GEOGRAPHY                                                                                       

1. Centre nudging Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh on Ken-Betwa river interlinking project                                                                            

SOCIAL ISSUES                                                                                   

1. Operation MASOOM (Mitigation of Adolescent Sexually Offensive Online Material)                                                                               

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                             

1. One Stop Centre Scheme                                                                

2. 25% of rural India's households don't have access to sanitation: NSO survey                                                                                             

3. Household social consumption in India: Health NSS 75th round          

4. Government survey shows 2.2% Indians have disability                     

ECONOMY                                                                                             

1. All about exchange-traded funds                                                       

2. Periodic Labour Force Survey: Quarterly Bulletin                             

GEOGRAPHY

Centre nudging Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh on Ken-Betwa river interlinking project

GS PAPER - 01 GEOGRAPHY - Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc.,

Context :

•  The government has said it is pushing Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to make progress on the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project

Ken-Betwa River Linking Project:

• It is one of the four priority links identified under Peninsular Rivers Component of the National River Linking Project (NRLP.

• It aims to transfer surplus water from the Ken basin in Madhya Pradesh to Betwa basin in Uttar Pradesh.

• This would ensure irrigation water in the drought-prone Bundelkhand region spread across Jhansi, Banda, Lalitpur and Mahoba districts of Uttar Pradesh and Tikamgarh, Panna and Chhatarpur districts of Madhya Pradesh.

• The project was declared as a National Project by the Government of India in 2008.         

                                                                                                                           Source :- The Hindu

SOCIAL ISSUES

Operation MASOOM (Mitigation of Adolescent Sexually Offensive Online Material)

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIAL ISSUES - mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.

Context :

• In an initiative against online child pornography, the police have arrested six persons for sharing pictures and videos with sexually offensive contents against children.

MASOOM (Mitigation of Adolescent Sexually Offensive Online Material) :

• It has been launched to act against sexually offensive content involving children that is being circulated and shared online.

• As part of the international monitoring collaboration against online child pornography they have started receiving technical inputs in the form of “CyberTips” from big social media and instant messaging platforms like Facebook.

CyberTips :

• To control the growing menace of online child pornography they have also collaborated with International social media firms

• Cybertips are technical inputs from big social media and instant messaging platforms like Facebook.

• The CyberTips are collated by an international collaborative forum called National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and shared with Delhi Police as per the digital trail of the sexual offender.

• Acting on these CyberTips, CyPAD unit has further developed the digital trail of the sexual predators involved in these heinous crimes.

                                                                                                                                                   Source :- The Hindu

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

One Stop Centre Scheme

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

Context :

• Union minister of Women and Child Development has informed Lok Sabha about the One Stop Centre scheme.

One stop Centre scheme:

• One Stop Centre(OSC) are centres established by the Government of India through the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) to support women affected by violence of any sort.

• The main objectives of the scheme is to provide support and assistance to women affected by violence at private or at any public place, irrespective of caste, class, religion among others.

• These centres will provide immediate access to a range of services including medical, legal, psychological and counselling support to the victims.

• The scheme is funded through Nirbhaya Fund and the central government provides 100% financial assistance to the state governments /Union Territories administrations.

                                                                                                                             Source :- PIB

25% of rural India's households don't have access to sanitation: NSO survey

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

Context :

• The National Statistical Office (NSO),Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has conducted a survey on Drinking Water, Sanitation,Hygiene and Housing Condition as a part of 76th round of National Sample Survey(NSS).

Highlight of the Survey :

Bathroom and sanitation facility:

• About 50.3% of the households in the rural and about 75.0% in the urban areas had exclusive access to bathroom.

• About 56.6% of the households in rural and about 91.2% in urban areas had access to bathroom.

• However,according to the survey only 71% of rural households had access to toilets at a time when the Centre was claiming at 95%.

• The 71% access to toilets was still a significant improvement over the situation during the last survey period in 2012 when only 40% of rural households had access to toilets.

• On toilet usage,the survey has said that 95% of people with access to toilets in rural India used them regularly indicating that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s efforts in changing behaviour.

• Further,the survey has indicated that the next big challenge may lie in the disposal of waste as more than 50% of rural Indian households with toilets had septic tanks while another 21% used single pits both of which need to be cleaned and produce faecal sludge that must be disposed of safely.

Drinking water facility :

• The major source of drinking water was hand pump for the households in the rural areas and piped water into dwelling in the urban areas.

• About 42.9% of the households in the rural areas used hand pump as the principal source of drinking water.

• About 40.9% of the households in the urban areas used piped water into dwelling as the principal source of drinking water.

Electricity for domestic use:

• Among the households living in houses, about 93.9% of the households in the rural and about 99.1% in the urban areas had electricity for domestic use.

Micro environment:

• Among the households living in houses, about 93.9% of the households in the rural and about 99.1% in the urban areas had electricity for domestic use.

• Among the households living in houses, about 48.3% of the households in the rural and about 86.6% in the urban areas used LPG as a fuel for cooking.           

                                                                                                                   Source :- PIB ; Livemint

Household social consumption in India: Health NSS 75th round

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

Context :

• The National Statistical Office(NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has conducted the survey on Household Social Consumption related to Health.

More about the survey :

• The survey was conducted between July 2017 and June 2018.It was a part of the 75th round of National Sample Survey.

• The main objective of the survey was to gather basic quantitative information on the health sector namely on morbidity, profile of ailments including their treatment, role of government and private facilities in providing healthcare, expenditure on medicines among others.

Highlights :

• The survey has found that 14% of the rural population and 19% of the urban population had health expenditure coverage.

• However,only 1% of urban population received health insurance from government health protection schemes.

• In both rural and urban India, around 95% of ailments were treated by allopathy.

• Average medical expenditure per hospitalisation case (excluding childbirth) in rural India is about Rs.16,676 and Rs.26,475 in urban India.

• In rural areas about 90% childbirths were institutional (in Government or private hospitals) and in urban areas it was about 96%.

• The immunisation among children aged 0-5 years is about 59% of boys and 60% of girls at all-India level.They had been fully immunised which means they have received all the prescribed vaccinations.

                                                                                                                       Source :- PIB ; Livemint

Government survey shows 2.2% Indians have disability

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

Context :

• The National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation conducted a Survey of Persons with Disabilities during July 2018 to December 2018 as a part of 76th round of National Sample Survey (NSS).

Highlights :

• Prevalence and Incidence of Disability:

  •  The prevalence of disability (percentage of persons with disability in the population) was 2.2% with 2.3% in rural and 2.0% in urban areas.

  • The prevalence was higher among males (2.4%) than females (1.9%).

  • The incidence of disability was 86 per 1, 00,000 persons.

• Level of Education:

  • Among persons with disabilities of age 7 years and above, 52.2% were literate. Only 19.3% of PwDs, aged 15years and above, had the highest educational level as secondary and above.

• Receipt of aid/help:

  • 21.8% of persons with disabilities received aid or help from the government and over 1.8% received aid/help from organizations other than the government.

• Labour Force Participation Rate:

  • Among 15 years and above, 23.8% disabled were found to be employed.

                                                                                                                          Source :- Livemint

ECONOMY

All about exchange-traded funds

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

Context :

• Recently, Government has latched upon the Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) route to disinvest its holdings in public sector companies rather than sell them on a piecemeal basis in the market.

Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF):

• An ETF is a fund that comprises a group of stocks that are listed on an exchange and can be simply traded like any other listed security.

• Usually,ETFs are passive funds where the fund manager doesn’t select stocks on your behalf.The fund simply copies an index and endeavors to accurately reflect its performance.

• The ETFs trading value is based on the net asset value of the underlying stocks that it represents.

• The ETF is aimed at helping speed up the government’s disinvestment programme.

Benefits :

• The price of the ETF is based on the net asset value of the underlying stocks.Hence,the fund management fee of an ETF is much lower than that of a normal mutual fund scheme.

• The traditional mutual funds are only priced at the end of the day.But ETFs can be bought and sold at any time throughout the trading day.

• ETF allows investors to avoid the risk of poor security selection by the fund manager, while offering a diversified investment portfolio.           

                                                                                                                       Source :- The Hindu

Periodic Labour Force Survey: Quarterly Bulletin

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

Context :

• The National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the Quarterly Bulletin for the period January- March, 2019. It presents estimates of labour force indicators, for urban areas.

Periodic Labour Force Survey :

• National  Statistical  Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, launched  Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) on April 2017.

• The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conducts the survey.

• The survey seeks to generate quarterly reports on Labour Force Indicators such as Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) in urban areas and an annual report for rural India.

• The periodic labour force survey had replaced the Annual Employment Unemployment Survey in 2017 on the recommendations of the Task Force on Employment chaired by Dr. Arvind Panagariya, then Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog.

Highlights :

• Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Current Weekly Status for all ages is estimated as 36% in the urban areas during January-March 2019 as compared to 35.6% during April- June 2018.

• The LFPR for men was estimated to be 56.2 per cent, while for women it was at 15 per cent in the urban areas during the January-March 2019 period.

• Unemployment Rate (UR) in current weekly status in urban areas for all ages has been estimated as 9.3% during January-March 2019 as compared to 9.8% during April- June 2018.

                                                                                                                                                               Source :- PIB

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