In Focus by The Hindu

The pandemic wasn’t kind to school children. Two years of lockdown has meant a huge setback in terms of learning outcomes. While children from privileged backgrounds could do online classes, poorer children could not. It has been reported that, post-pandemic, children from marginalised communities have even forgotten what they had learned two years earlier.

Now a new research study titled ‘Where are the Kids? The Curious Case of Government Schools in Bihar’ documents the state of schooling and school children in North Bihar. The report was conducted by Jan Jagriti Shati Sangathan and is based on a survey of 81 schools in two districts. It offers revealing glimpses into the state of education in rural India. 

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The Parliament has passed the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2023. This law amends the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. While the government claims that the aim of this law is to help fight climate change by promoting afforestation, conservationists have panned the Act. They say it is actually promoting deforestation.

Why are environmentalists so worried about this Bill? Does it really take away existing protections afforded to forests? And why are people in the north-eastern states so concerned about this law? 

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Over the past few years, we’ve heard the names of a lot of new diseases – we had the Zika virus, the Nipah virus and even an Ebola scare, while the coronavirus pandemic rocked the country. Scientists estimate that about 60% of all known infectious diseases are zoonotic, meaning they spread from animals to people. India has a huge population, with large numbers of livestock reared and the additional issue of climate change events such as heatwaves and floods affecting the country, make us particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases. Which is why, the concept of ‘One Health’ is now being talked about: this is an approach that recognises that the health of humans, animals, plants and their environment is interconnected, and needs a unified approach, across multiple sectors to tackle public health challenges. India’s National One Health Mission, being led by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, is part of its G20 health priorities. But while a holistic approach of this sort does seem to make sense, some concerns have been raised: when developing countries share material with developed countries, will they legally be able to benefit from these collaborations? How exactly will the One Health framework work out in these contexts?

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18-year-old chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa has finished as runner-up in the FIDE Chess World Cup held at Baku, Azerbaijan. He held world No 1 Magnus Carlsen to two consecutive draws in classical chess. The match then went to a tie-break, where Carlsen won 1.5-0.5.

This is the first time since V Anand that an Indian has reached the final of the Chess World Cup, and Praggnanandhaa is the third youngest player to achieve this feat. What does this achievement mean for India? How do we rate his performance in this tournament? What is it that separates Carlsen from the rest of the field?

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India is staring at a strange problem: malnutrition among children has not gone away, but at the same time, there is an increasing burden of childhood obesity. Simply put, obesity happens when children eat and drink more calories than they burn off. The latest National Family Health Survey reported that 33 States and Union Territories in the country registered a spike in the number of overweight children. Changing lifestyles including diets, easy access to unhealthy food, a decrease in physical activity and perhaps and increase in screentime, may all be contributing factors to this. The problem is, doctors have said, that obesity in childhood can have long-term consequences on physical and mental health.

What is obesity challenge in India? What are the health problems it can cause long-term? How much does our diet play a role? And what can parents and communities do to reverse this trend?

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The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill was passed in Parliament earlier this month. The government says the law will help improve ‘ease of doing business’. It will amend 183 provisions in 42 different laws. These amendments aim to eliminate imprisonment or excessive fines for minor offences. While this sounds good, the Bill has drawn criticism for the amendments it makes to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

One of the amendments is to Section 27 (d) of the Act. This change will allow for compounding of an offence by a drug manufacturer -- they can pay a fine instead of undergoing criminal proceedings. Critics say this would allow manufacturers of substandard drugs to get away lightly. They claim that this is dangerous as a drug that is not of standard quality (NSQ) could prove to be potentially lethal or lead to antibiotic resistance.

Is this criticism valid? Or is this amendment a reasonable move that will aid ease of doing business in the pharma sector?

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had granted a bailout of $3 billion to Sri Lanka in March this year. The IMF had imposed nine conditions for agreeing to the bailout. Next month, the global lender will conduct its first review -- before the next tranche of funds under the bailout are released.

What are the conditions that Sri Lanka has to fulfil? What has been the public response to the austerity measures that the government has had to initiate? And what success has Sri Lanka had in restructuring its bilateral debt, especially with lenders such as China?

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Doctors and MBBS students, in various fields of specialisation, across various age-groups, from diverse geographies, say they believe that while common entrance examination for medical seats is a necessity, the coaching industry skewed it in favour of urban and richer students. Unaffordability of quality coaching classes and the luxury that richer students have to drop a year to prepare for the exam, make it increasingly difficult for students from poorer and more rural backgrounds to get a seat, they said. In this episode of Vital Signs, The Hindu Data Team speaks to various stakeholders in the medical field to understand the issues plaguing India’s medical education, over the years. 

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On August 3, the Indian government brought in import restrictions for laptops, tablets and servers. The import of these products would be allowed against a valid licence for restricted imports. Following some strong reactions from industry, it has deferred the effective date to Nov 1. 

But to begin with, what did the government aim to achieve with these curbs? Shore up national security by having tight controls over whom we import from? Or nudge local manufacturing and thus spur job creation?

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It sounds like a science fiction movie, but it’s all real: scientists managed to revive a pair of roundworms that had been buried deep in the Siberian permafrost 46,000 years ago. The roundworms, called nematodes, were thawed in a lab and came alive again, reproduced several generations, and then died.

These nematodes first existed when the woolly mammoths did, managed to survive in the harshest of frozen conditions, and then, from a state of suspended animation, that scientists call cryptobiosis, began life again, crawling about in a lab. A paper on this was published recently in the scientific journal PLOS Genetics. Does this mean, that technically, life can be paused for thousands of years and then restarted? That organisms can exist in a state between life and death indefinitely? If the roundworms came alive again, can other microorganisms and pathogens do that too, especially since the Siberian permafrost is melting, and can these microbes cause new diseases?

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