Pakistan to remain on FATF greylist

• Pakistan was retained on the greylist, or the list of countries under “increased monitoring”, by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), as the Paris-based UN watchdog judged it deficient in prosecuting the top leadership of UN Security Council-designated terror groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e Mohammad, Al Qaeda and Taliban.
• In addition, the FATF handed down another six-point list of tasks, mainly on money laundering actions.

What is FATF?

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global money laundering https://www.aspireias.com/daily-news-analysis-current-affairs/Money-Laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
• The inter-governmental body sets international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society.
• As a policy-making body, the FATF works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.
• With more than 200 countries and jurisdictions committed to implementing them.
• The FATF has developed the FATF Recommendations, or FATF Standards, which ensure a co-ordinated global response to prevent organised crime, corruption and terrorism.
• They help authorities go after the money of criminals dealing in illegal drugs, human trafficking and other crimes. The FATF also works to stop funding for weapons of mass destruction.
• The FATF reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and continuously strengthens its standards to address new risks, such as the regulation of virtual assets, which have spread as cryptocurrencies gain popularity.
• The FATF monitors countries to ensure they implement the FATF Standards fully and effectively and holds countries to account that does not comply.

Functions of FATF

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established in July 1989 by a Group of Seven (G-7) Summit in Paris, initially to examine and develop measures to combat money laundering.
• In October 2001, the FATF expanded its mandate to incorporate efforts to combat terrorist financing, in addition to money laundering.
• In April 2012, it added efforts to counter the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
• Since its inception, the FATF has operated under a fixed lifespan, requiring a specific decision by its Ministers to continue. Three decades after its, creation, in April 2019, FATF Ministers adopted a new, open-ended mandate for the FATF.

Objectives of FATF

• The objectives of the FATF are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
• FATF monitors countries' progress in implementing the FATF Recommendations; reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and counter-measures; and, promotes the adoption and implementation of the FATF Recommendations globally.

UN Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1373

• The UNSC resolution 1267 was adopted unanimously on October 15, 1999.
• It is a consolidated list of people and entities that UN has determined as being associated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and laws which must be passed within each member nation to implement the sanctions.
• The UNSC Resolution 1373 was adopted on 28th September 2001.
• It declares international terrorism a threat to international peace and security and imposes binding obligations on all UN member states.

Rajasthan gets genome sequencing laboratory

• The facility for genome sequencing to identify new variants of SARS-CoV-2 has been started at Sawai Man Singh Government Medical College here, making Rajasthan the first State in the country to have such a provision for complete sequencing at the State level.
• The facility had been made available in the State at a cost of ?1 crore for getting information about new variants of the virus.
• The samples from the State were so far being sent to the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology’s laboratory in New Delhi.

Genes

• Gene is a sequence of DNA or RNA that codes for a molecule that has a function.
• They are made of DNA and is a subdivision of DNA. They are packed in Chromosomes.
• Genes contain the bio-information that defines any individual.
• Physical attributes like height, skin or hair colour, more subtle features and even behavioural traits can be attributed to information encoded in the genetic material.

A genome is the DNA or sequence of genes in a cell.

• Human genome is made up of 23 chromosome pairs with a total of about 3 billion DNA base pairs.
• Most of the DNA is in the nucleus in the form of chromosomes and the rest is in Mitochondria (cell's powerhouse). Genes make amino acids and proteins.
• Sequencing a genome means deciphering the exact order of base pairs in an individual.
• Exome is a portion of the gene responsible for making Proteins.
• There are 24 distinct human chromosomes:

1. 22 autosomal chromosomes, plus the sex-determining X and Y chromosomes.
2. Chromosomes 1-22 are numbered roughly in order of decreasing size.
3. Somatic cells usually have one copy of chromosomes 1-22 from each parent, plus an X chromosome from the mother and either an X or Y chromosome from the father, for a total of 46.

• There are estimated 20,000-25,000 human protein-coding genes.

Genome sequencing

1. It determines the unique genetic traits, susceptibility (and resilience) to disease.
2. Now the youth will be told if they carry gene that makes them less responsive to certain types of medicines. Example, A certain gene make some people less responsive to Clopidogrel, a key drug to prevent strokes and heart attacks.
3. Genome sequencing is figuring out the order of DNA nucleotides, or bases, in a genome—the order of Adenine, Cytosine, Guanines, and Thymine that make up an organism's DNA.

Importance of Genome Sequencing

• Sequencing the genome is an important step towards understanding how genes works. Genes account for <25% of DNA in the genome. Studying entire genome sequence will help scientists study parts of genome outside the genes.
• It will represent a valuable shortcut, helping scientists find genes much more easily and quickly.
• A genome sequence does contain some clues about where genes are, even though scientists are just learning to interpret these clues.
• Genome sequencing of wild varieties of plants can be used to identify disease resistance and drought tolerance genes in various plants and develop new varieties of crop plants in lesser time.
• Genome sequencing of cop plants can be helpful in deciphering and understanding the host-pathogen realationship in crops.

Why Genome sequencing?

• Ever since the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, it opened a fresh perspective on the link between disease and the unique genetic make-up of each individual.
• Nearly 10,000 diseases — including cystic fibrosis, thalassemia — are known to be the result of a single gene malfunctioning.
• While genes may render some insensitive to certain drugs, genome sequencing has shown that cancer too can be understood from the viewpoint of genetics, rather than being seen as a disease of certain organs.

Human Genome Project

• The Human Genome Project was started in 1990, a 13 year long international research effort to determine the sequence of the human genome and identify the genes that it contains.
• The Project was coordinated by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Not only did the completion of this project usher in a new era in medicine i.e. personalized medicine, but it also led to significant advances in the types of technology used to sequence DNA.

IndiGen initiative

• It is a programme for the Mapping of entire genome. CSIR will undertake genome sequencing of a sample of nearly 1000 Indian rural youth to determine unique genetic traits, susceptibility (and resilience) to disease. It is 1st of a kind initiative.
• It is managed by CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and CSIR – Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
• The aim is 2 fold:

1. If it is possible to rapidly and reliably scan several genomes.
2. Advice people on health risks in their gene i.e. disease detection.

Advtantages

1. It is important for Precision medicine and Personalised medicine.
2. It will sequence a gene which hides the information of susceptibility to attain a disease.
3. Cancer, Heart strokes etc.
4. Understanding gene functioning.

Disadvantages

1. Not everyone who signs up will be guaranteed a scan.
2. It can breach ethical standards fixed in the developement of Pluripotent stem cells.
3. It can also cause personalized biological attacks by anyone who has your gene sequence.
4. Breach of Right to Privacy.
5. The project is an adjunct to a much larger government-led programme Genome India Project, still in the works, to sequence at least 10,000 Indian genomes.
6. Under IndiGen, CSIR drafted 1000 youth from college through campsand educating attendees on genomics and the role of genes in disease.Those 1000 youth will get a Card and access to an app.

Department of Biotechnology under MoS&T has cleared the Genome India Project

• It is a gene-mapping project involving 20 leading institutions including IISc and IITs.
• The first stage of the project will look at samples of 10,000 persons from all over the country to form a grid that will enable the development of a reference genome.

Tibet gets first bullet train, links Lhasa to India border

• China started operating the first bullet train line in Tibet, linking Lhasa to Nyingchi near the border with Arunachal Pradesh.
• The China State Railway Group said the 435-km line, on which construction began in 2014, has a designed speed of 160 km per hour and would connect the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region to the border city of Nyingchi with a travel time of three and a half hours.
• Over 90% of the track is 3,000 metres above sea-level, state media quoted the railway group as saying, and the line is the first electrified high speed rail (HSR) line, as China refers to bullet trains, in Tibet.
• China has the world’s longest HSR network.
• The Lhasa-Nyingchi rail is one among several major infrastructure projects recently completed in Tibet’s southern and southeastern counties near the Arunachal border.
• Last month, China completed the construction of a strategically significant highway through the Grand Canyon of the Yarlung Zangbo river, as the Brahmaputra is called in Tibet.
• This is the “second significant passageway” to Medog county that borders Arunachal, the official Xinhua news agency reported, directly connecting the Pad township in Nyingchi to Baibung in Medog county.