Relevance IN - Prelims (about hydroxychloroquine)
What's the NEWS

• The government has decided to ease its ban on the export of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has garnered global interest in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19.

• It is an antimalarial drug option, considered less toxic than chloroquine, and prescribed in certain cases.
• India manufactures 70 per cent of the world's supply of hydroxychloroquine, according to Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA)
• Doctors also prescribe hydroxychloroquine for patients of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

• Hydroxychloroquine has been identified by the US Food and Drug Administration as a possible treatment for the Covid-19 and it is being tested on more than 1,500 coronavirus patients in New York.
• The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) issued an advisory recommending the use of hydroxychloroquine in asymptomatic healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients, and also allowed doctors to prescribe it for household contacts of confirmed COVID-19 patients.

• Two large trials are under way on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, and even chloroquine, in COVID-19 treatment.
• In the World Health Organization (WHO) solidarity trial, of which India is a part, clinicians worldwide are to follow a common protocol to treat patients with hydroxychloroquine.
• The second is the chloroquine accelerator trial, largely funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

• The Centre has permitted the export of 12 of the APIs and their formulations with immediate effect.

• The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) issued a notification in this regard amending most of its March 3 order in which it had imposed curbs on export of the 13 APIs and formulations made from them.
• The list includes Vitamin B1, B6 and B12, Acyclovir, Erythromycin Salts, Neomycin and their formulations.
• API paracetamol and its formulations, however, continue to remain in the restricted for export list.
• APIs are raw material for pharmaceuticals. The APIs and formulations included common antibiotics and vitamins.
• The Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), which had expressed concern on the export restrictions and represented to the DGFT, is keen on paracetamol and its formulations being also taken off from the list.

• Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) is the authorized agency of the government of India for promotion of pharmaceutical exports from India.
• It was set up under the provisions of Foreign Trade Policy by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in May 2004.
• Various pharmaceutical products, namely, bulk drugs, formulations, Biotech Products, Indian Systems of medicines, herbal products, diagnostics, clinical research, etc. are covered under its purview.
• Pharmexcil takes up several external trade promotion activities by organizing trade delegations outside India, arranging buyer-seller meetings, international seminars, etc.

Social Issues
TRIFED to launch a digital campaign in collaboration with UNICEF

Relevance IN -Prelims(about the objective of digital campaign + about VDVKs and Van Dhan Scheme + TRIFED) +Mains GSII (Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States )
What's the NEWS

• To ensure tribal gatherers carry on their work safely, TRIFED has collaborated with UNICEF for developing a digital communication strategy for promoting a digital campaign for Self Help Groups (SHGs) involved in this work, highlighting the importance of Social Distancing.

Know! more about the digital communication strategy

• UNICEF would provide the necessary support to be circulated to the SHG centers in the form of Digital Multimedia content, Webinars for Virtual trainings
• A total of 1205 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (VDVKs) have been sanctioned in 27 States and 1 Union territory involving around 18,075 Van Dhan Self Help Groups.
• The SHGs will be promoted as Van Dhan Social Distancing Awareness cum Livelihood Centers' through a digital training program.
• The SHGs will create awareness among the community about social distancing and steps to be followed.

Know! about Van Dhan Scheme

• The Van Dhan Scheme is an initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED
• It seeks to improve tribal incomes through value addition of tribal products.
• The scheme will be implemented through Ministry of Tribal Affairs as Nodal Department at the Central Level and TRIFED as Nodal Agency at the National Level.
• At State level, the State Nodal Agency for Minor Forest Produce (MFP) and the District collectors are envisaged to play a pivot role in scheme implementation at grassroot level.
• Locally the Kendras are proposed to be managed by a Managing Committee (an SHG) consisting of representatives of Van Dhan SHGs in the cluster.

Minor Forest Produce (MFP)

• Around 100 million forest dwellers depend on MFPs for food, shelter, medicines and cash income.
• It provides them critical subsistence during the lean seasons, particularly for primitive tribal groups such as hunter gatherers, and the landless.

Key Highlights of Van Dhan Initiative

• At unit level, aggregation of produce would be done by SHGs having about 30 members each forming Van Dhan Vikas ‘Samuh'.
• A cluster of ten such SHGs within the same village shall form a Van Dhan Vikas Kendra.
• Under Van Dhan, 10 Self Help Groups of 30 Tribal gatherers is constituted.
• The establishment of "Van Dhan Vikas Kendra" is for providing skill upgradation and capacity building training and setting up of primary processing and value addition facility.
• They are then trained and provided with working capital to add value to the products, which they collect from the jungle.
• The Van Dhan Vikas Kendras will be important milestone in economic development of tribals involved in collection of MFPs by helping them in optimum utilization of natural resources and provide sustainable MFP-based livelihood in MFP-rich districts.

Know! about TRIFED

• The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) came into existence in 1987.
• It is a national-level apex organization functioning under the administrative control of Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Govt. of India.
• The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) is engaged in marketing development of tribal products and provides marketing support to the products made by tribals through a network of retail outlets
• The objective of the TRIFED is to provide good price of the 'Minor Forest Produce (MFP) collected by the tribes of the country.

Governance
iGOT e-learning Platform

Relevance IN - Prelims( about iGOT e-learning Platform and its objective)
What's the NEWS

• The Department of Personnel and Training has announced the launch of a learning platform (https://igot.gov.in) to combat COVID 19 for all front-line workers to equip them with the training and updates in coping with Pandemic.
• The target group is Doctors, Nurses, Paramedics, Hygiene Workers, Technicians, Auxiliary Nursing Midwives (ANMs), Central & State Govt. Officers and other volunteers.

Know! more about iGOT platform

• The platform delivers curated, role-specific content, to each learner at his place of work or home and to any device of his choice.
• iGOT platform is designed to population scale, and will provide training to around 1.50 crore workers and volunteers in the coming weeks.
• iGOT has been launched on topics like Basics of COVID, ICU Care and Ventilation Management, Clinical Management, Infection Prevention through PPE, Infection Control and Prevention, Quarantine and Isolation, Laboratory Sample Collection and Testing, Management of COVID 19 Cases, COVID 19 Training.
• Through its customized approach COVID-WARRIORS can learn about critical areas from this one-stop source and respond to the prevailing and emergent situations, by keeping themselves updated in a real-time manner.
• A version of iGOT fitted to these needs has been launched with the following URL link (https://igot.gov.in).

Know! about Integrated government online training (Igot)

• The Integrate Online Government Training Programme through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) mechanism has been introduced on pilot basis.
• The MOOCs mechanism would be a platform to bring together the numerous Government and other training institutions for providing a single point of access to the repository of training resources. The training will be available onsite and can be taken at leisure.
• The programme will be run on pilot basis and based on the outcome of the programme implemented, the online training programme will be rolled out extensively very soon.
  
  

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