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 Ending TB
• Tuberculosis (TB) is one of India’s severest health crises.

• It kills two Indians every three minutes and more than 1,000 people
every day.

• India has the highest TB burden in the world.

• TB is, by and large, easily diagnosable and curable.

• India not only accounts for a fifth of the world’s TB burden, it also has
the largest number of people living with multidrug-resistant TB.
• After decades spent battling the scourge of tuberculosis (TB) in
developing countries, 2018 might be the year that it is finally accorded
the gravitas it deserves.

• On September 26, the UN General Assembly will, for the first time,
address TB in a High-Level Meeting and likely release a Political
Declaration, endorsed by all member nations, to galvanise investment
and action to meet the global target of eliminating TB worldwide by
2035.

• Elimination, which means reducing the number to one case per million
people per year.

• It will be impossible without universal, equitable access to affordable,

quality TB diagnostics and treatment for anyone who needs it.
• A critical omission is that countries may avail of the various
flexibilities under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights; another is that countries may invoke the Doha Declaration to
compulsorily license drugs for use in public health emergencies.

• Yet another is the option to de-link the pricing of new TB drugs from
the costs incurred in their research and development.

• In March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India would eliminate TB

by 2025, ahead of the global targets.

• These targets cannot be achieved without access to affordable, quality

diagnostics/ drugs.
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• India has fought to retain its status as a maker and distributor of
generic medicines, thereby protecting the right to health of people in
developing countries.

• Indian patent law contains important provisions that help protect and
promote public health goals.

• Unless India assumes a leadership role to restore every possible option

to protect universal access to TB drugs in the Political Declaration,
2018 may end up being just another brick in the wall.
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 The right to love
• Social morality cannot trump constitutional morality

• The 2013 decision meant that the LGBTQ community’s belatedly

recognised right to equal protection of the law was withdrawn on
specious grounds

• The court has overruled Koushal and upheld homosexuals’ right to

have intimate relations with people of their choice, their inherent
right to privacy and dignity and the freedom to live without fear.

• Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra’s opinion lays emphasis on

transformative constitutionalism, that is, treating the Constitution as
a dynamic document that progressively realises various rights.

• CJI: doctrine of non-retrogression which means that once a right is

recognised, it cannot be reversed.
•-
 Sexual equality affirmed
• The Kinsey Report on sexuality, though based on a narrow cultural
base, had estimated that about 10% of a population is not exclusively
heterosexual.

• Accordingly, the lives of over 100 million Indians may have been freed
by the Supreme Court.

• India’s political parties had distanced themselves from their cause, no

doubt fearing majoritarian backlash, revealing that they have no
convictions of their own.

• Nor has there been much support from India’s liberal intelligentsia,
the right and left wings of which have not been able to slough off a
deep conservatism when it comes to matters of sex.
Is Punjab’s proposed blasphemy law retrograde?
• The IPC already has a Section 295A, which says that “deliberate and
malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by
insulting its religion or religious beliefs” will be punishable with
imprisonment extending up to three years.

• The Bills seek to insert a new Section 295AA that stipulates that
whoever causes “injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib,
Srimad Bhagwat Gita, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to
hurt the religious feelings of the people” would be liable to be
awarded life imprisonment, if convicted.

• The proposed Penal Code Bill seeks to replace the Indian Penal Code
(Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 which specifically referred only to acts
of sacrilege against the Sri Guru Granth Sahib.
• On legal grounds, the drafting of the Bill has received criticism for the
imprecise manner in which sacrilege has been defined; it should have
been clearly mentioned as physical desecration/sacrilege. Otherwise,
even for writing a book or an article, or making a speech, or sketching
a cartoon, or drawing a painting, a person can be erroneously accused
of blasphemy notwithstanding the rights guaranteed by Articles 19 and
25 of the Constitution.

• In 1947, a man who was devoutly religious became the Father of a

secular, democratic nation. And another man who spurned everything
religious emerged as the Quaid-e-Azam of an Islamic country.

• Punjab is a land where secularism is not an ideology but inter-faith

bonhomie. Punjab, a Sikh-majority area, has been the cradle of
Hinduism. And then there is the Sikh faith, the only religion in the
world which has its sanctum sanctorum founded by a saint (Mian Mir)
from a faith perceived as hostile, Islam. And the holy scripture of the
Sikhs contains Banis (verses) of holy men from all the dominant faiths
prevalent then, including Hinduism and Islam.
 Pieces of land
• The question of land remains among the most sensitive and divisive in
the country.

• Apartheid was, at its core, a system of separate and discriminatory

development, with black South Africans either dispossessed or denied
access to land, infrastructure and resources, while their white
counterparts were given preferential treatment and access to the
economy.

• The legacies of apartheid persist to this day, with social and economic
inequality preserved and perpetuated due to the lack of economic
transformation.

• Following the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National

Congress (ANC) said it would redistribute 30 percent of white-owned
commercial farmland to black farmers.
• It is estimated that white South Africans, who make up around nine
percent of the population, own around 73 percent of the commercial
agricultural land.

• "Our estimate is that [today] 9.7 percent of white commercial farmland

has been transferred to black people since 1994," Ruth Hall, from the
Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (Plaas), based in Cape
Town, says.

• Since 1994, the government has followed a "willing seller, willing

buyer" model in which it has bought white-owned farms for
redistribution. But this process has been slow, with the ANC accusing
landowners of inflating farm prices and therefore hindering
redistribution.

• Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe embarked on a series of

land grabs in the early 2000s that led to the collapse of the country's
economy.
• The annual growth rate is poor, and unemployment hovers around
25%.

• The data on inequality and economic drift have led to a sense of

despair that the mission of Nelson Mandela has dissipated under
successive governments.

• The World Bank has rated unequal distribution and access to land as
South Africa’s second greatest obstacle to reducing poverty, after skill
deficits.

• Amendments to the Constitution that are under consideration aim to

make land expropriation provisions more explicit.
 Important News
‘Industry must lift PSLV output’
• “Industry is one of our pillars. But we are not satisfied with the current
level of industry participation,” Dr. Sivan told participants at the biennial
Space Expo, BSX-2018, here on Thursday.
• “Our missions are growing at a fast pace, to 59 satellites in three years.
It means that instead of doing six or seven launches a year we must do
almost two launches a month.”
 Financial News
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India to Seek Ease of Workers’ Movement at WTO
• Faced with new issues of ecommerce and investment entering
multilateral trade negotiations, India will counter with its own push
and demand for easier movement of professionals across countries at
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) next month.
• India will, for the first time, organise a seminar at WTO to revive
other countries’ interest in improving workforce mobility in the wake
of rising protectionism
• Movement of natural persons is one of the four ways through which
services can be supplied internationally. Called ‘Mode 4’ in trade
parlance, it includes natural persons such as independent
professionals and contributes 1-2% of services trade globally,
according to WTO.
• Mode 4 is recognised by WTO as a means of supplying services.
However, it does not concern persons seeking access to the
employment market in the host country nor does it affect measures
regarding citizenship, residence or employment on a permanent basis.
•-
 Vocabulary
• Jingoist: an extreme form of patriotism that often calls for violence
towards foreigners and foreign countries.
यध्ु द-प्रिय, कट्‍टर‍दे शभक्त
• Shoddy: badly made or done.
तच्
ु छ, निकम्मा
• Preposterous: contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or
ridiculous.
निरर्थक, बेहूदा, ऊटपटाांग, निस्सार
• Extolling: praise enthusiastically
िशांसा‍करिा
• Bemoan: express discontent or sorrow over (something).
रोिा
Map based answer
Map based quiz
 Answers-
1. Which among the following are regulated by SEBI
1. Brokers
2. Mutual funds
3. Bombay Stock Exchange
Select the right code
A) 1 only
B) 2 and 3
C) 1 and 2 only
D) All of them
 Questions-
1. Maternal Mortality Ratio has reduced by 22 per cent in
which nation?
1. Nigeria
2. China
3. Malaysia
4. India
2. Which Indian public authority has launched its online RTI
Portal?
1. Election Commission of India
2. National Green Tribunal
3. Indian Council of Agricultural Research
4. Airports Authority of India
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