POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                                                

1. Finance Minister Launches two new IT Initiatives -ICEDASH & ATITHI                                         

2. National Health Profile  Report - 2019                                                                                              

3. Stack and blueprint — Building digital infrastructure for national health database                          

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS                                                                             

1. India decides to opt out of RCEP, says key concerns not addressed                                             

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY                                                                          

1. Union Ministry for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare adopts several steps to tackle Stubble burning 

2. No separate Environmental Clearance required to produce additional Ethanol from B-heavy molasses                                                                                                                                           

3. ‘Wastelands Atlas’ – 2019                                                                                                                 

DISASTER MANAGEMENT                                                                                 

1. 'Red Atlas Map' unveiled for flood mitigation in Chennai                                                               

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

Finance Minister Launches two new IT Initiatives -ICEDASH & ATITHI

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential

Context :

• Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, unveiled two new IT initiatives – ICEDASH and ATITHI .

Need :

• These initiatives aims at improving monitoring and pace of customs clearance of imported goods.

• They will also facilitate arriving international passengers with e-filing of baggage and currency declarations.

ICEDASH:

• ICEDASH is an ease of doing business(EoDB) monitoring dashboard of the Indian Customs helping public see the daily customs clearance times of import cargo at various ports and airports.

• It will be an effective tool that can help businesses compare clearance times across ports and plan their logistics accordingly.

• The dashboard has has been developed by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs(CBIC) in collaboration with National Informatics Centre(NIC).

ATITHI:

• ATITHI is a mobile app for international travelers to file the Customs declaration in advance.

• Passengers can use this app to file declaration of dutiable items and currency with the Indian Customs even before boarding the flight to India.

• The app would in particular create a tech-savvy image of India’s customs and would encourage tourism and business travel to India.

                                                                                                                                                                   Source :- PIB

National Health Profile  Report - 2019

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

Context :

• Recently, 14th National Health Profile (NHP) Report 2019 has been released on 3oth October 2019.

National Health Profile Report 2019 :

• It is an annual publication released by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI).

  • The first NHP was released in 2005.

• It covers all the major information on Demography, Socio-Economic Status, Disease Morbidity & Mortality, Healthcare Finance, Human Resources in Health and Healthcare Infrastructure.

Key Highlights :

• The National Health Profile-2019 points out that Acute respiratory infections (ARI) accounted for 69.47% of morbidity in 2018, which was the highest in the communicable disease category, leading to 27.21% mortality.

• Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal reported a large number of patients and fatalities due to ARI.

Concern :

• According to the World Health Organisation, ARI is a serious ailment that prevents normal breathing function and kills an estimated 2.6 million children annually every year worldwide.

• Indians face the double burden of heavy air pollution in addition to the high rate of ARI which hits children the hardest.

• When polluted air is inhaled, particles and pollutants penetrate and inflame the linings of your bronchial tubes and lungs leading to respiratory illness such as chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart disease, asthma, wheezing, coughing and difficulty in breathing.

• When pregnant women are exposed to polluted air, it increases the risk of pre-term delivery and low birth weight, factors that can lead to developmental disabilities later on.

• Children are particularly susceptible as they breathe through their mouths, bypassing the filtering effects of the nasal passages and allowing pollutants to travel deeper into the lungs.

                                                                                                                       Source :- The Hindu

Stack and blueprint — Building digital infrastructure for national health database

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

Context :

•  National Health Stack and its rulebook of sorts, the National Digital Health Blueprint has been completed.

National Health Stack (NHS):

• NITI Aayog unveiled the blue print of National Health Stack (NHS) in 2018

• NHS is a shared digital healthcare infrastructure. It envisages a centralised health record for all citizens.

• It is in line with the implementation of the Centre’s flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat and other public healthcare programmes in the country.

• It aims at making the health insurance system more transparent and robust. Further, centralised healthcare data will allow policy makers to further build their projections around upcoming outcomes, experiment with new services as well as fill the existing gaps in the Indian healthcare industry.

Key Components :

• National Health Electronic Registries: to create a single source of truth for and manage master health data of the nation;

• A Coverage and Claims platform: building blocks to support large health protection schemes, enable horizontal and vertical expansion of RSSM by states and robust fraud detection;

  • A Federated Personal Health Records (PHR) Framework: to solve twin challenges of access to their own health data by patients and availability of health data for medical research, critical for advancing our understanding of human health;

  • A National Health Analytics Platform: to bring a holistic view combining information on multiple health initiatives and feed into smart policy making, for instance, through improved predictive analytics;

  • Other horizontal Components: including unique Digital Health ID, Health Data Dictionaries and Supply Chain Management for Drugs, payment gateways etc shared across all health programs.

National Digital Health Blueprint (NHDB) :

• It was released by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in July 2019.

• Its vision is to create a national digital health ecosystem that supports universal health coverage in an efficient, accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely and safe manner, through provision of a wide range of data, information, and infrastructure services.

• NDHB recognizes the need to establish a specialised organisation, called the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) that can drive the implementation of the blueprint, and promote and facilitate the evolution of a national digital health ecosystem.

Key Features :

• The key features of the blueprint include a federated architecture, a set of architectural principles, a five-layered system of architectural building blocks, a unique health ID (UHID), privacy and consent management, national portability, electronic health records, applicable standards and regulations, health analytics.

• A total of 23 such building blocks have been identified in the blueprint for the NHS to become a viable reality.

Key recommendations :

• It has recommended setting up of a National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) to manage enormous amounts of health data generated by Ayushman Bharat and other health schemes.

• The NDHM would provide technology to manage and analyse data and create a system of personal health records and health applications.

  • Further, central to the ecosystem would be a Personal Health Identifier (PHI) to maintain a Personal Health Record (PHR).

• The PHI would contain the names of patients and those of their immediate family, date of birth, gender, mobile number, email address, location, family ID and photograph.

• It has also suggested a Command, Control and Communication Centre (CCCC) as a single point of contact in public health emergencies.

• It has also recommended to use Aadhaar-based identification of patients for maintaining health records.

                                                                                                                                                 Source :- Indian Express

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

India decides to opt out of RCEP, says key concerns not addressed

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

Context :

• India has decided to pull out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP) Agreement as India’s core issues remained unresolved during the negotiations.

Reasons for India Pulling out of the agreement:

• Domestic industry:

  • India is worried that RCEP could force it to cut duties on about 90% of the goods that are currently imported to India over the next 15 years.

  • This has raised concerns that India will be flooded with cheaper imported goods, particularly from China and dairy products from Australia and New Zealand.This may have an impact on India’s domestic industry.

• Base year for reducing tariffs:

  • India is opposed to the proposal that 2013 be treated as the base year for reducing tariffs effectively implying that member countries should slash import duties on products to the level that existed in 2013.

  • India is pushing for 2019 as the base year given that import duties on many products such as textiles and electronic products have gone up in the last six years.

• Trade Deficit:

  • India has massive trade deficits with almost all of the RCEP countries. Out of 15 RCEP countries,India has trade deficits with at least 11. Further,India’s trade deficit with these countries has also almost doubled in the last five-six years  from $54 billion in 2013-14 to $105 billion in 2018-19.

  • Hence,given the export-import equation with the bloc,a free trade agreement with the grouping would have increased the trade deficit further.

• Auto-trigger mechanism:

  • India wants an auto-trigger mechanism to be institutionalised in the pact.This would serve as a kind of protective mechanism that a member country can invoke to safeguard in case of an unexpected flow of imports after RCEP comes into effect.

• Ratchet Obligations:

  • India wants exemptions built into the ratchet obligations as part of the pact.

  • A ratchet obligations implies that a member country cannot raising tariffs once the pact comes into effect.An exemption would imply that a country will be able to erect restrictive measures later on grounds of protecting national interest.

• Services sector:

  • India has demanded that the RCEP participating countries should open up their services sector so that Indian professionals and workers can have easier entry into their market.

  • However, the countries are very sensitive about protecting this sector and have not offered much liberalisation.

                                                                                         Source :- Economic Times ; Indian Express

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

Union Ministry for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare adopts several steps to tackle Stubble burning

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

Context :

• As per ICAR’s Creams Laboratory latest bulletin, there has been a reduction of 12.01% in incidents of Stubble burning compared to the same period in 2018.

• The States of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab recorded a reduction of 48.2% , 11.7% and 8.7% respectively this year till date.

Steps Taken By Government :

Union Ministry for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has adopted several measures to tackle Stubble burning incidents.

• Earlier, as per directions from Prime Minister’s Office in 2017 a high level committee under Secretary (DARE) has been set up.

  • The committee has recommended for adopting mechanized crop residue management.

• As per the recommendations Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has formulated a Scheme which was included in the 2018-19 Budget.

• The Central Sector Scheme, ‘Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Management of Crop Residue was launched in the State of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh & NCT of Delhi.

• The happy seeder/zero tillage technology was adopted in the North- Western States of India.

                                                                                                                             Source :- PIB

No separate Environmental Clearance required to produce additional Ethanol from B-heavy molasses

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

Context :

• The government announced that no separate environmental clearance is required to produce additional ethanol from B-heavy molasses as it does not contribute to the pollution load.

More in the news :

• This step is expected to help farmers and the sugar industry.

• With various incentives provided by the Government of India, sugar mills are expected to undertake production of ethanol from B-heavy Molasses and other by-products/products, resulting in incidental increase in the production of ethanol without any increase in the total pollution load in the existing distilleries or sugar mills to which environmental clearance has already been granted.

                                                                                                                                         Source :- PIB ; The Hindu

 ‘Wastelands Atlas’ – 2019

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

Context :

• Union Rural Development Minister released Wastelands Atlas - 2019.

Wastelands Atlas - 2019 :

• The Department of Land Resources has brought out the wastelands atlas in collaboration with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC).

  • Wastelands Atlas has earlier been brought out in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2011.

• It  has geospatial information which will be helpful in turning wastelands to productive use through land development schemes.

• This Wastelands Atlas-2019 provides district and state-wise distribution of different categories of wastelands including mapping of about 12.08 million hectare (Mha) hitherto unmapped area of Jammu and Kashmir.

Key Highlights :

• The spatial extent of wastelands for India is 55.76 Mha (16.96 % of geographical area of India i.e. 328.72 Mha) for the year 2015-16 as compared to 56.60 Mha (17.21%) in the year 2008-09.

• During this period 1.45 Mha of wastelands have been converted into non wastelands categories.

• Majority of wastelands have been changed into categories of ‘croplands’, ‘forest-dense / open’, ‘forest plantation’, ‘plantation’ and ‘industrial area’

• A reduction in wasteland area was observed in the categories of land with dense scrub, waterlogged and marshy land, sandy areas, degraded pastures / grazing land and gullied and / or ravinous land.

• The wastelands have undergone positive change in Rajasthan , Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh , Mizoram , Madhya Pradesh , Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal.

• Majority of wastelands have been changed into categories of 'croplands', 'forest-dense/open' , 'forest plantation' , 'plantation' and 'industrial area'.

                                                                                                                                                                  Source :- PIB

DISASTER MANAGEMENT   

'Red Atlas Map' unveiled for flood mitigation in Chennai

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

Context :

• Vice President has unveiled the Red Atlas Action Plan Map and Coastal Flood Warning System App(CFLOWS-Chennai).

Red Atlas Action Plan Map:

• It is a first of its kind ready reckoner map, prepared by Union Ministry of Earth Sciences to aid state government of Tamil Nadu in effective flood mitigation in Chennai which witnessed the worst deluge in 2015.

• The atlas is aimed at flood mitigation, preparedness, operations and management aspects.

• The manual besides showcasing the probable scenarios for different rainfall periods also provides information on corporation wards that are likely to be affected due to flooding, and the areas that may need evacuation in Chennai by taking into account all historical datasets.

Significance :

• The atlas with probable scenarios for different rainfall periods is aimed at flood mitigation, preparedness, operations and management aspects.

• The manual provides information including on corporation wards that are likely to be affected due to flooding and the areas that may need evacuation in Chennai taking into account all historical datasets.

Coastal Flood Warning System App(CFLOWS-Chennai):

• CFLOWS is a complete webGIS-based decision support system that can be used both for mitigation planning operations before flooding and in real time to for aspects like relief work.

• It is an integrated system that involves coupling models of regional weather forecasts,storm surges and captures about 796 flood scenarios.

• The app was launched by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT).

• The app can simulate the scenario and predict what will happen in a particular area.

                                                                                                                            Source :- PIB

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