PCPNDT Act, 1994.
- Context: Highlighting concerns regarding prevailing gender discrimination in society and the persistent preference for male children, the Supreme Court recently emphasized the need for the strict implementation of the PCPNDT Act.
About the PCPNDT Act
- The ‘Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994’ was enacted in India to curb sex selection and female foeticide, which were contributing to the decline in the sex ratio.
Objectives
- The objectives of this Act are to completely prohibit pre-conception and post-conception sex selection, protect the girl child, and ensure that medical technologies are used solely for legitimate health purposes.
Key Provisions
- Techniques such as ultrasound are permitted only for detecting medical abnormalities.
- Determining or disclosing the sex of the fetus is strictly prohibited.
- Advertising sex-determination services is prohibited.
- All diagnostic centers must be registered under this Act.
- Violations can lead to imprisonment (up to 3 years) and fines.
Offenses
- Sex determination and sex selection are punishable offenses.
- Medical professionals found guilty of these offenses may face imprisonment, fines, and the suspension or cancellation of their medical licenses.
‘Oilseeds Kisan Mitra’
- Context: To assist oilseed farmers, ICAR has launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based WhatsApp service called ‘Oilseeds Kisan Mitra’.
- It provides farmers with accessible, research-based advice in multiple Indian languages at any time to enhance cultivation and productivity.
About ‘Oilseeds Kisan Mitra’
- A free AI-based WhatsApp chatbot service has been launched for oilseed farmers.
- Farmers can ask questions at any time and receive immediate, research-backed responses.
Development
- Developed by the ICAR–Indian Institute of Oilseeds Research (ICAR-IIOR), Hyderabad, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
Key Features
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- Operates via WhatsApp by saving a specific contact number.
- Supports multiple Indian languages.
- Provides guidelines on seeds, sowing, irrigation, pest control, and post-harvest practices.
- Covers crops such as groundnut, mustard, sesame, sunflower, soybean, and niger.
Policy Significance
- Helps enhance farm productivity by providing scientific advice directly to farmers.
- Serves as a low-cost and easily accessible agricultural extension tool by leveraging existing mobile platforms.
Link to the National Mission
- Supports the National Mission on Edible Oils and Oilseeds (NMEO-Oilseeds).
- Aims to reduce India’s dependence on other countries for edible oil imports.
Broader Significance
- Integrates agriculture, technology, and economic self-reliance (Atmanirbhar Bharat).
- Serves as an excellent example of digital innovation in the field of agricultural extension.
Epichlorohydrin
- Context: Recently, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) introduced stringent standards for tea bags, banning the use of hazardous chemicals such as epichlorohydrin.
About Epichlorohydrin
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- Epichlorohydrin is an epoxide compound in which one of the hydrogen atoms of the methyl group is replaced by chlorine.
- It is a clear, colourless, volatile, and flammable chlorinated cyclic ether with a pungent odour resembling chloroform.
- On heating or decomposition, it releases toxic fumes containing hydrochloric acid and other chlorinated substances.
- It is readily soluble in water.
Uses
- Epichlorohydrin is primarily employed in the production of glycerol and conventional epoxy resins.
- It is also used in manufacturing elastomers, water treatment resins, surfactants, ion-exchange resins, plasticizers, dyes, pharmaceuticals, oil emulsifiers, lubricants, and adhesives.
About the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)
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- The Bureau of Indian Standards is the national standards-setting body of India and was established under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016.
- Its objective is to promote the coordinated development of standardization, marking, and quality certification of goods, along with related activities.
- BIS succeeded the Indian Standards Institution (ISI), which had been established in 1947.
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- It serves as India’s representative in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
- The organization functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
- BIS is headquartered in New Delhi and operates through a network of regional and branch offices across the country.
NDMA and the “Resilient India 2047” Initiative
- Context: Recently, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) launched an initiative to enhance disaster preparedness among Central government ministries in line with the vision of “Resilient India 2047”, which supports the broader objective of Viksit Bharat.
Objective
- The initiative seeks to formulate comprehensive disaster management plans and hazard-specific response strategies so that disaster risk reduction becomes an integral part of national policies, programmes, and development projects.
Changing Approach to Disaster Management
- NDMA has stressed the need to shift the focus from merely providing relief and responding to disasters towards building resilience. It considers resilience a key component of sustainable development and an essential requirement for achieving a prosperous India.
Planning Framework
The framework consists of two interrelated components:
- Hazard-specific plans: These involve coordinated efforts by multiple ministries to address a particular disaster or hazard, such as floods.
- Ministry-level plans: Individual ministries prepare strategies to deal with various hazards relevant to their respective sectors and functions.
Key Facts about the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)
- NDMA was constituted under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, and serves as the apex statutory authority for disaster management in the country.
- The Prime Minister of India is the ex-officio Chairperson of the Authority.
- The Authority comprises nine additional members, one of whom acts as the Vice-Chairperson.
- NDMA is entrusted with the responsibility of framing policies, plans, and guidelines for disaster management and coordinating efforts among ministries, States, and various agencies.
HAWK System and E-Court Integration
- Context: Recently, the Kerala Forest Department introduced the e-court integration feature to its HAWK platform, making Kerala the first state in the country to establish a completely digitised wildlife offence management system integrated with the judiciary.
About HAWK
- HAWK is a cloud-based information management platform that maintains interconnected databases relating to wildlife crimes, offenders, and wildlife deaths.
- It provides ecological intelligence and end-to-end case management support to forest officials.
- The system was created to identify repeat offenders, consolidate information in a single database, and bridge information gaps across the state, thereby improving the monitoring and prevention of wildlife-related crimes.
Development
- HAWK was jointly developed by the Kerala Forest Department and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). Development work began in 2017, and the system was officially launched in Kerala in 2019.
- It was subsequently adopted by Karnataka in 2022 and later expanded to Tamil Nadu and Odisha in 2025.
E-Court Integration
- Through an Application Programming Interface (API), the platform is now digitally linked with the judiciary.
- This integration removes the need for paper-based processes and facilitates real-time monitoring of cases, covering every stage from the Preliminary Offence Report (POR) to witness statements and final court judgments.
Scalability and Flexibility
- Built on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) model, HAWK is modular and scalable in nature.
- It enables different states to customise the system according to their procedures, local languages, and changing requirements, while preserving a common and centralised database structure.
