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Current Affairs - Sep 13, 2018

current affairs

Health ministry banned 327 FDC drugs

  • The Ministry of Health has banned the production, sale, and dispersal of about 328 fixed-dose combinations of drugs (FDCs).
  • The expert panel probing the efficacy of 349 banned FDCs complied with the December 2017 apex court judgment and gave its report to India’s top drug advisory body, the Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB).
  • These drugs include popular brands like Saridon (painkiller), Panderm (skin cream), Gluconorm PG (combination diabetes drug), Lupidiclox (antibiotic) and Taxim AZ (antibacterial). Around 6,000 drug brands are expected to be affected by this ban.
  • This ban will bring an end to a long legal battle between the ministry and the drug manufacturers.

CPI Inflation fell from 4.17% to 3.69%

  • Data released by the Central Statistics Office showed that retail inflation was at 3.69 percent in August compared to 4.17 percent in July.
  • Consumer price inflation fell below 4 percent for the first time in 2018.
  • Inflation is currently running below the MPC’s forecast of 4.6 percent in the second quarter of the current financial year.

US threat to International Criminal Court


  • United States has recently threatened to bar ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the country, sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system and prosecute them in the American criminal justice system if Americans are charged with war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
  • ICC is world's first permanent international criminal court headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands.
  • States which become the party to the Rome Statute (aka ICC statute) becomes a member of ICC and the co-operation of the non-party states with the ICC is of voluntary nature.
  • India is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.
  • The United States has signed the Rome Statute but has not ratified it.
  • But when a case is referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council, all UN member states are obliged to cooperate, since its decisions are binding for all of them.
  • The United States has not signed up to the court and in 2002, its Congress passed a law enabling U.S to invade the Netherlands to liberate any U.S. citizen held by the court.

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