Law Commission seeks views on UCC

GS Paper - 2 (Polity)

The 22nd Law Commission of India sought the views of religious organisations and the public on the issue of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). This comes eight months after the Centre told the Supreme Court that the Constitution obligated the State to have a UCC for its citizens, saying that people of different religions and denominations following different property and matrimonial laws were an “affront to the nation’s unity”.

What is Uniform Civil Code?

• A UCC would provide for one law for the entire country, applicable to all religious communities, in their personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption etc.
• Currently, Indian personal law is fairly complex, with each religion adhering to its own specific laws.
• Separate laws govern Hindus including Sikhs, Jains and Buddhist, Muslims, Christians, and followers of other religions.

What does the Constitution say about a UCC?

• Article 44 of the Constitution lays down that the state shall endeavour to secure a UCC for citizens throughout the territory of India.
• Article 44 is among the Directive Principles of State Policy. Directive Principles are not enforceable by court, but are supposed to inform and guide governance.

Why opposed the move?

• The charge against the move, saying the 21st Law Commission had said that it is “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage” to have a Uniform Civil Code.
• Underlining that the Uniform Civil Code is “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”, the 21st Law Commission of India, in 2018, argued for reform of family laws of every religion through amendments and codification of certain aspects so as to make them gender-just.
• In its ‘Consultation Paper on Family Law Reforms’, the Law Commission took a stand in favour of “equality ‘within communities’ between men and women” (personal law reform), “rather than ‘equality between’ communities” (UCC).
• Cultural diversity cannot be compromised to the extent that our urge for uniformity itself becomes a reason for threat to the territorial integrity of the nation,” the paper said, emphasising that celebration of the diversity of Indian culture must not disprivilege specific groups.
• It further noted that “women must be guaranteed their freedom of faith without any compromise on their right to equality” as it would be unfair to make women choose between one or the other.

The new Pride flag

GS Paper - 2 (Social Issues)

The month of June, recognised worldwide as the Pride Month, is marked by many events across India to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community. While most organisations in India still use the older rainbow pride flag in their events, the new variation of it is being increasingly accepted as a more inclusive representation for the community.

What's the Pride flag?

• A Pride flag essentially represents the pride associated with LGTQIA+ social movements.
• For centuries people belonging to the community have had to fight for basic rights in countries across the world. The struggle continues in many countries.
• Uganda, for instance, recently passed a law criminalising the LGBTQIA+ community.
• In India too, gay sex was decriminalised as recently as 2018. The Pride flag was used by activists, members of the community and allies as a symbol of resistance and acceptance. It was designed by renowned American artist and activist Gilbert Baker.

Why is it called Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag?

• The intersex has largely been underrepresented within broader queer narratives.
• According to the United Nations, intersex people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies.
• In 2021, Intersex Equality Rights (UK) decided to adapt the Pride Progress flag design to incorporate the intersex flag, creating the Intersex-Inclusive Pride flag.
• Intersex Equality rights activists did the redesigning. The colours yellow and purple are used in the intersex flag as a counterpoint to blue and pink which are traditionally seen as gendered colours.

What do the colours of the new flag signify?

1. Red= Life
2. Orange= Healing
3. Yellow= New Ideas
4. Green= Prosperity
5. Blue= Serenity
6. Violet= Spirit
7. Chevron Part
8. Black and brown= people of colour
9. White, blue and pink= transpeople
10. Yellow with purple circle= Intersex people

India’s first mRNA-based booster vaccine

GS Paper - 3 (Health and Diseases)

Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals announced that its mRNA COVID-19 booster vaccine, GEMCOVAC-OM, against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 has received emergency use authorisation from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).

More about the Vaccine

• A booster dose against SARS-CoV2 is still required in the country. Original vaccines have shown limited efficacy against the Omicron lineage.
• More than 220 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far till April this year, around 24 per cent of the fully vaccinated population in the country had received booster shots.
• Active cases of Covid are now 0.01 percent of total infections, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Welfare.
• GEMCOVAC-OM has demonstrated robust immune responses in phase 3 clinical trials conducted at 20 centres across 13 cities in India.
• The currently approved vaccines used as precautionary/ booster doses are designed against the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2. Although these will increase the antibody titers, their ability to neutralise the circulating Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is limited.
• Developing antibodies and memory immune responses specific to the Omicron variant would reduce the probability of infection and hospitalisation and prevent future waves of the pandemic. The Made-in-India GEMCOVAC-OM specifically addresses this gap.
• After US top biotech firms Moderna and Pfizer, the third company to develop an mRNA COVID-19 booster vaccine – the first in India – to do so against the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Flashback

• mRNA vaccines work by introducing a piece of mRNA that corresponds to a viral protein, usually a small piece of a protein found on the virus’s outer membrane. By using this mRNA, cells can produce the viral protein.
• As part of a normal immune response, the immune system recognizes that the protein is foreign and produces specialized proteins called antibodies.
• Antibodies help protect the body against infection by recognizing individual viruses or other pathogens, attaching to them, and marking the pathogens for destruction.
• Once produced, antibodies remain in the body, even after the body has rid itself of the pathogen, so that the immune system can quickly respond if exposed again.
• If a person is exposed to a virus after receiving mRNA vaccination for it, antibodies can quickly recognize it, attach to it, and mark it for destruction before it can cause serious illness.

Cosmic radiation from space and earthquakes

GS Paper I – (Geography)

Scientists have identified a striking link between earthquakes and changes in the intensity of cosmic radiation measured on Earth’s surface, according to a recent study. This correlation could aid in earthquake prediction by up to two weeks, however, the ability to predict specific locations remains unclear at present.

More about the Study

• Cosmic ray data shifted 15 days forward relative to seismic data can help predict earthquakes, according to researchers from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Krakow, Poland.
• The researchers looked into verifying a previously known hypothesis that earthquakes could potentially be predicted by observing changes in cosmic radiation.
• “A correlation between the two phenomena does indeed exist, but it manifests characteristics that no one had expected,” the institute wrote on its website.
• IFJ PAN started the Cosmic Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory (CREDO) project in 2016 — an international, virtual cosmic ray observatory accessible to all. It aggregates and processes data from numerous detectors, including particular smartphone sensors transformed into cosmic ray detectors via a simple app.
• A fundamental responsibility of CREDO is to track worldwide alterations in the flux of secondary cosmic radiation that reaches our planet’s surface. This radiation primarily originates in the planet’s stratosphere.
• Earth’s magnetic field, a result of eddy currents in our planet’s liquid core, alters the trajectory of primary cosmic radiation’s charged particles.
• “At first glance, the idea that there is a link between earthquakes and cosmic radiation, in its primary form reaching us mainly from the Sun and deep space, may seem strange. However, its physical foundations are fully rational”.
• Any substantial earthquakes linked to disturbances in the Earth’s dynamo flows would alter the magnetic field of Earth, thus impacting the path of primary cosmic radiation. The fallout of these alterations would be apparent in the changes in the counts of secondary cosmic ray particles recorded by ground-based detectors.
• However, correlations between changes in cosmic ray intensity and earthquakes are not apparent in location-specific analyses. They only appear when seismic activity is taken into account on a global scale.
• This fact may mean that in changes in cosmic ray intensity one can see a phenomenon to which our planet is subjected as a whole. The discovery has led to intriguing questions about the potential influence of phenomena like dark matter streams.