Financial Intelligence Unit to track money flow ahead of Lok Sabha polls

About Financial Intelligence Unit:

• It was set up by the Government of India in November 2004.
• It is the central national agency responsible for receiving, processing, analyzing and disseminating information relating to suspect financial transactions.
• It is also responsible for coordinating and strengthening efforts of national and international intelligence, investigation and enforcement agencies in pursuing global efforts against money laundering and financing of terrorism.
• It is an independent body reporting directly to the Economic Intelligence Council (EIC) headed by the Union Finance Minister.
• Functions:
• Collection of Information: Act as the central reception point for receiving Cash Transaction reports (CTRs), Non-Profit Organisation Transaction Reports (NTRs), Cross Border Wire Transfer Reports (CBWTRs), Reports on the Purchase or Sale of Immovable Property (IPRs) and Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) from various reporting entities.
• Analysis of Information: Analyze received information to uncover patterns of transactions suggesting suspicion of money laundering and related crimes.
• Sharing of Information: Share information with national intelligence/law enforcement agencies, national regulatory authorities and foreign Financial Intelligence Units.
• Act as Central Repository: Establish and maintain a national database based on reports received from reporting entities.
• Coordination: Coordinate and strengthen the collection and sharing of financial intelligence through an effective national, regional and global network to combat money laundering and related crimes.
• Research and Analysis: Monitor and identify strategic key areas on money laundering trends, typologies and developments.

Turning mushrooms into gold? Goa researchers claim breakthrough in producing nanoparticles

About Roen olmi:

• It is a mushroom of the Termitomyces species.
• It grows on termite hills and is locally known as ‘roen olmi’ in Goa.
• It is an edible wild mushroom popular among Goans and consumed during the monsoons.
• These mushrooms have no independent existence. They grow only in association with termites. 
• Habitat: It is endemic to the Western Ghats, where the thick forest cover and high humidity provide an ideal breeding ground.
• Ecological significance: It plays a very important role as a powerful biodegrading fungus in forest and grassland ecosystems converting 50% of dead plant material on the ground into rich soil.
• In fact, all Termitomyces species are edible and have unique food value attributed to their texture, flavour, nutrient content, and beneficial mediational properties.
• Additionally, Termito-myces have been recognized for their ethno-medicinal importance in various indigenous communities throughout Asia and Africa.
• Termitomyces species possess various beneficial antioxidant and antimicrobial properties

Education Minister launches SWAYAM Plus platform

About SWAYAM Plus platform:

• It offers courses developed collaboratively with the industry.
• This platform aims to enhance the employability of both college students and lifelong learners.
• It will offer programmes in sectors like Manufacturing, Energy, Computer Science and Engineering/IT/ITES, Management Studies, Healthcare, Hospitality and Tourism besides Indian Knowledge Systems.
• Objectives
• It primarily focuses on building an ecosystem for all stakeholders in professional and career development, including learners, course providers, industry, academia, and strategic partners.
• It enables a mechanism that provides credit recognition for high-quality certifications and courses offered by the best industry and academia partners.
• Reaching a large learner base by catering to learning across the country, with a focus on reaching learners from tiers 2 and 3 towns and rural areas.
• It also envisions bringing in features such as access to mentorship, scholarships and job placements as value-added services in due course of time, thus building a digital ecosystem for learners to pursue upskilling and re-skilling at all levels, namely certificate, diploma or degree.
• It features innovative elements such as multilingual content (available in 12 major Indian languages of the country), AI-enabled guidance, credit recognition, and pathways to employment.
• These employability and professional development‐focused programmes have been developed with industry players including L&T, Microsoft and CISCO.
• The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will be operating this Platform.

RBI tweaks norms related to Regulatory Sandbox scheme

About Regulatory Sandbox scheme:

• It refers to the live testing of new products or services in a controlled regulatory environment.
• It acts as a "safe space" for business as the regulators may or may not permit certain relaxations for the limited purpose of testing. 
• It can provide a structured avenue for the regulator to engage with the ecosystem and to develop innovation-enabling or innovation-responsive regulations that facilitate the delivery of relevant, low-cost financial products.
• It is potentially an important tool which enables more dynamic, evidence-based regulatory environments which learn from and evolve with, emerging technologies.
• Objectives:
• It provides an environment to innovative technology-led entities for limited-scale testing of a new product or service that may or may not involve some relaxation in a regulatory requirement before a wider-scale launch.
• The RS is, at its core, a formal regulatory programme for market participants to test new products, services or business models with customers in a live environment, subject to certain safeguards and oversight.
• The proposed financial service to be launched under the RS should include new or emerging technology, or the use of existing technology in an innovative way and should address a problem, or bring benefits to consumers.
• To foster responsible innovation in financial services, promote efficiency and bring benefit to consumers.
• The RBI issued the ''Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox'' in August 2019, after wide-ranging consultations with stakeholders.
• The recently updated framework requires:
• The sandbox entities to ensure compliance with provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, of 2023.
• The timelines of the various stages of the Regulatory Sandbox process have been revised from seven months to nine months
• The target applicants for entry to the RS are fintech companies, including startups, banks, financial institutions, any other company, Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) and partnership firms, partnering with or providing support to financial services businesses.

India conducted 1st human clinical trials for ‘haemophilia A’ gene therapy: Science and Technology minister

About Haemophilia A:

• It is a genetic disorder that affects the body’s ability to form blood clots.
• It is a rare disorder in which the blood doesn''t clot in the typical way because it doesn''t have enough blood-clotting proteins. 
• It is a sex linked disorder. The gene for haemophilia is carried on the X chromosome.
• Causes: It is caused by a mutation or change, in one of the genes, that provides instructions for making the clotting factor proteins needed to form a blood clot. This type is caused by a lack or decrease of clotting factor VIII.
• Symptoms: Signs and symptoms of haemophilia vary, depending on the level of clotting factors. 
• Males are much more likely to have haemophilia than are females.
• Treatment:
• It involves replacement therapy, which involves infusing clotting factor concentrates into the bloodstream to help the blood clot. 
• Other treatments may include medications to promote clotting or surgery to repair damage caused by bleeding.

What is Gene therapy?

• It is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease.
• Gene therapies can work by several mechanisms:
• Replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy of the gene
• Inactivating a disease-causing gene that is not functioning properly
• Introducing a new or modified gene into the body to help treat a disease
• Gene therapy products are being studied to treat diseases including cancer, genetic diseases, and infectious diseases.

Right of Hindu public under Article 25 only to enter the temple for worship, no fundamental right to perform the role of a priest: Kerala High Court

About Article 25 of the Indian Constitution:

• Article 25 says that all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion. The implications of these are:
• Freedom of conscience: Inner freedom of an individual to mould his relation with God or Creatures in whatever way he desires.
• Right to profess: Declaration of one’s religious beliefs and faith openly and freely.
• Right to practice: Performance of religious worship, rituals, ceremonies, and exhibition of beliefs and ideas.
• Right to propagate: Transmission and dissemination of one’s religious beliefs to others or exposition of the tenets of one’s religion. But it does not include the right to convert another person to one’s religion. Forcible conversions impinge on the ‘freedom of conscience’ guaranteed to all persons alike.
• Thus, Article 25 covers not only religious beliefs (doctrines) but also religious practices (rituals).
• Moreover, these rights are available to all persons–citizens as well as non-citizens.
• However, these rights are subject to public order, morality, health, and other provisions relating to fundamental rights.
• Further, nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law to:
• regulate or restrict any economic, financial, political, or other secular activity associated with religious practice;
• provide for social welfare and reform, or throw open Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus;
• Article 25 also contains two explanations: one, the wearing and carrying of kirpans is to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion; and two, the Hindus, in this context, include Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists.

NCBC objects to Bengal demand to include 83 castes in OBC list

About National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC):

• NCBC was initially constituted by the Central Government by the National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993, under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
• It has been accorded constitutional status through “The Constitution (One Hundred and Second Amendment) Act, 2018”, whereby Article 338B has been inserted, forming a Commission for the socially and educationally backward classes to be known as the NCBC. 
• The amendment inserted Article 338B, Article 342A, and Clause 26C in Article 366.
• Composition: The Commission consists of a Chairperson, a Vice-Chairperson, and three other Members in the rank and pay of Secretary to the Government of India.
• The Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and other Members of the Commission shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal.
• Functions: It shall be the duty of the Commission
• to investigate and monitor all matters relating to the safeguards provided for the socially and educationally backward classes under this Constitution or under any other law for the time being in force or under any order of the Government, and to evaluate the working of such safeguards;
• to inquire into specific complaints with respect to the deprivation of rights and safeguards of the socially and educationally backward classes;
• to participate and advise on the socio-economic development of the socially and educationally backward classes and to evaluate the progress of their development under the Union and any State;
• to present to the President, annually and at such other times as the Commission may deem fit, reports upon the working of those safeguards;
• to make in such reports recommendations as to the measures that should be taken by the Union or any State for the effective implementation of those safeguards and other measures for the protection, welfare, and socio-economic development of the socially and educationally backward classes;
• to discharge such other functions in relation to the protection, welfare, and development and advancement of the socially and educationally backward classes as the President may, subject to the provisions of any law made by Parliament, by rule specify
• The President shall cause all such reports to be laid before each House of Parliament along with a memorandum explaining the action taken or proposed to be taken on the recommendations relating to the Union and the reasons for the non-acceptance, if any, of any of such recommendations.
• Powers:
• While inquiring into any complaint, it will have all the powers of a civil court(it will be able to summon any person, ask for a document, and receive evidence on affidavits).
• The Union and every State Government shall consult the Commission on all major policy matters affecting the socially and educationally backward classes.
• The Commission shall have the power to regulate its own procedures.

Kulasekarapattinam: A sweet spot for small rocket launches

About Kulasekarapattinam Spaceport:

• It is a new spaceport coming up at Kulasekarapattinam, a coastal hamlet near the temple town of Tiruchendur in Thoothukudi district in southern Tamil Nadu.
• It will be second after the space agency’s existing Satish Dhawan Space Centre, founded in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota in 1971, with two launch pads.
• It will focus on the launch of Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLVs) on a commercial basis.
• It will house 35 facilities, including a launch pad, rocket integration facilities, ground range and checkout facilities, and a mobile launch structure (MLS) with checkout computers.
• It would have the capacity to launch 24 satellites per year using a mobile launch structure.
• Spread over 2,350 acres, the Kulasekharapatnam spaceport will help save fuel for small rocket launches as the port can launch rockets directly south over the Indian Ocean without requiring crossing landmasses. 
• This is unlike the existing launch site at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, which adds more fuel requirements for launching into a polar orbit as rockets need to follow a curved path to the south to avoid Sri Lanka’s landmass.
• It is estimated to cost Rs. 986 crore.

Key Facts about Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLVs):

• SSLV is a 3-stage Launch Vehicle configured with three Solid Propulsion Stages and a liquid propulsion-based Velocity Trimming Module (VTM) as a terminal stage. 
• SSLV is 2m in diameter and 34m in length with a lift-off weight of 120 tonnes.
• SSLV is capable of launching a 500kg satellite in a 500 km planar orbit.
• The key features of SSLV are Low cost, with low turn-around time, flexibility in accommodating multiple satellites, Launch-on-demand feasibility, minimal launch infrastructure requirements, etc.