IASbaba PIB Weekly: Press Information Bureau – 19th to 25th November, 2018

ARCHIVES

GS-2

Government of India and the World Bank sign $310 million Loan Agreement

(Topic: Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate)

Why: For Jharkhand Power System Improvement Project to provide reliable, quality, and affordable 24×7 electricity to the citizens of Jharkhand.

• The Jharkhand Power System Improvement Project will help build new power transmission infrastructure, as well as put in place systems to improve the technical efficiency and commercial performance of the state power sector utilities.
• The Project will help bring in modern technology solutions such as automated sub-stations, and network analysis and planning tools to provide reliable power supply and enhance customer satisfaction.
• While a significant portion of the proposed investments are aimed at improving power transmission infrastructure, the Project will also focus on developing institutional capacities of State-owned power transmission and distribution companies and improving their operational performance.

Cabinet approves

Implementation of the umbrella scheme “Atmosphere & Climate Research-Modelling Observing Systems & Services”(ACROSS)” during 2017-2020:

It will be implemented by the Ministry of Earth Sciences through its institutes namely India Meteorological Department (IMD), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), and Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service(INCOIS).

Objective is to provide a reliable weather and climate forecast for betterment of society, the scheme will aim at improving skill of weather and climate forecast through sustained observations, intensive R & D, and by adopting effective dissemination and communication strategies to ensure its timely reach to the end-user of all services like Agro-meteorological Services, Aviation service, Environmental monitoring services, Hydro-meteorological services, climate services, tourism, pilgrimage, mountaineering etc.,

Setting up of National Facility for Airborne Research (NFAR): The  scheme  will provide  improved weather, climate  and ocean forecast and services, thereby ensuring transfer of commensurate benefits to the various services like Public weather service, disaster management, Agro-meteorological Services, Aviation services, Environmental monitoring services, Hydro-meteorological services, climate services, tourism, pilgrimage, power generation, water management, Sports & adventure etc.

Allied and Healthcare Professions Bill, 2018: For regulation and standardisation of education and services by allied and healthcare professionals. The Bill provides for setting up of an Allied and Healthcare Council of India and corresponding State Allied and Healthcare Councils which will play the role of a standard-setter and facilitator for professions of Allied and Healthcare.

Major Impact, including employment generation potential:

• Bring all existing allied and healthcare professionals on board during the first few of years from the date of establishment of the Council.
• Opportunity to create qualified, highly skilled and competent jobs in healthcare by enabling professionalism of the allied and healthcare workforce.
• High quality, multi-disciplinary care in line with the vision of Ayushman Bharat, moving away from a ‘doctor led’ model to a ‘care accessible and team based’ model.
• Opportunity to cater to the global demand (shortage) of healthcare workforce which is projected to be about 15 million by the year 2030, as per the WHO Global Workforce, 2030 report.
• Allied and Healthcare Professionals (A&HPs) constitute an important element of the health human resource network, and the skilled and efficient Allied and Healthcare Professionals (A&HPs) can reduce the cost of care and dramatically improve the accessibility to quality driven healthcare services.

MoU between India and Tajkistan on Cooperation on Youth Matters: To strengthen and encourage cooperation on youth matters with Tajikistan through participation in events and activities organized by either side, information and knowledge sharing, and youth exchanges.

MoU with Mauritius on Consumer Protection and Legal Metrology:

• Help in expanding cooperation in the field of consumer protection, and will provide an institutional mechanism for exchange of information and derive mutual benefits from development taking place in both the countries.
• Promote inclusive sustainable and resilient development in the areas of Consumer Protection & Legal Metrology to deal with new challenges such as misleading advertisement, telemarketing, multi-level marketing, e-commerce etc.
• Ensure traceability of national and international standards, thereby developing new areas of expertise that may facilitate in tackling new challenges.
• Periodical exchange of information and training programme will ensure gainful expertise, for good governance and in fighting consumer vulnerability.

Cabinet apprised of

Agreement between India and Uzbekistan on Cooperation in the field of Science, Technology and Innovation: will open a new chapter in bilateral relations, as both sides will now leverage complementary strengths spurred by a significant convergence of mutual interests in science and technology

MoU between Atal Innovation Mission, India and Fund “Talent and Success”, Russia for promotion of science & technology: The MoU will facilitate promotion of science & technology, strong foundation to the collaborative work through exchange of students, teachers, researchers and scientists between India and Russia.

GS-3

India gets UN Environment award for combating transboundary environmental crime

United Nation Environment has awarded Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India with Asia Environment Enforcement Awards, 2018 for excellent work done by the Bureau in combating transboundary environmental crime.

• WCCB has adopted innovative enforcement techniques that have dramatically increased enforcement of transboundary environmental crimes in India.
• Notably it has developed an online Wildlife Crime Database Management System to get real time data in order to help analyze trends in crime and devise effective measures to prevent and detect wildlife crimes across India.
• This system has been successfully used to analyse trends, helping put in preventive measures as well as for successfully carrying out operations such as Operation SAVE KURMA, THUNDERBIRD, WILDNET, LESKNOW, BIRBIL, THUNDERSTORM, LESKNOW-II along with other enforcement agencies resulting in the arrest of 350 wildlife criminals and huge seizures of Tiger/Leopard Skin/bones and other trophies, Rhino Horn, Elephant Ivory, turtles/tortoises, Mongoose raw hairs as well as Mangoose hair bruises, protected birds, Marine products, live Pangolin as well as its scales, deer antlers etc. across all the states.
• In order to involve the public in the fight against wildlife crime, WCCB has also developed a scheme to enrol willing persons as WCCB Volunteers.

The Asia Environment Enforcement Awards publicly recognize and celebrate excellence in enforcement by government officials and institutions/teams combating transboundary environmental crime in Asia. The awards are given to outstanding individuals and/or government organizations/teams that demonstrate excellence and leadership in enforcement of national laws to combat transboundary environmental crime in one of the following eligibility criteria areas: collaboration; impact; innovation; integrity and gender leadership.

Please Note

World Boxing Championships: Mary Kom wins record sixth gold medal

Celebration of Milad-un-Nabi: Birthday of the Prophet

19th November: World Toilet Day

21st November: World Fisheries Day

MWCD links Sexual Harassment Complaints Portal ‘SHe-Box’ to all the Central Ministries, Departments and 653 districts across 33 States/Union Territories: SHe-Box portal is an effort to provide speedy remedy to women facing sexual harassment at workplace.

With the linking of the portal to central and state governments, once a complaint is submitted to the portal, it will be directly sent to the section of the employer concerned. Through this portal, WCD as well as the complainant, can monitor the progress of the inquiry. This is a proactive step taken by the WCD Ministry in the wake of the worldwide campaign #MeToo, where women have related their experience of facing sexual harassment and abuse at workplace.

Launch of AirSewa 2.0 web portal: To provide a superior user experience with enhanced functionalities -Major improvements include features such as secure sign-up and log-in with social media, chatbot for travellers support, improved grievance management including social media grievances, real-time flight status and details flight schedule.

26th General Conference on Weights & Measures: The 26th CGPM meeting was very special and historic as the members have voted for the redefinition of 130 years old “Le grand K – the SI unit of kg” in terms of the fundamental Planck’s constant (h). The new definitions will come into force on 20 May 2019.

General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM): highest international body of the world for accurate and precise measurements.

• The CGPM comprises 60 countries including India and 42 Associate Members.
• The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), the main executive body of CGPM has the responsibility of defining the International System of Units (SI).

Industrial Park Rating System

By the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP)

Manufacturing has emerged as one of the high growth sectors in India and it has moved 23 places up in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB-2019) and achieved rank 77 out of 190 countries. In order to ensure that India moves into the top 50 countries in Ease of Doing Business the Ministry has undertaken this exercise in studying infrastructure across states and in 3354 industrial clusters in order to assess quality of infrastructure in industrial parks.

Will be a useful tool for policy makers and investors at the click of a button. 3000 parks are on the database and the industrial parks have been rated on 4 points: internal infrastructure, external infrastructure, business services and facilities and environment, safety management.

Industrial Information System (IIS): To optimise resource utilisation and enhance the efficiency of the manufacturing sector – the portal serves as a one-stop solution to the free and easy accessibility of all industrial information including availability of raw material – agriculture, horticulture, minerals, natural resources, distance from key logistic nodes, layers of terrain and urban infrastructure.

Report on existing SEZ policy of India

By Baba Kalyani led committee

Objectives

• To evaluate the SEZ policy and make it WTO compatible
• Suggest measures for maximizing utilisation of vacant land in SEZs
• Suggest changes in the SEZ policy based on international experience
• Merge the SEZ policy with other Government schemes like coastal economic zones, Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, national industrial manufacturing zones and food and textiles parks.

Observation

If India is going to become a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025 then the current environment of manufacturing competitiveness and services has to undergo a basic paradigm shift. The success seen by services sector like IT and ITES has to be promoted in other services sector like health care, financial services, legal, repair and design services.

The Government of India has set a target of creating 100 million jobs and achieving 25% of GDP from the manufacturing sector by 2022, as part of its flagship ‘Make in India’ programme. Furthermore, the Government plans to increase manufacturing value to USD 1.2 trillion by 2025. While these are ambitious plans to propel India into a growth trajectory, it requires evaluation of existing policy frameworks to catalyse manufacturing sector growth. At the same time, policy needs to be compiled with the relevant WTO regulations.

Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF)

• This fund will create employment opportunities to over 9.40 lakhs fishers/ fishermen/ fisher folks and other entrepreneurs in fishing and allied activities and attract private investment in creation and management of fisheries infrastructure facilities.
• Help in the creation of fisheries infrastructure facilities both in marine and inland fisheries sectors, which would boast fish production and help achieve target of Rs 15 million tonne by 2020 set under Blue revolution.
• FIDF aims to achieve a sustainable growth of 8 % to 9 % in a move to augment fish production to the level of about 20 million tonnes by 2022-23.

World Fisheries Forum (WFF) was established to advocate a global mandate of sustainable fishing practices and policies.

Personalities in News

Guru Nanak

• Founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus

• Guru Nanak’s words are registered in the form of 974 poetic hymns in the holy text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, as a collection of verses recorded in Gurmukhi.

• The fundamental beliefs of Sikhism include faith and meditation on the name of the one creator, unity of all humankind, engaging in selfless service, striving for social justice for the benefit and prosperity of all, and honest conduct and livelihood while living a householder’s life.

Guru Teg Bahadur

• The ninth of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion
• Guru Tegh Bahadur resisted the forced conversions of Kashmiri Pandits and non-Muslims to Islam, and was publicly beheaded in 1675 on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi for himself refusing to convert to Islam.

Rani Lakshmibai

• Queen of the princely state of Jhansi in North India currently present in Jhansi district in Uttar Pradesh, India
• One of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and became a symbol of resistance to the British Raj for Indian nationalists.
• She was named Manikarnika and was nicknamed Manu.
• After the death of the Maharaja in November 1853, because Damodar Rao (born Anand Rao) was an adopted son, the British East India Company, under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, applied the Doctrine of Lapse, rejecting Damodar Rao’s claim to the throne and annexing the state to its territories.
• She defended Jhansi against British troops when Sir Hugh Rose besieged Jhansi on 23 March 1858.
• A number of patriotic songs have been written about the Rani. The most famous composition about Rani Lakshmi Bai is the Hindi poem Jhansi ki Rani written by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan.

Indira Gandhi

• An Indian politician, stateswoman and a central figure of the Indian National Congress.
• She was the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India.
• Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India.
• She served as Prime Minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984 (assassins blamed her for the action code-named Operation Blue Star), making her the second longest-serving Indian Prime Minister after her father.
• She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh, as well as increasing India’s influence to the point where it became the regional hegemon of South Asia.
• Citing fissiparous tendencies and in response to a call for revolution, Gandhi instituted a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 where basic civil liberties were suspended and the press was censored. Widespread atrocities were carried out during the emergency. In 1980, she returned to power after free and fair elections.

Quotes

Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu

On Mahatma Gandhi

• Mahatma Gandhi is one of the greatest revolutionaries the world has ever seen, only his revolutions were bloodless and peaceful
• Gandhiji’s principles of liberty, dignity and equality were not limited by space and time, they have universal applicability and timeless value. He preached peace, non- violence, tolerance and harmony, and in the process, miraculously inspired India’s great struggle for freedom and gave new impetus to civil rights movements all over the world
• The designing and implementing programs and policies for development should be done by keeping the vision articulated by Mahatma Gandhi for an India free from poverty, discrimination and social evils in mind.
• Policy makers of India have to place gender equality and women’s empowerment at the centre of our development agenda
• Antyodaya or the uplifting of the poorest, most deprived groups of people, was a mission close to the Mahatma’s heart. Gandhiji’s idea of development was of Sarvodaya, the development of all through Antyodaya. His philosophy of Antyodaya influenced leaders like Shri. Deen Dayal Upadhyay

On Education

• India had undertaken a long and arduous, yet rewarding journey in the field of education, from the “Guru –Shishya parampara” of learning under the shadow of a tree in the ancient times, to becoming the third largest in the world in the field of higher education.
• There is a need to re-engineer our entire education system. ‘One size fits all’ approach followed by us so far will not take us anywhere and young people should be given the space to think freely. We cannot keep forcing the same syllabus on a student who excels in Science and a student who is a savant in music. Only half the time of a student should be spent in classrooms the rest should be spent in the community, in the playground, in nature and in open air to ensure balanced education.

On balance of power between executive, judiciary and legislature

• Encroachment by one organ into the domain of another would set bad precedents and weaken the institutions.
• There has been no major conflict or friction among the three organs and this mutual respect for each other’s powers, roles and responsibilities has acted as a fulcrum in strengthening our democracy
• Justice Krishna Iyer, in 2007 had stated: “There is a case today for amity among the trinity of state instrumentalities and better coordination among them in civilizing the justice process. More coordination among the troika in civilizing the justice process is welcome.”
• Declaring that the institutional structures established over the years were intended to translate the vision of our Constitution-makers into tangible reality, the Vice President observed that they needed to be constantly nourished through a far-sighted, liberal leadership.   

On Science & Technology

• Advancement of Science and Technology and an inclusive approach to development is crucial in addressing challenges such as poverty, illiteracy, gender discrimination and others
• Young scientists should find solutions to the present and emerging challenges faced by the world such as climate change, global warming, sustainable development, clean energy and water and diseases.
• Only science can throw up solutions for the present and emerging problems in the years to come. The onus lies on the shoulders of the young scientific community to look for a way out for such pressing tribulations
• Vice President appealed to various corporate bodies and industries to promote scientific research in the country in a big way by creating an exclusive corpus for encouraging innovative R & D projects and disruptive technologies that could provide long-lasting answers to problems faced by the people. At the same time, he also called for enhanced investments in Science & Technology to support innovations which would address issues relating to agriculture, environment, health, housing, clean drinking water and security, among others.

On the workings of the State with Centre

• States must focus on long term economic model for the betterment of the people and must not settle for short-term populist measures.
• The relationship between the states and the centre must be built on trust, transparency and mutual respect. Both parties should practice openness and should not be limited by narrow political divisiveness. There is an agenda greater than politics before all of us, the agenda of taking development to the last man, the goal of ensuring Antyodaya. Federals should not end at door steps of State capitals, they must reach to villages.
• Political differences must end with the elections and there after the ruling party must not be bogged down by dilatory tactics and the opposition parties must be given the space to offer constructive criticism in the legislature. A measure of accommodative openness must be practiced by both the centre and the states if we were to build a strong team India where every voice has its own space.
• Federalism, cultural & ethnic pluralism gave country’s political system the much needed agility, the continuation of the same requires not simply federalism, but cooperative and constructive federalism.
• Cooperative federalism has been India’s mantra for centre-state unity, cohesion and harmony and there was every need to continue what the unifier of India, Sardar Patel had said. The spirit of cooperative federalism inspired Sardar Vallabhai Patel’s intelligent and proactive political manoeuvring by which he successfully persuaded the 492 princely states to join the Indian Union, all the while successfully maintaining the unity and integrity of the nation.