Digital Bharat Nidhi

• Recently, the The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) released draft rules to operationalise the Digital Bharat Nidhi as Digital Bharat Nidhi would replace the erstwhile Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF)

• The USOF was established through an Act of Parliament in December 2003 by amending the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
• Objective: To ensure equitable access to telecom services in rural and remote areas at affordable prices, thereby reducing the digital divide between urban and rural areas.
• Funding: The USOF is financed through a levy imposed on the revenue generated by telecom operators. Known as the Universal Service Levy (USL), it is calculated as a percentage of their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) and is collected and deposited into the USOF.
• Administration: The USOF is overseen by the Administrator, appointed by the Central Government to manage the fund. It operates as an attached office within the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), under the Ministry of Communications.

Introduction of Digital Bharat Nidhi (DBN)

1. Objective: Switching from the USOF to the DBN aims to address past challenges and maximize resource utilisation.
2. Focus Areas:

1. Support research and development in telecommunication technologies.
2. Facilitate pilot projects and consulting services to enhance connectivity.
3. Finance telecommunications services benefiting underserved groups, including women and people with disabilities.
4. Foster innovation and adoption of domestically developed technologies in the telecom sector.

• Operational Framework of DBN: Under the proposed rules, telecom companies will deposit their payments into the Consolidated Fund of India.
• From there, the DBN will receive funds. The operational model involves appointing an administrator to oversee the fund and selecting DBN implementers through bidding or direct applications.
• These implementers will execute various projects in accordance with DBN guidelines, emphasizing equitable and transparent service delivery.
• Funding and Allocation Strategies: The administrator will decide funding approaches case by case, offering full, partial, or co-funding options, along with risk mitigation strategies.
• This tailored approach aims to efficiently and effectively tackle varied connectivity challenges across different regions.
• Goals: DBN will fund projects to provide targeted telecom access to underserved groups like women, persons with disabilities, and economically weaker sections, as per draft rules.
• Criteria for DBN Schemes and Projects: Introducing next-generation telecommunication technologies in underserved rural, remote, and urban areas. Enhancing affordability of telecommunication services in these areas.
• Promoting innovation, research, and development.
• Supporting the promotion and commercialization of indigenous technology and associated intellectual property, including creating regulatory sandboxes.
• DBN Implementation Requirements: Any DBN implementer receiving funding for establishing, operating, maintaining, or expanding a telecommunication network must share and provide access to such networks and services on an open and non-discriminatory basis.
• They must comply with guidelines issued periodically by the administrator.

Genetic engineering researchers have discovered a next generation genomic design method known as the Bridge Recombinase Mechanism.

• The findings are reported in the form of two papers that were published in the journal Nature characterising the discovery and the working of a ‘bridge’ RNA molecule which can then be reprogrammed as needed, and the structural mechanism behind the discovered recombination ability of these genes.

Bridge Recombinase Mechanism

• This tool will allow researchers to rearrange, recombine, invert, duplicate, move, and perform other editing operations on very long DNA sequences.
• Existence: This gene editing method exists naturally and has now been discovered, enhances the human ability to edit genomes beyond the capabilities and scope of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats).
• CRISPR is a technology that can be used to modify the DNA of living organisms.
• It utilises mobile genetic elements or “jumping genes”, which cut and paste themselves into genomes and are present in all forms of life, performing on-the-go DNA manipulation through all living beings.

• Role of Transposons or Jumping Genes: The bits of extra DNA at the ends of jumping genes get joined together and convert the DNA double helix structure into a single-stranded RNA molecule that folds into two loops.
• Binding: This can then bind to two sets of DNA, the donor and the target, with each loop of the element binding independently to the donor segment and target segment.
• Bridging: The target DNA segment is the one that needs to be modified, and the donor segment is the one whose parts will be used to modify the target sequence. Thus, this jumping gene then functions as a bridge that recombines two bits of unconnected DNA.
• Independent Working: The donor loop and the target loop can be programmed independently, offering great flexibility in inserting or recombining sequences to DNA.
• IS110: It is the name of the jumping gene, which stands for Insertion Sequence, and such sequences are found in ample quantities in bacteria (E. coli).
• In E. coli bacteria, the bridge RNA had more than 60% insertion efficiency (i.e. ability to introduce a desired gene) and a 94% specificity (ability to target the intended location on the genome).

• They roam around the body, cutting and pasting themselves, repairing DNA and modifying it daily.
• The IS110 bridge recombination system expands the diversity of nucleic-acid-guided systems beyond CRISPR and RNA interference, offering a unified mechanism for the three fundamental DNA rearrangements — insertion, excision and inversion that are required for genome design.
• Structure: The mechanism reports results from cryo-electron microscopy (a technique in which samples are cooled to cryogenic temperatures to determine three-dimensional structures of internal fragments).
• The cryogenic temperature range has been defined as from −150 °C to absolute zero or −273 °C.
• By using cryo-electron microscopy to study the IS110 transposons, it is found that it works as a dimer, a complex compound formed by bonding two copies of a simpler compound.
• One copy binds to the target DNA and the other binds to the donor DNA, bridged by the bridge RNA.

Significance:

• A Big Boon for Synthetic Biology: The technique can be used to manage, or even treat, a wide variety of genetic diseases: a functional copy of a gene can be replaced in a given genomic location.
• The role of the flanking DNA (sequences found on either side of the DNA fragment of interest) present around the recombinase genes of these mobile sequences has been understood for the first time.
• Future Scope: Researchers may also be able to treat chromosomal inversions or deletions, which are currently beyond the reach of any of the editing tools we have.
• It is expected to lead to more advanced gene editing therapeutics and treatments for diseases.
• Limitations: As RNA bridge modifies large sequences of DNA instead of just a tiny segment consisting of a handful of genes, this technique modifying large chunks of DNA sequences increases the risk of unintentional consequences.
• A limitation of the findings is that the studies were performed in vitro or in the lab on bacteria. To apply to any humans, they would need to be tried on animal models, and specifically mammal models, first.

Other Gene-editing Technologies

1. CRISPR-Cas9: A customizable tool that lets scientists cut and insert small pieces of DNA at precise areas along a DNA strand.
2. TALE nucleases: Nucleases that cleave unique genomic sequences in living cells can be used for targeted gene editing.
3. Zinc-finger nucleases: Targeted to cleave a chosen genomic sequence and provokes cellular repair processes that in turn mediate efficient modification of the targeted location.
4. RNA interference (RNAi): Targets RNA molecules to block or activate gene expression.

How does RNA bridge differ from CRISPR, RNAi?

• On Express/Activate: Both CRISPR and RNA Interface (RNAi) work by blocking gene expression or activating it. RNAi does so by targeting RNA molecules, which then do the work of editing genes, while CRISPR edits DNA directly.
• Scope of Change: CRISPR-mediated editing sometimes leaves small bits of nucleotides added/deleted during the repair process. DNA recombination mediated by bridge RNA on the other hand makes a clean cut, making the edit specific and tidy.
• Also, RNA bridge can facilitate the addition, deletion or inversion of DNA sequences of virtually any length.

Producer Price Index (PPI)

• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is nearing the completion of a model to introduce a Producer Price Index (PPI) in India, which could potentially replace the Wholesale Price Index (WPI).

Wholesale Price Index (WPI)

• The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) represents the price of goods at the wholesale level, meaning goods sold in bulk and traded between organisations rather than directly to consumers. It is used as a measure of inflation in some economies.
• Calculation: WPIs are reported monthly to reflect average price changes of goods. The total costs of goods in a given year are compared to the total costs in the base year.
• The base year’s total prices are set at 100 on the scale.  Prices from other years are compared to this total and expressed as a percentage change.
• Wholesale Price in India: The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is an important measure of inflation in India, focusing solely on changes in the prices of goods.
• Published by: WPI data is published by the Office of Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
• Revisions: The current WPI series, with a base year of 2011-12, is the seventh revision and has been in use since 2017.
• Importance: It is a simple and convenient method for calculating inflation, and changes in WPI greatly influence fiscal and monetary policy decisions.

Components of Wholesale Price Index (WPI)

1. Primary Articles: This category is divided into Food Articles and Non-Food Articles (such as Oil Seeds, Minerals, and Crude Petroleum).
2. Fuel & Power: This component tracks price movements in Petrol, Diesel, and LPG.
3. Manufactured Goods: This is the largest basket and includes Textiles, Apparel, Chemicals, Cement, Metals, Sugar and Tobacco Products, Vegetable and Animal Oils, among others.
4. WPI Food Index: This sub-index within the WPI includes Food Articles from the Primary Articles category and food products from the Manufactured Products category.

Challenges with WPI

• Public Relevance: It does not reflect inflation at the consumer level, as ordinary people do not buy products at wholesale prices.
• Exclusion of Service Sector: WPI excludes the service sector, which accounts for about 55% of GDP.
• Bias and Double Counting: WPI has an inherent bias due to double counting of products and does not include exports and imports.

Producer Price Index (PPI)

• The Producer Price Index measures the average change in prices received by producers for goods and services sold domestically or exported.

Types:

1. Output PPI, which measures the prices of goods and services leaving production sites.
2. Input PPI, which measures the prices of goods and services entering production processes.

• Advantages: It examines inflation from the perspective of industry and business, measuring price changes before consumers purchase final goods and services.
• It has supplanted WPI in many countries because it aligns conceptually with the internationally recognized System of National Accounts (SNA) for compiling measures of economic activity.

Need for a new Model of Producer Price Index (PPI)

• Addressing Biases: The updated PPI model seeks to replace WPI, addressing issues like double counting, exclusion of exports/imports, and the omission of the service sector (which constitutes 55% of GDP).
• It has been presented to the IMF, and discussions are ongoing to shift from WPI to PPI, in line with practices adopted by most G20 economies.
• Proposed Changes: Discussions are underway within the government to change the base year of the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) from 2011-12, involving the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) and the National Statistical Commission.

Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS)

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently announced that all credit card bill payments via third-party applications must now be routed through the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS).

Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS):

• It is a payment channel system conceptualized by the RBI and driven by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a subsidiary of RBI.
• It is a one-stop payment platform for all bills providing an interoperable and accessible “Anytime Anywhere” bill payment service to all customers across India with certainty, reliability and safety of transactions.
• The system will provide multiple payment modes and instant confirmation of receipt of payment.
• It is an integrated platform connecting banks and non-banks in bills aggregation business, billers, payment service providers, and retail bill outlets.
• It offers customers the convenience of payment by cataloguing various utility providers on one platform.
• BBPS offers bill collection categories like electricity, telecom, Mobile Postpaid, DTH, gas, water bills etc. through a single window.
• Other types of payments, like school / university fees, municipal taxes/ payments, mutual funds and insurance premium, various government taxes, etc. as decided from time to time by the RBI will be incorporated in BBPS.

Different Payment Channels:

• Customers can make payments via physical payment collection outlets (bank branches, agent collection stores etc) and digital channels (apps, websites etc) across India.
• It provides instant confirmation of payment via an SMS or receipt.

Recently, the Discover Koyna group, renowned for their discoveries of rare owls and butterflies, observed a rare brown palm civet in the Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary

Brown Palm Civet:

• It is also known as Jerdon’s palm civets, are endemic to the Western Ghats and play a vital ecological role as seed dispersers.
• It is solitary and nocturnal, small carnivores that thrive in the high altitude tropical rainforests
• Distribution: Its distribution extends from Castle Rock in Goa to the southern tip of the Western Ghats in Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve. It inhabits rainforest tracts at an elevation of 500–1,300 m.
• Food Habit: It is predominantly frugivorous, foraging over a wide range, but has one of the smallest diet ranges among South Asia’s small carnivores.

Conservation status

• IUCN: Least Concern
• CITES  : Appendix III

Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary

• It is situated in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra.
• It is a significant protected area within the larger Western Ghats, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• The sanctuary is closely associated with the Koyna Dam, which is one of the largest dams in Maharashtra. The dam is built on the Koyna River and serves as a crucial water reservoir for the region.
• Flora: It is characterized by a variety of vegetation types, including evergreen forests, semi-evergreen forests, and deciduous forests. The flora includes valuable tree species like teak, shisham, and ain, along with a diverse understorey of shrubs and herbs.
• Fauna: It is home to a variety of wildlife, including Indian bison (gaur), Indian elephants, Indian leopards, sloth bears, sambar deer etc.