DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS
1 – Lab meat: GS III – Biotechnology-related issues
Context:
- Two companies in California recently got approval to produce and sell chicken produced in cells.
About the processes involved in producing lab meat?
- The phrase “cell cultivated chicken” describes chicken that has been created in a lab especially for human consumption.
- To produce cell-cultivated meat, the company isolates the cells that make up the meat (the meat we eat).
- The first component is made up of cells, which might be from fertilised eggs, a bank of specifically frozen cells, or tissue that has already been taken from a living animal.
- Then, it is put in an environment where it has all the resources necessary to grow and create more instances of itself.
- Examples of these resources include the appropriate temperature, nutrition, lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids, and so forth.
- A bioreactor, sometimes known as a “cultivator,” typically acts as the “setting” for this procedure.
- To support a certain biological environment, a bioreactor is a sensor-fit container-like device.
- Once there are sufficient numbers of these cells, which normally takes two to three weeks, they resemble a mass of minced meat.
- Cells that are stimulated to do so form connective tissues, skeletal muscle, and fat.
- After a few days or weeks, the cells are removed from the tanks and transformed into products like nuggets.
Arguments for lab-produced beef:
- Elimination of emissions: Cattle are responsible for 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the FAO.
- In terms of commodity production, beef made up 41% of the total while chicken and egg products made up 8%.
- Land utilisation: A study found that compared to conventional chicken farming, chicken raised in a lab would require 63% less land.
- Food safety and preventing animal cruelty: Alternative meat has been marketed as a way to meet global demands for food security.
Challenges:
Consumer acclaim:
- Alternative meat must be an exact reproduction of real animal meat in terms of flavour, texture, and appearance.
High cost:
- In the near future, it’s expected that cell-cultivated beef will remain pricey.
- 2020 research suggests that it might never be cost-competitive.
Huge resources required:
- For cultivation, it is necessary to have high-quality cells, an adequate growth medium in which the cells can be grown, as well as extra materials required to maintain the quality of the end product.
Its corresponding uncertainties:
- The environmental impact of producing [cell-cultivated meat] in the near future will most likely be orders of magnitude more than that of producing beef on a median basis, particularly if cell cultivation necessitates a highly refined growth medium, such that used in the pharmaceutical industry.
Conclusion:
- Until it costs the same and tastes the same as regular meat, this meat will remain unique.
- In addition, some people think it’s strange that cells can be used to make meat.
- Potential issues include biological wastes and byproducts, microbial contamination at different phases of the process, and scaffolding that some people may be allergic to.
- However, researchers emphasised that there are risks associated with eating traditional meat, such as bacterial contamination before, during, and after the process of slaughtering and packaging.
- Overall, these changes are a result of the global need to modernise our approaches to nutrition and health systems in order to provide for both human and planetary health.
Source The Hindu
2 – The Wagner Group: GS II – International Relations
Context:
- Russia’s Rostov-on-Don has been taken over by the Wagner Group as part of an endeavour to overthrow the military government.
With regards to the Wagner Group:
- The mercenary force was first identified in 2014, after Russia occupied Crimea.
- In 2022, the group mostly functioned as a network of contractors that offered warriors for rent.
Headquarters:
- St Petersburg.
- The Wagner Group initially consisted of only 5,000 fighters and was mostly active in West Asia and Africa. They also upheld a strict code of confidentiality.
- The number of fighters grew to 50,000 in Ukraine alone.
The Wagner Group has conducted business in the following countries:
- Ukraine
- Syria
- Sudan
- Central African Republic
- Mozambique
- Mali
- Libya
- Burkina Faso
Source The Hindu
3 – Rani Durgavati: GS I – Modern Indian History
Context:
- The Madhya Pradeshi government has just started the six-day Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra.
Who was Rani Durgavati?
- According to history, Rani Durgavati was born in 1524 during the reign of the Chandela dynasty in Mahoba.
- The region is near to the southern boundary of MP and is a part of contemporary Uttar Pradesh.
- The Chandelas built the well-known Khajuraho temples in the eleventh century.
- Later, she married Dalpat Shah, the son of Sangram Shah and the Gond king of the Garha-Katanga kingdom.
- Durgavati lost her husband in 1550, just a few years after they wed.
- Her infant son Bir Narayan functioned as the putative heir to the throne as she ruled the country with great vigour and bravery.
Her command:
- While she was in power, Durgavati engaged in conflict with Baz Bahadur, the Malwa neighbour and Akbar’s ultimate foe.
- She constructed the large public reservoir called today as Ranital (the queen’s tank) close to Jabalpur.
As stated by Abul Fazl:
- Abul Fazl, the court historian of Akbar who recounted these years in Akbarnama, characterised Durgavati as a combination of “beauty, grace, and manlike courage and bravery.”
- The wealth of the monarchy, he says, led to tax payments being made in the form of gold coins and elephants.
Taking on the Mughals:
- When Asaf Khan, the Mughal ruler of Allahabad, attacked the Gond queen’s realm, she won the first battle.
- But the Mughals swiftly strengthened the area and defeated the Gonds.
- Rani Durgawati was one of the battle’s casualties.
- Chandra Shah, the younger son of Sangram Shah, submitted to Mughal rule, and Akbar later gave him back the throne.
Source The Hindu
4 – New ART regulations: GS II – Government Policies and Interventions
Context:
- The Health Ministry officially released the Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulations (ART), 2023.
About the new regulations:
Aim:
- improving the safety and medical care of donors and patients.
Concerns:
Restrictions on donations:
- A male or female donor is only permitted to contribute (sperm/oocyte) a certain number of times in their lifetime under the current ART regulations, which also place age restrictions on donors.
Criteria for a donor:
- The law stipulates that oocyte donors must have at least one kid who is still alive and under the age of three, as well as that they must have been married at least once.
- She is only allowed to donate one oocyte once in her lifetime, and she can only get as many as seven.
Bank limitations:
- An ART bank cannot distribute more than one commissioning couple (couple in need of services) with a single donor’s gamete (reproductive cell).
Insurance coverage:
- For any loss, injury, or death of the donor, parties desiring ART will need to provide insurance coverage on the donor’s behalf.
Rejection of gender analysis:
- A clinic cannot promise to provide a child of a particular sex.
Checking for illness:
- Genetic disease testing is required prior to embryo implantation.
Concerns:
- The extra provisions have raised the already prohibitive cost of medical care.
- For treating physicians and couples trying to conceive with ART, it is proving challenging due to the restricted and limited donor resource availability.
- The new ART legislation has put a cap on the number of donation attempts.
Conclusion:
- For couples that employ assisted reproductive technologies, they could increase expenditures and provide challenges.
- India’s fertility rates are declining like everywhere else in the world, and further limitations on the number of donors available are likely to make matters worse.
Source The Hindu
5 – India Egypt Relations: GS II – International Relations
Context:
- The prime minister of India has begun a two-day visit to Egypt.
- Considering Egypt and India:
The evolution over time:
- India and Egypt have maintained a major diplomatic engagement since the third century BC.
- At that time, ambassadors from the Indian ruler Ashoka the Great paid a visit to the court of the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
- In exchange, Dionysius was transported by the Egyptian pharaoh to the Mauryan court in Patliputra.
- Future diplomatic ties between Egypt and India were established by their first known contact between these two ancient civilizations.
- India and Egypt created a bilateral alliance in 1947.
- Egypt and India had a significant role in the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which also included Ghana, Yugoslavia, and Indonesia.
- But later on, particularly in the 1970s, India-Egypt relations—which had once been the cornerstone of Indian foreign policy—fell out of favour.
- During those years, India utterly overlooked not only Egypt but the entire region of West Asia.
- India and Egypt announced a strategic cooperation to foster peace and welcomed the expansion of Indian investments in Egypt, which are currently valued at more than $3.15 billion.
Foreign commerce:
- Trade between the two countries was $7.26 billion in 2021–2022.
- The presidents expressed hope that bilateral trade may reach $12 billion in the following five years.
Intercultural harmony:
- A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cultural Cooperation also exists between Egypt and India.
- The purpose of the five-year MoU is to promote cultural ties.
- A cultural interaction that includes music, dance, drama, and literature is anticipated.
Collaboration in defence:
- The first joint training session between the special forces of the Indian Army and the Egyptian Army, known as Exercise Cyclone-I, took place recently in Rajasthan.
India’s relevance to Egypt:
- The Suez Canal in Egypt is very important to India because it is the main commercial route connecting Asia and Europe.
- The Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea are connected via the Suez Canal, which is under Egyptian control.
- Due to its proximity to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which are significant producers of gas and oil, Egypt also has considerable influence in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Relationships with Egypt will provide India a tactical advantage in West Asia and Africa.
Egypt’s importance to India:
- Cairo is looking to India for help in rebuilding its crumbling economy.
- Its financial issues have gotten worse as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the repercussions of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
- With inflation at a five-year high of over 30%, the government has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout for the fourth time in six years.
- More than 50 Indian companies have invested more than $3.15 billion in Egypt.
Moving forward:
- Using various technologies, for example: India might be willing to face reasonable environmental and political risks in order to take use of Egypt’s vast potential.
- For projects in Egypt or elsewhere, India may take into account trilateral funding arrangements with its Gulf allies, the G-20, or international financial organisations.
Source The Hindu
