C TAP

Subject – International Relations

Context –WHO praising India for record vaccination

Concept –

In May 2020, WHO and partners launched the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) to facilitate timely, equitable and affordable access of COVID-19 health products by boosting their supply. C-TAP provides a global one-stop shop for developers of COVID-19 therapeutics, diagnostics, vaccines and other health products to share their intellectual property, knowledge, and data, with quality-assured manufacturers through public health-driven voluntary, non-exclusive and transparent licenses.
By sharing intellectual property and know-how through the pooling and these voluntary agreements, developers of COVID-19 health products can facilitate scale up production through multiple manufacturers that currently have untapped capacity to scale up production.
It‘s goal is making vaccines and other medical technologies truly global public goods.

Banks easing stance towards crypto transactions in last three to four months

One of the problems for the Indian trading platforms has been the lack support from banks or banking systems. Several trading platforms have complained in the past that banks frequently end their tie-ups with them which stops these platforms from making transactions in the right way. This is also the reason why there are frequent issues with deposits and withdrawals on these platforms.
The lack of regulatory certainty continues to be a challenge to some extent, but there is now more of an understanding towards the sector.
With growing investor interest in cryptocurrencies, a number of banks had, earlier this year, warned users about virtual currency transactions, citing the Reserve Bank of India’s2018 circular. However, the RBI had, on May 31, asked regulated entities to not cite its April 2018 circular on ‘prohibition on dealing in virtual currencies’ as it is no longer valid following the Supreme Court ruling.
It had also asked them to continue to carry out customer due diligence processes in line with regulations governing standards for Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Combating of Financing of Terrorism (CFT), and obligations of regulated entities under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.