Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

Why in News? 

• Recently, Three labourers in Mumbai, allegedly hired for manual scavenging, died after inhaling toxic fumes in a septic tank.
• Even though manual scavenging is banned in India, the practice is still prevalent in many parts of the country.

What is manual scavenging?

• Manual scavenging is the practice of removing human excreta by hand from sewers or septic tanks.
• India banned the practice under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (PEMSR).
• The Act bans the use of any individual for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta till its disposal.
• In 2013, the definition of manual scavengers was also broadened to include people employed to clean septic tanks, ditches, or railway tracks.
• The Act recognizes manual scavenging as a “dehumanizing practice,” and cites a need to “correct the historical injustice and indignity suffered by the manual scavengers.”

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment.
• Prior attempts at such transplants — or xenotransplantation — have failed largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. This time, surgeons used a heart from a gene-edited pig.
• Scientists had modified the animal to remove pig genes that trigger the hyper-fast rejection and add human genes to help the body accept the organ.

About Xenotransplantation

• Xenotransplantation is any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation or infusion into a human recipient of either (a) live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source, or (b) human body fluids, cells, tissues or organs that have had ex vivo contact with live nonhuman animal cells, tissues or organs. The development of xenotransplantation is, in part, driven by the fact that the demand for human organs for clinical transplantation far exceeds the supply.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The care of elderly people is managed by a set of professionals or voluntary organisations interested in geriatric services.
• These homes are run by NGOs, religious or voluntary organisations with support from the government, or by local philanthropists.
• The quality of service varies as these homes lack regulatory oversight.
• Many homes lack clearly established standard operating procedures, and their referral paths to health care are informal.

A rapidly growing section:

• A formal approach to homes for the elderly is an important policy and planning issue for India.
• The UN World Population Ageing Report notes that India’s ageing population (those aged 60 and above) is projected to increase to nearly 20% by 2050 from about 8% now.
• It is essential that our policy framework and social responses are geared to meet this reality.
• A recent set of research papers from Hyderabad focusing on the quality of health in homes for the elderly has some interesting insights.
• About 30% of the residents who were part of the study (over 1,500 participants from 40 homes) had a vision impairment of some sort, but nearly 90% of this vision impairment could be addressed by simple, relatively low-cost health interventions: issuing better eye glasses or cataract surgery.
• The study also found some ‘unseen’ effects of vision impairment: many were prone to depression.
• In fact, those with both vision and hearing impairment had a rate of depression that was five times higher than those without.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The Global Water System Project, which was launched in 2003 as a joint initiative of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) and Global Environmental Change (GEC) programme, epitomizes global concern about the human-induced transformation of fresh water and its impact on the earth system and society.

Fresh water, water valuation:

• Fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 highlighted the link between societal vulnerability and modifications of water systems.
• It is globally estimated that the gap between demand for and supply of freshwater may reach up to 40% by 2030 if present practices continue.
• The latest UN World Water Development Report, 2021, titled ‘Valuing Water’, has laid stress on the proper valuation of water by considering five interrelated perspectives:
  • Water sources
  • Water infrastructure
  • Water services
  • Water as an input to production
  • Socio-economic development  and socio-cultural values of water.

Inter-basin transfer projects:

• The intra- and inter-basin transfer (IBT) of water is a major hydrological intervention to rectify the imbalance in water availability due to naturally prevailing unequal distribution of water resources within a given territory.
• The National River Linking Project of India is under construction which is one of the projects of IBT initiatives across the world.
• These projects, if executed, will create artificial water courses that are more than twice the length of the earth’s equator and will transfer 1,910 km3 of water annually.
• The World Wildlife Fund/World Wide Fund for Nature (2009) has suggested a cautious approach and the necessity to adhere to sustainability principles set out by the World Commission on Dams while taking up IBT projects.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The participation of women in the workforce in India has remained low.
• In 2019, 21% of women were either working or looking for work, compared to 32% in 2005.
• India’s female labour force participation (FLFP) rate is the lowest among the BRICS countries and is also lower than some of its neighbours in South Asia such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

India’s demographic dividend

• India’s population is among the youngest in the world.
• In 2020, the median age in India was about 29. Women and girls form a significant part of India’s demographic dividend.
• Countries like China, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korean are examples of how the demographic dividend can be reaped to achieve fast-paced economic growth.

Potential sectors

• Access to higher education, skill training and digital technology are the three great enablers in helping India reap the potential of its female labour force.
• According to United Nations Women estimates, women make up a significant proportion of all healthcare workers and more than 80% of nurses and midwives.
• The care service sector, which includes health, education, and other personal care services, is more labour-intensive than sectors such as manufacturing, construction or other service sectors.
• Greater investments in better health and care facilities improve the well-being of India’s people and hence the economic productivity.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The MV Lal Bahadur Shastri, which had sailed up the Ganga from Patna a month before, landed in Guwahati’s Pandu port on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra on March 6, carrying 200 metric tonnes of food grains for the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
• It is thought that the event propelled inland water transport on two of India’s most important river systems into the future.

Why is a Ganga-Brahmaputra cargo vessel in focus? 

• When a cargo vessel sets sail from or docks at any river port, it is not unusual for people to take notice. However, a large number of VIPs gathered to greet the MV Lal Bahadur Shastri, a cargo vessel operated by the IWAI (Inland Waterways Authority of India), as it docked at Guwahati’s Pandu port on March 6. Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Guwahati MP Queen Oja, and IWAI Chairman Sanjay Bandopadhyay were among those who attended the ceremony.
• The vessel had begun sailing from Patna on the National Waterway 1 on February 5th (NW1, river Ganga). In India, it passed through Bhagalpur, Manihari, Sahibganj, Farakka, Tribeni, Kolkata, Haldia, Hemnagar, and Chilmari, while in Bangladesh, it passed through Khulna, Narayanganj, Sirajganj, and Chilmari before returning to India via National Waterway 2 (NW2, river Brahmaputra) via Dhubri and Jogighopa, a distance of 2,350 In India’s landlocked northeast, which was highly reliant on India’s inland water transport system before independence in 1947, the arrival of a vessel carrying 200 MT of food grains for the FCI has renewed optimism for the inland water transport system.

Is this the first such shipping of cargo? 

• The shipment of freight from Patna to Pandu via Bangladesh was the first enterprise undertaken by FCI. Two 1,000-tonne barges carrying 1,233 tonnes of bagged fly ash travelled 2,085 kilometres (more than a month) from Kahalgaon in Bihar to Pandu in Uttar Pradesh in a similar experiment in 2018.
• A private company had purchased fly ash from the National Thermal Power Corporation’s facility in Bihar for use in its cement mills in Assam and Meghalaya, which were located in those states. According to expectations, regular services between NW1 and NW2 will be established, “heralding a new age of inland water transport” for the northeast. A 252 MT shipment bound for eastern Assam’s Numaligarh biorefinery arrived at Silghat in central Assam on February 15 after travelling from Haldia in West Bengal.
• According to the Indian Wind Energy Association, the process has already begun. Another vessel, the MV Ram Prasad Bismil, which is transporting two barges named Kalpana Chawla and APJ Abdul Kalam, began its trip from Haldia on February 17 and is anticipated to arrive in Pandu within a few days.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• On international women’s day, there is a need to emphasize on role of women in the economy.

Benefits of women participation

• With women participation in the workforce, economies grow faster.
• When women are empowered, the battle to eradicate poverty is more fruitful.
• Studies conducted in various nations have proven that there is a direct correlation between greater gender diversity and higher GDPs.

If women are not empowered, the nation’s economy loses.

• A recent study by the World Bank found that countries lose $160 trillion in wealth due to the differences in lifetime earnings between men and women.
• Women’s participation in the workforce in India is still among the lowest in the world at 19.9 per cent (according to World Bank’s data of 2020).
• Only 7 per cent of the leadership positions in corporate India are occupied by women.
• Right from boardroom representation to entry-level roles, India is striving hard to ensure a balance in gender diversity.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• Odisha’s Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting the Centre to direct the National Medical Commission (NMC) to ensure uninterrupted education for medical students who have been evacuated from Ukraine.
• He has requested him to enable their admission to Indian medical colleges.
  • There is a partial precedent in the post-Partition “transfers” provided to refugee medical students who migrated from medical colleges located in the newly-created Pakistan.
• The plight of 18,000 Indian medical students trapped in Ukraine’s war zones has led to widespread concerns. While efforts are being made for their evacuation and early return to India, several questions arise. Why did they need to go to Ukraine to study? What will happen to their interrupted education? What are the alternatives available to them on their return to India?

Medical education scenario in India

• The number of seats available for medical education in India is far less than the number of aspirants who leave school with the dream of becoming doctors.
• Of the 6 million students who appeared in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in 2021, only 88,120 made it into the 562 medical colleges in the country.
• Others had to enrol in non-medical courses in India or seek admission to foreign medical colleges. While the number of medical colleges has now increased to 596 (with 89,875 seats), the entry barrier is still high.
• China, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines and Kazakhstan are among the countries where Indian students pursue their dreams to become doctors.
• On return, they need to pass a qualifying examination before they are permitted to intern in the institutions recognised by the Medical Council of India (MCI) — its functions have been taken over by the recently-constituted NMC.
• The task of conducting this screening test was assigned to the National Board of Examinations (NBE). The passing rates were disappointingly low (mostly below 20 per cent), for several reasons–
  • Training standards varied widely across foreign institutions.
  • The language of instruction was not English.
  • The curriculum in foreign colleges differed in several respects from that taught in India. A student training in Russia or Ukraine is unlikely to learn much about kala-azar or malaria.
• The screening examination in India used to cover the vast syllabus encompassing the entire gamut of medical education.. So, foreign medical graduates started taking coaching classes. That spawned another industry.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the growing role of women in strengthening the political and civic life of democracy in South Asia.
• At the global level, much has already been written about the superior performance of women leaders, such as Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand), Tsai-Ing Wen (Taiwan), Sanna Marin (Finland) and KK Shailaja (Kerala), in handling the pandemic.
• Likewise, the highly effective contributions of local-level panchayat sarpanches and health officials has been documented.

However more systemic and ground-level realities of women are fraught with various contradictions, contestations, and quiet calamities.

Democracy and women

• For a proper appraisal of the relations between gender and democracy, we ought to examine the links between violence, representation, and the political participation of women.
• Historically, one of the peculiar paradoxes of South Asian democracy has been the continued presence of strong women leaders at the executive centre coupled with a generally appalling condition of women in society at large.
  • Example-South Asia has had the largest number of women heads of state — including Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Indira Gandhi, Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina, and Benazir Bhutto — of any region in the world till recently.
  • However, this seemingly empowering image is disproved when we take a broader view of the electoral representation and social condition of women in the region. While women have played very visible and important roles at the higher echelons of power and at the grassroots level in social movements, they have been under-represented in political parties as officials and as members of key decision-making bodies.
• In electoral representation, India, for instance, has fallen several places in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global ranking of women’s parliamentary presence, from 117 after the 2014 election to 143 as of January 2020. India is currently behind Pakistan (106), Bangladesh (98) and Nepal (43) and ahead of Sri Lanka (182).

Context

• The global financial crime watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its latest plenary meeting, decided to retain Pakistan on its terror financing ‘grey list’, asking the neighbouring country to expeditiously address the remaining deficiencies in its financial system.
• It has also added UAE to the list this time, which has promised to take “robust” actions in countering terror financing and money laundering.

About FATF

• The Financial Action Task Force is an international watchdog for financial crimes such as money laundering and terror financing.
• As per the official definition, it is an inter-governmental body that sets international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society.
• Origin
  • The FATF was established at the G7 Summit of 1989 in Paris, over concerns of the member countries about growing money laundering activities. The heads of G7 countries and the president of the European Commission brought together a Task Force after addressing loopholes in the global financial system.
  • Later, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack on the United States, FATF also added terror financing as a main focus area. This was broadened in 2012, to include restricting the funding of weapons of mass destruction.
• The FATF currently has 39 members. The decision making body of the FATF is known as its plenary, which meets thrice a year. Its meetings are attended by 206 countries of the global network, including members, and observer organisations, such as the World Bank, some offices of the United Nations and regional development banks.