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Newspaper Terms Simplified for IAS Prelims

Part 12

1.  National Medical Devices Policy, 2023

The medical devices sector in India is a sunrise sector which is growing at a fast pace.

The National Medical Devices Policy, 2023 is expected to facilitate an orderly growth of the medical device sector to meet the public health objectives of access, affordability, quality and innovation. 

This sector is expected to realize its full potential, with the strategies viz, building an enabling ecosystem for manufacturing along with a focus on innovation, creating a robust and streamlined regulatory framework, providing support in training and capacity building programs and promoting higher education to foster talent and skilled resources in line with the industry requirements. 

Encouraging domestic investments and production of medical devices complements the Government’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’ programs. 

Strategies to Promote Medical Device Sector

Medical devices sector will be facilitated and guided through a set of strategies that will be cover six broad areas of policy interventions:

•  Regulatory Streamlining: In order to enhance ease of doing research and business and further to balance patient safety with product innovation measures such as creation of a Single Window Clearance System' for Licensing of Medical Devices coopting all the stakeholder departments / organizations such as AERB, MeitY, DAHD, etc, enhancing the Role of Indian Standards like BIS and designing a coherent pricing regulation, will be followed.

•  Enabling Infrastructure: The establishment and strengthening of large medical device parks, clusters equipped with world class common infrastructure facilities in proximity to economic zones with requisite logistics connectivity as envisioned under the National Industrial Corridor Program and the proposed National Logistics Policy 2021 under the ambit of PM Gati Shakti, would be pursued with the State Governments and Industry for better convergence and backward integration with medical device Industry

•  Facilitating R&D and Innovation: The policy envisages to promote Research & Development in India and complement the Department’s proposed National Policy on R&D and Innovation in the Pharma- MedTech Sector in India. It also aims at establishing Centres of Excellence in academic and research institutions, innovation hubs, ‘plug and play’ infrastructures and support to start-ups. 

•  Attracting Investments in the Sector: Along with resent schemes and interventions like Make in India, Ayushman Bharat program, Heal-in-India, Start-up mission, the policy encourages private investments, series of funding from Venture Capitalists, and also Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

•  Human Resources Development: In order to have a steady supply of skilled work force across the value chain such as scientists, regulators, health experts, managers, technicians, etc., the policy envisages:

o  For skilling, reskilling and upskilling of professionals in the medical device sector, we can leverage the available resources in Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

o  The policy will support dedicated multidisciplinary courses for medical devices in existing institutions to ensure availability of skilled manpower for futuristic medical technologies, high-end manufacturing and research, to produce future-ready MedTech human resources and to meet the evolving needs of the Sector

o  To develop partnerships with foreign academic/industry organizations to develop medical technologies in order to be in equal pace with the world market.

•  Brand Positioning and Awareness Creation: The policy envisages the creation of a dedicated Export Promotion Council for the sector under the Department which will be an enabler to deal with various market access issues:

o  Initiate studies and projects for learning from best global practices of manufacturing and skilling system so as to explore the feasibility of adapting such successful models in India.

o  Promote more forums to bring together various stakeholders for sharing knowledge and build strong networks across the sector.

The policy is expected to provide the required support and directions to strengthen the medical devices industry into a competitive, self-reliant, resilient and innovative industry that caters to the healthcare needs of not only India but also of the world. The National Medical Devices Policy, 2023 aims to place the medical devices sector on an accelerated path of growth with a patient-centric approach to meet the evolving healthcare needs of patients.

2.  Bhu-Aadhaar

Bhu-Aadhaar or Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN), aims to digitize and uniquely identify land parcels in India.

It is an initiative of the Department of Land Records and is being implemented as part of the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), a 100 per cent centrally funded scheme. 

The Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) or Bhu-Aadhaar is a 14-digit alpha-numeric unique ID generated using the longitude and latitude coordinates of the land parcel. 

It is based on detailed surveys and geo-referenced cadastral maps. It will cover all land parcels — rural as well as urban.

Benefits

•  Helps mitigate the huge pendency of court cases involving land disputes.

•  Prevents GDP loss - The GDP loss to the country’s economy is about 1.3% due to projects being stalled over litigation involving land disputes

•  Mitigation of land related Civil suits - A study says, 66% of all Civil suits in India are related to land or property disputes, and the average pendency of a land acquisition dispute is 20 years.

•  Helps in sharing of land record data across departments, financial institutions and all stakeholders to enable effective integration and interoperability across departments.

•  It will also help farmers leverage their land and use it as a collateral to borrow money from banks.

3.  Human Genome Project

The genome of any given individual is unique; mapping the human genome involved sequencing a small number of individuals and then assembling these together to get a complete sequence for each chromosome. The finished human genome is thus a mosaic, not representing any one individual.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project. Funding came from the US government through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as numerous other groups from around the world.

Goal:

Determining the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint.

Applications:

•  From the start, the Human Genome Project supported an Ethical, Legal and Social Implications research program to address the many complex issues that might arise from this science.

•  It can help us understand diseases including: genotyping of specific viruses to direct appropriate treatment.

•  Identification of mutations linked to different forms of cancer.

•  The design of medication and more accurate prediction of their effects.

•  Advancement in forensic applied sciences.

•  Biofuels and other energy applications.

•  Agriculture, animal husbandry, bioprocessing; risk assessment; bioarcheology, anthropology and evolution.

•  Commercial development of genomics research related to DNA based products, a multibillion-dollar industry.

As a result of the Human Genome Project, today’s researchers can find a gene suspected of causing an inherited disease in a matter of days, rather than the years it took before the genome sequence was in hand.

Techniques include:

•  DNA Sequencing.

•  The Employment of Restriction Fragment-Length Polymorphisms (RFLP).

•  Yeast Artificial Chromosomes (YAC).

•  Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes (BAC).

•  The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).

•  Electrophoresis.

4.  Zero Shadow Day

Zero Shadow Day is a phenomenon that occurs twice a year, where the Sun's position is directly overhead, casting no shadows on the Earth's surface. 

Why does a Zero Shadow Day happen?

It usually happens in the regions between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. 

When the sun is at the zenith (the highest point in the sky) its rays make the shadow of any object to be exactly under it, making it look like there are no shadows.

Ramanujam explained that the Sun’s location moves from 23.5°N to 23.5°S of Earth’s equator and back. All places whose latitude equals the angle between the Sun’s location and the equator on that day experience zero shadow day, with the shadow beneath an object at local noon. Uttarayan (movement of the Sun from south to north from winter solstice to summer solstice) and Dakshinayan (back from north to south) happen because Earth’s rotation axis is tilted at an angle of roughly 23.5° to the axis of revolution around the Sun.