POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                             

1. Unintended pregnancy puts mother, child at risk: WHO study             

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS                                                          

1. International Civil Aviation Organisation(ICAO)                                  

2. Universal Postal Union (UPU)                                                           

3. India, Saudi Arabia to sign Strategic Partnership Council pact             

ECONOMY                                                                                             

1. No country on sustainable transport track: Global mobility report        

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY                                                      

1. Nelloptodes gretae                                                                           

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

Unintended pregnancy puts mother, child at risk: WHO study

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

Context :

• A new study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 36 countries found that unwanted pregnancies may lead to a wide range of health risks for the mother and child.

Key Highlights of the Study :

• The study found that two-thirds of sexually active women who wished to delay or limit childbearing stopped using contraception for the fear of side effects, health concerns and underestimation of the likelihood of conception which led to one in four pregnancies being unintended.

  • Globally, 74 million women living in low and middle-income countries have unintended pregnancies annually.

  • This leads to 25 million unsafe abortions and 47,000 maternal deaths every year.

Concern Associated with Unintended Pregnancy :

• WHO has warned of the risks may lead to a wide range of health risks for the mother and child.

  • The risks include malnutrition, illness, abuse and neglect, and even death. Unintended pregnancies can further lead to cycles of high fertility, as well as lower educational and employment potential and poverty – challenges which can span generations.

Indian Scenario:

• As per the figures published by Lancet on the incidence of abortion and unintended pregnancy in India, it is estimated that 15.6 million abortions occurred in India in 2015.

• In India, the abortion rate was 47 per 1,000 women aged 15-49 years.

• The study found that 3·4 million abortions (22%) were obtained in health facilities, 11·5 million (73%) abortions were medication abortions done outside of health facilities, and 0·8 million (5%) abortions were done outside of health facilities using methods other than medication abortion.

• In India, abortions accounted for one-third of all pregnancies, and nearly half of the pregnancies were unintended.

More in the news:

• The WHO report stated that modern methods of contraception had a vital role in preventing unintended pregnancies.

• It is opined that high-quality family planning offered a range of potential benefits that encompassed not only improved maternal and child health, but also social and economic development, education, and women’s empowerment.

• The study’s findings highlighted the need for services that

  • Take a shared decision-making approach to selecting and using effective methods of contraception that most fit the needs and preferences

  • Identify early when women and girls are having concerns about the method they are using

  • Enable women and girls to change modern methods while remaining protected through effective counselling and respect of their rights and dignity.

Way Forward :

• The WHO has recommended that overcoming legal, policy, social, cultural and structural barriers will enable more people to benefit from effective contraceptive services.

                                                                                                                      Source :- The Hindu

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Civil Aviation Organisation(ICAO)

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.

Context :

• India has taken up Pakistan’s denial of use of its airspace to Indian Prime Minister flight with the International Civil Aviation Organisation(ICAO).

International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) :

• International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations charged with coordinating and regulating international air travel.

• ICAO was established in 1944 by Convention on International Civil Aviation(Chicago Convention).It is headquartered in Quebec,Canada.

• It codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.

• ICAO council is composed of 36 states which are elected for a three-year term.

• The council member states are chosen under three headings

  • states of chief importance in air transport

  • states which make the largest contribution to the provision of facilities for air navigation and

  • states whose designation will ensure that all major areas of the world are represented.

Functions :

• AO works with the Convention’s 193 Member States and industry groups to reach consensus on international civil aviation Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and policies in support of a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible civil aviation sector.

• These SARPs and policies are used by ICAO Member States to ensure that their local civil aviation operations and regulations conform to global norms, which in turn permits more than 100,000 daily flights in aviation’s global network to operate safely and reliably in every region of the world.

• ICAO also coordinates assistance and capacity building for States in support of numerous aviation development objectives; produces global plans to coordinate multilateral strategic progress for safety and air navigation.

• Also monitors and reports on numerous air transport sector performance metrics; and audits States’ civil aviation oversight capabilities in the areas of safety and security.

                                                                                                                       Source :- The Hindu

Universal Postal Union (UPU)

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.

Context :

• Recently,Pakistan has stopped exchange of postal mails with India since August 27,2019.This decision was taken unilaterally by Pakistan without any prior notice and is in direct contravention of Universal Postal Union (UPU) frames rules.

Universal Postal Union(UPU):

• The Universal Postal Union(UPU) was established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874.

• It is a specialized agency of the United Nations(UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations.

• The UPU has 192 member-countries and is headquartered in Bern.

• It has four units namely

  • Congress

  • Council of Administration

  • International Bureau and the

  • Postal Operations Council.

• India joined the UPU on July 1,1876 and Pakistan on November 10, 1947.

Can one UPU member-country unilaterally stop postal exchange with another?

• Under UPU rules, when a country decides to suspend exchange with a country,it must notify the operator of the other country, the duration for which services are being stopped.

• The Universal Postal Union(UPU) International Bureau too has to be notified.

• However,India was not given prior notice when Pakistan suspended postal exchange.

• India is also unaware if Pakistan has notified the UPU about suspension of postal service with India.

                                                                                                                                                   Source :- Indian Express

India, Saudi Arabia to sign Strategic Partnership Council pact

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• India and Saudi Arabia are set to sign an agreement for creating a bilateral strategic partnership council.

Strategic Partnership Council :

• The strategic partnership council will be led by Indian Prime minister and Saudi Crown Prince and it will meet every two years.

• The SPC will have two parallel tracks: Political, security, culture and society, headed by Foreign Ministers; and economy and investment, headed by India’s Commerce Minister and Saudi’s Energy Minister.

• India is the fourth country with which Saudi Arabia has formed such a strategic partnership, after the UK, France and China.

More in the news:

• Indian Prime Minister will also be attending the third session of Future Investment Initiative Forum in Saudi Arabia.

• Future Investment Initiative(FII) is an annual investment forum organized by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.It was first conducted in 2017.

• The first event had announced the launch of a 500 billion USD economic zone in north west of Saudi Arabia.

                                                                                                                                                     Source :- Indian Express

ECONOMY

No country on sustainable transport track: Global mobility report

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

Context :

• Global mobility report has been released by the Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) initiative.

Key Highlights :

• The report has said that the global mobility system is stressed due to growing urbanisation, increasing world trade and new technologies.

• Developed countries outperformed developing countries on all mobility policy goals except per capita transport-related greenhouse gas emissions.

• The gap between developed and developing countries is more striking on safety and air pollution placing a higher burden on developing countries.

• More than one billion people or one-third of the global rural population, lack access to all-weather roads and transport services.

Whats need to be done ?

• closing the transport access gap in rural areas can connect this population to education,health and jobs.

• Besides, improvements in border administration, transport and communication infrastructure can also increase global gross domestic product (GDP) by up to $2.6 trillion.

• Halving the pollution caused by the transport sector can help an additional 1.6 billion people to breathe cleaner air.

Global Roadmap for Action (GRA):

• The report charted a Global Roadmap for Action (GRA), which provides a catalogue of policy measures that have been used and tested around the world to achieve four policy goals — universal access, efficiency, green mobility and safety.

• The GRA will help countries to identify gaps, crucial steps and appropriate policies to ensure that transport sector contributes to attain the SDGs by 2030.

• GRA will work in three ways to the policy agenda on mobility:

  • Charting mobility performances of 183 developed and developing countries.

  • Providing a catalogue of suitable policy measures that have been used and tested around the world to achieve any of the four policy goals.

  • Laying out a methodology to extract from this catalogue of policies those measures that are most impactful and relevant to a country’s context.

                                                                                                                        Source :- Down To Earth

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

Nelloptodes gretae

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

Context :

• Scientists at the Natural History Museum in London have officially named a tiny species of beetle Nelloptodes gretae.

  •  It has been named after the 16-year-old Swedish environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg.

Nelloptodes gretae

• The species belongs to the family of beetles called Ptiliidae.

  • The beetle has no eyes or wings.

  • It is less than 1mm long.

• Despite their global distribution,the beetle are not particularly well known because of their miniature size.

• The beetles are usually found in the leaf litter and soil, feeding on fungal hyphae and spores.

• This new species of beetle was first found in 1965 by British naturalist Dr William C Block in Nairobi,Kenya.

                                                                                                                                                            Source :- Indian Express

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