GEOGRAPHY                                                                                                                

1. Geochemical Baseline Atlas of India                                                                  

SOCIAL ISSUES                                                                                                            

1. Manual scavenging has gone underground in India: WHO                                

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                                                       

1. Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon 2018                                                                     

2. India is home to 77 million diabetics, second highest in the world                     

ECONOMY                                                                                             

1. BHIM UPI goes global                                                                                        

DISASTER MANAGEMENT                                                                

1. Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure                                                     

MISCELLANEOUS                                                                               

1. Golden Leaf Award                                                                                             

GEOGRAPHY

Geochemical Baseline Atlas of India

GS PAPER - 01 GEOGRAPHY - geographical features and their location- changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

Context :

• CSIR- National Geophysical Research Institute has released the Geochemical Baseline Atlas of India for environment management purpose.

Geochemical Baseline Atlas of India :

• The atlas aims to document the concentration and distribution of the chemical elements in the soils of India.

• The work of atlas was started in 2007.It consists of 45 maps of metals, oxides and elements present in top and bottom soils across India.

• The atlas traces elements from top soil i.e top 25 cm depth and bottom soil at 100 cm depth from the year 2006 to 2011.Across India,over 545 samples were collected.

Significance of Atlas :

• Soil is a vulnerable geological medium which sustains the human activities.Hence,it is important to determine the present abundance and spatial distribution of the chemical elements across the earth’s surface.

• The atlas will serve as a reference against which future generations of the country who would be able to assess the chemical compositional changes on Earth’s surface.

• These maps will also help in finding out future contamination caused by industries or other bodies which cause pollution.

• This map will also form the backbone for environment management.It will help in finding out future contaminations due to industries across the country.

• Further,the map will also support in choosing the right soil that’s rich in certain micronutrient elements required for each plant growth.

                                                                                                                      Source :- The Hindu

SOCIAL ISSUES

Manual scavenging has gone underground in India: WHO

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIAL ISSUES - population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies

Context :

• WHO has released a report titled “Health, Safety and Dignity of Sanitation Workers — An Initial Assessment”

More about the Report :

• The report has been jointly authored by the International Labour Organization, WaterAid, World Bank, and WHO.

• It features the plight and dehumanising working conditions of sanitation workers across nine lower and middle-income group countries. The countries are India, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda.

Key Highlights of the Report :

• Sanitation workers across the developing world often suffer because of weak legal protection and lack of enforcement of existing rules.

• Despite laws and regulations being in place in India, the practice of manual scavenging has not been curtailed but has been forced underground.

• In sanitation work, those considered to be of a lower caste suffer discrimination in healthcare, education, employment, access to land, employment and wages.

                                                                                                                            Context : Down To Earth

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon 2018

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• A group of selected student innovators of the Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon 2018, called on the President of India.

Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon:

• Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon is organised by the Atal Tinkering Labs of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and the NITI Aayog in an effort to identify India’s best student innovators.

• It is a six-month-long nationwide challenge across six different thematic areas, namely, clean energy, water resources, waste management, healthcare, smart mobility and agriculture-tech.

• This is open to all students under the age of 18 years.

• Students of top 30 innovations will be trained on business and entrepreneurship skills, including intellectual property, effective communication, making an elevator pitch, etc.

• These top 30 innovations have been identified from 20 different States/UTs from across India.

• The winners are being awarded with several prizes including a three month-long ATL Student Innovator Program (ATL SIP) in partnership with the industry and start-up incubators.

• The goal of the student innovator program is to test the innovations in the community.

• The ATL Student Innovator Program is an effort to institutionalize a mechanism, where high school students can work with university incubators to pursue their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas along with their education.           

                                                                                                                                       Source :- PIB

India is home to 77 million diabetics, second highest in the world

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context :

• International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has launched the latest edition of the IDF Diabetes Atlas to mark World Diabetes Day.

Key Highlights :

• Worldwide prevalence of diabetes estimated at 463 million adults in 20-79 age group.

• The number of people with diabetes is predicted to rise to 578 million by 2030 and to 700 million by 2045

• China has the highest number of adults with diabetes- 116 million adults in 20-79 age group

• India continues to be home to the second-largest number of adults with diabetes worldwide- 77 million in the 20-79 years age group.

• India was the largest contributor to diabetes mortality with more than 1 million estimated deaths attributable to diabetes and related complications, in the larger South East Asian region.

• Diabetes was responsible for an estimated $760 billion in health expenditure in 2019

• The worldwide prevalence of diabetes had reached 9.3 percent with more than half (50.1 per cent) of adults undiagnosed.

• Type 2 diabetes accounted for around 90% of all people with diabetes. The reasons for rise in the number of people with type 2 diabetes are urbanisation, an ageing population, decreasing levels of physical activity and increasing levels of overweight people and obesity.

                                                                                                                       Source :- The Hindu

ECONOMY

BHIM UPI goes global

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential;

Context :

• Recently,to internationalize the BHIM UPI a pilot demo was conducted in Singapore with a live transaction at a merchant terminal at the FinTech Festival 2019.

More in the news:

• The project is being jointly developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Singapore’s Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS).

• This QR code-based system would allow anyone with a BHIM app to scan Singapore Quick Response Code(SGQR) at NETS terminals in Singapore for payments.

• The project is targeted to go fully live by February 2020 and cover thousands of terminals in Singapore after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) approval.

• Further,by February 2020,it is also expected that all RuPay cards, including domestic ones will be acceptable in Singapore.           

                                                                                                            Source :- Business Standard

DISASTER MANAGEMENT 

Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure

GS PAPER - 03 DISASTER MANAGEMENT - Disaster and disaster management.

Context :

• At the Leaders’ Dialogue with BRICS Business Council and New Development Bank (NDB), the Prime Minister requests the BRICS countries and the NDB to join the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI):

• In September 2019, PM Modi launched the CDRI at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York, US.

• The fledgling partnership has a secretariat in Delhi, supported by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), to enable knowledge exchange, technical support and capacity building.

• CDRI’s mission is to rapidly expand the development of resilient infrastructure and retrofit existing infrastructure for resilience, and to enable a measurable reduction in infrastructure losses.

• The partnership will be working in the areas of governance and policy, emerging technology, risk identification and estimation, recovery and reconstruction, resilience standards and certification, finance, and capacity development.

• CDRI is bringing together developed and developing countries to build synergies to reach the goal of disaster-resilient infrastructure.

• The World Bank and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) expressed support for CDRI and committed to working closely with its secretariat in Delhi.

• The formation of the Coalition is the result of efforts by India and UNDRR.

Other founding members of CDRI:

• Australia

• Bhutan

• Fiji

• Indonesia

• Italy

• Japan

• Maldives

• Mexico

• Mongolia

• Rwanda

• Sri Lanka

• The UK

                                                                                                                              Source :- PIB

MISCELLANEOUS   

Golden Leaf Award

GS PAPER - 03 AWARD AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Context :

• Tobacco Board Receives 2019 Golden Leaf Award.

More in the news :

• The Tobacco Board of India has been awarded the Golden Leaf Award in the ‘Most Impressive Public Service Initiative’ category for the year 2019.

• The award was given in recognition of the Board’s efforts to initiate various sustainability (green) initiatives in Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco cultivation in India.

• It also received the award for its initiatives pertaining to natural tobacco farming, improving soil health through green manuring, introduction of 365 days green cover, promotion of advanced nursery technologies, elimination of Non-Tobacco Related Material and elimination of pesticide residues in tobacco by encouraging residue-free practices, energy conservation initiatives resulting in energy savings of 25%, development of greenery through mandatory planting of trees by tobacco farmers and tobacco trade and educating and guiding farmers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).

• The award was given in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

• The awards under this category are given to a company or institution that introduced a public service programme or educational campaign of creativity, effectiveness to date and best use of resources.           

                                                                                                                             Source :- PIB

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