About JOSH (Joint Squad for Health) Teams:

• JOSH Teams have been designed to channel the reach and energy of India’s youth into organised community action for TB elimination.
• It is being undertaken by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the Ministry of Defence.
• It will bring together Class-I officers, MY Bharat volunteers, and NCC cadets to drive community-level engagement against TB.
• JOSH teams will be rolled out across 55 districts in 11 states in the first phase of the campaign.
• During the first phase, the initiative will focus on engagement at the block, ward, and community levels, taking the TB Mukt Bharat message beyond health facilities and closer to local communities.
• The teams will disseminate information on TB symptoms, prevention, timely diagnosis, and completion of treatment.
• They will also contribute to efforts to address myths and misconceptions surrounding TB, reduce stigma, and encourage individuals, families, and communities to participate actively in the national TB elimination movement.

About International Air Transport Association (IATA):

• It is the global trade association of airlines (for both freight and passenger carriers) that regulates the aviation industry by developing standards, procedures, and practices.
• It was established in 1945 in Havana, Cuba, as a successor to the International Air Traffic Association, which was formed in 1919.
• Head Office: Montreal, Canada.
• IATA was created to promote cooperation among airlines and ensure the safe, secure, and efficient transportation of people and goods across international borders.
• Its mission is to represent, lead, and serve the global airline industry by advocating for fair regulations, enhancing operational efficiency, and improving passenger and cargo services worldwide.
• In practice, its activity focuses on three main areas:
  • Standardization of processes and documentation used in international air transport.
  • Development of technical regulations for the transport of goods, especially in sensitive areas such as dangerous goods or perishable products.
  • Financial cooperation and settlement systems that enable airlines to operate global transportation networks.

_{What’s the difference between the IATA and the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization)?}

• While the IATA and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) both serve the airline industry, they are distinct and different organizations.
• The key differences are the following:
  • IATA establishes standards for its member airlines, whereas ICAO establishes standards for member states.
  • IATA promotes on behalf of its airline industry members, whereas ICAO works to establish civil aviation rules and procedures (particularly as it pertains to the actual process of flight).

About Garo Tribe:

• The Garo are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group primarily residing in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya with smaller populations in Assam, Tripura, Nagaland, and West Bengal.
• They are the second largest tribal community of Meghalaya.
• Historically, the tribe originated in Tibet and migrated to India 400 years ago.
• The main language spoken by these tribes is Garo, also known as "Garrow" and "Mande", which belongs to the Bodo branch of the Bodo-Naga-Kachin family of the Sino-Tibetan phylum.
• The Garo people live mostly in rural villages, with community life centered around agriculture.
• They practice both shifting (jhum) and wet rice cultivation, growing rice, millet, and vegetables.
• They are one of the last remaining matrilineal tribes in the world.
• Women play a central role in both family and economic life, as property and clan lineage are inherited through the female line.
• Villages are organized into exogamous clans, and social life is vibrant, featuring communal work, festivals, and traditional music and dance.
• Their homes are typically built on stilts, reflecting adaptation to the hilly terrain.
• Beliefs:
  • Historically, the Garo practiced Songsarek, an indigenous animistic religion centered on the worship of spirits, nature deities, and ancestors.
  • Since the late 19th century, Christianity has become the predominant faith among the Garo.
  • However, elements of traditional beliefs and rituals persist, especially in rural areas, and festivals such as Wangala (the harvest festival) continue to reflect their spiritual heritage.

About Hidimba Temple:

• Hadimba Temple, locally known as Dhungari Temple, also known variously as the Hadimba Temple, is a Hindu temple located in Manali, Himachal Pradesh.
• It is dedicated to Hidimbi Devi, wife of Bhima, a figure in the epic Mahabharata.
• The temple is surrounded by a cedar forest called Dhungiri Van Vihar at the foot of the Himalayas.
• It was built in 1553 during the reign of Kullu ruler Bahadur Singh, who ruled from 1546 to 1569.
• Architecture:
  • The temple is one of the few temples in India that follows a Pagoda style of architecture, which is common in Nepal and Tibet.
  • It has a unique wooden structure and a four-tiered roof with intricate carvings.
  • The roof is made of deodar wood, which is resistant to insects and decay.
  • The temple has intricate carvings on its wooden walls, doors, and windows.
  • The carvings depict various animals, plants, dancers, musicians, and scenes from the Mahabharata epic.
  • An enormous rock occupies the inside of the temple, with a tall brass image representing goddess Hidimba Devi.

About Canine distemper:

• It is a contagious and serious disease caused by the Canine Distemper Virus (CDV).
• The virus attacks the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and nervous systems of dogs and has a very high mortality rate.
  • In addition to dogs, canine distemper virus can infect ferrets as well as a wide range of other mammals, especially carnivores.
• Transmission:
  • CDV spreads primarily through direct contact with respiratory secretions like saliva, nasal discharge, and sneezing.
  • It can also be transmitted indirectly via contaminated surfaces, objects, or shared food and water bowls.
• Treatment:
  • There is no cure, and no antiviral drugs have been approved to combat the infection.
  • The best way to prevent canine distemper is through vaccination.

Why in news?

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai "for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis."

In simpler terms, their work created a way to produce more of one type of molecule and less of its mirror image in chemical reactions — solving one of chemistry's most famous puzzles.

Henri Kagan, 96, is Professor Emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, France. Kenso Soai, 76, is Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Understanding Chiral Molecules: The Lock and Key
• The Mystery of Life's "One-Handed" Chemistry
• Building Toward an Answer: Three Key Steps
• Kagan Finds the Missing Piece
• Soai Makes the Chemistry Self-Reinforcing
• Why This Matters?

Understanding Chiral Molecules: The Lock and Key

• The Nobel Prize's official press release explains chiral molecules using a lock-and-key analogy.
• Imagine manufacturing a key, only to discover the process produces two keys that are mirror images of each other. They look almost identical, but only one fits the lock — the other may do nothing, or in some cases, cause damage.
• This is essentially the problem chemists face with chiral molecules. Many molecules exist in two mirror-image forms, called enantiomers.
• They share the same chemical composition, but have different three-dimensional arrangements.

The Mystery of Life's "One-Handed" Chemistry

• The story traces back to Louis Pasteur (also known for the rabies vaccine), who in the mid-19th century studied tartaric acid, found in grapes and wine.
  • Pasteur discovered tartaric acid crystals existed in two mirror-image forms.
  • But bacteria fermenting tartaric acid consumed only one enantiomer — the one found in grapes — leaving its mirror image untouched.
• This pointed to a much bigger mystery: life itself appeared to be one-handed.
• Further evidence: When scientists examined life's building blocks, they found:
  • Naturally occurring amino acids bend polarised light to the left.
  • Sugars found in DNA bend it to the right.
• In other words, life overwhelmingly uses only one of the two possible mirror-image forms.
• Yet when chemists tried making chiral molecules in the laboratory, they generally got an equal mixture of both enantiomers.
• The puzzle: what happened at the dawn of life that made biological chemistry choose a side?

Building Toward an Answer: Three Key Steps

• Marckwald's First Breakthrough (Early 1900s)
  • German chemist Willy Marckwald carried out the first successful asymmetric reaction — one producing more of one enantiomer than the other.
  • The imbalance was small, and didn't explain how such an imbalance could grow much larger.
• Frank's Theoretical Model (1953)
  • Charles Frank, a theoretical physicist at the University of Bristol, proposed a mathematical model for how homochirality (life's "one-handedness") could arise.
  • His model required three conditions:
    • A chiral catalyst and an asymmetric reaction.
    • Formation of one mirror image enhanced while the other is suppressed.
    • The reaction must produce the catalyst itself — a condition called autocatalysis.
  • Autocatalysis creates a chemical "snowball effect." If a reaction produces a tiny excess of one molecular form, and that form helps make more of itself, the initial imbalance can grow rapidly.
  • Frank's model became a famous puzzle: could anyone actually build a reaction fulfilling all three conditions?

Kagan Finds the Missing Piece

• In the 1980s, Kagan was working on asymmetric reactions aimed at producing as pure an enantiomer as possible — a goal particularly critical for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
• The prevailing assumption: Chemists commonly used catalysts containing a metal atom plus a chiral substance, assuming that if the catalyst contained equal amounts of both mirror-image forms, the resulting product would also contain equal amounts of its two enantiomers.
• Kagan's insight: He questioned this assumption, realising the metal atom might interact with at least two chiral molecules simultaneously. If both forms were present, this could create three kinds of catalyst:
  • One containing two molecules of one handedness.
  • One containing two of the other handedness.
  • A mixed form.
• The crucial discovery: The mixed catalyst behaved differently — it drove the reaction much more slowly than the other two. This meant the relationship between the catalyst's handedness and the final product's handedness was not linear.
• In 1986, Kagan described three asymmetric reactions displaying these non-linear effects — supplying the second missing piece of Frank's model: a way to amplify an initial asymmetry.

Soai Makes the Chemistry Self-Reinforcing

• The final step came from Kenso Soai at the Tokyo University of Science.
• Soai was studying an asymmetric reaction showing a strong non-linear effect. He noticed similarities between the catalyst and the product, and wondered whether he could design a reaction in which the catalyst actually produced itself.
• The 1995 Experiment: Starting with just a 2% excess of one enantiomer, the reaction ended with an 87% excess. The reaction was self-reinforcing — a slight initial advantage became a much larger one.
• The Ultimate Achievement — the Soai reaction (2003): Soai presented a reaction in which an excess of one enantiomer formed, and that enantiomer then helped produce copies of itself — fulfilling all three of Frank's original conditions in a single, elegant experiment.

Why This Matters?

• The non-linear effects that Kagan discovered have become an important tool for chemists when they design new reactions.
• Since a reaction being non-linear reveals information about how it occurs, chemists can use this to optimise reactions and obtain the purest possible enantiomers of a product.
• This is vital for every company manufacturing substances intended to interact with living beings — including pharmaceuticals, flavours, scents, and agricultural chemicals.
• Since only one enantiomer of a chiral drug may be therapeutically active (and the other potentially harmless or harmful, as with the lock-and-key analogy), producing the correct, pure form matters enormously for drug safety and efficacy.
• Real-World Example
  • Thalidomide was introduced in the late 1950s as a sedative, widely prescribed, including to pregnant women for morning sickness.
  • By 1961, doctors linked the drug to severe birth defects. Thousands of babies across 46 countries were affected, many with phocomelia (severely shortened or absent limbs).
  • Thalidomide exists as two enantiomers (mirror-image molecules). One enantiomer produced the desired sedative effect, while the other caused birth defects.
  • It was later found that the two forms can interconvert inside the body — meaning even giving only the "safe" enantiomer wouldn't have prevented harm, since the body could convert it into the harmful form.

Why in news?

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi was detained, as Opposition leaders protested in New Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the ECI's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

Since October 2, Delhi Police have detained hundreds of protesters. This raises a recurring legal question: what exactly is "detention," and how does it differ from arrest?

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Detention vs Arrest: The Core Distinction
• The Legal Provisions Enabling Detention
• Not the Same as Preventive Detention
• When Can Police Detain Protesters?
• Rights of a Detained or Arrested Person

Detention vs Arrest: The Core Distinction

• Arrest is a formal act of police taking a person into custody in connection with an offence, marking the beginning of criminal proceedings. Once arrested, a range of constitutional and statutory safeguards immediately apply.
• Detention, by contrast, is not defined by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which replaced the CrPC. Instead, the BNSS grants police a set of powers to stop, remove, or temporarily hold people in certain situations — including, but not limited to, when a crime has actually occurred.
• Why disputes arise: A person may be taken away, held for hours, and released without any case being registered. To the person, it feels like an arrest. Legally, police may claim they were exercising preventive powers, not arresting someone for an offence.
• In short-term custody, "they are temporarily not allowed to leave wherever they are detained, and they are not put under a formal arrest either."
• Criticism
  • Critics argued the distinction is often used strategically — "The police know that the power to arrest cannot be exercised casually when there is no cognizable offence punishable with more than seven years being committed by the protestors.
    • A cognizable offence is one for which police can arrest without a warrant.
  • If they are arrested, courts will come down heavily on them. That is why they choose to abduct people and release them within hours.

The Legal Provisions Enabling Detention

• Section 170, BNSS — Preventive action before an offence. A police officer who knows of a design to commit any cognizable offence may arrest the person without a magistrate's order or warrant, if the offence "cannot be otherwise prevented."
• Section 172, BNSS — Detaining non-compliant persons. A police officer "may detain or remove any person resisting, refusing, ignoring or disregarding" a lawful direction.
  • The officer must then produce the person before a magistrate, or in petty cases, release them within 24 hours.
• What's New Here?
  • Unlike the earlier CrPC, Section 172 expressly allows police to "detain or remove" someone who refuses a lawful direction.
  • As per the experts, Section 172(2) BNSS is new. The CrPC had no equivalent. The CrPC did not bind citizens to obey police directions, nor let police detain those who refused. Section 172 adds both.
  • They noted the idea originated from state police statutes, not the CrPC, and the 24-hour limit was itself a late addition.
  • Importantly, the safeguards applicable to such short-term detentions remain largely untested — no case on this has reached the Supreme Court.

Not the Same as Preventive Detention

• This power is distinct from preventive detention, which allows holding a person without trial under special laws like the National Security Act.
• Critics content that this so-called detention has no place in law and is wholly illegal. There are preventive detention powers available, but they are subject to strict rigours of the law and cannot be casually applied spontaneously.

When Can Police Detain Protesters?

• Most protest-related detentions begin with police claiming they are preventing a law and order problem, often backed by a prohibitory order.
  • On October 2, Delhi Police imposed Section 163, BNSS across New Delhi (a prohibitory-order provision).
• If protesters refuse to disperse or continue prohibited activities, police may use preventive powers to remove or temporarily hold them.
• Disobeying such an order is itself an offence under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). This is the point where detention can escalate into arrest with an FIR.
• Courts have set limits, though. Police action cannot be arbitrary — officers must justify why restricting liberty was necessary.
• 

Rights of a Detained or Arrested Person

• Once liberty is restricted, several constitutional protections apply:
  • Article 22 requires: production before a magistrate within 24 hours; information about grounds of arrest; and the right to legal representation.
  • The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that written grounds of arrest must be furnished — and just last month, ruled that violating Article 22 safeguards makes an arrest unconstitutional.
  • Section 38, BNSS allows an arrested person to meet an advocate of their choice during interrogation (though not throughout).
  • Free legal aid is provided at State cost if a person cannot afford a lawyer.
  • Section 43(5), BNSS bars arresting a woman between sunset and sunrise, except in exceptional circumstances with a judicial magistrate's prior permission.
• DK Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) laid down safeguards for all cases of arrest or detention:
  • Officers must wear visible name tags.
  • An arrest memo must be attested by at least one witness.
  • Injuries must be recorded, and family members informed.
  • These safeguards are not merely advisory — non-compliant officers can face departmental action or contempt proceedings.

Conclusion

The gap between "detention" and "arrest" isn't a technicality — it's the gap between accountability and its absence. Section 172's new, untested detain-and-remove power gives police a tool with almost no litigated boundaries, even as courts insist liberty cannot be restricted arbitrarily.

Until a case like this reaches the Supreme Court, hours-long custody without an FIR will remain a legal grey zone — real enough to the person held, but outside the safeguards an actual arrest would trigger.