Table of Contents
Special Topic: Monetizing body parts –Good/Bad
• Organs for money has hit headlines as the Union health ministry has recommended that state
health departments offer ‘cash rewards’ for organ donation.
• As per the recommendations, the donor’s family will get anything between Rs 1 lakh–Rs 5 lakh
per year for five years and the organ retrieving hospital will get Rs 50,000.
• Call it a cash prize, call it a reward, but however you name it paying money to the
family of the deceased to incentive’s organ donation is commercialization of an act that is
supposed to be altruistic.
• With deceased organ donation being ‘incentivised’ with money, many families who might otherwise have been agreeable to donation could now refuse, only to avoid the stigma of having ‘sold’ their loved one’s organ.
• Even if they didn’t want money for it, who is to know that they did not take it?
• Who would want to be known as the person who took Rs 5 lakh or more for their loved one’s kidney?
• Would that convert the deceased donation programme into an only poor donors programme, where only poor families, desperate for financial help, will give consent?
• If a family can benefit monetarily from donating the organ of a deceased person, what stops a living person from demanding the same amount, or more, for voluntarily selling his/her kidney?
• Who in the family will take the decision, and who gets to keep the money?
• What if the dying or dead person was against organ donation?
• Will that person’s choice matter at all?
• How do you decide that Rs 5 lakh is good enough when there must be hundreds willing to pay several times that amount?
• There is a reason why monetary incentives are not allowed in any country, barring Iran, for organ donation.
• All countries realize the dangers associated with monetizing body parts, of converting a gift into a commodity.
• If in principle the government is against sale of organs, can the government justify becoming the middleman deciding the prize/price for an organ and enforcing that price/prize in the organ market?
• In a country with such a large poor population without access to transplant facilities, wouldn’t this become a system meant to provide organs for the rich, harvested from the poor?
• Most transplant facilities are concentrated in the private sector, beyond the reach of the poor.
• Till public health facilities offer free transplant facilities ensuring the poor have access to transplants too, can a system offering monetary incentives for donation be considered fair?
• Incentives if needed could be non-monetary.
• For instance, in Israel, first priority is offered for transplants to living donors and their family members.
• Complete reimbursement is offered to living donors for taking time off work and they are given health and life insurance coverage up to five years.
• Registered organ donors of three years or more get second priority and the family members of registered donors get third priority.
• After Israel implemented this system nicknamed “don’t give, don’t get” in 2012, organ transplants in the country shot up by 60% within the first year of implementation.
Election Commission
• The Chief Election Commissioner Shri. O.P. Rawat, along with the Election Commissioners Shri Sunil Arora and Shri Ashok Lavasa launched a mobile app, called ‘Cvigil, ’ on July 3,
2018, for citizens to report any violation of the model code of conduct during elections.
• “cVIGIL” is a user-friendly and easy to operate Android application. It will be operational only where elections are announced. However, the beta version of the app will be made
available for the public and election staff to download so that they can acquaint themselves with its features and also try sending dummy data.
• By using this app, citizens can immediately report on incidents of misconduct within minutes of having witnessed them and without having to rush to the office of the returning officer to
lodge a complaint.
Ministry of Development of North-East Region
• Dr. Jitendra Singh today attended the famous 4-day Meghalaya Annual Cultural Festival,
“Behdienkhlam”, held every year at the small peripheral town of Jowai, Meghalaya.
• Most popular festival of the Jaintia tribe, Behdienkhlam is celebrated in the month of July for good health, property and bumper harvest.
• The non-Christian ‘Pnar’ people who believe either in the traditional faith of ‘Niamtre’ or Hinduism observe this festival.
• The DoNER Minister said that Prime Minister has visited Northeast over 30 times in a short span of four years. Dr Jitendra Singh said that his presence in the event is also a reiteration of the high priority that Prime Minister,
Shri Narendra Modi and his Government accords not only to the development of the region, but also to promote, preserve and patronize the healthy traditional culture and civilization of the region.
Ministry of Home Affairs
• In a major breakthrough on repatriation of displaced Bru persons from Mizoram since 1997, an agreement has been signed by Government of India, Governments of Mizoram and Tripura and Mizoram Bru Displaced.
People’s Forum (MBDPF) here today in presence of Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh, Chief Minister of Mizoram Shri Lalthanhawla, and Chief Minister of Tripura Shri Biplab Kumar Deb.
• 5,407 families comprising of 32,876 persons presently in temporary camps in Tripura will repatriate to Mizoram before 30th Sept 2018.
• Government of India will provide financial assistance for rehabilitation of Brus in Mizoram and address their issues of security, education, livelihood etc. in consultation with Governments of Mizoram and Tripura.
Ministry of Micro,Small & Medium Enterprises
• The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) today launched its, in-house developed, single-umbrella e-marketing system named Khadi Institution Management and Information System (KIMIS) in New Delhi.
• The system can be accessed from anywhere in the country for the sale and purchase of Khadi and Village Industries products.
• It was the need of the hour to develop an in-house single umbrella billing software for sale and purchase that could be monitored, round the-clock, from any part of India.
• This software will give real-time data of sales and will also give the updated status of stocks of khadi bhawans and godowns, allowing better planning and control of inventory of the KVIC.
• He added that 480 Khadi institutions and showrooms are linked with this billing software and it will be useful in raising demand and supply of goods in high demand.
NITI Aayog
• Steeply falling technology costs and business – model innovation are driving the world’s transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles.
• Against this background, NITI Aayog, in collaboration with various ministries and industry partners, is organising ‘MOVE: Global Mobility Summit’ in New Delhi on 7th and 8th September, 2018.
• This Summit will help drive Government’s goals for vehicle electrification, renewable energy integration and job growth and also speed up India’s transition to a clean energy economy.
• MOVE Summit aims to bring together and engage with key stakeholders within the rapidly transforming global mobility landscape and to evolve a public interest framework for a shared,
connected, zero emission and inclusive mobility agenda for the future.
Information Technology Ministry
• The Government has directed the mobile App Whats App to immediately contain the proliferation of fake, motivated and sensational messages in the wake of recent instances of lynching of innocent people.
• Information Technology Ministry, in a statement, pointed out that such platform cannot evade accountability and responsibility specially when good technological inventions are abused by some miscreants who resort to provocative messages which lead to spread of violence.
• The Ministry conveyed that the Whats App must take immediate action to end this menace and ensure that their platform is not used for such malafide activities.
1. Which country hosted the 15th Asia Media Summit (AMS2018)?
A) Singapore
B) India
C) Malaysia
D) China
2. The Supreme Court has struck down which state’s legislation allowing former Chief Ministers to continue occupying government accommodation?
A) Haryana
B) Uttar Pradesh
C) Karnataka
D) Jharkhand
Answers-
1. Which city hosted the 6th US-India Aviation Summit 2018?
A) Ranchi
B) Mumbai
C) New Delhi
D) Pune
2. Who was conferred with the ‘Excellent Woman of Excellence’ award at the Women Economic Forum (WEF) 2018?
A) Anuradha Garg
B) Meenakshi Kapoor
C) Kartika Mukherjee
D) Nisha Bhalla
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