13 May 2024

 About: 

• Politicians and celebrities are frequent visitors to the Trimbakeshwar temple in Nashik, but just 22 km from it is the Takeharsh gram panchayat where people have never seen a single political party campaigning for an election.
• Of the 250 households in the gram panchayat, 90 do not have ration cards, and those that got cards recently were asked to pay ₹500 per person. Despite that, they still do not get ration. During the COVID-19 lockdown, said the villagers, they did not receive foodgrains under the Prime Minister’s free ration scheme.
• Home to Scheduled Tribes such as Warli, Katkari and Kokni, the area does not have electricity, water connections and public transport. People here are not aware of the political representatives for the Lok Sabha election, but they vote anyway. “No one ever visited us. How will we be familiar with their faces and party symbols? We press whatever button (on the EVM) our eye catches first and get done with it,” said 52-year-old Tulsabai Gangaram Pingle from Takeharsh.
• Polling takes place in a government school 3 km away from the village. Bhaudu Ramu Pingle, 40, is a daily wage labourer who feels if he does not vote, he will be declared dead in the government documents. “We are scared that if we do not vote, the government will strike off our names from their documents and declare us dead. If that happens, then our existence will be in danger. What will happen to our family then?” he said.

Struggle for ration card

• Sonali Vijay Nirgude, a 25-year-old woman who runs a household of 10 members, said it has been “eight years since we have been trying to get ration cards for our family”.
• “We have visited all the government offices in Nashik and even sent applications to the Chief Minister’s office in Mumbai, but nothing has worked. We come from underprivileged families. For us, if we get foodgrains through ration, it will be helpful to feed our families,” she said.
• Umabai Madhukar Awhate, 40, from Nirgud Pada, registered for a ration card four years ago by paying ₹500 per card for her family of four, but only she and her husband could secure cards. “I only got ration once four years ago and it was wheat and rice,” she said. “During the lockdown, we did not receive any ration.”

‘No govt. facility’

• Ms. Umabai said except for the Indira Gandhi Awas Yojana, her village does not have any government facility such as the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, piped water supply or electricity.
• Mirabai Panduranga Awhate, 37, from Nirgur Pada, married off her daughter at the age of 13 during the lockdown due to scarcity of food and income. Her 17-year-old son takes up small jobs at construction sites. In the absence of a ration card, she said, the family starved during the lockdown.
• “My husband passed away 15 years ago. Two years ago, I along with other villagers went to the tehsildar’s office asking for our ration cards, but we were insulted by the official,” Ms. Mirabai said.
• She had heard about the widow pension scheme last year, but her application remains on hold. “I was asked to submit documents such as income certificate, death certificate of my husband, Aadhaar card, bank account passbook, and residential proof. I paid them ₹100 to get an income certificate, but it has been over a year and there has been no word from them,” she said.
• Rakmabai Dagru Nirgude from Nirgud Pada is 60 years old. For the last 15 years, her husband, who is a farmer, has been partially paralysed. “Since there is no water and electricity, we cannot grow many crops, so my sons have to take up jobs as daily labourers. It has been days since we have not had drinking water. We live just a kilometre away from Vaitarna Dam, which supplies water to Mumbai city, but we do not receive water to drink or irrigate fields.”

Fight for water

• To source water, villagers mostly walk to the nearest backwater,Vaitarna, 2 km away, where they dig to source clean water for drinking. Some trespass on private property and take water from wells.
• “There are days we are caught, they shout and humiliate us, but we are left with no choice as we fall sick drinking from the backwaters,” said Yashoda Naresh Nirgude, 28.
• Two months ago, a pregnant Varsha Yogesh Nirgude, 24, had gone to the nearest Primary Health Centre, 30 km away in Anjanari village, for delivery. “There was not a single medical staff member and I delivered with the help of my mother. Hours later, a medical staff came and sent me to Nashik for further medical care. It was a nightmare,” she said.
• Among other government schemes, the villagers wish to getNamo Shetkari Yojana, sanitary napkins, electricity, toilets, potable water, healthcare, and employment within their village so that they do not have to migrate in search of jobs.
• Laxmikant Jadhav, from BELIEFS, an NGO working for the livelihood and empowerment of tribal communities, said, “The process and technicalities of getting work or access to government schemes are complicated and hence many are intimidated to approach officials. We have asked for an unemployment allowance for the villagers who have not been able to get work underMGNREGAwithin 15 days. If the villagers do not get work, they will be forced to migrate.”
• On December 22, 2023, 101 women of Nirgud Pada demanded regular work under MGNREGA. On January 26, 2024, they filed a complaint in the gram sabha and within a week some of them got work to construct a small dam with stones. However, only one-third of the labourers were accommodated, and the rest were not hired as they did not have KYC.

Camps for Aadhaar

• About:

• It is a Centrally sponsored scheme, announced in the Union Budget 2022-23 (to 2025-26) for development of villages on the northern border, thus improving the quality of life of people living in identified border villages.
• It will cover the border areas of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Ladakh.
• It will cover 2,963 villages with 663 of them to be covered in the first phase.
• Vibrant Village Action Plans will be created by the district adminstration with the help of Gram Panchayats.
• There will not be overlap with Border Area Development Programme.

• Objective:

• The scheme aids to identify and develop the economic drivers based on local, natural, human and other resources of the border villages on the northern border;
• Development of growth centres on ‘hub and spoke model’ through promotion of social entrepreneurship, empowerment of youth and women through skill development and entrepreneurship;
• Leveraging the tourism potential through promotion of local, cultural, traditional knowledge and heritage;
• Development of sustainable eco-agri businesses on the concept of ‘one village-one product’ through community-based organisations, cooperatives, NGOs.

• Researchers fondly call the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans “the worm” because of its widespread use in research to understand neuronal and molecular biology.
• It was the first multicellular organism to have its full genome sequenced and neural wiring mapped.
• C. elegans grows within 3-5 days from a fertilised egg to a millimetre-long adult, and it has informed profound insights into the human body, as well as biology more broadly.

Message in a bottle

• Pseudomonas vranovensis is a disease-causing bacterium found in C. elegans’s natural environment.
• The researchers found that P. vranovensis makes a small RNA molecule called sRNA.
• When the worms ingest this strain, they also take in the sRNA. The sRNA then altered the worm’s feeding behaviour such that, from that point on, the worms ‘know’ to avoid feeding on this bacterium and save themselves from getting sick.
• Remarkably, this learned avoidance behaviour was found to be transmitted to the trained worm’s progeny, grand-progeny, great-grand progeny, and great-great-grand progeny. The ability decayed only from the fifth generation.
• The same team of researchers had previously discovered this trans-generational ability in C. elegans worms against P. aeruginosa bacteria (which also cause disease in humans).

Understanding RNA, large and small

Diet control

• But not all genes encode mRNAs and proteins. The end product of some genes, especially small genes that are only about a tenth as long (~100-200 rungs), is sRNA.
• These sRNA bind to other proteins and RNAs, and either enhance or reduce the expression of other genes.
• This sRNA reduced the expression of a gene in the worm called maco-1, which plays an important neurological role. As it happens, maco-1 is also found in humans.
• C. elegans worms on a diet of Escherichia coli bacteria.

Good ‘memory loss’

• Another Pseudomonas bacterium, P. mendocina, is also present in the worm’s habitat but it doesn’t cause disease.
• Instead, P. mendocina is a source of nutrition. C. elegans worms trained to avoid the pathogenic P. vranovensis strain avoided feeding on the non-pathogenic P. mendocina as well.
• The sRNA that triggered learned avoidance behaviour came initially from the bacteria and was taken up by the worm that fed on them.
• Thereafter, the sRNA was maintained in the worms’ bodies, transmitted to their descendants, and maintained in them. This happened through a mechanism called RNA interference — which scientists first discovered by studying C. elegans worms.

Conclusion

In fact, discoveries based on studying C. elegans were recognised by Nobel Prizes in 2002, 2006, and 2008. This tiny worm has played an outsized role in the advancement of scientific and medical research. So a question arises: whether our bodies can also take up sRNA molecules from the microbes in our gut, mouth or vagina, and whether they can modify our behaviour, and possibly the behaviour of our children and later generations.

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) Scheme

• PMAY-U, being implemented since June 2015, is one of the major flagship programmes being implemented by the Government of India under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
• Objective: To provide all weather pucca houses to all eligible beneficiaries in the urban areas of the country by the year 2022, through States/UTs/Central Nodal Agencies. 
• The scheme covers the entire urban area of the country, i.e., all statutory towns as per Census 2011 and towns notified subsequently, including Notified Planning/ Development Areas.
• The scheme is being implemented through four verticals:

• Beneficiary Led Construction/ Enhancement (BLC)
• Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP)
• In-situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR)
• Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS). 

• In August 2022, the Union Cabinet approved the continuation of PMAY-U up to 31st December 2024, with all verticals except CLSS, for the completion of already sanctioned houses till 31st March 2022.
• Funding: The credit linked subsidy component will be implemented as a Central Sector Scheme while other three components will be implemented as Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS).
• All houses under PMAY-U have basic amenities like toilet, water supply, electricity, and kitchen. 
• The Mission promotes women empowerment by providing ownership of houses in the name of female member or in joint name.
• Preference has also been given to differently abled persons, senior citizens, SCs, STs, OBCs, Minority, single women, transgender and other weaker & vulnerable sections of the society. 
• PMAY-U has adopted a cafeteria approach to suit the needs of individuals based on the geographical conditions, topography, economic conditions, availability of land, infrastructure etc.