Antibacterial agents in river Ganga

For: Preliminary; Mains: GS I, III
Topics Covered: Geography, Environment, Basic science

News Flash

A study commissioned by the Union Water Resources Ministry to probe the “unique properties” of the Ganga found that the river water contains a significantly higher proportion of organisms with antibacterial properties.

• Other Indian rivers also contain these organisms however the Ganga — especially in its upper Himalayan stretches — has more amount of them.
• In the river Ganga, the bacteriophages were detected to be approximately 3 times more in proportion than bacterial isolates.
• The Ganga may contain unique microbial life, which makes it relatively more resilient to putrefaction.

 

Antibacterial

Antibacterial is an agent that interferes with the growth and reproduction of bacteria. These agents kill or prevent bacteria by fighting against bacterial.

 

Bacteriophages

Bacteriophages are a kind of virus that kill bacteria, they are frequently found in proximity to each other.

 

Background

The study, ‘Assessment of Water Quality and Sediment to Understand Special Properties of River Ganga,’ began in 2016 and was conducted by the Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering and Research Institute (NEERI), a CSIR lab. The NEERI team was tasked with assessing the water quality for “radiological, microbiological and biological” parameters in the Bhagirathi (a feeder river of the Ganga) and the Ganga at 20 sampling stations.

 

How it was assessed

As part of the assessment, five pathogenic species of bacteria (Escherichia, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio) were selected and isolated from the Ganga, Yamuna and the Narmada and their numbers compared with the bacteriophages present in the river water.

 

Findings

• Ganga contained almost 1,100 kinds of bacteriophage.
• There were less than 200 species detected in the samples obtained from the Yamuna and the Narmada.
• The stretch from Gomukh to Tehri had 33% more bacteriophage isolates than from Mana to Haridwar, and Bijnor to Varanasi.
• In the stretch from Patna to Gangasagar, the bacteriophages were only 60% of that in the Gomukh to Tehri stretch.
• The super-phage isolated from Ganga and decoded for its lysine gene and cloned to produce lysine protein at IIT Roorkee holds great potential as an antibacterial pharmaceutical.

 

Evolution of bacteria in river

Residues of antibiotics reach water bodies through waste discharged from households, drug manufacturing units, hospitals and poultry industry where antibiotics are used in feed. These antibiotics in water lead to the evolution of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, which then grow in numbers and spread in the environment.

 

Health issue

The situation could pose a danger to human health as an infection with such kind of resistant bacteria could become untreatable.

 

Other Similar studies

Another study done by researchers from the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), has found the presence of antibiotic as well as and metal resistant bacteria in river Ganga.

• After research, it is said that the bacteria’s resistant to antibiotics like beta-lactam, multidrug/efflux, and elfamycin are highly abundant in the river water.
• In the case of metals, bacteria had genes resistant to ions of silver, copper, iron, chromium, arsenic, and zinc.
• This study suggests that antibiotics and metals are the driving force for the emergence of resistance genes, and their subsequent propagation and accumulation in the environmental bacteria.

 

Source: The Hindu

 

 

CSIR Genome Mapping Project

For: Preliminary

News flash

In an indigenous genetic mapping effort, nearly 1,000 rural youth from the length and breadth of India will have their genomes sequenced by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The project is an adjunct to a much larger government-led programme, still in the works, to sequence at least 10,000 Indian genomes.

Objectives 

• Educating a generation of students on the “usefulness” of genomics.
• Putting a system in place that allows them to access information revealed by their genome
• Making such information ubiquitous even to villages.
• To trace health risks among Indian populations.

 

How it will be done

• Genomes will be sequenced based on a blood sample and the scientists plan to hold at least 30 camps covering most States.
• Every person whose genomes are sequenced will be given a report. The participants would be told if they carry gene variants that make them less responsive to certain classes of medicines.
• “The project would involve the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), with the sequencing to be done at the IGIB and the CCMB.

 

Genome

A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes. Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism.

The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens. It is made up of 23 chromosome pairs with a total of about 3 billion DNA base pairs.

There are 24 distinct human chromosomes: 22 autosomal chromosomes, plus the sex-determining X and Y chromosomes. Chromosomes 1-22 are numbered roughly in order of decreasing size.

 

Human genome

• The human genome was first sequenced in 2003.
• It opened a fresh perspective on the link between disease and the unique genetic make-up of each individual.
• Nearly 10,000 diseases — including cystic fibrosis, thalassemia — are known to be the result of a single gene malfunctioning.
• Genome sequencing has shown that cancer too can be understood from the viewpoint of genetics, rather than being seen as a disease of certain organs.

 

Human Genome Project

All our genes together are known as our “genome.” The Human Genome Project (HGP) was the international, collaborative research program whose goal was the complete mapping and understanding of all the genes of human beings.

The HGP has revealed that there are probably about 20,500 human genes. The completed human sequence can now identify their locations. This ultimate product of the HGP has given the world a resource of detailed information about the structure, organization and function of the complete set of human genes.

 

Applications and proposed benefits

The sequencing of the human genome holds benefits for many fields, from molecular medicine to human evolution.

The potential benefits of HGP-write to India include providing new solutions to diseases like malaria, dengue and chikungunya.

The Human Genome project can help us:

• Understand diseases including: genotyping of specific viruses to direct appropriate treatment.
• Identification of mutations linked to different forms of cancer.
• The design of medication and more accurate prediction of their effects.
• Advancement in forensic applied sciences
• Biofuels and other energy applications
• Agriculture, animal husbandry, bioprocessing
• Risk assessment
• Bioarcheology, anthropology and evolution.

 

Concerns

This project raises concern over the extent to which human life can or should be engineered. It also raises troubling ethical concerns as this project has potential of creating children with no biological parents.

 

Source: The Hindu

 

 

A change proposed in the methodology for taxing multinational companies

For: Preliminary

News Flash

The income tax department proposed a change in the methodology for taxing multinational companies (MNCs), including digital firms, having permanent establishment in India by giving weightage to factors like domestic sales, employee strength (manpower and wages), assets and user base.

The report provides different weightage for digital companies categorising them as “high” and “low or medium” user base with significant economic presence in India.

• In case of ‘high user intensity’, the weight of users should be 20 per cent, share of assets and employees 25 percent each and sales at 30 percent.
• In case of ‘low and medium user intensity’, users should be assigned a weight of 10 percent while three factors would have a weight of 30 percent each.

Loss-making multinational companies with a permanent establishment (PE) or business connection in India could be adversely hit if the income tax department’s recent proposals are implemented.

 

Permanent Establishment

It is a fixed place of business, wholly or partly carried out by a foreign enterprise operating in India. However the definition of permanent establishment differs in each tax treaty.

According to domestic laws, an MNC having a fixed place of business in India is considered as having PE and is taxed.

 

Proposal’s main Points

• MNCs that are incurring global losses or a global profit margin of less than 2% and have operations in India will be deemed to have made a profit of 2% of Indian revenue or turnover and will be taxed accordingly.
• The continuation of Indian operations justifies the presumption of higher profitability of Indian operations, and in such cases, a deeming provision that deems profits of Indian operations at 2% of revenue or turnover derived from India should be introduced.
• The report also suggested the amendments to Rule 10 of income tax rules to provide that in the case of an assessee who is not a resident of India, has a business connection in India and derives sales revenue from India… the income from such business that is attributable to the operations carried out in India and deemed to accrue or arise in India shall be determined by apportioning the profits derived from India by a three equally weighted factors of sales, employees (manpower & wages) and assets.

 

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)

It is a statutory body established as per the Central Board of Revenue Act, 1963. It is India’s official Financial Action Task Force (FATF) unit.

The body vested with the responsibility of administration of laws related to direct taxes through the Department of Income Tax is the CBDT.

 

Source: Business Standard

 

 

ATTENTION

International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)

ICOMOS works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places. It is the only global non-government organisation of this kind, which is dedicated to promoting the application of theory, methodology, and scientific techniques to the conservation of the architectural and archaeological heritage.

ICOMOS is a network of experts that benefits from the interdisciplinary exchange of its members, among which are architects, historians, archaeologists, art historians, geographers, anthropologists, engineers and town planners. The Second Congress of Architects and Specialists of Historic Buildings, in Venice in 1964, adopted 13 resolutions, the first one being the International Restoration Charter, better known as the Venice Charter, and the second one, put forward by UNESCO, provided for the creation of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

 

 

Royal Society fellows

The Royal Society is an independent scientific academy of the U.K. and the Commonwealth, dedicated to promoting excellence in science.

Scientist and businessman Yusuf Hamied is among a host of Indian-origin experts honoured in the 2019 list of new fellows of the U.K.’s Royal Society.The 82-year-old chairman of pharmaceutical major Cipla has been made an honorary fellow of the prestigious body, comprising of many of the world’s most eminent scientists.

Among the Indian-origin scientists elected as fellows this year are microbiologist Gurdyal Besra, mathematicians Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh and health experts Gagandeep Kang and Anant Parekh.