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Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Daily Current Affairs, 26th May 2020

20:31


1) International Missing Children’s Day: 25th May
•International Missing Children’s Day is observed globally on 25th May every year. This day is observed for missing children who have found their way home, remember those that are victims of crime, and continue efforts to seek out those that are still missing. 25 May is now widely referred to as Missing Children’s Day, with the forget-me-not flower as its emblem.

 2) World Thyroid Day celebrated on 25 May
•World Thyroid Day is observed globally on 25 May every year. The main purpose of the WTD is to aware of the importance of Thyroid and the prevention and treatment of thyroid diseases.

 •This day is established in 2008 as a part of the campaign led by European Thyroid Association (ETA) and the American Thyroid Association(ATA) followed by Latin American Thyroid Society(LATS) and Asia Oceania Thyroid Association (AOTA) to commemorate the patients with Thyroid diseases and doctors and physicians who treat them.

3) India handsover war game centre named as “INDIA” to UPDF
•India has handover the war game centre named as “INDIA” to Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF). The state of the art military training facility was handover by the Indian Association Uganda (IAU), in association with the Indian Military Advisory and Training Team to the UPDF.

 •Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda inaugurated the war game centre “INDIA” that was conceptualised by the Indian Military Team and built by the IAU in Jinja district, at a cost of over 1 billion Ugandan shillings or $2,65,000. The Ugandans of Indian origin made voluntary contributions for the establishment of war game centre.

4) Former SC judge, A K Sikri inaugurates IDRC
•Former Supreme Court judge Justice, A K Sikri has inaugurated the Indian Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC) in New Delhi. The centre provides a completely paperless dispute resolution environment. The centre offers offline also as e-alternate dispute resolution (ADR) facility through its state-of-the-art e-arbitration, e-meditation and e-conciliation software portal.

 •The Arbitration panel of the centre has former judges of the supreme court, high court, district courts, senior advocates, former bureaucrats and others. The software provides 24×7 facilities for e-filing of claim petitions, e-Payments for registration and administrative fees, issuance of e-notice to the party, virtual hearings on certified VC platforms with options to possess virtual meetings in escape rooms when the proceedings are underway.

 •The e-ADR has a digital signature and document updation, replies and other applications and submission on secured IDRC cloud servers with 24×7 access to stakeholders and lawyers.

5) Indian Navy formed “NavRakshak” breathable PPE kit
•Indian Navy has formed “NavRakshak” PPE kit with innovative breathable fabric material. This PPE kit provides comfort to healthcare workers working against COVID-19 pandemic wearing multi-layered coverall PPE treating patients within the hot and humid condition for quite 12 hours.

 •The ability of the material to permit water vapour to undergo and stop the water from entering is understood as Breathability. This PPE kit made by Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Arnab Ghosh from Naval Medical Specialist of Innovation Cell, Institute of Naval Medicine in Mumbai.

 •The comfort properties of the material depend on their ability to transmit the water and vapour from the body and preventing the buildup of liquid on the skin. The PPE passed the Synthetic blood penetration resistance test with 6/6 (Government of India mandates minimum 3/6 and above as per ISO 16603 standard ) pressure certified for mass production and to be used in clinical COVID-19 situations.

6) GoI launches initiatives towards Conservation of Biodiversity
During the virtual celebration of the International Day for Biological Diversity 2020, the Government of India launched key initiatives towards Conservation of Biodiversity. These initiatives are as follows:

1.National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) “Biodiversity Samrakshan Internship Programme” were launched by the Union Environment Minister. This program envisages to engage 20 students with postgraduate degrees for a duration of one year via an open, transparent, online competitive process. These students will learn about natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. Hence they will be supporting the projects of NBA in various State and Union Territories. They would also be responsible to technically help the State Biodiversity Boards/UTs Biodiversity Council in discharge of their mandates.

2.Not all Animals Migrate by Choice: UNEP Campaign on Illegal Trafficking of Endangered Species: ‘Not all Animals Migrate by Choice’ waas also launched during the celebration. This campaign was launched by the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau in association with UNEP. The launch of campaign aims to address the environmental challenges, to raise awareness, and to recommend solutions.

3.Biodiversity Conservation and Biological Diversity Act, 2002: A Webinar Series on ‘Biodiversity Conservation and Biological Diversity Act, 2002’ was launched during the virtual event.

4.WWF Model Conference of Parties (MCoP): An initiative “WWF Model Conference of Parties (MCoP)” was launched during the virtual event. This initiative includes the younger generation so that they can participate in conversations regarding the impact of humanity’s footprint on biodiversity, as well as the importance of sustenance of biodiversity for our own survival.

5.During the virtual event, an awareness campaign was launched to highlight the crucial role played by nature via its free ecological services offered to humankind. This campaign was launched with the support of WWF.

7) Manipur’s “Khudol” listed among the top 10 global initiatives
•Manipur’s “Khudol” has been listed among the top 10 global initiatives for an inclusive fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The listing of the initiative among the top 10 global initiatives was done by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. “Khudol” initiative was launched by an Imphal-based NGO “Ya_All”.

•Food, health and hygiene requirements of the LGBTQI+ community, people living with HIV, daily-wage earners, children and adolescents is being ensured through the initiative “Khudol”. It is a crowdfunded initiative which has mobilised a network of 100 volunteers, to fulfill basic needs of around 2,000 families and individuals.

8) REC Limited & TajSATS to provide meals to frontline healthcare workers
•REC Limited has partnered with TajSATS, a joint venture of IHCL and SATS Ltd, to provide nutritious meals to frontline healthcare workers. Both entities are leading the mission to provide meals to the medical staff in key government hospitals along with poor daily wage labourers across the nation. Over 18,000 meals are planned to be delivered in New Delhi through this initiative.

•REC Limited is a Navratna NBFC which has distributed more than 4.58 lacs Kilograms of food grains, 1.26 lac meal packets, 9600 litres of sanitizers, 3400 PPE kits and 83000 masks across the nation amid the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic.

9) Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh chairs SIDM MSMEs E-conclave
•Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) E-conclave was chaired by the Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh. The virtual conference of MSMEs E-conclave was organised jointly by the Department of Defence Production, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM).

•The E-conclave was held with the theme ‘Business Continuity for MSMEs in Defence & Aerospace Sector’. The conclave featured the participation of more than 800 Defence MSMEs units.

•During the conclave, Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh emphasized and applauded the role played by Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) and other Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India’s fight against global COVID-19 pandemic.

10) WHO & IOC team up to improve health through sport
•The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has signed an agreement to work together to promote health through sport and physical activity. They have teamed up to fight the battle against Covid-19.

•The partnership is to work with host countries to ensure Health of athletes, supporters and workers at the games. The two organisation will also work to ensure that the games leave a healthy legacy in host countries through enhanced awareness of the value of sport.
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Lukmaan IAS Ethics Book PDF Download

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The HINDU Notes – 26th May 2020

12:08




📰 ‘Reverse migration to villages has set the economy back by 15 years’

India risks losing benefits of the demographic dividend by not creating enough jobs for new entrants, warns Professor Mehrotra

•Santosh K. Mehrotra , Professor of Economics at the Centre for Informal Sector & Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of the recently launched book Reviving Jobs: An Agenda For Growth says the current reverse migration has set the country back by 15 years, and stresses that the economic stimulus package announced by the government is minuscule compared with the package rolled out by the Manmohan Singh government during the 2008 crisis.

How prolonged will be the economic impact of this extended lockdown? Do you see the workers who left the cities returning anytime soon?

•I see a long economic and migrant worker impact. I don’t see them streaming back in a hurry. The trauma has been far too great. There are many reasons why they left — poor living conditions here, overnight loss of livelihood, no social security and so on. They will not return in a hurry and relates to your larger question on the revival of the economy; for the first time in decades, India’s economy will contract in FY21, and revive in the latter half of FY22 (as RBI has admitted). Also, we were in an economic crisis even before the pandemic started.

•But before we get there, you need to appreciate the contrasting economic situation prevailing in the last quarter of 2019 before the pandemic, and the pre-2008 crisis situation. Before 2008, all engines of growth were firing.

•Our investment-to-GDP ratio was at an all time high. GDP growth was 8-9% per annum and because of that the job growth was very rapid. We had five million unskilled workers leaving agriculture for the first time in Indian history because non-agri jobs were growing.

Is the stimulus announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman strong enough to bring the economy back on track?

•A straightforward answer is no. But before I answer this we need to see what happened between 2012 and 2018. Until 2012, nearly 7.5 million non-agriculture jobs were being created per year, but thereafter there was a slight economic slowdown, but still the average GDP growth over 2004-14 was 8% per annum.

•There were two years of droughts in 2014-2015. The slowdown also accelerated after 2014 because of misplaced economic policies. The rate of non-agricultural jobs was reduced to 2.9 million per annum.

•Now, this was happening at a time when young entrants into the labour force were increasing. Until 2012 the number of new entrants in the job market was only 2 million per annum (as youth were entering school in much larger numbers than before). Thereafter, the number looking for work increased to roughly 5 million per annum. These young people were getting better educated and no longer wanted to be tied down to agricultural jobs. The result was open unemployment. And that is how we came to our 45-year high in open unemployment rate in 2018.

•The state of the economy and joblessness continued to worsen through 2019 because the growth rate slowed. We entered 2020 with seven quarters of systematic decline in growth rate, investment rate and exports.

•So, every engine of growth had stopped firing; government revenue growth slowed, the real fiscal deficit in 2018-19 was 5.68% of GDP for the central government (as revealed by CAG) when the government was claiming it was 3.4%.

•By early 2019, the government did not have the fiscal space left any longer to actually jump start the economy if a shock was to happen. Given that COVID-19 is an unprecedented exogenous shock delivered to a slowing economy, we were hoping that the government would take a slightly different view than it has taken, and significantly increase public expenditure.

•Now going back to the 2008 crisis, the fiscal space existed then because the economy had been growing until then. In the post 2008 global economic crisis, the fiscal stimulus size by the government and mind you, fiscal stimulus alone, was 4% of the GDP (supplemented by monetary policy actions). And the fiscal package announced post-COVID-19 is less than 1% of the GDP, although the economic and jobs crisis is much deeper than in 2008.

Can this stimulus package provide jobs, say in the next six months or a year from now?

•No because this stimulus is heavily dependent on banks extending loans. Why do I, as an entrepreneur, borrow from the bank when I know demand is already extremely low in the economy, both domestically and internationally? This is a global economic crisis much worse than the 2008 one. So why am I going to borrow to invest? Some borrowing for working capital will take place. The government has taken supply side action without taking demand side action. If you don’t put money into the hands of people, then you are not going to see a revival of demand. The total unemployed went from about 30 million in 2018 to 122 million in April 2020. This is unprecedented in Indian history. Some jobs would come back post-lockdown. But how many of them will come back depends on the quality of the stimulus...

In your book, you have observed that the demographic dividend kicked in during the 1980s and it will end by 2040. We just have 20 years left to cash it. How does this pandemic and the economic fall out impact on this dividend?

•Yes, we are running a very, very serious risk of frittering away this dividend. Realising the demographic dividend requires job growth at a rate faster than the number of entrants into the labour force. If new entrants into the labour force, who are better educated, are entering at a rate of more than 5 million per annum, you have to create at least 5 million non-agricultural jobs.

•Secondly, you need to create enough jobs to employ the currently unemployed, which has risen sharply. Thirdly, in 2018 we had 205 million people working in agriculture. From 2004-05 until 2018, the absolute number of workers in agriculture was falling because non-agricultural jobs were growing fast. This means the process of structural transformation of redirecting the workforce from agriculture to construction/industry/services was underway.

•But after 2012, we have been witnessing a decline in jobs in manufacturing for the first time in India’s history. If we are to realise the demographic dividend, we need a shift of jobs from the agriculture sector to manufacturing. Reverse migration, that we are seeing today, has increased workers in agriculture by 5.2 million in a few weeks. It means that we have gone back by 15 years.

📰 ILO urges PM not to dilute labour laws
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THE HINDU NEWSPAPER IMPORTANT ARTICLES 26.05.2020

07:02
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Vision IAS Mains 2020[English] Test 08 with Solution PDF

06:28

Vision IAS Mains 2020[English] Test 08 with Solution PDF






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What should be my strategy for sure shot selection in UPSC prelims?

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I find 5 broad reasons for repeated failures in UPSC CSE Prelims:
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Monday, May 25, 2020

Vision IAS Mains 2020[English] Test 07 with Solution PDF

18:14

Vision IAS Mains 2020[English] Test 07 with Solution PDF






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Daily Current Affairs, 25th May 2020

18:04





1) International Day to End Obstetric Fistula observed on 23 May
•The United Nations observes International Day to End Obstetric Fistula on 23 May every year. The day is being observed to significantly raise awareness and intensify actions towards ending obstetric fistula, as well as urging post-surgery follow-up and tracking of fistula patients. Obstetric fistula is one of the most serious and tragic injuries that can occur during childbirth.

 •The theme for International Day to End Obstetric Fistula 2020 is “End gender inequality! End health inequities! End Fistula now!”.

2) World Turtle Day celebrated on 23 May
•World Turtle Day is being celebrated every year on 23 May every year by American Tortoise Rescue, a nonprofit organization. The day was created as an annual observance to help people celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises as well as their disappearing habitats around the world. The day was celebrated for the first time in year 2000.

 3) Andhra Pradesh CM releases 1st tranche of “ReStart Package”
•Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has released the 1st tranche of “ReStart Package“. The “ReStart Package” aims to help the lockdown-hit Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to reopen and become functional. The first tranche is of Rs 450 crore which will be used in clearing the pending industrial incentives that would benefit nearly 98,000 units. While the second tranche of Rs 454 crore will be cleared on 29 June 2020.




 •Under the “ReStart Package”, government will waive of all the minimum power demand charges of MSMEs of the months of April, May and June. This cost has been estimated as a amount of Rs 188 crore. Along with waive off, the AP government will also provide input capital of Rs 200 crore to the firms at low-interest rates in order to bring the MSMEs back on rails. This will be done by providing loans in partnership with the Small industrial Development Bank of India at a low-interest rate.

 •Andhra Pradesh government has also announced to give preferential market access to MSMEs in government procurement and it has identified 360 items that will be purchased from MSMEs and all those payments will be cleared in a period of 45 days.

4) Abhas Jha becomes World Bank’s Practice Manager for Climate Change
•Indian economist Abhas Jha has been appointed as World Bank’s Practice Manager for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management for South Asia. In his capacity, Jha will be responsible to nurture, lead, inspire and position a team of highly qualified professionals to provide the best solutions for South Asian countries. He will motivate and support the South Asia region (SAR) Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change team to connect and unite across Global Practice boundaries.

 •During his tenure as World Bank’s Practice Manager for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management for South Asia, Abhas Jha will also work along with other Practice Managers, Global Leads as well as the Global Solutions Groups to incubate, pilot and scale-up innovative and high-quality development solutions. They will together promote the generation as well as the flow of global knowledge to serve South Asian countries.

5) Jahnabi Phookan appointed as National President of FLO
•FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) has appointed Assam-based entrepreneur Jahnabi Phookan as its National President. She has taken over from the outgoing National President Harjinder Kaur Talwar as the 37th National President of FLO, the women wing of the leading industry chamber of the country.

 •As a National President, Jahnabi Phookan will work towards empowering women with entrepreneurship capabilities and professional excellence. Her efforts would aim to enable women to take up new challenges and maximise the opportunities in the new normal post COVID-19.

 •FICCI FLO works towards women’s economic empowerment and represents over 8,000 women entrepreneurs and professionals across 17 chapters nationally. It also works towards promoting equal opportunities for women.

6) MoHFW constitutes committee to reform Drug Regulatory System
•The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has constituted a committee to reform the Drug Regulatory System. The committee comprises of 11 members including the senior health officials, scientists and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. The committee is being headed by Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty to the Union health minister.

 •The committee has been tasked with examining the current drug regulatory system and to give recommendations for reforms in order to bring the system more efficient and to streamline it with global standards. It has also been tasked to examine the reports given by Parliamentary standing committee, Professor RR Choudhary Committee on clinical trials and SN Mishra Committee on qualification of DCGI.
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