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SBI office had issued a letter saying, “Deposit of ₹2,000 banknotes into accounts maintained with our bank will be allowed in the usual manner, that is, without restrictions and subject to compliance with extant Know Your Customer (KYC) norms and other applicable statutory requirements.” SBI’s KYC norms require a requisition slip and identity proofs.
The branches are also advised to comply with Cash Transaction Reporting (CT) and Suspicious Transaction Reporting (STR) requirements, where applicable”.
There shall not be any limit on the quantity and value of the ₹2,000 denomination notes to be credited into the account maintained with the bank.
The Reserve Bank of India had not issued any instructions to banks to collect identity proofs of tenderers swapping the ₹2,000 notes.
Sources also say that the condition had been withdrawn following the intervention of the Finance Ministry after the public hue and cry. It is likely that no other bank will ask for slip or proofs.
Editorial
India as a Quad-led bio-manufacturing hub (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In March 2021, the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States) set up a Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group to facilitate cooperation, monitor trends, and scout for opportunities related to developments in critical and emerging technologies, that included biotechnology.
However, the potential for Quad cooperation in biotechnology remains insufficiently tapped. The establishment of a Quad-led biomanufacturing hub in India will give the necessary fillip to enhance this cooperation.
Biomanufacturing uses living systems, particularly microorganisms and cell cultures, to produce molecules and materials on a commercial scale.
It has the potential to transform the global industrial system, with up to 60% of physical inputs to the global economy expected to be producible using this technology.
Many countries, including the United States and China, recognise the need to optimise this ecosystem and have designed specific policies to shape their bio-economies.
India’s National Biotechnology Development Strategy also envisions the country as a “Global Biomanufacturing Hub” by 2025.
While the strategy sets a target of $100 billion for the hub, it is important to recognise that India’s ambitions require external support, particularly through its Quad partners, to enable its initial development.
Specifically, the Quad should establish a biomanufacturing hub in India to benefit from the country’s economic potential and address supply-chain vulnerabilities.
Quad nations have complementary strengths that can be leveraged to create this hub. The U.S. has significant funding capability, while all three (Japan, Australia and the U.S.) also possess advanced biotechnology innovation ecosystems and intellectual property. India has skilled manpower and the potential to provide affordable scale.
Opinion
Hijacking G-20’s civil society forum (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Imagine a global civil society event in which the first several rows of the audience are occupied by saffron-clad members of a single religion, and whose coordination is in the hands of institutions from the same religion.
Well, you do not have to imagine too hard, because this is the reality of C-20, the official civil society process of G-20, since India has taken over the latter’s presidentship.
The C-20 process has been co-opted by the party in power in a not-so-subtle attempt at furthering its own politico-religious vision, giving it a very thin veneer of civil society respectability.
This dangerous deception is combined with another one where G-20’s focus on neoliberal economics is attempted to be covered by a green fig leaf called the ‘green economy’, and pliable NGOs are being called in to legitimise it.
I learnt this the hard way when I recently agreed to be on a panel to discuss the role of civil society in biodiversity conservation, being organised by a prominent university, as part of the C-20 process.
I told the organisers upfront that I will be critical of G-20 and C-20 in my remarks as I think they are being used as platforms to push for policies and actions that are anti-biodiversity and against the interests of communities most dependent on nature.
I was told that they had no problems with me raising issues about economic policies, etc., as long as I did not make ‘political’ statements about G-20 and C-20, and remained objective. I politely refused to accept such censorship and we agreed that I should drop out of the panel.
As a forum providing space for civil society to discuss issues relevant to the economic, social, cultural issues that the G-20 forum takes up, C-20 has been around since 2008.
It has a statement of principles, finalised in 2019, which includes its mandate to ‘hold governments accountable’ and be a counter-balance to undue business influence.
Explainer
Understanding a human pangenome map (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
A new study published in the May 10 issue of the Nature journal describes a pangenome reference map, built using genomes from 47 anonymous individuals (19 men and 28 women), mainly from Africa but also from the Caribbean, Americas, East Asia, and Europe.
The genome is the blueprint of life, a collection of all the genes and the regions between the genes contained in our 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Each chromosome is a contiguous stretch of DNA string. In other words, our genome consists of 23 different strings, each composed of millions of individual building blocks called nucleotides or bases.
The four types of building blocks (A, T, G and C) are arranged and repeated millions of times in different combinations to make all of our 23 chromosomes.
Genome sequencing is the method used to determine the precise order of the four letters and how they are arranged in chromosomes. Sequencing individual genomes helps us understand human diversity at the genetic level and how prone we are to certain diseases.
The genome is an identity card like Aadhaar. As each of our Aadhar card is unique, so is our genome. As sequencing individual genomes of all humans is expensive, we do not yet have all our genome identity cards.
To circumvent this, one can have a collective identity card. For example, we can have a single genome identity card for everyone living in a region.
When genomes are newly sequenced, they are compared to a reference map called a reference genome. This helps us to understand the regions of differences between the newly sequenced genome and the reference genome.
One of this century’s scientific breakthroughs was the making of the first reference genome in 2001. It helped scientists discover thousands of genes linked to various diseases; better understand diseases like cancer at the genetic level; and design novel diagnostic tests.
Although a remarkable feat, the reference genome of 2001 was 92% complete and contained many gaps and errors.
Text & Context
What is the ‘Open Network for Digital Commerce’? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Union government is looking to formally launch the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) this year to “democratise e-commerce” and “to provide alternatives to proprietary e-commerce sites”.
While it has urged companies to join the ONDC platform, major e-commerce players such as Amazon and Flipkart have been reluctant to get on board.
The government wants to change the fundamental structure of the e-commerce market from the current “platform-centric model to an open-network model”.
The ONDC is modelled after the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) project that is seen as a success by many. The UPI project allows people to send or receive money irrespective of the payments platforms on which they are registered.
Similarly, the government wants to ensure that buyers and sellers of goods in the e-commerce market can transact regardless of the platforms on which they are registered.
So under ONDC, a buyer registered on Amazon, for example, may directly purchase goods from a seller who sells on Flipkart.
To make such transactions a reality, the government has ordered companies to list themselves on the ONDC. The pilot version of ONDC was launched last year in a few major cities and thousands of sellers have already been on-boarded onto the platform. Amazon and Flipkart, however, have not on-boarded their main shopping platforms onto the ONDC network yet.
The government believes that the ONDC will put an end to the domination of the e-commerce market by a few large platforms.
It says that the e-commerce market is currently broken into “silos” operated and dominated by private platforms. Amazon and Flipkart, for instance, have been accused of promoting certain seller entities in which they hold indirect stakes.
Food delivery apps such as Swiggy and Zomato have also been accused of charging high commissions from sellers. With an open network like ONDC that connects buyers and sellers across platforms, the government hopes to level the playing field and make private platforms redundant.
News
Guardians of the Ganga: task force keeps a watchful eye on the river (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Omveer Kumar, 41, picks up plastic bottles, pouches and food packets as he walks on the wet sand on the banks of the Ganga.
As he nears a heap of garbage, Mr. Kumar sees an overturned turtle, its neck wounded. He rushes it to a nearby rescue centre for treatment.
Mr. Kumar, a resident of Narora town in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh, is a Ganga Prahari (guardian). This is a task force of volunteers constituted by the National Mission for Clean Ganga and the Wildlife Institute of India (NMCG-WII) under the Namami Gange programme to cover 8.61 billion sq.km of the river basin.
Since 2014, Namami Gange has aimed to clean the river, ecosystem, and the villages around, home to 40% of India’s population at 520 million and 2,500 species of flora and fauna.
The United Nations in December 2022 recognised the initiative as one of the top 10 World Restoration Flagships involved in reviving the natural world — a project that has seen the Central government invest $5 billion.
Since 2016, when the Ganga Prahari project began, Mr. Kumar, who has studied till high school, has learnt to identify aquatic species that survive in the river by their scientific name.
He can spot over 300 birds, both Indian and migratory, that arrive on the riverbank in different seasons. His two children are also part of the project and are known as Bal (child) Ganga Praharis.