1) Addressing AMR in the Draft Pandemic Treaty: The Draft Pandemic treaty also known as “Zero Draft”, is currently under negotiation by Member States at the World Health Assembly.
- It is an international agreement proposed to prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics and global health emergencies.
Principle Components of the Draft:
- calls for increased global coordination and cooperation.
- emphasizes the need to strengthen health systems in all countries.
- calls for increased investment in research and development.
- calls for increased transparency and sharing of information about pandemics.
- Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS) has been constituted under the WHO, making genomic sequences of all pathogens with the pandemic potential to be shared on an “equal footing” in the system.
- in addressing gender disparities in the healthcare workforce, the draft aims to “ensure meaningful representation.
2) India-US Relations: India and the United States have agreed to initiate negotiations for a ‘Security of Supply’ (SoS) arrangement and a ‘Reciprocal Defence Procurement’ (RDP) agreement, aiming to promote long-term supply chain stability and enhance security and defence cooperation between both countries.
- The U.S.-India strategic partnership is founded on shared values including a commitment to democracy and upholding the rules-based international system.
- The U.S. has emerged as India’s biggest trading partner in 2022-23 on account of increasing economic ties between the two countries.
- India and the United States cooperate closely atwithultilateral organizations, including the UN, G-20, ASEAN Regional Forum, IMF, World Bank, QUAD, IPEF, IORA, USAID and WTO.
3) Prepaid Payment Instrument: A committee reviewing customer service standards for RBRBI-regulated entities has recommended the extension of Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) to Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) to protect against fraud and unauthorized transactions.
- PPIs are instruments that facilitate the purchase of goods and services, conduct of financial services and enable Remittance facilities, among others, against the money stored in them.
- There are two types of PPIs: Small PPIs and full-KYC (know your customer) PPIs.
- PPIs can be loaded/reloaded by cash, debit to a bank account, or credit and debit cards.
- Issuance: PPIs can be issued by banks and non-banks after obtaining approval from the RBI.
