Eminent scientist who has been appointed as Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for a two-year term? ?->(Show Answer!)

1. Eminent scientist who has been appointed as Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for a two-year term?

Answer: Dr.S. Christopher.

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MCQ-> The current debate on intellectual property rights (IPRs) raises a number of important issues concerning the strategy and policies for building a more dynamic national agricultural research system, the relative roles of public and private sectors, and the role of agribusiness multinational corporations (MNCs). This debate has been stimulated by the international agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), negotiated as part of the Uruguay Round. TRIPs, for the first time, seeks to bring innovations in agricultural technology under a new worldwide IPR regime. The agribusiness MNCs (along with pharmaceutical companies) played a leading part in lobbying for such a regime during the Uruguay Round negotiations. The argument was that incentives are necessary to stimulate innovations, and that this calls for a system of patents which gives innovators the sole right to use (or sell/lease the right to use) their innovations for a specified period and protects them against unauthorised copying or use. With strong support of their national governments, they were influential in shaping the agreement on TRIPs, which eventually emerged from the Uruguay Round. The current debate on TRIPs in India - as indeed elsewhere - echoes wider concerns about ‘privatisation’ of research and allowing a free field for MNCs in the sphere of biotechnology and agriculture. The agribusiness corporations, and those with unbounded faith in the power of science to overcome all likely problems, point to the vast potential that new technology holds for solving the problems of hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the world. The exploitation of this potential should be encouraged and this is best done by the private sector for which patents are essential. Some, who do not necessarily accept this optimism, argue that fears of MNC domination are exaggerated and that farmers will accept their products only if they decisively outperform the available alternatives. Those who argue against agreeing to introduce an IPR regime in agriculture and encouraging private sector research are apprehensive that this will work to the disadvantage of farmers by making them more and more dependent on monopolistic MNCs. A different, though related apprehension is that extensive use of hybrids and genetically engineered new varieties might increase the vulnerability of agriculture to outbreaks of pests and diseases. The larger, longer-term consequences of reduced biodiversity that may follow from the use of specially bred varieties are also another cause for concern. Moreover, corporations, driven by the profit motive, will necessarily tend to underplay, if not ignore, potential adverse consequences, especially those which are unknown and which may manifest themselves only over a relatively long period. On the other hand, high-pressure advertising and aggressive sales campaigns by private companies can seduce farmers into accepting varieties without being aware of potential adverse effects and the possibility of disastrous consequences for their livelihood if these varieties happen to fail. There is no provision under the laws, as they now exist, for compensating users against such eventualities. Excessive preoccupation with seeds and seed material has obscured other important issues involved in reviewing the research policy. We need to remind ourselves that improved varieties by themselves are not sufficient for sustained growth of yields. in our own experience, some of the early high yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat were found susceptible to widespread pest attacks; and some had problems of grain quality. Further research was necessary to solve these problems. This largely successful research was almost entirely done in public research institutions. Of course, it could in principle have been done by private companies, but whether they choose to do so depends crucially on the extent of the loss in market for their original introductions on account of the above factors and whether the companies are financially strong enough to absorb the ‘losses’, invest in research to correct the deficiencies and recover the lost market. Public research, which is not driven by profit, is better placed to take corrective action. Research for improving common pool resource management, maintaining ecological health and ensuring sustainability is both critical and also demanding in terms of technological challenge and resource requirements. As such research is crucial to the impact of new varieties, chemicals and equipment in the farmer’s field, private companies should be interested in such research. But their primary interest is in the sale of seed materials, chemicals, equipment and other inputs produced by them. Knowledge and techniques for resource management are not ‘marketable’ in the same way as those inputs. Their application to land, water and forests has a long gestation and their efficacy depends on resolving difficult problems such as designing institutions for proper and equitable management of common pool resources. Public or quasi-public research institutions informed by broader, long-term concerns can only do such work. The public sector must therefore continue to play a major role in the national research system. It is both wrong and misleading to pose the problem in terms of public sector versus private sector or of privatisation of research. We need to address problems likely to arise on account of the public-private sector complementarity, and ensure that the public research system performs efficiently. Complementarity between various elements of research raises several issues in implementing an IPR regime. Private companies do not produce new varieties and inputs entirely as a result of their own research. Almost all technological improvement is based on knowledge and experience accumulated from the past, and the results of basic and applied research in public and quasi-public institutions (universities, research organisations). Moreover, as is increasingly recognised, accumulated stock of knowledge does not reside only in the scientific community and its academic publications, but is also widely diffused in traditions and folk knowledge of local communities all over. The deciphering of the structure and functioning of DNA forms the basis of much of modern biotechnology. But this fundamental breakthrough is a ‘public good’ freely accessible in the public domain and usable free of any charge. Various techniques developed using that knowledge can however be, and are, patented for private profit. Similarly, private corporations draw extensively, and without any charge, on germplasm available in varieties of plants species (neem and turmeric are by now famous examples). Publicly funded gene banks as well as new varieties bred by public sector research stations can also be used freely by private enterprises for developing their own varieties and seek patent protection for them. Should private breeders be allowed free use of basic scientific discoveries? Should the repositories of traditional knowledge and germplasm be collected which are maintained and improved by publicly funded organisations? Or should users be made to pay for such use? If they are to pay, what should be the basis of compensation? Should the compensation be for individuals or (or communities/institutions to which they belong? Should individual institutions be given the right of patenting their innovations? These are some of the important issues that deserve more attention than they now get and need serious detailed study to evolve reasonably satisfactory, fair and workable solutions. Finally, the tendency to equate the public sector with the government is wrong. The public space is much wider than government departments and includes co- operatives, universities, public trusts and a variety of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Giving greater autonomy to research organisations from government control and giving non- government public institutions the space and resources to play a larger, more effective role in research, is therefore an issue of direct relevance in restructuring the public research system.Which one of the following statements describes an important issue, or important issues, not being raised in the context of the current debate on IPRs?
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MCQ-> India is rushing headlong toward economic success and modernisation, counting on high- tech industries such as information technology and biotechnology to propel the nation toprosperity. India’s recent announcement that it would no longer produce unlicensed inexpensive generic pharmaceuticals bowed to the realities of the World TradeOrganisation while at the same time challenging the domestic drug industry to compete with the multinational firms. Unfortunately, its weak higher education sector constitutes the Achilles’ Heel of this strategy. Its systematic disinvestment in higher education inrecent years has yielded neither world-class research nor very many highly trained scholars, scientists, or managers to sustain high-tech development. India’s main competitors especially China but also Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea — are investing in large and differentiated higher education systems. They are providingaccess to large number of students at the bottom of the academic system while at the same time building some research-based universities that are able to compete with theworld’s best institutions. The recent London Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of the world’s top 200 universities included three in China, three in Hong Kong,three in South Korea, one in Taiwan, and one in India (an Indian Institute of Technology at number 41.— the specific campus was not specified). These countries are positioningthemselves for leadership in the knowledge-based economies of the coming era. There was a time when countries could achieve economic success with cheap labour andlow-tech manufacturing. Low wages still help, but contemporary large-scale development requires a sophisticated and at least partly knowledge-based economy.India has chosen that path, but will find a major stumbling block in its university system. India has significant advantages in the 21st century knowledge race. It has a large high ereducation sector — the third largest in the world in student numbers, after China andthe United States. It uses English as a primary language of higher education and research. It has a long academic tradition. Academic freedom is respected. There are asmall number of high quality institutions, departments, and centres that can form the basis of quality sector in higher education. The fact that the States, rather than the Central Government, exercise major responsibility for higher education creates a rather cumbersome structure, but the system allows for a variety of policies and approaches. Yet the weaknesses far outweigh the strengths. India educates approximately 10 per cent of its young people in higher education compared with more than half in the major industrialised countries and 15 per cent in China. Almost all of the world’s academic systems resemble a pyramid, with a small high quality tier at the top and a massive sector at the bottom. India has a tiny top tier. None of its universities occupies a solid position at the top. A few of the best universities have some excellent departments and centres, and there is a small number of outstanding undergraduate colleges. The University Grants Commission’s recent major support of five universities to build on their recognised strength is a step toward recognising a differentiated academic system and fostering excellence. At present, the world-class institutions are mainly limited to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and perhaps a few others such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. These institutions, combined, enroll well under 1 percent of the student population. India’s colleges and universities, with just a few exceptions, have become large, under-funded, ungovernable institutions. At many of them, politics has intruded into campus life, influencing academic appointments and decisions across levels. Under-investment in libraries, information technology, laboratories, and classrooms makes it very difficult to provide top-quality instruction or engage in cutting-edge research.The rise in the number of part-time teachers and the freeze on new full-time appointments in many places have affected morale in the academic profession. The lackof accountability means that teaching and research performance is seldom measured. The system provides few incentives to perform. Bureaucratic inertia hampers change.Student unrest and occasional faculty agitation disrupt operations. Nevertheless, with a semblance of normality, faculty administrators are. able to provide teaching, coordinate examinations, and award degrees. Even the small top tier of higher education faces serious problems. Many IIT graduates,well trained in technology, have chosen not to contribute their skills to the burgeoning technology sector in India. Perhaps half leave the country immediately upon graduation to pursue advanced study abroad — and most do not return. A stunning 86 per cent of students in science and technology fields from India who obtain degrees in the United States do not return home immediately following their study. Another significant group, of about 30 per cent, decides to earn MBAs in India because local salaries are higher.—and are lost to science and technology.A corps of dedicated and able teachers work at the IlTs and IIMs, but the lure of jobs abroad and in the private sector make it increasingly difficult to lure the best and brightest to the academic profession.Few in India are thinking creatively about higher education. There is no field of higher education research. Those in government as well as academic leaders seem content to do the “same old thing.” Academic institutions and systems have become large and complex. They need good data, careful analysis, and creative ideas. In China, more than two-dozen higher education research centers, and several government agencies are involved in higher education policy.India has survived with an increasingly mediocre higher education system for decades.Now as India strives to compete in a globalized economy in areas that require highly trained professionals, the quality of higher education becomes increasingly important.India cannot build internationally recognized research-oriented universities overnight,but the country has the key elements in place to begin and sustain the process. India will need to create a dozen or more universities that can compete internationally to fully participate in the new world economy. Without these universities, India is destined to remain a scientific backwater.Which of the following ‘statement(s) is/are correct in the context of the given passage ? I. India has the third largest higher education sector in the world in student numbers. II. India is moving rapidly toward economic success and modernisation through high tech industries such as information technology and bitechonology to make the nation to prosperity. III. India’s systematic disinvestment in higher education in recent years has yielded world class research and many world class trained scholars, scientists to sustain high-tech development....

MCQ-> Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given at the end.The movement to expel the Austrians from Italy and unite Italy under a republican government had been gaining momentum while Garibaldi was away. There was a growing clamour, not just from Giuseppe Mazzini's republicans, but from moderates as well, for a General capable of leading Italy to independence. Even the King of Piedmont, for whom Garibaldi was still an outlaw under sentence of death, subscribed to an appeal for a sword for the returning hero. Meanwhile, the 'year of revolutions', 1848, had occurred in which Louis Philippe had been toppled from the French throne. In Austria, an uprising triggered off insurrections in Venice and Milan, and the Austrian garrisons were forced out. The King of Piedmont, Charles Albert ordered his troops to occupy these cities. There had also been insurrections in Sicily, causing the King Ferdinand II, to grant major constitutional freedoms in 1849, prompting both the Pope and Charles Albert to grant further concessions.Meanwhile, largely ignorant of these developments, Garibaldi was approaching Italy at a leisurely pace, arriving at Nice on 23 June 1848 to a tumultuous reception. The hero declared himself willing to fight and lay down his life for Charles Albert, who he now regarded as a bastion of Italian nationalism.Mazzini and the republicans were horrified, regarding this as outright betrayal: did it reflect Garibaldi's innate simple-mindedness, his patriotism in the war against Austria, or was it part of a deal with the monarchy? Charles Albert had pardoned Garibaldi, but to outward appearances he was still very wary of the General and the Italian Legion he had amassed of 150 'brigands'. The two men met near Mantua, and the King appeared to dislike him instantly. He suggested that Garibaldi's men should join his army and that Garibaldi should go to Venice and captain a ship as a privateer against the Austrians.Garibaldi, meanwhile, met his former hero Mazzini for the first time, and again the encounter was frosty. Seemingly rebuffed on all sides, Garibaldi considered going to Sicily to fight King Ferdinand II of Naples, but changed his mind when the Milanese offered him the post of General - something they badly needed when Charles Albert's Piedmontese army was defeated at Custoza by the Austrians. With around 1,000 men, Garibaldi marched into the mountains at Varese, commenting bitterly: 'The King of Sardinia may have a crown that he holds on to by dint of misdeeds and cowardice, but my comrades and I do not wish to hold on to our lives by shameful actions'.The King of Piedmont offered an armistice to the Austrians and all the gains in northern Italy were lost again. Garibaldi returned to Nice and then across to Genoa, where he learned that, in September 1848, Ferdinand II had bombed Messina as a prelude to invasion - an atrocity which caused him to be dubbed 'King Bomba'. Reaching Livorno he was diverted yet again and set off across the Italian peninsula with 350 men to come to Venice's assistance, but on the way, in Bologna, he learned that the Pope had taken refuge with King Bomba. Garibaldi promptly altered course southwards towards Rome where he was greeted once again as a hero. Rome proclaimed itself a Republic. Garibaldi's Legion had swollen to nearly 1,300 men, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany fled Florence before the advancing republican force.However, the Austrians marched southwards to place the Grand Duke of Tuscany back on his throne. Prince Louis Napoleon of France despatched an army of 7,000 men under General Charles Oudinot to the port of Civitavecchia to seize the city. Garibaldi was appointed as a General to defend Rome.The republicans had around 9,000 men, and Garibaldi was given control of more than 4,000 to defend the Janiculum Hill, which was crucial to the defence of Rome, as it commanded the city over the Tiber. Some 5,000 well-equipped French troops arrived on 30 April 1849 at Porta Cavallegeri in the old walls of Rome, but tailed to get through, and were attacked from behind by Garibaldi, who led a baton charge and was grazed by a bullet slightly on his side. The French lost 500 dead and wounded, along with some 350 prisoners, to the Italians, 200 dead and wounded. It was a famous victory, wildly celebrated by the Romans into the night, and the French signed a tactical truce.However, other armies were on the march: Bomba's 12,500-strong Neapolitan army was approaching from the south, while the Austrians had attacked Bologna in the north. Garibaldi too, a force out of Rome and engaged in a flanking movement across the Neapolitan army's rear at Castelli Romani; the Neapolitans attacked and were driven off leaving 50 dead. Garibaldi accompanied the Roman General, Piero Roselli, in an attack on the retreating Neapolitan army. Foolishly leading a patrol of his men right out in front of his forces, he tried to stop a group of his cavalry retreating and fell under their horses, with the enemy slashing at him with their sabres. He was rescued by his legionnaires, narrowly having avoided being killed, but Roselli had missed the chance to encircle the Neapolitan army.Garibaldi boldly wanted to carry the fight down into the Kingdom of Naples, but Mazzini, who by now was effectively in charge of Rome, ordered him back to the capital to face the danger of Austrian attack from the north. In fact, it was the French who arrived on the outskirts of Rome first, with an army now reinforced by 30,000. Mazzini realized that Rome could not resist and ordered a symbolic stand within the city itself, rather than surrender, for the purposes of international propaganda and to keep the struggle alive, whatever the cost. On 3 June the French arrived in force and seized the strategic country house, Villa Pamphili.Garibaldi rallied his forces and fought feverishly to retake the villa up narrow and steep city streets, capturing it, then losing it again. By the end of the day, the sides had 1,000 dead between them. Garibaldi once again had been in the thick of the fray, giving orders to his troops and - fighting, it was said, like a lion. Although beaten 'off for the moment, the French imposed a siege in the morning, starving the city of provisions and bombarding its beautiful centre.On 30 June the French attacked again in force, while Garibaldi, at the head of his troops, fought back ferociously. But there was no prospect of holding the French off indefinitely, and Garibaldi, decided to take his men out of the city to continue resistance in the mountains. Mazzini fled to Britain while Garibaldi remained to fight for the cause. He had just 4,000 men, divided into two legions, and faced some 17,000 Austrians and Tuscans in the north, 30,000 Neapolitans and Spanish in the south, and 40,000 French in the west. He was being directly pursued by 8,000 French and was approaching Neapolitan and Spanish divisions of some 18,000 men. He stood no chance whatever. The rugged hill country was ideal, however, for his style of irregular guerrilla warfare, and he manoeuvred skilfully, marching and counter-marching in different directions, confounding his pursuers before finally aiming for Arezzo in the north. But his men were deserting in droves and local people were hostile to his army: he was soon reduced to 1500 men who struggled across the high mountain passes to San Marino where he found temporary. refuge.The Austrians, now approaching, demanded that he go into exile in America. He was determined to fight on and urged the ill and pregnant Anita, his wife, to stay behind in San Marino, but she would not hear of it. The pair set off with 200 loyal soldiers along the mountain tracks to the Adriatic coast, from where Garibaldi intended to embark for Venice which was still valiantly holding out against the Austrians. They embarked aboard 13 fishing boats and managed to sail to within 50 miles of the Venetian lagoon before being spotted by an Austrian flotilla and fired upon.Only two of Garibaldi's boats escaped. He carried Anita through the shallows to a beach and they moved further inland. The ailing Anita was placed in a cart and they reached a farmhouse, where she died. Her husband broke down into inconsolable wailing and she was buried in a shallow grave near the farmhouse, but was transferred to a churchyard a few days later. Garibaldi had no time to lose; he and his faithful companion Leggero escaped across the Po towards Ravenna.At last Garibaldi was persuaded to abandon his insane attempts to reach Venice by sea and to return along less guarded routes on the perilous mountain paths across the Apennines towards the western coast of Italy. He visited his family in Nice for an emotional reunion with his mother and his three children - but lacked the courage to tell them what had happened to their mother.Find the correct statement:
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MCQ-> DIRECTIONS for questions 24 to 50: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. For each question, choose the best answer.The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created in the early 1990s as a component of the Uruguay Round negotiation. However, it could have been negotiated as part of the Tokyo Round of the 1970s, since that negotiation was an attempt at a 'constitutional reform' of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Or it could have been put off to the future, as the US government wanted. What factors led to the creation of the WTO in the early 1990s?One factor was the pattern of multilateral bargaining that developed late in the Uruguay Round. Like all complex international agreements, the WTO was a product of a series of trade-offs between principal actors and groups. For the United States, which did not want a new Organisation, the dispute settlement part of the WTO package achieved its longstanding goal of a more effective and more legal dispute settlement system. For the Europeans, who by the 1990s had come to view GATT dispute settlement less in political terms and more as a regime of legal obligations, the WTO package was acceptable as a means to discipline the resort to unilateral measures by the United States. Countries like Canada and other middle and smaller trading partners were attracted by the expansion of a rules-based system and by the symbolic value of a trade Organisation, both of which inherently support the weak against the strong. The developing countries were attracted due to the provisions banning unilateral measures. Finally, and perhaps most important, many countries at the Uruguay Round came to put a higher priority on the export gains than on the import losses that the negotiation would produce, and they came to associate the WTO and a rules-based system with those gains. This reasoning - replicated in many countries - was contained in U.S. Ambassador Kantor's defence of the WTO, and it amounted to a recognition that international trade and its benefits cannot be enjoyed unless trading nations accept the discipline of a negotiated rules-based environment.A second factor in the creation of the WTO was pressure from lawyers and the legal process. The dispute settlement system of the WTO was seen as a victory of legalists over pragmatists but the matter went deeper than that. The GATT, and the WTO, are contract organisations based on rules, and it is inevitable that an Organisation created to further rules will in turn be influenced by the legal process. Robert Hudec has written of the 'momentum of legal development', but what is this precisely? Legal development can be defined as promotion of the technical legal values of consistency, clarity (or, certainty) and effectiveness; these are values that those responsible for administering any legal system will seek to maximise. As it played out in the WTO, consistency meant integrating under one roof the whole lot of separate agreements signed under GATT auspices; clarity meant removing ambiguities about the powers of contracting parties to make certain decisions or to undertake waivers; and effectiveness meant eliminating exceptions arising out of grandfather-rights and resolving defects in dispute settlement procedures and institutional provisions. Concern for these values is inherent in any rules-based system of co-operation, since without these values rules would be meaningless in the first place. Rules, therefore, create their own incentive for fulfilment.The momentum of legal development has occurred in other institutions besides the GATT, most notably in the European Union (EU). Over the past two decades the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has consistently rendered decisions that have expanded incrementally the EU's internal market, in which the doctrine of 'mutual recognition' handed down in the case Cassis de Dijon in 1979 was a key turning point. The Court is now widely recognised as a major player in European integration, even though arguably such a strong role was not originally envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, which initiated the current European Union. One means the Court used to expand integration was the 'teleological method of interpretation', whereby the actions of member states were evaluated against 'the accomplishment of the most elementary community goals set forth in the Preamble to the [Rome] treaty'. The teleological method represents an effort to keep current policies consistent with stated goals, and it is analogous to the effort in GATT to keep contracting party trade practices consistent with stated rules. In both cases legal concerns and procedures are an independent force for further cooperation.In large part the WTO was an exercise in consolidation. In the context of a trade negotiation that created a near- revolutionary expansion of international trade rules, the formation of the WTO was a deeply conservative act needed to ensure that the benefits of the new rules would not be lost. The WTO was all about institutional structure and dispute settlement: these are the concerns of conservatives and not revolutionaries, which is why lawyers and legalists took the lead on these issues. The WTO codified the GATT institutional practice that had developed by custom over three decades, and it incorporated a new dispute settlement system that was necessary to keep both old and new rules from becoming a sham. Both the international structure and the dispute settlement system were necessary to preserve and enhance the integrity of the multilateral trade regime that had been built incrementally from the 1940s to the 1990s.What could be the closest reason why the WTO was not formed in the 1970s?
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