29.06.23

The Union Minister of , Shipping & Waterways and Ayush, Sarbananda Sonowal, has unveiled the new corporate social responsibility (CSR) guidelines called ‘Sagar Samajik Sahayog’ by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways. These guidelines aim to empower ports to address local community issues in a more cooperative and swift manner.

Under the new guidelines, ports in India will allocate a specific Percentage of their net annual profit towards CSR activities. The CSR budget for ports will be based on their respective turnover for the year, the division will be as follows:

Ports with an annual turnover of less than Rs 100 crores will spend 3-5 per cent on CSR

Ports with a turnover between Rs 100 to 500 crores will spend 2-3 per cent

Ports with a turnover exceeding Rs 500 crores will spend 0.5-2 per cent.

Two per cent of the total CSR expenses will be dedicated to project monitoring by the ports in order to ensure effective implementation and monitoring of the respective CSR projects.

The much-delayed, India-madeTejas Mk 2light combat aircraft (LCA) could be ready for its maiden flight by 2025 with anAmerican engine, according to Prabhulla Chandran VK, director of avionics and weapons systems at the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the nodal agency for the design of theindigenous fighter.

Hope soared for the aircraft afterGE Aerospaceof the US said on June 22 that it has signed a deal with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (Hal) to produce fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force. The announcement coincided with PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US.

People with tuberculosis having pre-diabetes have a higher risk of death compared to those with normal sugar levels, a city-based study found. The treatment is also delayed among patients with pre-diabetes.
While studies have established that the coexistence of diabetes and tuberculosis influences treatment outcomes in either condition, city doctors wanted to see the effect of pre-diabetes on tuberculosis treatment outcomes.

For the study published in a peer-reviewed journal, Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews, scientists divided 187 patients who tested positive for TB into two groups — 76 TB patients without diabetes and 111 TB patients with prediabetes. The HBA1c levels were 5.7% for people without diabetes and between 5.7 and 6.4 for people with pre-diabetes. They were followed up for six months till the end of the TB treatment.

At least 70% of the patients in both groups were cured, but 6.3% of people in the pre-diabetic group died compared to 1.3% in the other group. At the end of the intensive phase (two months) of directly observed therapy (DOTS), about 23.8% had positive sputum in the pre-diabetic group compared to 8.6% in the group of people with normal blood sugar levels.

A recent pan India study showed nearly 11.4% of Indias adult Population an estimated 101.3 million people — has diabetes and at least 136 million(15.3% of the population) had pre-diabetes.

The World Health Organisation(WHO) estimates 2.69 million people in India had TB in 2019, which is more than a quarter of the global burden.

New estimates of people who inject drugs are higher than previously estimated as treatment Services and other interventions fall short, including for record numbers of displaced people due to humanitarian crises

The Report features a special chapter on drug trafficking and crimes that affect the Environment in the Amazon Basin, as well as sections on clinical trials involving psychedelics and medical use of cannabis; drug use in humanitarian settings; innovations in drug treatment and other services; and drugs and conflict.

The World Drug Report 2023 also highlights how social and economic inequalities drive and are driven by drug challenges; the environmental devastation and Human Rights abuses caused by illicit drug economies; and the rising dominance of synthetic drugs.

Public Health, prevention, and access to treatment services must be prioritized worldwide, the report argues, or drug challenges will leave more people behind. The report further underscores the need for law enforcement responses to keep pace with agile criminal business models and the proliferation of cheap synthetic drugs that are easy to bring to market.