POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. PM launches the Fit India Movement                                                                         

2. Campaign Angikaar & E-Course on Vulnerability Atlas Launched                         

3. North East Rural Livelihood Project                                                                           

ECONOMY

1. RBI says lack of domestic demand affecting ‘animal spirits’ of economy             

2. Safe Cities Index 2019                                                                                                  

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

1. UN warns of rising seas, storm surges                                                                      

MISCELLANEOUS

1. SKOCH Governance Gold Award                                                                               

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

PM launches the Fit India Movement

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

Context :

• The Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Fit India Movement at a ceremony in New Delhi on the occasion of National Sports Day.

• Launching the people’s movement on the birth anniversary of Major Dhyanchand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to Major Dhyanchand, India’s sports icon who enthralled the world with his game and techniques.

Fit India Movement :

• The Fit India Movement aims to encourage Indians to include fitness activities and sports in their daily lives to pave way for a healthy and fit lifestyle.

• The Prime Minister during his speech on Fit India said that fitness is not just a word but a way to lead a healthy life.

  • The Prime Minister observed that the root cause of most lifestyle diseases are lifestyle disorders and there are many diseases that can be overcome by making small changes in our lifestyle

  • Lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension are increasing in India. Hence, the Prime Minister said that Fit India should be seen as a household movement, a daily routine.

                                                                                                                                                    Source :- PIB

Campaign Angikaar & E-Course on Vulnerability Atlas Launched

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE -  Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes

Context :

• Minister of State (I/C) for Housing and Urban Affairs launched “angikaar” a campaign for change management and e-Course on Vulnerability Atlas of India.

Campaign Angikaar :

• Angikaar has been launched for social behaviour change, focusing on issues such as water & energy conservation, waste management, health, tree plantation, sanitation and hygiene for beneficiaries of completed houses under PMAY (U)

• This will be done through community mobilisation and IEC activities.For this purpose, the campaign will converge with schemes and Missions of other Ministries dealing with these subjects.

• The convergence would especially focus on Ujjwala for gas connection and Ayushman Bharat for health insurance to the beneficiaries of PMAY (U).

E-course on Vulnerability Atlas :

• The e-course on Vulnerability Atlas is offered by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs in collaboration of School of Planning & Architecture (SPA), New Delhi and Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC).

• It is a unique course that offers awareness and understanding about natural hazards, helps identify regions with high vulnerability with respect to various hazards (earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, floods, etc.) and specifies district-wise level of damage risks to the existing housing stock.

• The e-course will be a tool for effective & efficient disaster mitigation & management in the field of Architecture, Civil Engineering, Urban & Regional Planning, Housing & Infrastructure Planning, Construction Engineering & Management and Building & Materials Research.

                                                                                                                                                                Source :- PIB

North East Rural Livelihood Project

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

Context :

• The North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) has empowered the poor and improved the lives of people in about 3,00,000 rural households in Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.

North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) :

• Launched in 2012, the NERLP is a World Bank aided, multi-state ₹683 crore project under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER).

• The project has been implemented in 11 districts of Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim with an aim to improve rural livelihoods especially that of women, unemployed youth and the most disadvantaged, in the four North Eastern States.

• There are four components to the Project:
   

  • Social empowerment

  • Economic empowerment

  • Partnership development

  • Project management

Objective :

• Create sustainable community institutions around women Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Youth Groups of men and women (YG) and Community Development Groups (CDG).

• Build capacity of community institutions for self governance, bottom up planning, democratic functioning with transparency and accountability.

• Increase economic and livelihood opportunities.

• Develop partnership of community institutions for natural resource management, microfinance, market linkages, and sectoral economic services.

                                                                                                                                                                Source :- PIB

ECONOMY  

RBI says lack of domestic demand affecting ‘animal spirits’ of economy

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Growth, development and employment.

Context :

• According to the annual report of the RBI,the lack of domestic demand is holding back the animal spirits in the economy.

Key Highlights of the Report :

• The report has said that the economic slowdown could be cyclical in nature rather than a deep structural one.But there are some crucial structural issues in land, labour, & agricultural marketing that require urgent reforms.

• The report has also emphasised on the need to revive consumption demand and private investment during 2019-20.

• Banks are recovering, but Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) have irrational exuberance and considerable overleveraging.

• Cases of frauds reported by banks saw a 15% jump in 2018-19 on a year-on-year basis.

Reforms Needed :

• Reviving consumption demand and private investment is the need of the hour. It may involve:

• Strengthening the banking and non-banking sectors,

• Increased spending on infrastructure,

• Implementation of much needed structural reforms in the areas of labour laws & taxation.

• Other legal reforms, which will enhance the Ease of Doing Business in India.

• Faster implementation of capital expenditures by public authorities and similar other measures as announced by the Finance Ministry recently in this regard have the potential to inject growth impulses into the economy.

                                                                                                                                                          Source :- The Hindu

Safe Cities Index 2019

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - growth, development and employment. Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.

Context :

• UK based, Economist Intelligence Unit, has released Safe Cities Index 2019.

Safe cities Index :

• It ranks 60 countries worldwide across five continents.

• It measures the multi-faceted nature of urban safety, with indicators categorised as digital, infrastructure, health and personal security.

Key Highlights :

• Tokyo ranked overall the safest city followed by Singapore and Osaka.

• Mumbai has been ranked as the 45th safest city.

• Delhi stood at 52nd position.

  • New Delhi and Mumbai have both ranked 47th in terms of Digital Security;

  • Mumbai ranked 50th,

  • while New Delhi ranked 51st in terms of Health Security; Mumbai ranked 50th,

  • while New Delhi ranked 57th in terms of Infrastructure Security; and in Personal Security, Mumbai ranked 37th, while New Delhi ranked 41st.

                                                                                                                         Source :- Livemint

ENVIRONMENT  

UN warns of rising seas, storm surges

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context :

• According to the draft of a major UN report, there would be serious blowbacks over the next few centuries from oceans and Earth’s frozen zones.

Key Issues :

• According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), our long-time habit of loading the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2 has spawned a host of consequences, starting with irreversible sea-level rise.

• Destructive changes already set in motion could see

  • A steady decline in fish stocks

  • A hundred-fold or more increase in the damages caused by superstorms

  • Hundreds of millions of people displaced by rising seas

• Without deep cuts to manmade emissions, at least 30% of the northern hemisphere’s surface permafrost could melt by century’s end, unleashing billions of tonnes of carbon and accelerating global warming even more.

Concern :

• The 900-page scientific assessment is the fourth such tome from the UN in less than a year, with others focused on a 1.5-Celsius cap on global warming, the state of biodiversity, and how to manage forests and the global food system.

• All four conclude that humanity must overhaul the way it produces and consumes almost everything to avoid the worst ravages of climate change and environmental degradation.

• The report found that, even under optimistic scenarios in which warming is capped at two degrees Celsius, Earth will likely see more than a 100-fold increase in the damages caused by superstorms and 280 million people displaced by rising seas.

• Earth’s ice- or snow-covered regions, known as the cryosphere, have also been hammered by man-made warming, with ice sheets shedding more than 400 billion tonnes in mass each year.

• Mountain glaciers, the fresh water source for a billion people in the Andes, Himalayas and elsewhere is threatened with local extinction.

• According to the findings, a third to 99% of the world’s permafrost could also melt by 2100 if emissions continue unabated, potentially releasing a carbon bomb of greenhouse gases.

• It finds that, as the 21st century unfolds, melting glaciers will first give too much and then too little to billions who depend on them for fresh water.

• The report concludes that, by 2050, many low-lying megacities and small island nations will experience “extreme sea level events” every year.

• It is said that, even if the world manages to cap global warming at two degrees Celsius, the global ocean waterline will rise enough to displace more 250 million people.

                                                                                                                                                        Source :- The Hindu

MISCELLANEOUS  

SKOCH Governance Gold Award

GS PAPER - 03  Achievements of India’s

Context :

• Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), a flagship mission under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has been conferred the prestigious SKOCH Governance Gold Award for its Portal for Affordable Credit and Interest Subvention Access (PAiSA).

Portal for Affordable Credit and Interest Subvention Access (PAiSA) :

• Launched in November 2018, PAiSA is a centralized IT platform which simplifies and streamlines release of interest subvention under the Mission.

• It offers end to end online solution for processing, payment, monitoring and tracking of interest subvention claims from banks on a monthly basis.

• Claims for subvention are uploaded by banks through their CBS (Core Banking Solution) in respect of the beneficiaries of the Self Employment Programme, which are verified and approved by the ULB and State concerned.

• The approved claim amount gets credited directly to the beneficiary’s loan account through DBT mode.

                                                                                                                        Source :- PIB

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