POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                             

1. Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report, 2019                                              

2. Legislative Council abolished in J&K                                                  

ECONOMY                                                                                             

1. NITI Aayog launches India Innovation Index 2019                              

2. Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)                                                   

3. Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report                                         

SECURITY                                                                                             

1. EX EASTERN BRIDGE-V                                                                 

2. India, Japan to begin joint Air Force exercise 'Shinyuu Maitri'             

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report, 2019

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - - Issues related to health.

Context :

•  The World Health Organization (WHO) released the Global Tuberculosis Report - 2019.

Key Highlights of the Report :

• Between 2015 and 2018, only 6.3 per cent TB cases showed a cumulative decline.

• The global decline in the total number of TB deaths between 2015 and 2018 was 11%.

• In 2018, 7 million new cases of TB were notified — an increase from 6.4 million notified in 2017 and from the 5.7-5.8 million notified annually between 2009 and 2012.

• The catastrophic costs ranged from 27% to 83% for all forms of TB, and from 67 % to 100% for drug-resistant TB.

• Undernourishment, smoking, alcohol abuse, HIV infection and diabetes, were the five major factors to which TB could be attributed.

India specific Findings :

• In 2017, India had 27.4 lakh TB patients which came down to 26.9 lakh in 2018. Of the estimated 2.69 million TB cases emerging in 2018, 2.15 million were reported to the Government of India — leaving a gap of 5, 40,000 patients who are going unreported.

• Incidence per 1, 00,000 population has decreased from 204 in 2017 to 199 in 2018.

• The number of patients being tested for rifampicin resistance has increased from 32% in 2017 to 46% in 2018.

                                                                                                Source :- The Hindu; Down To Earth

Legislative Council abolished in J&K

GS PAPER - 02  POLITY  - Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States, issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein.

CONTEXT :

• The Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Council, has been abolished as per Section 57 of the J&K Reorganisation Bill, 2019.

Background :

• The 36-member state council was established in 1957 after an act was passed by the Parliament.

• These legislations created a bicameral legislature for J&K.

• The council functioned as an upper house for the state assembly.

  • It had a strength of 36 members.

• It was also used to be a part of the electoral college for the Rajya Sabha elections.

• The Centre had on August 5, 2019 abrogated the provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir for residency and government jobs.

• Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, which was passed in August revoked the special status granted to J&K and bifurcated the state into two Union territories of J&K and Ladakh.           

                                                                                                                                                   Source :- The Hindu

ECONOMY

NITI Aayog launches India Innovation Index 2019

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• NITI Aayog launches India Innovation Index 2019.

  • NITI Aayog with Institute for Competitiveness as the knowledge partner released the India Innovation Index (III) 2019.

Key Highlights :

• Karnataka is the most innovative major state in India.

  • Karnataka’s number one position in the overall ranking is partly attributed to its top rank in the Performance dimension.

  • It is also among the top performers in Infrastructure, Knowledge Workers, Knowledge Output and Business Environment.

• Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh form the remaining top ten major states respectively.

• The top ten major states are majorly concentrated in Southern and Western India.

• Sikkim and Delhi take the top spots among the north-eastern & hill states, and union territories/city states/small states respectively.

• Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh are the most efficient states in translating inputs into output.           

                                                                                                                                                                  Source :- PIB

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)

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

Context :

• The three Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer are considered to be instrumental in using randomised controlled trials to test the effectiveness of various policy interventions to alleviate poverty.

Randomised Control trial(RCT):

• A Randomised Control trial is an experiment that is designed to isolate the influence that a certain intervention or variable has on an outcome or event.

Working of RTC :

• A social science researcher who wants to find the effect that employing more teachers in schools has on children’s learning outcomes can conduct a randomized controlled trial to find the answer.

• The RCT method says that any point in time,there are multiple factors that work in tandem to influence various social events.

• For instance, to measure the impact that hiring more teachers can have on children’s learning,researchers must control for the effect that other factors such as intelligence, nutrition, climate, economic and social status etc.

• RCTs promise to overcome this problem through the use of randomly picked samples.

• Using these random samples,researchers can then conduct experiments by carefully varying appropriate variables to find out the impact of these individual variables on the final event.

Criticism :

• Critics have argued that an over-reliance on RCT-based research turns questions of poverty into bite-sized problems with a focus on correcting individual behaviour instead of grappling with the larger, systemic issues at hand.

• Further,a popular critic of randomized controlled trials is economist Angus Deaton who won the economics Nobel Prize in 2015.

• He had said that simply choosing samples for an RCT experiment in a random manner does not really make these samples identical in their many characteristics.

                                                                                                                       Source :- The Hindu

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY -Effects of liberalization on the economy.

Context :

• The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2019 has been released.

Asia - Pacific trade and Investment Report :

• The report has been published by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(ESCAP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD).

• The report provides information on developments in

  • intra- and inter-regional trade in goods and services

  • foreign direct investment

  • trade facilitation measures

  • trade policy measures and

  • preferential trade policies and agreements.

Key Highlights :

• The report has said that the Non-tariff measures (NTMs) have increased in the past two decades and are affecting trade as well sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Asian countries.

• NTMs affect 58 per cent of the trade in Asia-Pacific.

• NTMs can have a direct impact on the performance of trading partners. They can also impact issues such as health, safety, environment, climate, public security and peace, which in turn, influence SDGs.

• Around half the Asia-Pacific’s economies have at least one NTM addressing water and energy efficiency and only 10 per cent have measures addressing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and illegal timber trade.

Concern :

• The implementation of NTMs raises the cost of trade, especially in developing economies. The average cost of these measures alone amounts to 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product, roughly $1.4 trillion globally.

• The developed economies have a higher standard of NTMs which affects trade of developing economies. In case of Sri Lanka, the country would have needed to invest too much to follow EU standards on IUU.

• Thus, the cost of investment in NTMs can sometimes be higher than the cost of total trade. This makes NTMs burdensome.

• NTMs affected foreign direct investment negatively, which slowed countries’ economic activities.

Key Recommendations :

• The report has called for increasing cooperation with developed economies to work out regional mechanisms and developing common guidelines on sustainability impact assessment of NTMs.

• The report has also recommended reviewing current NTMs and ensuring that new NTMs are systematically follows and monitored.

• The report also said that the implementation of NTMs in the right spirit can help in achieving SDGs.           

                                                                                                                          Source :-  Down To Earth

SECURITY

EX EASTERN BRIDGE-V 

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• The Indian Air Force is participating in a bilateral joint exercise with the Royal Air Force Oman (RAFO), named Ex Eastern Bridge – V, scheduled for 4 days in October 2019, at Air Force Base Masirah in Oman.

Ex Eastern Bridge – V:

• This is a joint bilateral exercise between the Air Forces of India and Oman.

• The previous exercise was held in 2017 at Jamnagar in Gujarat. 2019 marks the fifth edition of the exercise. The first such exercise was held in 2009 in Jamnagar.

• This is the first time that the MiG-29 fighter aircraft will be participating in an international exercise outside India.

• The exercise will enhance interoperability during mutual operations between the two Air Forces and will provide an opportunity to learn from each other’s best practices.

• The participation of the Indian Air Force in the exercise will also promote professional interaction, exchange of experience and operational knowledge.

• Besides strengthening bilateral relations, it will also provide a good opportunity to the air-warriors to operate in an international environment.

                                                                                                                                                                   Source :- PIB

India, Japan to begin joint Air Force exercise 'Shinyuu Maitri'

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• The Indian Air Force will be carrying out a joint military exercise called ‘Shinyuu Maitri’ with Japanese Air Self Defence Force (JASDF) from 17 to 23 October 2019.

Shinyuu Maitri :

• Shinyuu Maitri is a bilateral air exercise between the Japanese Air Self Defence Force(JASDF) and Indian Air Force(IAF).

• The exercise will be held at Air Force Station, Arjan Singh in Panagarh town,West Bengal.

• The objective of the exercise will be to undertake Joint Mobility and Tactical interoperability among the two forces.

                                                                                                                                       Source :- Business Standard

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