Maternity benefits to adoptive mothers
GS Paper - 2 (Polity)
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a petition challenging the constitutional validity of Section 5(4) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, which states that a woman who legally adopts a child below three months old will be entitled to 12 weeks of maternity leave. A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud agreed to hear the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), filed by Karnataka-based Hamsaanandini Nanduri. The petition challenges Section 5(4) of the Act on grounds of being “discriminatory” and “arbitrary’ towards adoptive mothers and orphaned children over three months.
What is this provision?
- The original 1961 legislation did not have specific provisions for mothers who adopt, and these were inserted with the 2017 amendment to the Maternity Benefit Act.
- According to Section 5(4) of the amended Act, “A woman who legally adopts a child below the age of three months or a commissioning mother shall be entitled to maternity benefit for a period of twelve weeks from the date the child is handed over to the adopting mother or the commissioning mother, as the case may be.”
- The term “commissioning mother” refers to a surrogate mother and has been defined as “a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in any other woman.” A woman adopting a child older than three months gets no benefits.
- The PIL challenges this provision on grounds of being “discriminatory” and “arbitrary” towards adoptive mothers.
- “Section 5(4) apart from being discriminatory and arbitrary towards the adoptive mothers, also arbitrarily discriminates against orphaned, abandoned or surrendered children above the age of three months, which is completely incompatible to the object of the Maternity Benefit Act as well as the Juvenile Justice Act,” the plea contends.
- Dubbing the purported benefit of 12 weeks’ maternity leave as “mere lip service”, the petition also states that when compared to the 26 weeks’ benefit for biological mothers, the provision fails to stand the basic scrutiny of Part III of the Constitution, which is linked to the concept of non-arbitrariness.
What is the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961?
- The Maternity Benefit Act was originally passed by Parliament on 12 December 1961, to regulate the employment of women in “certain establishments” for the period before and after childbirth and “to provide for maternity benefit and certain other benefits.”
- Originally it applied to every establishment “being a factory, mine or plantation” and later in 1973, it was extended to “any such establishment belonging to Government” and “every establishment where persons are employed for the exhibition of equestrian, acrobatic and other performances.” It repealed the Mines Maternity Benefit Act, 1941 and Maternity Benefit Act, 1929.
- Section 4 of the 1961 Act prohibited the employment of or works by women during a certain period and under sub-section (1) stated, “No employer shall knowingly employ a woman in any establishment during the six weeks immediately following the day of her delivery or her miscarriage.”
- On 9 March 2017, the Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Act 2017 was passed by Parliament, which brought about key changes to the original Act.
What did the amendment in 2017 do?
- The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 amended Section 5 of the erstwhile Act to allow 26 weeks of paid leave after childbirth, although only to biological mothers.
- The amendment also inserted Section 5(4) which said that adoptive or surrogate mothers legally adopting a child below three months will be entitled to a maternity benefit period of 12 weeks from the date the child is handed over to the mother.
- Under the amended Act, Section 11 was also inserted to say that, “Every establishment having fifty or more employees shall have the facility of creche within such distance as may be prescribed, either separately or along with common facilities.”
- However, a much-received criticism of this Act is that it does not apply to the unorganised sector.
Free, open-source GPT
GS Paper - 3 (Technology)
As ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) models sweep headlines and gather internet clout, the constantly evolving world of artificial intelligence has something new and exciting to offer. The talk of the town is Auto-GPT: an experimental open-source application that showcases the capabilities of the GPT-4 language model. But in a haystack of impressive applications, what makes Auto-GPT the shiny, one-of-a-kind needle?
What is Auto-GPT?
- Auto-GPT is a free, open-source Python application which uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology. GPT-4 is a multimodal large language model created by OpenAI as part of its GPT series.
- Auto-GPT also runs autonomously: which means it is capable of generating its own ideas and suggestions based on human input through prompts.
- Unlike ChatGPT, Auto-GPT requires very little human interaction and is able to self-prompt, through what it calls ‘added tasks.’
- If a user tells the application what they want the end result to be, it will generate prompts by itself to reach the goal.
- In the case of ChatGPT, constant interaction between the machine and the user is required for the bot to generate answers. The languages used in Auto-GPT include Python, Dockerfile and Javascript.
- Auto-GPT was posted to GitHub, a platform for software developers, by a user named Significant Gravitas.
- A demo video was posted to the site on 30 March 2023. It is made using OpenAI’s latest and most advanced model from the GPT series, GPT-4.
What can Auto-GPT do?
- The possibilities, as things are when it comes to the vast playground of AI, are seemingly endless.
- Auto-GPT has internet access, long-term and short-term memory management, GPT-4 for text generation and file storage and summarisation with GPT-3.5. It uses DALL-e for image generation as well.
- It can generate test cases, debug code, and even stir up innovative business ideas. Twitter users who had the opportunity to test the tool tried out a variety of tasks: including carrying out research, finding a person’s digital footprint, and generating code. One user even asked Auto-GPT to “reimagine the future of health and medicine,” which generated an interesting response.
- In the original GitHub demo, prompts such as ‘increase net worth’, ‘grow Twitter Account’, ‘Develop and manage multiple businesses’ were shown as examples.
Who can access Auto-GPT?
- Since Auto-GPT is a free, open-source application, it can be accessed by all. Unfortunately for those thrilled to hop on this GPT-coded train, the installation will require some time and patience.
- While ChatGPT can be accessed easily through its official platform, running Auto-GPT requires users to access the following: Python 3.8, an OpenAI API key, a PINECONE API key and an ElevenLabs Key.
- After this, some technical steps are required. For a more detailed to-do list of how to run Auto-GPT, follow the instructions from the official gitHub post.
India’s clinical trials registry
GS Paper -3 (Technology)
The speedy approval of Covid-19 vaccines during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic spotlighted the importance of clinical trials. Despite their success, the haste with which some Covid-19 vaccine-related phases were cleared in India raised several questions regarding the transparency of the clinical trials and the safety and efficacy of the vaccines themselves.
More about the news:
- A clinical trial is transparent if all information about it is freely accessible in the public domain.
- The Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI), where every trial is required to be registered before commencing does or tries to.
What is the CTRI?
- It is hosted with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Medical Statistics; it is a free, online public-record system to register clinical trials being conducted in India.
- It was launched in July 2007 for use on a voluntary basis. In June 2009, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) mandated all trials to be registered there.
- Any trial that uses human participants and is testing drugs, surgical procedures, and preventive measures, lifestyle modifications to devices, educational and behavioural treatment, and rehabilitation strategies must be enrolled in the registry.
- To register, the trial sponsor needs to make a public declaration, identify investigators, define participant selection criteria, seek the Drug Controller’s approval, and arrange to receive the approval of the ethics committees at the various trial sites.
- The CTRI is one of 17 public trial registries under the International Clinical Trials Registry Portal, along with being recognised as a primary registry by the World Health Organisation.
Problems with CTRI:
- Missing data – A review of available data a few years ago showed that CTRI records of enrollment are inconsistent, with only 281 of 606 (46%) trials being updated after final enrollment.
- Classification of type of study – For certain trials,it is important to know the nature of the intervention. CT.gov provides 11 distinct categories, but the CTRI provides a free text field to fill in the required information. This has resulted in over 1,000 categories within the registry, with many of them being atypical.
- Internal consistencies – Trials have also been known to have internal inconsistencies, such as filling the wrong type of trial.
- Confusion over definitions – The article stated that a number of entries are inaccurate due to confusion over definitions. For example, some ‘interventional trials’ have been listed as ‘observational trials’ due to a “lack of understanding of the terms”.
- Incomplete/non-standard information – Non-standardised information about cities may also cause confusion and repetition in the registry.
- Variations in names and organisations – Registering the correct name of the principal investigator is crucial. Wrong spelling, use of abbreviations or different surnames can hinder the process of identifying this important individual.
- Messy data – Unclear data, such as the same acronym being used for two organisations, an acronym not being spelt out, a clinical trial site being listed twice with the same principal investigator, or a site being listed twice for two ECs, can lead to overlap and confusion.
Proposed solutions to overcome it:
- Apart from clear and accurate recording of data, it is recommended adhering to WHO guidelines, registering trials accurately, and improving its inner workings for CTRI to be a more functional primary registry.
- All clinical trials in India must be registered on CTRI in India, even if the trial is also registered elsewhere (e.g. CT.gov).
- As India, ranks 11 out of 18 registries that provide information. CTRI could improve the amount of information each record provides, provide details of the audit trail, add a ‘Results’ field to the register, and implement a data-sharing plan, to name a few.
World Haemophilia Day 2023
GS Paper -3 (Disease)
World Haemophilia Day is observed on 17 April to raise awareness about the rare blood disorder and help those suffering from it lead a better life. The day was first commemorated by the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) in 1989 in remembrance of Frank Schnabel, who was born on April 17, 1942, and spent his entire life working to make the lives of those who were affected by this ailment better.
More about the news:
- The theme for this year is “Access for All: Prevention of Bleeds as the Global Standard of Care”.
- The goal is to persuade policymakers and governments to enhance access to care with a particular emphasis on better bleeding control.
What is Hemophilia?
- It is a genetic disorder that affects the body’s ability to form blood clots. People with hemophilia have deficiencies or abnormalities in certain clotting factors, which are proteins that help the blood clot.
- People may experience prolonged bleeding or spontaneous bleeding into muscles, joints, or organs.
Signs and symptoms:
It includes prolonged bleeding after injury, surgery or dental procedures, frequent nosebleeds, bruising easily, joint pain and swelling, especially in the knees, elbows, and ankles, blood in urine or stool, headaches, blurred vision, or other neurological symptoms, if bleeding occurs in the brain.
Treatment:
- It typically involves replacement therapy, which involves infusing clotting factor concentrates into the bloodstream to help the blood clot.
- Depending on the severity of hemophilia, treatment may be needed on a regular basis to prevent bleeding episodes.
- Other treatments may include medications to promote clotting or surgery to repair damage caused by bleeding.
Recent vaccine:
- US regulators approved CSL Behring’s haemophilia B gene therapy, a one-off infusion that frees patients from regular treatments but costs $3.5 million a dose, making it the most expensive medicine in the world.
- By administering, CSL Behring’s Hemgenix just once, it cut the number of bleeding events expected over the course of a year by 54%, a key study of the therapy found.
- It also freed 94% of patients from time-consuming and costly infusions of Factor IX, which is currently used to control the potentially deadly condition.
Flashback:
Haemophilia in India:
It is an inherited condition that causes bleeding for a long time after injury or surgery and painful swelling of the joints either after injury or even without injury. "Inherited” means that the disease is passed from parents to children through their genes.
Causes:
- It is due to a deficiency of clotting factor, this results in increased bleeding. There are two types of Haemophilia A (clotting factor VIII deficiency), which is more common and occurs in about 1 in 5,000 births.
- Haemophilia B (factor IX deficiency) is less common and occurs in around 1 in about 20,000 births.
Numbers:
- India with nearly two lakh cases is estimated to have the second highest number.
- According to Hemophilia Foundation of India, the umbrella body for registration, only 20,000 registered patients for haemophilia in the country.
