Blockchain technology helps ensure the security and transparency of financial transactions through the following mechanisms:

1. Decentralized Ledger:
   • Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed digital ledger that records transactions across many computers in a network.
   • This decentralized nature eliminates the need for a central authority or intermediary, such as a bank, to facilitate and verify transactions.
2. Cryptographic Security:
   • Blockchain utilizes cryptographic techniques to secure the transactions and the integrity of the ledger.
   • Each transaction is digitally signed using a cryptographic key, ensuring the authenticity and non-repudiation of the transaction.
   • The ledger is secured through the use of hash functions, which create a unique digital fingerprint for each block of transactions.
3. Immutability:
   • Once a transaction is recorded on the blockchain, it becomes incredibly difficult to alter or delete it.
   • Each new block of transactions is cryptographically linked to the previous block, creating an unbroken chain of records.
   • Any attempt to modify a past transaction would require re-computing the entire chain of blocks, which is computationally prohibitive.
4. Transparency and Traceability:
   • The blockchain ledger is publicly visible and accessible to all participants in the network, ensuring transparency.
   • Each transaction is recorded in the ledger, and the entire transaction history can be traced back to the original source, providing full transparency.
   • This transparency helps prevent fraudulent activities, as all transactions can be audited and verified by network participants.
5. Consensus Mechanism:
   • Blockchain networks employ various consensus mechanisms, such as Proof-of-Work (PoW) or Proof-of-Stake (PoS), to ensure that all participants agree on the state of the ledger.
   • This consensus process helps prevent double-spending and ensures that the ledger remains accurate and secure.
6. Pseudonymity:
   • Blockchain transactions are typically associated with pseudonymous identities, represented by wallet addresses, instead of real-world identities.
   • This pseudonymity helps protect the privacy of users while still maintaining the transparency of the ledger.

The post-harvest value chain includes harvesting and primary processing; storage and crop protection; processing; and market linkage. As per NITI Ayog, the estimated post-harvest losses in foodgrains hovers around 10%, semi-perishables and commodities like milk, fish, meat, eggs, fruits, and vegetables between 10 to 20%, and the horticultural produce at around 16%. Inefficiencies in the post-harvest value chain

• Inadequate harvesting and primary processing: Lack of awareness, limited finance, and weak markets for primary processed produce restrict small and marginal farmers from adopting primary processing such as threshing, sorting, and grading.
• Lack of storage and crop protection: Small and marginal farmers lack access to suitable on-farm and near-farm storage facilities and packaging materials. Whereas, middlemen invest very little in quality storage and packaging leading to post-harvest losses.
• Lack of near-farm processing facilities: Due to a lack of near-farm processing infrastructure, a considerable quantity of farm produce is lost before it reaches distant processing units through a chain of middlemen.
• Lack of market information: Due to lack of market information, crop selection is based on prevailing prices instead of projected market demand, resulting in oversupply.

Impact on the livelihood of small and marginal farmers :

• Income loss: Crop losses due to inadequate primary processing lead to income loss for farmers.
• Distress sale: Lack of near-farm storage facilities forces farmers to make distress sale thus affecting their profit margins.
• Lack of value addition: The absence of near-farm processing facilities leads to farmers earning lower incomes, as the benefits of value addition mostly accrue to middlemen and large private sector firms.
• Low bargaining power: Poor linkage with markets, limits selling options to mandis and local middlemen resulting in low bargaining power.

Steps Taken by the Government Few major schemes have been introduced by the government to address the problem of losses in the post-harvest value chain and subsequently provide better remuneration to small and marginal farmers for their produce.

• PM Kisan SAMPADA Yojana: It will result in the creation of modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet. In addition to the growth of the food processing sector, it would also help in providing better returns to farmers.
• Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Processing Industry (PLISFPI): It aims to support food manufacturing companies to expand their processing capacity and branding abroad to incentivize emergence of strong Indian brands. This in turn will help in ensuring remunerative prices of farm produce and higher income to farmers.
• Private Entrepreneurs Guarantee Scheme: This scheme aims at the construction of storage godowns in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. Out of a sanctioned capacity of 152.74 LMT under the PEG scheme, a storage capacity of 144.67 LMT has been completed as of March 2022.
• Viability Gap Funding Scheme: Capital investment in the creation of modern storage capacity has been made eligible for the Viability Gap Funding scheme of the Finance Ministry. Cold chain and post-harvest storage have been recognized as an infrastructure sub-sector.

Increasing activity in agribusiness from the government, private sector, and civil society organizations is translating into a wide range of interventions towards post-harvest loss reduction and improvement in the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers. Further, effective farmer engagement through models like Farmer Producer Organizations, Self Help Groups, etc. is critical for the success of interventions to address post-harvest losses.

Medical and scientific research is essential for improving global health, health equity, and economic development. With the widening of the globalization process, these researches are now cross- national and cross-cultural.
Foreign-funded research in developing countries may sometimes be altruistic in nature, but largely it is guided by the economic interests and academic pursuits that may or may not reflect the interests of the host country.
In this regard, various ethical considerations arise, such as:

• Ethical Issues in clinical trials: Lack of informed consent from local people, unequal distribution of risks and benefits, lack of technology and knowledge transfer and exploitation of vulnerable populations are significantly visible.
• The potential vulnerability of the local teams: Local research teams and Ethics Review Committees might find it difficult to challenge the study design or the proposed research methodologies from an ethical perspective, especially if financial investments are expected to improve the local research infrastructure.
• Non-universal nature of ethical standards: The regulations, standards of care, consent procedures, and cultural expectations differ among countries. Thus, ensuring the same ethical standards across jurisdictions becomes a difficult task for regulators.
• Difficulty in monitoring research projects: Due to meagre resources and infrastructure constraints, it may be difficult for developing countries to effectively monitor research projects.
• Responsiveness to the local needs and benefit sharing: Medical research projects do not necessarily meet the needs of the local people whereas the risks associated with such medical research fall on them and benefit sharing is seldom equitable.
• Data protection: Research study data collection, handling, processing, storage, and protection should be done in accordance with the local legislation that not only ensures data integrity but also ensures privacy.
• Absence of a robust Ethical Review Mechanism: Currently, the ethics review mechanism is not present in all countries. An effective system for the ethical review of research, which includes the establishment and maintenance of research ethics committees, independent of government and sponsors, is lacking and needs to be developed.
• Non-Adherence to ethics guidelines: At most times, global search ethics guidelines such as the Helsinki Declaration, the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences Guidelines, and the Guidance on Good Clinical Practice are not adhered to while conducting medical research.

Thus, measures are required to ensure that ethical medical research is promoted, which is also beneficial to the local country. An ethical framework based on principles of duty to alleviate suffering, to show respect for human beings, to be sensitive to cultural differences, and to not exploit the vulnerable, can go a long way in benefiting all the stakeholders of foreign-funded medical research in developing countries.

The Public Distribution System (PDS) has evolved as a system of management of scarcity through the distribution of food grains at affordable prices. It has the objective of providing food and nutritional security, stabilizing food prices, redistribution of food, and maintaining buffer stock.

However, the PDS in India has been beset with certain challenges, including:

• Bogus cards and ghost beneficiaries: Due to the ghost beneficiaries, grains are deflected to the open markets and sold at higher prices, which leads to the shortage of food grains for the deprived and vulnerable people. For instance, it was revealed in 2020 that nearly 22% of PDS cards in Chhattisgarh were found to be bogus (16 lakh PDS cards out of 72 lakh cards).
• Identification failures and denial of entitlements: Due to factors like poor quality of fingerprints, intermittent network, non-possession of the Aadhaar, or failure of biometric authentication, many deserving families do not get rations.
• Leakages: According to the NSSO (2011-2012), leakage in PDS is about 46.7 percent due to leakages of the food grains during transportation.
• Differentiated impact on married women: When a woman marries and leaves a qualifying household to join another, she must register on the new family ration card to ensure that she continues to receive food rations. However, doing so is a cumbersome process, which has left many women without access to subsidized food.

To address these issues, there has been a push towards digitizing the PDS over the last couple of years. The initiatives include linkage with the Aadhaar card and maintenance of digital records at Fair Price Shops.

These initiatives have led to the following impact on the Public Distribution System:

• Increased transparency: End-to-end computerization has resulted in increased efficiency and transparency of the distribution (allocation, inventory, tracking) as witnessed in Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Madhya Pradesh. Also, smart ration cards have features of data storage and check on counterfeiting. It is being implemented in Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
• Identification of rightful beneficiaries: Electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices are being installed at Fair Price Shops (FPSs) for the distribution of food grains through authentication and electronic record-keeping of the sale transactions. At present, out of 5.33 lakh Fair Price Shops (FPSs), about 5.07 lakh (95.0%) of FPSs have ePoS devices that confirm identification through biometric/Aadhaar authentication.
• Tracking: GPS is being used in tracking the movement of trucks from depot to FPS, thus providing a strict vigil on any diversion and leakage of food grains.
• Data collection and storage: IM-PDS and Annavitran portals that are parts of ‘One Nation, One Ration Card (ONORC)’ provide a central repository of all ration cards and beneficiaries’ data- portability. The Annavitran portal hosts the data on the distribution of food grains through E-PoS devices within a state.

Providing better connectivity, a faster network, installing more devices per shop, establishing additional call centers to address technical queries, analyzing the technology adoption behavior for improved policies, and promoting digital literacy can further help address the issues pertaining to the PDS.