Current Affair 1:

World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI)

 

News:

Recently the Chief Economic Adviser of India raised concern over the use of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators in rating assessments by credit rating agencies, especially for emerging economies.

About:

The WGI were developed in 1999 by World Bank researchers. The data are updated annually each September.

The WGI aggregate data from more than 30 think tanks, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and private firms across the world selected on the basis of three key criteria: 1) they are produced by credible organizations; 2) they provide comparable cross-country data; and 3) they are regularly updated.

Not more than this is needed.

Current Affair 2:

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

 

ASCI is a voluntary self-regulation council, registered as a not-for-profit company under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act.

ASCI was formed by the representatives of four pillars of the industry itself – the businesses who sponsor/ pay for the advertising, the ad agencies who conceptualise and give them a form, the media that carry these ads and allied professions such as PR and market research that support the development of communication.

It is a part of the Executive Committee of the International Council on Ad Self-Regulation (ICAS).

We also have ASCI code:

The purpose of the Code is to control the content of advertisements, not to hamper the sale of products which may be found offensive, for whatever reason, by some people.

You don’t need to go in details of the code.

One more thing I found:

Current Affair 3:

Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes (SATHI)

 

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) is initiating of setting up a shared, professionally managed, Science and Technology infrastructure facility, which can be readily be accessible to academia, start-ups, manufacturing units, industries, and R&D Labs. Such S&T infrastructure will be known as Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institute (SATHI).

These Centres will be equipped with major analytical instrument and advanced manufacturing facility, which is usually not available at Institutes / Organisations.

The aim is to provide professionally managed services with efficiency, accessibility, and transparency of highest order under one roof to service the demands of industry, start-ups and academia.

Aims & Objectives of SATHI

1. The aim of SATHI is to provide strong Science and Technology infrastructure / facilities, with efficiency of highest order under one roof to service the demands of faculty, researchers, scientist and students.
2. SATHI will have facilities for fabrication work, rapid prototyping, material testing, characterisation, new device fabrication, smart manufacturing and characterisation facilities etc., to attract and help R&D labs, industrial R&D, MSME, Incubators and Start-ups, etc.
3. To organise short term courses / workshops / seminars, hands-on training programme etc. and provide the technical help and scientific knowledge to the end Users while accessing these sophisticated scientific instruments.
4. To train technicians for maintenance and operation of sophisticated scientific instruments.

Current Affair 4:

Project Collaboration Agreement

 

News:

The Ministry of Ayush and World Health Organization (WHO) have signed Traditional and Complementary Medicine 'Project Collaboration Agreement' in Geneva.

The main objective of this agreement is to standardize Traditional and Complementary Medical Systems, integrate their quality and safety aspects into the National Health System, and disseminate them at the international level. To fulfil this objective, Traditional Medicine Global Strategy 2025-34 will be prepared by WHO with the support of the Ministry of Ayush.

Other major objectives of the agreement include efforts to

1. strengthen the system of training and practice in the field of Complementary Medicine System 'Siddha', formulation of guidelines for the listing of Traditional and Complementary Medicines, safety and related efforts, etc.
2. An International Herbal Pharmacopoeia of herbs found in South-East Asia will be developed by the Ministry in collaboration with WHO.

A total of two ‘Project Collaboration Agreements’ have already been signed by the Ministry of Ayush with WHO. The first contract was signed in 2016 to take Traditional Medical systems like Yoga, Ayurveda, Unani, and Panchakarma to the global level and the second contract was signed in 2017 to strengthen the system of Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medical systems.

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