Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-China realtions
This article tracks the faultline in India’s China policy that makes it an enduring tragedy. China never bought into India’s narratives of Asian unity and untied Asian front against the West. Instead, China cultivated its relations with the West and leveraged that for furthering its interests.
Enduring tragedy: India’s China policy
- That tragedy is rooted in persistent political fantasies.
- Refusal to learn from past mistakes.
- And the belief that the US and the West are at the source of India’s problems with China.
- The problem predates independence.
- Each generation has been reluctant to discard the illusions that India’s China policy has nurtured over the last century.
Historical background
- Tagore went to China in 1924 with the ambition of developing a shared Asian spiritual civilisation.
- He was accused by Chines of diverting Chins’s attention away from the imperatives of modernisation and, yes, westernisation.
- Jawaharlal Nehru approached China as a modernist and nationalist.
- He met a delegation of Chinese nationalists at Brussels in 1927.
- There he issued a ringing statement on defeating western imperialism and shaping a new Asian and global order.
- But in Second World War, Congress was unwilling to join hands with China in defeating Japanese imperialism.
- Indian and Chinese nationalists could not come together for they were fighting different imperial powers.
Relations after independence
- As India’s first PM, Nehru campaigned against the western attempt to isolate China.
- Afro-Asian conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955 was attended by both.
- Within five years war broke out in 1962.
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee travelled to China in February 1979 to re-engage Beijing.
- Before he could head home, Beijing had launched a war against a fellow communist regime in Vietnam.
- That was an end of hope for Asian solidarity.
- Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 sought to normalise relations with China while continuing to negotiate on the boundary dispute.
Other issues: Trade entanglement
- Amid border dispute, other issues have taken a life of their own.
- For example, the massive annual trade deficits.
- India’s hope that economic cooperation will improve mutual trust will help resolve other issues was also dashed.
- India’s massive trade deficit with China is now a little over half of its total trade deficit.
- India is finding it hard to disentangle the deep economic dependence on imports from China.
Story of political cooperation: From unipolar to bipolar world
- As the Cold War ended, India began political cooperation with China on global issues.
- It was hoped that such cooperation will provide the basis for better bilateral relations.
- It could not have been more wrong.
- P V Narasimha Rao and his successors joined China and Russia in promoting a “multipolar world” [remember the US dominance].
- Delhi is now struggling to cope with the emergence of a “unipolar Asia” — with Beijing as its dominant centre.
- China’s rapid rise has also paved the way for the potential emergence of a “bipolar world” dominated by Washington and Beijing.
Engagement with West
- China never worked with Indian on the ideas of building coalitions against the West.
- While India never stopped arguing with the West, China developed a sustained engagement with the US, Europe and Japan.
- Mao broke with Communist Russia to join forces with the US in the early 1970s.
- Deng Xiaoping promoted massive economic cooperation with the US to transform China and lay the foundations for its rise.
Will staying away from West lead to good relations with China
- China has leveraged the deep relationship with the West to elevate itself in the international system.
- Delhi continues to think that staying away from America is the answer for good relations with Beijing.
- Beijing sees the world through the lens of power.
- Delhi tends to resist that realist prism.
- India has consistently misread China’s interests and ambitions.
- The longer India takes to shed that strategic lassitude, the greater will be its China trouble.
Facts that India needs to come to terms with
- India must also recognise that China, like the great powers before it, wants to redeem its territorial claims.
- China also has the ambition to bend the neighbourhood to its will, reshape the global order to suit its interests.
- China has not hidden these goals and interests, but India has refused to see what is in plain sight.
Consider the question “Acknowledging Beijing’s rise, scale of challenge it presents, are first steps in crafting a new China policy” Comment.
Conclusion
Acknowledging China’s dramatic rise and recognising the scale of the challenge it presents is essential for Delhi in crafting a new China policy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Comparative advantage
Mains level: Paper 3- Globalisation and issues with it
Protectionism involves the use of one or more restrictions on free trade between countries. What are the main reasons why this should be avoided?
The main arguments against protectionism are outlined below:
Market Distortion and loss of Economic Efficiency
Protectionism can be an ineffective and costly means of sustaining jobs and supporting domestic economic growth:
Higher Prices for Consumers
Import tariffs in particular push up prices for consumers and insulate inefficient domestic sectors from genuine competition. They penalise foreign producers and encourage an inefficient allocation of resources both domestically and globally.
Reduction in Market Access for Producers
Export subsidies depress world prices and damage output, profits, investment and jobs in many lower and middle-income developing countries that rely heavily on exporting primary and manufactured goods for their growth.
Extra Costs for Exporters
For goods that are produced globally, high tariffs and other barriers on imports act as a tax on exports, damaging economies, and jobs, rather than protecting them. For example, a tariff on imported steel can lead to higher costs and lower profits for car manufacturers and the construction industry.
Adverse Effects on Poverty
Higher prices from tariffs tend to hit those on lower incomes hardest, because the tariffs (e.g. on foodstuffs, tobacco, and clothing) fall on products that lower income families spend a higher share of their income. Tariffs can therefore lead to a rise in relative poverty.
Retaliation & Trade Wars
There is the danger that one country imposing import controls will lead to retaliatory action by another.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various personalities that contributed to India's food reaserch
Mains level: Paper 3- Contributors to the India's agri-research
This article introduces us to the Indian winners of the prize that is considered as the Nobel for research in food. Their contribution has benefited agriculture immensely.Here, we’ll get a brief idea about their work.
Word Food Prize
- The World Food Prize is often described as the Nobel for research in food.
- It was set up by Ñorman Borlaug.
- Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972 for his work on hybridisation of wheat and rice.
- His work led to the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s.
Indian winners of the award
- The awards to eight Indians of the total of 50 given so far are a tribute to the country’s agricultural university education and research system.
- The country should celebrate their achievements unabashedly when 7-10 million new productive jobs need to be created annually.
- And when it accounts for a third of global undernourished.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has made job creation and improved nutrition and health more urgent than ever.
Let’s look at the contributions made by these personalities
Rattan Lal
- Rattan Lal was awarded for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production.
- This approach also restores and conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change.
- His research has shown that growing crops on healthy soils produces more food from less land area, less use of agrochemicals, less tillage, less water, and less energy.
M S Swaminathan
- Swaminathan’s vision transformed India from a “begging bowl” to a “breadbasket” almost overnight.
- His work helped bringing the total crop yield of wheat from 12 million tonnes to 23 million tonnes in four crop seasons.
- Which helped in ending India’s dependence on grain imports.
Verghese Kurien
- Kurien, received the prize in 1989 for India’s white revolution.
- Under his leadership, milk production increased from 23.3 million tonnes (1968-69) to 100.9 million tonnes (2006-07).
- And now it is projected to reach 187 million tonnes for 2019-20.
- This helped in bringing millions of small and marginal farmers, including women into the marketplace.
Ramlal Barwale
- Barwale, a small farmer and entrepreneur, received the award in 1996.
- He made selling seeds of okra and sorghum “hip” and founded the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company.
- The Crop Science Society of America has called him father of the seed industry in India.
- He introduced hybrid rice from China to India.
Surinder Vasal
- Vasal was given the prize in 2000 for developing quality protein maize (QPM).
- Integrating cereal chemistry and plant breeding techniques, Vasal and Villegas of Mexico collaborated to work on “opaque-2” maize variety using molecular biology techniques.
- In the mid-1980s, they produced a QPM germplasm with hard kernel characteristics and taste like that of the traditional grain.
- But it has much higher quality levels of lysine and tryptophan, thereby enhancing the nutrition value.
Mododugu Gupta
- Gupta received the award in 2005 for starting a blue revolution.
- He developed two exceptional approaches for increasing fish harvests among the very poor.
- This helped in increasing the protein and mineral content in the diets of over one million of the world’s most impoverished families.
- Gupta’s aquaculture technologies boosted Bangladesh’s fish yields from 304 kg per hectare to over 2,500 kg per hectare in less than a year — including 1,000 kg per hectare harvests in the dry season.
Sanjaya Rajaram
- Rajaram, who won the prize in 2014.
- He succeeded Borlaug in leading CIMMYT’s wheat breeding programme.
- There he went on to develop an astounding 480 varieties that have been widely adopted by both small and large-scale farmers.
- Rajaram was born near a small farming village in Uttar Pradesh and received his master’s degree from IARI.
Decreasing government support
- The awardees all come from the time of the green and rainbow revolutions (of dairy and aqua-culture).
- It was also the time when India invested heavily in agricultural science education and research and Indian scientists shone brightly in the global galaxy of science.
- Government support for state agricultural universities, and research conducted by the ICAR and the departments of science and technology and biotechnology has slipped in recent years.
- Today, not a single Indian university is counted among the top 100 in the world.
Consider the question asked by the UPSC in 2019 “How was India benefitted from the contributions of Sir M.Visvesvaraya and Dr M. S. Swaminathan in the fields of water engineering and agricultural science respectively?”
Conclusion
Students and faculty at ICAR and state agricultural universities can follow in their footsteps and achieve scientific excellence, if they receive the resources and their work is supported with incentives.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: RIC
Mains level: India-China border skirmishes and its de-escalation
Russia has emerged, all of a sudden, as a key diplomatic player amid the tension between India and China. It is set to host the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting.
Practice question for mains:
Q. In pursuit of a ‘Special Strategic Partnership’ with the US, India has compromised its ties with Russia. Discuss.
Raksha Mantri stepping in at RIC
- Tensions being at the peak, India will discuss supply and purchase of new defence systems — like the S-400 missile defence system — with the Russian top brass in the military and government.
- India has made this decision to reach out to Russia not just out of choice, but also out of necessity.
- Moscow has leverage and influence to shape and change Beijing’s hard stance on the border issue.
Russia: A mediator for both
- While India and China have been talking at each other — and not to each other — the outreach to Moscow is noteworthy.
- It is widely known that Russia and China have grown their relationship in the past few years.
- The Moscow-Beijing axis is crucial, especially since Washington has been at loggerheads with China in recent months and Russia much more calibrated, even in its response on the Covid-19 outbreak.
Sino-Russian ties: A response to US
- Russia and China have had a rocky start to their relationship after Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China.
- When Mao made his first visit to Moscow after winning control of China, in 1949, he was made to wait for weeks for a meeting with the Soviet leader.
- During the Cold War, China and the USSR were rivals after the Sino-Soviet split in 1961, competing for control of the worldwide Communist movement.
- There was a serious possibility of a major war in the early 1960s and a brief border war took place in 1969.
- This enmity began to reduce following Mao’s death in 1976, but relations were not very good until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
India and Russia
- India has a historical relationship with Russia, spanning over seven decades.
- While the relationship has grown in some areas and atrophied in some others, the strongest pillar of the strategic partnership is of the defence basket.
- Although New Delhi has consciously diversified its new purchases from other countries, the bulk of its defence equipment is from Russia.
- Estimates say 60 to 70 per cent of India’s supplies are from Russia, and New Delhi needs a regular and reliable supply of spare parts from the Russian defence industry.
- In fact, Prime Minister Modi has held informal summits with only two leaders — Xi and Putin.
Russia position: then & now
- During the Doklam crisis in 2017, Russian diplomats in Beijing were among the few briefed by the Chinese government.
- While Russia’s position during the 1962 war was not particularly supportive of India, New Delhi takes comfort in Moscow’s support during the 1971 war.
- On the events in Galwan, Moscow responded in a much-calibrated manner.
- Kremlin has expressed its concerns over a clash between the military on the border between China and India but believes that the two countries could resolve this conflict themselves.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Galwan valley, Shyok River
Mains level: Mountain warfare preparedness of India
The violent standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley of Ladakh region has thrown the spotlight on high-altitude warfare and the challenges that troops face, particularly when advantageous positions on the heights are occupied by the other side.
In the clouds of war, one may recall the huge amount of casualties faced by the Indian Army compared to the Pakistani side (being at advantageous positions) during the Kargil War.
Try this question for mains:
Q. Discuss why high-altitude warfare is challenging. Also discuss about India’s preparedness for a long-term war.
How is high-altitude warfare fought?
- High-altitude warfare is fought keeping the terrain and weather in mind.
- The kind of infrastructure and training that the troops require for high-altitude warfare are key factors.
- The evolution of such warfare goes back a long way: European countries had mountain brigades in view of the kind of terrain prevalent in those countries.
- The harshness of the terrain calls for a specialised kind of training to prepare soldiers in terms of mindset and acclimatization.
How is India equipped in such warfare?
- Generally, India is considered a hub of mountain warfare skills since most of the country’s north and northeast requires such skills.
- Ladakh Scouts are considered the best in this kind of warfare.
- Mountain chop, a tactic involved in such warfare, evolved in India where the mountainous terrain is very difficult to scale.
- To begin with, the troops are imparted training in basic and advance training in mountaineering to make them equipped for mountain warfare.
Actual tactics involved
- The mindsets of the enemy sitting above are assessed. Taking stock of the entire situation, one needs to find out the easiest approaches.
- Especially when there are vertical cliffs, it is generally perceived that the enemy that has taken defensive positions will be less guarded from the side of difficult approaches.
- Basically, the most difficult approaches where the enemy is likely to give the least resistance need to be used efficiently.
What are the challenges involved in warfare in a high-altitude place like Galwan Valley?
- A big factor is who has taken defensive positions and who is sitting on higher ground.
- Once troops are sitting on high ground, it becomes very difficult to dislodge them from there.
- In a place like Galwan Valley, which is absolutely barren, there is not much hiding place.
- The soldier on high ground is absolutely stationary, which makes those on lower terrain easy targets; the enemy can pick them up one by one.
- Normally in mountain warfare, troops on lower ground use a combat ratio of 1:6, but in circumstances as in Galwan, it may go up to 1:10.
How to approach such situations?
- Generally, mountain warfare is fought using the period of darkness to reach the opposing army, engage and overpower them before the first light of day.
- In case troops do not have the capabilities, fitness or strategies to do so before dawn, then it is a lost cause.
- But without adequate trained troops who are well-versed with the terrain and are properly acclimatized, it is not an easy game.
What are the other challenges faced by soldiers in high altitudes?
- The first major factor is acclimatization since the oxygen supply reduces drastically.
- Next, the load-carrying capacity of individuals reduces drastically.
- Things move very slowly in the mountains and mobilization of troops consumes time.
- Thus, time and place need to be kept on top priority when deciding where the troops have to be stationed and how they have to be mobilized.
What are the logistical challenges in this kind of warfare?
- One major challenge is that weapons jam, particularly in high-altitude areas.
- When a soldier is at a height of 17,000 ft or above, it is very cold, and he needs to grease the weapons and clean the barrels at least once a week to ensure they function efficiently.
- But at the time of combat, this becomes difficult.
- Vehicles do not start when fuel jams. If the fuel is diesel, it won’t ignite unless it is mixed with thinners or other chemicals to make them thin enough to fire the engine.
Ensuring proper reinforcement
- In Galwan, which is an extremely tactical area and strategically important, reinforcement plays a vital role, particularly when the Indian troops are not in a position of advantage.
- For communication equipment, troops need to carry more batteries because they drain very quickly at high altitude.
- While a battery tends to last for 24 hours in the plains, it will drain in 1-2 hours in these severely cold areas.
- Transport animals such as mules need to be used to maintain adequate supplies, which is not an easy task. Weather constraints play a major factor.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IPO
Mains level: LIC disinviestment
The government has started the process to launch the initial public offer (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) within this year.
Read the complete thread here at:
[Burning Issue] Divestment of LIC
Try this question from CSP 2019:
Q.In India, which of the following review the independent regulators in sectors like telecommunications, insurance, electricity, etc.?
- Ad Hoc Committees set up by the Parliament
- Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committees
- Finance Commission
- Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission
- NITI Aayog
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 and 2
(b) 1, 3 and 4
(c) 3, 4 and 5
(d) 2 and 5
About LIC
- LIC is an state-owned insurance group and investment corporation owned by the Government of India.
- It was founded in 1956 when the Parliament of India passed the Life Insurance of India Act that nationalized the insurance industry in India.
- Over 245 insurance companies and provident societies were merged to create the state-owned LIC.
Why LIC IPO?
- LIC is the largest investor in government securities and stock markets every year.
- On an average, LIC invests Rs 55,000 crore to Rs 65,000 crore in stock markets every year and emerges as the largest investor in Indian stocks.
- LIC also has huge investments in debentures and bonds besides providing funding for many infrastructure projects according to its Annual Report for 2017-18.
Biggest IPO in Indian markets
- The finance ministry has invited bids from transaction advisors, including consulting firms, investment bankers, and financial institutions, for assisting the government in the preparatory processes leading to the IPO.
- The IPO is expected to be the biggest in the Indian capital markets given the size and scale of LIC, the country’s oldest and largest life insurer.
What is the size and position of LIC in the insurance market?
- Even if the government decides to sell 5-10 per cent of its equity in LIC through an IPO, the share sale of LIC, which was set up in 1956, is expected to be the largest.
- The insurer’s total assets had touched an all-time high of Rs 31.11 lakh crore in 2018-19, an increase of 9.4 per cent.
- The Corporation realized a profit of Rs 23,621 crore from its equity investment during 2018-19, down 7.89 per cent from Rs 25,646 crore in the previous year.
- LIC would have at least one transaction of IPO of a size of at least Rs 5,000 crore, or a capital market transaction of at least Rs 15,000 crore.
How does LIC fit into the overall disinvestment roadmap?
- In the Budget 2020-21, the finance ministry had announced plans for IPO of LIC and a proposal to sell the government’s equity in the stressed IDBI Bank.
- The government expects to raise Rs 90,000 crore through stake sale in LIC and IDBI Bank, and another Rs 1.2 lakh crore through other disinvestments.
- LIC is also a majority shareholder in IDBI Bank.
- The government had earlier listed the shares of General Insurance Corporation and New India Assurance through IPOs three years ago.
What benefits can be expected through the IPO?
- An IPO will certainly bring in transparency into affairs of LIC since it will be required to inform financial numbers and other market-related developments on time to the stock exchanges.
- Investors can benefit from picking up equity in the insurer, which has been making underwriting profit as well as profits on its investments.
- LIC’s investment in various equity and bond instruments will come under greater scrutiny after its lists on the exchanges.
Back2Basics: IPO
- IPO means Initial Public Offering. It is a process by which a privately held company becomes a publicly-traded company by offering its shares to the public for the first time.
- Offering an IPO is a money-making exercise. Every company needs money, it may be to expand, to improve their business, to better the infrastructure, to repay loans, etc.
- A private company, that has a handful of shareholders, shares the ownership by going public by trading its shares.
- Through the IPO, the company gets its name listed on the stock exchange.
Also read:
Disinvestment Policy in India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UN Arms Trade Treay
Mains level: Arms Trade Treay and its significance
China will join a global pact to regulate arms sales that has been rejected by the United States.
The New START, INF, Open Skies and now the ATT …. Be clear about the differences of these treaties. For example- to check if their inception was during cold war era etc.
What is the Arms Trade Treaty?
- The Arms Trade Treaty is a multilateral treaty that regulates the international trade in conventional weapons. It entered into force on 4th December 2014.
- The ATT is an attempt to regulate the international trade of conventional weapons for the purpose of contributing to international and regional peace; reducing human suffering; and promoting co-operation, transparency, and responsible action by and among states.
- 105 states have ratified the treaty, and a further 32 states have signed but not ratified it.
- India has abstained from voting for this Treaty
Highlights of the treaty
ATT requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that could be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians. The treaty would ensure that no transfer is permitted if there is a substantial risk that it is likely to:
- be used in serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, or acts of genocide or crimes against humanity;
- facilitate terrorist attacks, a pattern of gender-based violence, violent crime, or organized crime;
- violate UN Charter obligations, including UN arms embargoes;
- be diverted from its stated recipient;
- adversely affect regional security; or
- seriously impair poverty reduction or socioeconomic development.
China’s agenda at ATT
- Beijing saying it is committed to efforts to “enhance peace and stability” in the world.
- It comes after the US announced plans last year to pull the United States out of the agreement which entered into force in 2014.
- The US Senate never ratified the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty after former president Barack Obama endorsed it, and Trump has said he would revoke his predecessor’s signature.
Why has India abstained?
- From the beginning of the ATT process, India has maintained that such a treaty should make a real impact on illicit trafficking in conventional arms and their illicit use especially by terrorists and other unauthorized and unlawful non-state actors.
- India has also stressed consistently that the ATT should ensure a balance of obligations between exporting and importing states.
- However, the ATT is weak on terrorism and non-state actors (undoubtedly Pakistan) and these concerns find no mention in the specific prohibitions of the Treaty.
- Further, India cannot accept that the Treaty is used as an instrument in the hands of exporting states to take unilateral force majeure measures against importing states parties without consequences.
Also read:
U.S. set to exit the ‘Open Skies Treaty’ Copy
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ITF, OECD
Mains level: Policy measures for cleaner transportation
NITI Aayog in collaboration with International Transport Forum (ITF) is set to launch the “Decarbonising Transport in India” project with the intention to develop a pathway towards a low-carbon transport system for India.
Note the following things about ‘Decarbonising Transport in India (DTI)’ Project:
-
Associated international institution
-
Whether the institution is a UN body or not
-
If India is a member of that body
The DTI Project
- The India project is carried out in the wider context of the International Transport Forum’s “Decarbonising Transport” initiative.
- It is part of the “Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies” (DTEE) family of projects, which supports transport decarbonisation across different world regions.
- India, Argentina, Azerbaijan, and Morocco are current participants.
- The DTEE is a collaboration between the ITF and the Wuppertal Institute, supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment.
Objectives of the project
- The project will design a tailor-made transport emissions assessment framework for India.
- It will provide the government with a detailed understanding of current and future transport activity and the related CO2 emissions as a basis for their decision-making.
About International Transport Forum (ITF)
- The ITF is an inter-governmental organisation within the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) system.
- It is the only global body with a mandate for all modes of transport.
- It acts as a think tank for transport policy issues and organises the annual global summit of transport ministers.
- The ITF’s motto is “Global dialogue for better transport”.
- India has been a member of ITF since 2008.
Back2Basics: OCED
- The OECD is an international, intergovernmental economic organization of 36 countries.
- OECD was founded in the year 1961 to stimulate world trade and economic progress.
- OECD originated in 1948, as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC).
- The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) was founded to govern the predominantly US-funded Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction on the continent.
- The OEEC was instrumental in helping the European Economic Community (EEC). The EEC has evolved into the European Union (EU) to establish a European Free Trade Area.
- India is NOT a member of OECD.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Foldscope
Mains level: NA
Indian researchers have explored and validated the clinical utility of Foldscope in the diagnosis of diseases using various patient samples.
Though trivial, Foldscope is a significant invention with most crucial applications. It somehow offers an alternative to costly microscopes for some basic diagnosis.
What is Foldscope?
- Foldscope is an affordable origami-based microscopy device composed of a series of paper clippings.
- Upon assembly, the device can hold a specimen slide for observation, and this specimen can be viewed via a mobile phone camera attached to it.
How does it work?
- Foldscope can be assembled using paper clips and mounted on a cell phone using coupler and glue drops.
- To do the assessment, a patient sample like urine is smeared on a transparent glass slide and visualized under a Foldscope mounted on a cell phone.
- Sample images can be enlarged using the zoom function of the mobile, which can be stored on the mobile memory card for later reference/patient records.
- Foldscope visualizes calcium oxalate crystals, which are a major cause of kidney stones.
Utility of Foldscope
- Foldscope is particularly convenient to diagnose urinary tract infection (UTI) and monitor kidney stone.
- The study evaluated the use of Foldscope in the clinical diagnosis of oral and urinary tract infections.
- Using this tool, one can easily monitor own-kidney stone status at home with a simple glass-slide, a Foldscope and a phone in hand.
- Such monitoring could perhaps avoid kidney stone reaching a painful state or surgery in recurring cases.
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