Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System

What is IRNSS? What are its uses?

IRNSS stands for Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).

 It is regional satellite navigation system being developed by India. India will complete it by 2015. It is the Indian version of GPS. It will have two functions 1)civilian use – SPS (standard positioning service) 2)restricted for military use (RS). IRNSS will consist of seven satellites, three in geostationary orbit and four in inclined geosynchronous orbit, and will mainly cover the area around India.

IRNSS will have
a) 7 satellites
b) Ground segment
On the date this article is written, India is working on the launch of the satellites to complete the seven. By 2015 we would have send 7 satellites to create our positioning system.

source:www.ISRO.org

Applications of IRNSS:

• Navigation-Terrestrial, Aerial and Marine Disaster Management
• Vehicle tracking and fleet management
• Integration with mobile phones
• Accurate Timing
• Mapping and Geodetic data capture
• Terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travellers
• Visual and voice navigation for drivers

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy

The drug pricing and issues surrounding it has been in news recently. In this article two basic concepts in national pharmaceutical pricing policy are explained.

Suo-moto pricing and Pro-rata pricing

Suo moto

Under the pricing policy, companies are asked to report the price of the bulk drugs/formulations within prescribed time. If the companies fail to  do so, the NPPA can fix the price by itself (suo-moto). Eg: the price of a component goes down or if the tax decreases naturally the price of the medicines has to go down. The companies may not be very interested in lowering price. To improve and correct this lack of interest, NPPA prescribes suo-moto pricing.

photo : www.niper.ac.in

Pro-rata

Pro-rata means A method of assigning an amount to a fraction, according to its share of the whole. Here based on the ceiling price of formulations, the companies can calculate the price of the products. This enables them to calculate price of a product without always coming back to NPPA.

Read more (click here)

Supreme Court guidelines on fake encounters

These guidelines have been given to protect right to life (Art 21), and improve transparency in policing.

16 guidelines are given to prevent fake encounters. The ones of prime importance are given below.

SC said that every police encounter must be followed by immediate registration of an FIR.
 
If it involved death, then an inquiry should be carried out by a Magistrate as required under Section 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code. 

When it entailed only injury, it should be investigated by a Policeman from a different Police Station above the rank of the leader of the raiding party which conducted the encounter. The aim is to see that justice is done by reducing biasness and bringing in transparency.

The court ruled that no policeman involved in encounter death should be given out of turn promotion or gallantry awards by the government till the investigations establish that it was a genuine encounter.

After every encounter, the FIR should be registered and family members should be informed.

The DGP should twice report the number of encounter killings to court.

Restructure the training of police force to imbibe values. (police reforms)