The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was adopted by the Thirty-First Session of the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on 3 November 2001.

• It is also known as Seed Treaty as it is a comprehensive international agreement for ensuring food security through the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of the world's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA).

The Treaty aims at:

1. recognizing the enormous contribution of farmers to the diversity of crops that feed the world;
2. establishing a global system to provide farmers, plant breeders and scientists with access to plant genetic materials;
3. ensuring that recipients share benefits they derive from the use of these genetic materials with the countries where they have been originated.

Main Provisions:

Multilateral system: The treaty puts 64 of our most important crops - crops that together account for 80 percent of the food we derive from plants - into an easily accessible global pool of genetic resources that is freely available to potential users in the Treaty's ratifying nations for some uses.

Access and benefit sharing: The Treaty facilitates access to the genetic materials of the 64 crops in the Multilateral System for research, breeding and training for food and agriculture. Those who access the materials must be from the Treaty's ratifying nations and they must agree to use the materials totally for research, breeding and training for food and agriculture. The Treaty prevents the recipients of genetic resources from claiming intellectual property rights over those resources in the form in which they received them. "

Statement 1 is incorrect. The 38th Gulf Cooperation Council summit is being held in Kuwait. The summit comes at a delicate time after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt all cut ties with Qatar in June, accusing Doha of backing extremism and fostering ties with Iran-charges that Qatar vehemently denies.

Kuwait has played mediator and acted as a conduit for communication between the boycotting countries and Qatar.
Statement 2 is correct. Established in 1981, the GCC promotes economic, security, cultural and social cooperation between member states and holds a summit every year to discuss cooperation and regional affairs.

The Mars-500 mission was a psychosocial isolation experiment conducted between 2007 and 2011 by Russia, the European Space Agency and China, in preparation for an unspecified future manned space flight to the planet Mars. The experiment's idea was to mimic the time scale of a MARS mission.

The Russian-made Mi-8 entered India in 1971. These helicopters were part of Operation Meghdoot of 1989 in the Siachen Glacier and Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka. The craft operated extensively in humanitarian, rescue and disaster relief operations across the country including during the devastating 2015 Chennai floods of 2015, apart from ferrying many VIPs and VVIPs.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/iafs-mi-8-chopper-flies-into-history/article21827710.ece ;

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