INTERNATIONAL INTELECTUAL PROPERTY INDEX

• India is poised to become a leader for emerging markets looking to transform their economies through IP-driven innovation, according to the International Intellectual Property (IP) Index 2023 published by the U.S. Chambers of Commerce, which ranks India 42nd among 55 top global economies.
• The US came out on top of the international IP Index, followed by the UK and France.

The findings of the report:

• India has kept up its vigorous efforts to combat copyright infringement by granting "dynamic" injunction orders.
• India is poised to become a leader for emerging markets looking to transform their economies through IP-driven innovation as its size and economic significance on the global stage increase.
• In addition to offering large R&D and IP-based tax benefits, India makes a significant effort to raise public awareness about the damaging effects of piracy and counterfeiting.
• It is a pioneer in specialized administrative incentives for SMEs' creation and utilization of IP assets.
• India has taken steps to strengthen its enforcement against content that violates copyright laws and offers a world-class environment to encourage better understanding and use of IP assets. But, in order for India to develop a new model for the region and sustain its economic progress, it would be essential to resolve long-standing inadequacies in its IP system.
• The paper claimed that the 2021 dissolution of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board, along with the ongoing problem of a resource-strapped and overworked judiciary, raises severe doubts about the ability of IP rights holders to enforce their rights in India and to settle IP-related disputes.
• There is a restricted legal framework for the protection of intellectual property (IP) rights related to biopharmaceutical products, according to carriers of licencing and technology transfer, including severe registration requirements.
• The Index seeks to guide nations toward a brighter economic future characterized by increased innovation, creativity, and competitiveness by analyzing the IP landscape in global marketplaces.
• A flood of proposals being considered by US and foreign policymakers, particularly at multilateral institutions, threatens to undermine hard-won economic advantages after a decade of steady, incremental development in IP systems around the world.

About International IP Index:

• The Index assesses each economy's IP framework using 50 different measures, which the business community believes represent the nations with the best IP systems.
• The nine categories of protection covered by the indicators provide a view of an economy's overall IP ecosystem: Trade secrets, commercialization of IP assets, enforcement, systemic effectiveness, membership in and ratification of international treaties, patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade dress, design rights, and commercialization of IP assets
• The US Chambers of Commerce published the International IP Index.
• The Report covers a wide range of topics, including international agreement ratification, patent and copyright regulations, as well as the capacity to monetize IP assets.

About Intellectual Property Rights:

• Intellectual inventions of the human mind are included in the category of property known as intellectual property (IP).
• Patents, copyright, industrial design, trademark, plant variety, trade dress, and geographical indicators are examples of intellectual property rights.
• The basic goal of intellectual property law is to promote the production of a wide range of intellectual commodities. To this end, the law grants individuals and organizations ownership rights to the knowledge and intellectual products they produce, typically for a finite amount of time.
• This provides an economic incentive for their development by enabling individuals to profit from the knowledge and intellectual products they produce and by enabling them to safeguard their ideas and prevent piracy.
• It is a type of legal protection provided to people or businesses for their original and creative works in the form of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
• Article 27 of the International Declaration of Human Rights outlines these rights.
• These legal safeguards give the authors the ability to regulate how their work is used and stop unauthorised use or reproduction.

Where did the concept of intellectual property first emerge?

• The Paris Agreement for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works were the first agreements to acknowledge the significance of intellectual property (1886).
• The World Intellectual Property Organization oversees both accords (WIPO).

Types:

• The most common forms of intellectual property (IP) include patents for inventions, trademarks for product branding, copyrights for creative and literary works, trade secrets for sensitive corporate information, and industrial designs for product aesthetics.

IPR and India:

• India is a signatory to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property and a member of the World Trade Organization (TRIPS Agreement).
• India also participates in the International Intellectual Property Organization, an organisation tasked with promoting the protection of intellectual property rights globally.
• In May 2016, the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy 2016 was approved as a vision statement to direct the country's future IPR growth.

Problems Concerning Intellectual Property Rights:

• Enforcement: Piracy and counterfeiting continue to be major issues in India despite efforts to increase IP enforcement.
• Low rates of prosecution and conviction are a result of enforcement agencies' frequent lack of resources and experience to properly address these problems.
• Backlog of patent applications: The backlog of patent applications in India is a significant issue.
• This causes delays in the issuance of patents and breeds uncertainty among inventors who want to safeguard their discoveries.
• Lack of IP Awareness: Many firms and individuals in India still don't understand or care about IPR.
• This may result in unintentional IP rights infringement and difficulties enforcing those rights.

UNITED STATES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (USCC):

• The biggest American lobbying organisation is the United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC). At the suggestion of President William Howard Taft, the organisation was established in April 1912 from local chambers of commerce. The group seeks to promote pro-business legislation. Functions:
• They inform members of information. (ii) They establish prices for their goods or services. (iii)They exert political pressure on the government on behalf of their constituents (iv) They resolve conflicts between members.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

• With the virus undetectable in his body even 4 years after discontinuing the medication, a man from Germany has become at least the third person to have been cured of HIV.

Main point:

• The third person to have an HIV "cure" after receiving a bone marrow transplant from an HIV-resistant donor is a 53-year-old German male.
• The transplant was done to cure blood cancer, and even four years after he stopped taking antiretroviral medication, the HIV infection was still undetectable in his body.
• The female donor who provided the patient's stem cells had an uncommon mutation in her CCR5 gene, which prevents HIV from entering cells.
• The procedure employed in this case, a severe and risky bone marrow transplant, is only appropriate under very specific circumstances or for a small percentage of HIV-positive and blood cancer patients.
• The report claims that this instance of HIV-1 cure "offers "important insights that, one hopes, will direct future treatment techniques,"

What is HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus?

• The immune system of the body's CD4-producing T cells is attacked by HIV.
• T cells are circulating cells in the body that look for abnormalities and infections in other cells.
• HIV replicates once inside the body, decimates CD4 cells, and seriously compromises the human immune system.
• This virus cannot be eliminated once it has entered the body.
• An individual with HIV has a significantly lower CD4 count. The CD4 count ranges from 500 to 1600 in a healthy person, but it can go as low as 200 in an infected person.
• HIV is a type of lentivirus, which is a subtype of the retrovirus.
  • HIV infection is brought on by AIDS, which eventually results in AIDS-related immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
• A person with AIDS loses their immune function, which allows malignancies and life-threatening diseases to spread throughout their body.
• T-helper cells and a specific subset of WBCs (White Blood Cells) are destroyed by HIV.
• HIV can be transmitted by the exchange of blood, breast milk, vaginal fluid, semen, or pre-ejaculate.

Status of HIV/AIDS in India:

• The estimated adult (15 to 49 years) HIV prevalence trend in India has decreased from the epidemic's peak in 2000 and has stabilised in recent years, according to the India HIV Estimate 2019 report.
• In 2019, it was estimated that 0.24% of adult males and 0.20% of adult females worldwide had HIV.
• In 2019, there were 23.48 lakh HIV-positive individuals in India. The most people were in Maharashtra, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

CCR5 mutation: what is it?

• In the human body, CD4 immune cells are the primary target of HIV.
• The HIV virus enters the body through the CCR5 receptors on the surface of CD4 immune cells.
• Nevertheless, the CCR5-delta 32 mutation blocks the formation of these surface-bound HIV viral receptors, essentially closing the door.
• Although there have been some cases documented, people with the mutation are essentially immune to HIV infection.
• It is present in 1% of people and blocks the development of CCR5 receptors on CD4 immune cells, which serve as a portal for the HIV virus.
• While persons with one copy of the mutation are less likely to get the virus, those with two copies are almost resistant to HIV.

What difficulties do HIV patients face when having these receptors transplanted?

• HIV patients are overrepresented - Few people and about 38.4 million HIV-positive people worldwide have mutations.
• Finding a donor who is a good match is quite challenging.
• Limited donor pool – The mutation is more common among Caucasians, thereby limiting the donor pool.
• Bone marrow is at high risk. High hazards come with transplantation, particularly the danger of the recipient rejecting the donated bone marrow.
• In these people, there is also a chance that the virus will mutate and find new ways to infiltrate the cells.
• It seems doubtful that bone marrow transplants will be made available to everyone with HIV because they are a risky and complicated process.
• A bone marrow transplant is a medical procedure that substitutes healthy cells for the patient's own bone marrow. It is possible for the replacement cells to come from the patient's own body or from a donor.
• A hematopoietic stem cell transplant, or simply a stem cell transplant, is another name for a bone marrow transplant.
• The virus could change and find new ways to penetrate cells, rendering the treatment useless.

About Stem cell:

• Undifferentiated, or "blank," cells are stem cells. This indicates that they have the capacity to differentiate into cells with a wide range of functions in various body regions.
• They have the capacity to repeatedly divide to create new cells.
• They can transform into the different types of cells that make up the body as they divide.

Different Stem Cells:

• In general, there are two types of stem cells. Adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells are what they are.
• Embryonic stem cells: Unwanted embryos are the source of the embryonic stem cells used in research today. These are the end result of in vitro fertilization. These have been given to science. These pluripotent embryonic stem cells are. This implies that they have the ability to transform into various cell types.
• Adult stem cells come in two different varieties.
• One type originates from tissues that are completely grown, like the bone marrow, skin, and brain. These tissues only contain a very modest amount of stem cells. They are more likely to produce only particular cell types. For instance, a stem cell from the liver will only produce further liver cells.
• Incremented pluripotent stem cells are the second kind. They are adult stem cells that have undergone laboratory modification to resemble embryonic stem cells more closely. Although induced pluripotent stem cells appear to be similar to embryonic stem cells, they are not yet known to be capable of giving rise to all known types of cells and tissues.

1300-year-old Buddhist Stupa found in Odisha

• A 1,300-year-old stupa was recently found by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the Jajpur district of Odisha at a Khondalite mining site.
• That is where the Khondalite stones for the Puri, India, beautification project surrounding the Shree Jagannath Temple from the 12th century came from.

What conclusions has the ASI reached?

• Initial evaluation revealed the stupa may be 4.5 metres tall and date to the 7th or 8th centuries.
• It was discovered in Parabhadi, which is close to Lalitagiri, a significant Buddhist complex with a lot of stupas and monasteries.
• Among the three Buddhist sites (Lalitagiri, Ratnagiri, and Udayagiri), Lalitgiri is thought to be the most sacred because it yielded a huge stupa where a relic of Buddha was found enclosed in a stone casket.

About Buddhism:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Buddhism emerged in India as a way of life with the ability to alter a person.
• It is a significant religion in several South and South-Eastern Asian nations.
• The founder of the religion, Siddhartha Gautam, who was born in 563 BCE, served as its model and provided its foundational principles.
• He was born at Lumbini, which is close to the Indo-Nepal Border, into a royal dynasty of the Sakya line that governed from Kapilvastu.
• At the age of 29, Gautama abandoned his family, turned away from his life of luxury, and chose an ascetic lifestyle.
• At Bodhgaya, a village in Bihar, under a pipal tree, Gautama achieved Bodhi (enlightenment) after 49 days of nonstop meditation.
• In the Small village of Sarnath, close to the city of Benares, Buddha delivered his first sermon. This occasion is referred to as Dharma-Chakra-Pravartana (turning of the wheel of law).
• At the age of 80, he passed away in Kushinagara, a town in UP, in 483 BCE. The occasion is referred to as Mahaparinibban.

Spread of Buddhism in ancient India:

• Buddha had both monks (bhikshus) and lay worshippers as his students (upasikas).
• For the goal of disseminating his teachings, the monks were gathered in the Sangha.
• The Sangha had the authority to impose rules on its members and was ruled democratically.
• Even during the Buddha's lifetime, Buddhism advanced quickly in North India thanks to the Sangha's organized efforts.
• Following the demise of Buddha, his disciples traveled the world and explored the countryside while following his way of meditation.
• Up until the arrival of the Great Mauryan Monarch, Ashoka, Buddhism remained eclipsed by its Hindu counterparts for 200 years.
• Emperor Ashoka made the decision to abandon his program of worldly conquest and pursue Dharma conquest following the carnage in his invasion of the Kalinga.
• A number of Buddhist missions were sent by Ashoka during the third Buddhist council to places like Gandhara, Kashmir, Greece, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Egypt, and Thailand.
• Ashoka promoted Buddhism through his missionary work in West Asia and Ceylon. As a result, a local religious sect became a global religion.

What does Buddhism contribute to Indian culture?

• Its main contribution was the idea of ahimsa. Subsequently, it developed into one of our country's most valued ideals.
• It made a significant contribution to India's art and architecture. Sanchi, Bharhut, and Gaya's stupas are magnificent works of architecture.
• Via residential universities like those at Taxila, Nalanda, and Vikramasila, education was encouraged.
• With the guidance of Buddhism, the Pali language and various regional tongues evolved.
• It also aided in the diffusion of Indian culture throughout Asia.

The Khondalite Stones: What are they?

• Khondalite is a form of metamorphic rock that is mostly present in the Indian state of Odisha and the Eastern Ghats. It bears the name of a group of rocks known as the Khondalite Group, which is thought to have originated in the Proterozoic period about 1.6 billion years ago.
• Khondalite has a distinctive pinkish-grey colour and is mainly made up of feldspar, quartz, and mica.
• It is frequently used in building as an ornamental stone and is highly valued for its sturdiness and resistance to weathering.
• Ancient temple structures frequently used khondalite stones. To preserve the aesthetic value of various projects, like the heritage security zone and the Jagannath Ballav pilgrim centre, they are suggested to be used extensively.

What is a Stupa?

• Burial mounds called stupas were common in India throughout the Vedic era.
• Stupas have a cylindrical drum-like structure with a round anda, a harmika, and a chhatra on top.
• Anda: A spherical mound that represents the earth used to cover the Buddha's remains (in many stupas actual relics were used).
• Harmika: The top of the mound has a square fence.
• Chhatra: A triple umbrella structure is supported by a central pillar.
• used materials The outer surface of the stupa was constructed from burnt bricks, while the interior was constructed from unburned brick. The medhi and the toran were embellished with wooden sculptures.

Buddhist stupas:

• A stupa is a memorial structure that typically houses holy artefacts connected to the Buddha or other saints.
• It has a spire at the top and is sometimes a hemispherical structure with a variable-shaped base.
• Buddhist stupas are nearly always found at locations considered important to Buddhism. Their original purpose was to shelter the physical remains of the historical Buddha and his companions.
• The most well-known and well-preserved early stupa in India is The Great Stupa in Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh.
• Stupas can be categorized into five different categories based on its form and purpose, including:
• Relic stupa: A place where the Buddha, his followers, and lay saints' relics or bodies are interred.
• Stupa of objects: Items that belonged to the Buddha or his followers, such as a begging bowl, a robe, or significant Buddhist texts.
• Constructed to honour significant occurrences in the life of the Buddha or his disciples, a commemorative stupa.
• Stupa symbology: To represent elements of Buddhist doctrine.
• Votive stupa: A structure built to mark visits or for spiritual purposes, typically at the location of notable stupas that are frequently visited.

Karnataka Tops India’s State Energy Transition

• Karnataka and Gujarat have emerged as India's frontrunners in the switch to clean electricity, according to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and Ember.
• While the IEEFA studies topics relating to energy markets, trends, and regulations, Ember is an independent, not-for-profit think tank focused on climate and energy concerns.

What are the Report's Highlights?

Methods of Evaluation:

• In the report "Indian States' Energy Transition," 16 States, which produce 90% of India's electricity, were given scores based on performance against four major criteria:

Decarbonisation:

• Functionality of the Power System
• Policy readiness and political commitments in the power ecosystem

Assessment:

• Karnataka is the only state out of the 16 examined to have received high marks in each of the clean electricity transition's four criteria.
• Also, the State installed 100% of its goal for installing smart metres and went 16% above its goal for separating feeders.
• Karnataka was somewhat ahead of Gujarat in decarbonizing its electrical sector. States like West Bengal, Bihar, and UP are well behind in this area. Haryana and Punjab have demonstrated promising preparations and implementations for the shift to electricity.
• West Bengal received low marks on all of the criteria, and from March 2018 to March 2022, the amount owed to generators grew by 500%.
• The readiness of the power grid needs to be increased in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

Suggestions:

• States are advised to adopt a multifaceted strategy for the transition to clean power, which includes actions on the demand side, in addition to increasing renewable energy generation and storage.
• Innovative bilateral financial market mechanisms, such as contracts for difference (CfD) and virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs), have a great deal of potential to expand the market and provide buyers and regulators with the assurance they need to manage intermittent renewable energy generation.
• It asked for an increase in data accessibility and openness so that progress could be monitored efficiently and course corrected as needed.

What is the Clean Energy Goal for India?

• India has promised to produce nearly half of its power from non-fossil fuel sources and lower the GDP's carbon intensity by 45% by 2030 as part of its international obligations.
• States must modify their electricity delivery infrastructure in order to effectively integrate inputs from a variety of power sources, including solar, wind, hydropower, and current fossil fuel sources.
• With regard to transitioning its power industry, India is now on the right track thanks to its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets.

Read Also: CLIMATE TARGET 2030

Coin Vending Machine

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is preparing to begin a pilot study to evaluate how a coin-dispensing machine that uses QR codes works (QCVM).
• The experiment is initially expected to be implemented at 19 venues across 12 cities across the nation. The machines are designed to be deployed in public locations like train stations, malls, and markets with a focus on convenience and accessibility.

QCVM: What is it?

• A cashless coin dispenser called a QCVM would deliver coins in exchange for a UPI debit to the customer's bank account (Unified Payment Interface).
• Consumers would have the choice to withdraw coins in the necessary numbers and denominations.
• That will make coins more easily accessible.
• The QCVM would do away with the necessity for physical tendering of banknotes and their authentication, in contrast to a cash-based standard Coin Vending Machine.

What is the QCVM Need?

• The older machines had issues since some false money were fed into them to obtain coins.
• Although there is a large quantity of coins, they are not being dispersed evenly and there is a demand for them in pockets.
• According to the most recent RBI bulletin, as of December 30, 2022, there were 28,857 crore rupee coins in circulation, up 7.2% from the prior 12-month period.
• For comparison, coins in India are available in the following denominations: 50 paise, 1 rupee, 2 rupees, 5 rupees, 10 rupees, and 20 rupees. Little coins are those that are up to 50 paise, whereas rupee coins are those that are one rupee and above.
• Hence, supply can be absorbed by making coins available where there is a need.
• At the moment, getting coins requires going to a bank branch and exchanging currency notes for coins.
• Nevertheless, using QCVM, coins can be withdrawn via a UPI QR code, and the sum will be deducted from the user's bank account.