PERIYAR CURRENT AFFAIRS 19 - JANUARY -2018
Paper
1:
Topic:
Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues.
Pradhan
Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA)
Context: Pradhan
Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA) has crossed one crore mark in
antenatal check-ups.
§ The
programme has been successful in reaching out to the difficult and remote areas
of India, since out of the 1 crore checkups across the country, more than 25
lakh check-ups were conducted in high priority districts identified by the
Health Ministry for focussed attention.
§ While
all States/ UTs have made significant efforts to reach out to pregnant
women, Maharashtra has reported the largest number of check-ups among
the Non-Empowered Action Group (EAG) States and Rajasthan has reported the
largest number of check-ups among the Empowered Action Group States.
About
PMSMA:
The
Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan has been launched by the Ministry of
Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India.
§ The
program aims to provide assured, comprehensive and quality antenatal care, free
of cost, universally to all pregnant women on the 9thof every month.
PMSMA guarantees a minimum package of antenatal care services to women in their
2nd/3rd trimesters of pregnancy at designated government health facilities.
§ The
programme follows a systematic approach for engagement with private sector
which includes motivating private practitioners to volunteer for the campaign;
developing strategies for generating awareness and appealing to the private
sector to participate in the Abhiyan at government health facilities.
Background:
Data
indicates that Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in India was very high in the
year 1990 with 556 women dying during child birth per hundred thousand live
births as compared to the global MMR of 385/lakh live births. As per RGI- SRS
(2011-13), MMR of India has now declined to 167/lakh live births against a
global MMR of 216/lakh live births (2015). India has registered an overall
decline in MMR of 70% between 1990 and 2015 in comparison to a global decline
of 44%.
While
India has made considerable progress in the reduction of maternal and infant
mortality, every year approximately 44000 women still die due to
pregnancy-related causes and approximately 6.6 lakh infants die within the
first 28 days of life. Many of these deaths are preventable and many lives can
be saved if quality care is provided to pregnant women during their antenatal
period and high risk factors such as severe anemia, pregnancy-induced
hypertension etc are detected on time and managed well.
Sources:
pib.
Topic:
Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues.
INSV
Tarini
Context: An
all-woman Indian Navy team on Indian Naval Sailing Vessel (INSV) Tarini has
successfully crossed the notoriously rough Drake Passage, as they rounded Cape
Horn off the Southern tip of South America, sometimes called the Mount Everest
of sailing.
INSV
Tarini:
INSV
Tarini is a 56 foot sailing vessel built in India by M/s Aquarius Shipyard Pvt
Ltd, Goa. It was inducted into the Indian Navy recently in February 2017. It
has Raymarine navigation suite and an array of satellite communication systems
for perfect navigation anywhere in the world. It showcases the ‘Make in India’
initiative on the International forum.
Navika
Sagar Parikrama:
The
voyage of Navika Sagar Parikrama began from Goa coast in September 2017 and
will be finishing around March 2018. The expedition will be covered in five
legs, with stop-overs at 4 ports: Fremantle (Australia), Lyttleton (New
Zealand), Port Stanley (Falklands), and Cape Town (South Africa).
The
project is considered essential towards promoting Ocean Sailing activities in
the Indian Navy along with showcasing the Government’s support for empowering
women.
Significance:
It
also aims to showcase ‘Nari Shakti’ on the world platform and help
revolutionise societal attitudes and mindset towards women in India by raising
visibility of their participation in challenging environs. The voyage aims to
show case the ‘Make in India’ initiative by sailing onboard the indigenously
built INSV Tarini. The crew would monitor and report marine pollution on the
high seas.
Facts
for Prelims:
The
Drake Passage is the body of water between South America’s Cape Horn and the
South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the
Atlantic Ocean (Scotia Sea) with the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean and
extends into the Southern Ocean.
The
passage between Cape Horn and Livingston Island is the shortest crossing from Antarctica
to any other landmass. There is no significant land anywhere around the world
at the latitudes of Drake Passage, which is important to the unimpeded flow of
the Antarctic Circumpolar Current which carries a huge volume of water through
the Passage and around Antarctica.
Sources:
the hindu.
Paper
2:
Topic:
Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and
States and the performance of these schemes; mechanisms, laws, institutions and
bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable
sections.
Maharashtra
govt rolls out 1% reservation for orphans
In
an unprecedented move, Maharashtra government has announced a 1%
reservation in the open category for orphans in the state. Officials say
Maharashtra is, perhaps, the first state to bring such a policy.
Eligibility: Only
children who have no idea who their parents were and what their caste is will
be covered under this reservation.
Significance
of this move:
The
historic decision is aimed at social and economic empowerment of such children.
This will help orphans get education and employment, especially in government
services. This will also help many children who otherwise find it hard to be
assimilated in the mainstream.
Sources:
toi.
Topic:
Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or
affecting India’s interests.
International
Solar Alliance
Context: In
one of its first outreach programmes post-ratification, the International Solar
Alliance (ISA) is hosting an event ‘International Solar Alliance Forum’ at the
Future World Energy Summit (WFES) 2018.
About
ISA:
The
Paris Declaration establishes ISA as an alliance dedicated to the promotion of
solar energy among its member countries. The ISA’s major objectives include
global deployment of over 1,000GW of solar generation capacity and mobilisation
of investment of over US$ 1000 billion into solar energy by 2030.
§ As
an action-oriented organisation, the ISA brings together countries with rich
solar potential to aggregate global demand, thereby reducing prices through
bulk purchase, facilitating the deployment of existing solar technologies at
scale, and promoting collaborative solar R&D and capacity building.
§ When
the ISA Framework Agreement entered into force on December 6th, 2017, ISA
formally became a de-jure treaty based International Intergovernmental
Organization, headquartered at Gurugram, India. As of now the ISA Framework
Agreement has been signed by 48 countries, with 19 of them also depositing the
instruments of ratification with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government
of India.
Sources:
pib.
Topic:
Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure,
mandate.
UN
Environment Management Group
Context: The
Secretariat of the UN Environment Management Group (EMG) is planning to hold a
new series of ‘Nexus Dialogues,’ create two new Issue Management Groups and
launch a campaign for waste management in the UN, among its activities in 2018.
§ Upcoming
dialogues will address sustainable consumption and production (SCP),
biodiversity, and UN system support for SDG implementation at the national
level. The dialogues seek to contribute to a common understanding of the
integrated SDGs and targets on selected “nexus” themes.
§ The
EMG also will launch a waste management campaign dubbed ‘Say yes to less,’ to
raise awareness of waste reduction and management among UN staff.
About
the UN Environment Management Group (EMG):
The
EMG is a UN system-wide coordination body on environment and human settlements.
It was established in 2001 pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution,
supporting a proposal of the UN Secretary-General.
§ Its
members include the secretariats of the multilateral environmental agreements
(MEAs) and other specialized agencies, programmes and organs of the UN.
Representatives of intergovernmental bodies, civil society and international
non-governmental organizations can be invited to contribute.
§ The
group is chaired by the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme and
supported by a secretariat provided by UNEP, located in Geneva, Switzerland.
The EMG works through technical meetings, Issue Management Groups and task
forces.
Sources:
et.
Paper
3:
Topic:
Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
‘Nirman
Samvaad’
What
is it? It is A one-day Mega Conclave, a first ever interaction
between the Ministry of Railways and the Construction Industry. The conclave
was held recently in New Delhi.
Key
facts:
§ It
was a major event aimed at taking measures to ensure expeditious implementation
of ambitious Railway Infrastructure Development Plans. It aims to streamline
procedures and remove bottlenecks to ensure the fast track implementation of
projects on the railways.
§ This
Conclave was organized by Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL), a dedicated arm of
Ministry of Railways for fast track implementation of railway projects.
Sources:
pib.
Topic:
Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology,
bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.
Maharashtra
unveils Public cloud policy
Maharashtra
has unveiled a public cloud policy, virtually mandating its departments to
shift their data storage onto the cloud, which intends to make them available
for free to the general public.
About
the policy:
The
policy, a first by any State, will create a $2 billion opportunity for the
industry. Under the framework, the government will make it mandatory for the
data to be stored within the country.
§ The
objective is to use public cloud in cases wherever the Right to Information Act
is applicable, and then go in for enhanced security features for private and
sensitive data, which will also be stored on the cloud.
§ A
four-member committee under the secretary of the information technology
department has been formed by the CM to oversee the implementation of the
policy.
§ Once
the policy is implemented and the data stored on the cloud, the access to the
public cloud services will either be free or on a pay-per-usage model.
§ The
State policy is compliant with the Union government’s National Data Sharing and
Accessibility Policy, 2012, which mandates facilitation of access to
government-owned shareable data in human readable and machine readable forms.
Significance
of this move:
The
government produces 1.25 lakh documents every day. Most of them are being
stored at 75 centralised data centres, resulting in a high maintenance cost.
With the public cloud, investment on these centres is not required. The idea is
to reduce expenditure on IT resources. This will also accelerate e-governance,
and open an area for private sector investments, taking new technologies to all
the departments as the government is the biggest data creator and consumer.
Sources:
the hindu.
Topic:
Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology,
bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.
iCreate
Context: Prime
Minister Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu recently dedicated
to the nation the iCreate facility located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
About
iCreate:
iCreate
is an independent centre created with the objective of facilitating entrepreneurship
through a blend of creativity, innovation, engineering, product design and
leveraging emerging technologies to deal with major issues such as food
security, water, connectivity, cybersecurity, IT and electronics, energy,
bio-medical equipment and devices etc.
Aim:
iCreate aims to develop an ecosystem in India to generate quality
entrepreneurs.
Sources:
the hindu.
Topic:
Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology,
bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.
2002
AJ129
What
is it? It is an asteroid larger than the tallest building on Earth,
Burj Khalifa. As per reports, the asteroid will pass Earth on February 4,
missing our planet by 2.6 million miles. It has been classified as a
“near-Earth object” and “potentially hazardous” by US space agency NASA.
What
are asteroids?
Asteroids
are celestial objects that are smaller than planets, which are irregularly
shaped and lack fixed orbits. In our solar system, most asteroids originate
from the asteroid belt, a zone between Mars and Jupiter, where these objects
are scattered about.
Sources:
et.
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