Here are 2 Back2Basics collections from today’s news items

B2B #1: From news- Accelerate efforts to end rabies: WHO to India, South East Asian countries

GAVI- the Vaccine Alliance

1. Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization is a public-private global health partnership committed to increasing access to immunization in poor countries
2. It is a global Vaccine Alliance with the goal of creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries
3. Gavi brings together developing countries and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialized and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists
4. Gavi was launched in 2000
5. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland

 

B2B #2: From news- MHA fast-tracks security clearance for overseas investment proposals

Revised National Security Clearance Policy, 2015

1. The Ministry of Home Affairs had formulated a new national security clearance policy in 2015 after the government decided to speed up projects, which were stuck for lack of approval by Intelligence Bureau (IB) or other agencies including the State police
2. It has introduced the National Security Clause as an important component of this Policy
3. It aims to extend fast-track security clearance to foreign investment proposals in the critical sectors such as telecom, private security, and defense while ensuring that national interests are not endangered
4. The clearance process aims to boost government’s ease-of-doing-business and Make in India initiative.
5. The policy has 15 parameters on which inputs from security agencies are sought. Once it has got an application from an investor, the Ministry decides on the status of security clearance to the company within 4-6 weeks.
6. As per the policy, the promoters, owners, and directors of the company are mandated to give self-declarations regarding any criminal history on their part, which reduced the period required to give security clearance from 2-3 months earlier to just 4-6 weeks now
7. Security inputs from the Intelligence Bureau, the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and other agencies are sought only in cases of serious crimes and not in case of minor offenses

 

As a part of revision for Prelims 2018, Here’s a Factoid to brush up your concepts

Name : G-7

Brief Intro : The Group of Seven (G7) is an informal bloc of industrialized democracies—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—that meets annually to discuss issues such as global economic governance, international security, and energy policy.

Objective : To discuss issues such as global economic governance, international security, and energy policy.

Type : Summit/ Conference

Category : Economy

Year : 1975

Importance (wr. Prelims) : High

Key Terms/ Institutions spinoffs : Russia belonged to the forum from 1998 through 2014—then the Group of Eight (G8)—but was suspended after its annexation of Crimea in March of that year.