Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 16th August 2021

What is in news : Joining the country in celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Indian Independence, Chief Minister of Karnataka announced the new projects named 'Amrith' schemes.

Aim of the projects : Improving infrastructure and services at multiple levels ranging from village to urban centres in select areas

Details :

• Amrith Gram Panchayats scheme - 750 gram panchayats will be taken up for development projects, including installation of streetlights, supply of drinking water to each household, 100 per cent segregation and disposal of solid waste, scientific disposal of wastewater, use of solar power, schools with digital libraries, etc
• Amrith Rural Housing Scheme - 750 select gram panchayats will be provided housing
• Amrith Farmer Production Centres Scheme - 750 production and marketing centres will be set up to help farmers, fishermen and weavers
• Amrith Nirmala Nagara programme - 75 urban local bodies (ULBs) will be selected for the overall cleanliness and beautification drive at a cost of Rs 1 crore per ULB
• Amrith School Infrastructure Programme - Rs 75 crore will be spent on providing basic infrastructure facilities, such as building, lab, library, toilets etc to 750 schools, with Rs 10 lakh each
• Amrith Anganwadi Centers scheme - Rs 7.5 crore will be spent on upgrading infrastructure in 750 Anganwadis with Rs 1 lakh each
• Amrith Community Development Programme - 750 school and college students will be identified to motivate them to be involved in 'productive community services'
• Amrith Health Infrastructure Upgradation Programme- 750 primary health centres will be upgraded at an estimated cost of Rs 20 lakh each, amounting to Rs 150 crore
• Amrith Skill Training Programme- spend Rs 112 crore over two years for skill development of 75,000 youth belonging to Scheduled caste, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Class and minority communities
• Amrith Sports Adoption Programme -  train and encourage 75 talented sportspersons from the State who have the potential to win medals in the upcoming Paris Olympics.

ECONOMY

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of economic activity in a country. It is the total value of a country’s annual output of goods and services.

GDP has its own demerits as it only indicates economic growth and does not identify inequalities and injustices.

• Thus, a alternative metrics to complement GDP in order to get a more comprehensive view of development and ensure informed policy making that doesn’t exclusively prioritize economic growth.

Issues With GDP As An Indicator of Development

• Measures everything but not their impacts:

Example - it includes the value of building new cities but does not account for the vital forests they replace.

• Fails to Capture Inequality. As rising inequality is resulting in a rise in societal discontentment and increased polarization, policymakers will need to account for these issues when assessing development.
• Environmental degradation is a significant externality that the measure of GDP has failed to reflect.
• The production of more goods adds to an economy’s GDP irrespective of the environmental damage suffered because of it.
• Not in Sync With Modern Service Based Economy
• Our measure of economic growth and development also needs to adapt to these changes in order to give a more accurate picture of the modern economy.
• Does not capture stark inequalities in education gaps, health care access and injustices across gender, caste, regions, and more.

Human Development Product (HDP) As an Alternative to GDP

• HDP can consists of the following parameters:
  • The female labour force participation rate: It is shockingly low in India. However, the empowerment of women through their economic independence is central to human development.
  • Gender income parity: Need to bridge the gap which exists in income earned by male and female for the same work. There is no point in more women participating in the labour force if we continue to give them insecure and lower-paying jobs than men.
  • Stunting: Stunting is not only one of the cruellest things that society accepts but is also reflective of widespread conditions of public health, nutrition and public education.
  • Water quality and availability: We can measure the quality and flow of 10 key rivers at specified geographical points and periodicity, as well as measure groundwater levels and quality in some of the most stressed areas.
  • The quality of polity: It can be measured by the percentage of members of all our legislatures — state legislatures and Parliament — against whom criminal cases are pending or have convictions.
  • Other Parameters: These are some “vital few” which can measure the progress of the most fundamental things in the country and reflect human progress. Other parameters (such as CO2 emission, internet access) can also be added when needed. Eg. today internet availability has become essential for human development.

Way Forward

• Alternative Ways to Measure Development: Along with HDP, other indicators can also be adopted. Eg. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness, which considers factors like equitable socio-economic development and good governance
• UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), which encapsulates health and knowledge apart from economic prosperity..
• Raising human capability is good because it improves: the choices, wellbeing, and freedom of people; their role in influencing social change; and their role in influencing economic production.
• Climate change: Climate change is affecting livelihoods, health and everything. We must tackle climate change and its effects on multiple fronts.
• Need Holistic Not Only Economic Factor: The Human Development Product is a product of innumerable important factors — education, health, livelihoods, societal norms, political climate, environmental conditions, and more.
• Improvement in HDP will reflect and happen only with improvement on all these factors.
• Striving For Sustainable Development Goals: Modern economies need a better measure of welfare that takes environment degradation into account to obtain a truer reflection of development.

Conclusion

• The end goal is to have a more just and equitable society that is economically thriving and offering citizens a meaningful quality of life.
• In an economy with well-being at its heart, economic growth will simply be another tool and GDP will cease to take the center stage. The focus would instead shift towards more desirable and actual determinants of welfare.
• Today, India must commit to itself that the HDP growth rate become higher than the GDP growth rate.

ENVIRONMENT & GEOGRAPHY

What is in news : Four more wetlands from India have been added to the Ramsar list and have been recognized as wetlands of global importance in accordance with the Ramsar Convention.

Which are the wetlands :

• Thol from Gujarat
• Wadhwana from Gujarat
• Sultanpur from Haryana
• Bhindawas from Haryana.
• These sites are home to endangered Egyptian Vulture, Sociable Lapwing, Saker Falcon, and near threatened Dalmatian Pelican.

Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

• The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is an international treaty for “the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands”. It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands.
• It is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran where it was signed on 2nd of February 1971.
• The 2nd of February each year is World Wetlands Day.
• The number of parties to the convention (COP) is171 (as of May 2021).
• At the centre of the Ramsar philosophy is the “wise use” of wetlands.
• Wise use: maintenance of ecological character within the context of sustainable development.

Ramsar Site

• When a country accedes to the Convention, it must designate at least one wetland as a Wetland of International Importance.
• The inclusion of a “Ramsar Site” in the List embodies the government’s commitment to take the steps necessary to ensure that its ecological character is maintained.
• There are over 2,400 Ramsar Sites covering 2.5 million sq km on the territories of 171 Ramsar Contracting Parties across the world.
• The world’s first Site was the Cobourg Peninsula in Australia, designated in 1974.
• The countries with the most Ramsar Sites are the United Kingdom with 175 and Mexico with 142.
• Bolivia has the largest area under Ramsar protection.

PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT RULES, 2021

What is in news : Environment Ministry notified the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021

What does the new rules say :

• Prohibit specific single-use plastic items with “low utility and high littering potential by the year 2022
• Manufacture of a range of plastic products will be banned
• These plastic products comprise of ear buds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, candy sticks, plastic flags, ice-cream sticks, thermocol for decoration, cups plates, cups, glasses as well as cutlery like knives, spoons, forks, trays, straws, wrapping or packing films, invitation cards and cigarette packets as well as PVC banners of less than 100 microns

Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016

• Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, prohibits manufacture, import, stocking, sale, distribution and use of carry bags and plastic sheets with thickness less than 50 microns in India.
• It also bans the sachets using plastic material used to store, pack or sell gutkha, tobacco and pan masala.
• To amend these rules, draft comprising of way forward was issued in March 2021.
• Following this, Ministry constituted a National Level Taskforce to take coordinated efforts in order to eliminate identified single use plastic items and effective implementation of the 2016 Rules.

Reasons for the Ban:

• Single-use plastics, or disposable plastics, are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.
• Plastic is so cheap and convenient that it has replaced all other materials from the packaging industry but it takes hundreds of years to disintegrate.
• Further, Petroleum-based plastic is non-biodegradable and usually goes into a landfill where it is buried or it gets into the water and finds its way into the ocean.
• In the process of breaking down, it releases toxic chemicals (additives that were used to shape and harden the plastic) which make their way into our food and water supply.
• Pollution due to single use plastic items has become an important environmental challenge confronting all countries and India is committed to take action for mitigation of pollution caused by littered Single Use Plastics.
• At the 4th United Nations Environment Assembly in 2019, India piloted a resolution on addressing single-use plastic products pollution.
• The Prime Minister of India was also conferred the “champions of the earth” award by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2018 for pledging to eliminate all single-use plastic by 2022.

India’s resolution: India highlighted its resolution to address single-use plastic products pollution in 2019 at 4th United Nations Environment Assembly.

What is in News: Recently, Bihar has decided to tag greater adjutant storks locally known as ‘Garuda’ with GPS trackers to monitor their movement as part of efforts to conserve them.

Details:

• Scientific Name: Leptoptilos dubius
• Genus:
  • The greater adjutant is a member of the stork family, Ciconiidae.
  • There are about 20 species in the family.
  • They are long-necked large birds.
• Habitat:
  • Once found across South and Southeast Asia, the Greater Adjutant is one of the most threatened stork species in the world.
  • There are only three known breeding grounds – one in Cambodia and two in India (Assam and Bihar).

Threat:

• The widespread destruction and degradation of the wetlands that this scavenger bird needs to forage (i.e. search for food) and the loss of its nesting trees, led to a decline.
• Protection Status:
  • IUCN Red List: Endangered
  • Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972: Schedule IV

Significance:

• They are considered the mount of Vishnu, one of Hinduism’s prime deities. Some worship the bird and call it “Garuda Maharaj” (Lord Garuda) or “Guru Garuda” (Great Teacher Garuda).
• They help farmers by killing rats and other farm pests.

What is in news : Google Honours India’s First Woman Satyagrahi, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, With A Doodle.

About:

• Her evocative nationalist poem “Jhansi ki Rani” is widely regarded as one of the most recited poems in Hindi literature.
• Born - Nihalpur, Punjab(1904)
• Her first poem was published at just nine years old
• The call for Indian independence reached its height during her early adulthood. As a participant in the Indian Nationalist Movement, she used her poetry to call others to fight for their nation’s sovereignty.
• Her poetry and prose primarily centered around the hardships that Indian women overcame, such as gender and caste discrimination. Her poetry remained uniquely underscored by her resolute nationalism.
• In 1923, Her unyielding activism led her to become the first woman satyagrahi, a member of the Indian collective of nonviolent anti-colonialists to be arrested in the struggle for national liberation.
• She continued to make revolutionary statements in the fight for freedom both on and off the page into the 1940s, publishing a total of 88 poems and 46 short stories.

SNIPPETS

• North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) launched “Cleancity app”
• Ministers of Agriculture of the BRICS countries held virtual talks on the theme “BRICS Partnership for Strengthening Agro Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Security”. During the meet BRICS Agriculture Research Platform that has been developed by India in order to promote cooperation in the areas of agricultural research, technology transfer, extension, training and capacity building was made functional with the objective of improving the use and application of agricultural technologies to meet the needs of producers and processors.
• On India's 75th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Centre will launch ‘PM Gati Shakti Master Plan’, a Rs. 100 lakh-crore project for developing 'holistic infrastructure'.