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1. Medicine Nobel 2023 goes to duo who paved the way for mRNA COVID vaccines - Page No.1, GS 3
2. At 36%, EBCs largest group in Bihar, shows caste study - Page No.1 ,GS 1
3. Capturing the rains - Page No.6 , GS 3
4. The narrative of development and populism - Page No.6 , GS 2
5. Criminal law Bills and a hollow decolonisation - Page No.6 , GS 2
6. Building BRICS for the future - Page No.7 , GS 2
7. World reported twice as many cholera cases in 2022 as in 2021: WHO - Page NO7,GS2

Medicine Nobel 2023 goes to duo who paved the way for mRNA COVID vaccines - Page No.1, GS 3

• Colonisation is, broadly, a process of oppression where the colonised become vehicles for the supreme colonial power to fulfil its desires, The subject unquestioningly serves the colonial state and remains at its mercy.
• Those in power have rights; those without must oblige.
• A 'decolonised' or a post-colonial law, then, would necessarily need to reflect the changed relationship between the citizen and the state.
• Many of the 'new' offences are already covered by existing laws (either under special laws or the Indian Penal Code). Adding an additional layer of criminalisation, therefore, does nothing except increase police powers.

• The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Hungarian biochemist Katalin Kariko an American physician-scientist Drew Weissman. Announcing the names on Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science said they had been feted for "discoveries concerning nucleoside base modification that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19".
• Dr. Kariko is only the 13th woman to win the prize.
• mRNA stands for messenger RNA, a type of molecule that carries instructions from the DNA to a cell's cytoplasm, where those messages are 'read' to produce various proteins. In the late 1980s, scientists realised that mRNA could become the basis for a new kind of vaccines if some hurdles could be overcome.
• The idea was to inject the body with a modified mRNA that would instruct cells to build a certain protein, which could then provoke the body's immune system to 'attack' it as well as prepare itself to encounters with the same protein in future. This protein could be something produced by a virus — such as the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. But the mRNA would have to survive its journey inside the body and be able to enter a cell.

At 36%, EBCs largest group in Bihar, shows caste study - Page No.1 ,GS 1

• The report said the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) make up 27.1286% of the population of the State; the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) 36.0148%; the Scheduled Castes 19.6518%; and the Scheduled Tribes 1.6824%. The upper castes make up 15.5224%. Hindus form 81.9986% of the population and Muslims 17.7088%. The total population is over 13 crore.
• The survey report — Bihar Jaati Adharit Ganana, 2022 (Bihar caste-based survey, 2022) — says the Yadays make up 14.26% of the State population; Kushwahas 4.27%; and and Kurmis 2.87%. The Musahar caste makes up 3% of the State population and Brahmins 3.66%. The upper-caste Kasha community comes to 0.68% population of the State.

• First Caste Census as SECC (Socio-Economic and Caste Census):
• SECC was conducted for the first time in 1931.
• SECC is meant to canvass every Indian family, both in rural and urban India, and ask about their:
• Economic status, so as to allow Central and State authorities to come up with a range of indicators of deprivation, permutations, and combinations of which could be used by each authority to define a poor or deprived person.
• It is also meant to ask every person their specific caste name to allow the government to re-evaluate which caste groups were economically worst off and which were better off.
• SECC has the potential to allow for a mapping of inequalities at a broader level.

Capturing the rains - Page No.6 , GS 3

• For the first time since 2018, India has reported a deficit monsoon.
• About 9% of the country received 'excess' rainfall with 18% getting 'deficient' and the rest of the country, 'normal' rainfall.
• The spatial and temporal variance of the monsoon reiterates the need to invest in more resilient infrastructure that can be an all-weather insurance against the increasingly unpredictable vagaries of the global climate.
• The pattern in recent years is to improve forecast models that are better able to warn of significant changes in weather a week or two ahead than having approaches that fail to capture the dynamics of the Indian monsoon. More money and expertise should be directed k towards this.

The narrative of development and populism - Page No.6 , GS 2

• Equating development to visible mega-infrastructure could, over time, become a dangerous obsession.
• Conventional models of economic growth did not attach much importance to distribution as it was expected to be an inbuilt consequence of growth. These models assumed that the benefits of growth would percolate through the 'trickle-down effect', that is, growth is characterised as a 'high tide that lifts all boats'.
• While economic populism imposes fiscal costs, inappropriate physical infrastructure-led development imposes additional costs, especially environmental costs. These costs might work as a binding constraint on subsequent governments.

Criminal law Bills and a hollow decolonisation - Page No.6 , GS 2

• Colonisation is broadly a process of oppression where the colonised become vehicles for the supreme colonial power to fulfil its desire. The subject unquestioningly serves the colonial state and remains at its mercy.
• Those in power have rights; those without must oblige.
• A Aecolonised' or a post-colonial law, then, would necessarily need to reflect the changed relationship between the citizen and the state.
• Many of the 'new' offences are already covered by existing laws (either under special laws or the Indian Penal Code). Adding an additional layer of criminalisation, therefore, does nothing except increase police powers.