and functional fluids, capacitors and batteries, thermal management applications, display materials and packaging, solar cells, inks and 3D-printers’ materials and films
Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru suggests that ‘3D Blocks’ of graphene composites can be used for bone tissue regeneration as they mimic the environment of the bone. The purpose of the PCL is to provide only a temporary home for the regenerating cells & allowing for healthy tissue to eventually replace the scaffold.
Graphene-coated solar panels can produce electricity from rain drops. This will increase efficiency of solar panels.Rain water contains salts which in turn contains positive and negative ions. These positive and negative ions are used to generate electricity.
Scientists have developed graphene-based sensor and switch to detect air pollution at homes.
Carbon Nanofibres
Carbon nanofibers (CNFs): It is cylindrical nanostructures with graphene layers arranged as stacked cones, cups or plates structure.
It has high tensile strength, less distortions with changes in temperature and high electromagnetic shielding.
Graphene layers of CNFs wrapped into perfect cylinders are called carbon nanotubes. Applications of CFNs:
They are already used in high-end applications such as electronic components and batteries. They are used as lightweight carbon composites materials in aircraft and car components.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and make carbon nanofibres.
2016 Nobel prize- nanomachines just like those in living cells. They can be used to store energy and transport material
Nano Pharmaceuticals
They are nano particles of medicinal chemicals that are used for targeted delivery of medicines. It increases the effect of medicine as well as reduce cost of delivery because it is easily administrable.
It was unregulated which has lot of threats like wrong delivery, ill effects on patient, potential use for biological warfare, etc
