National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 1st November 2019
Financial Inclusion Report
Topic: Reports and Indices
In News: According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Global Microscope on Financial Inclusion report, India (ranked at 5th position) is among the top nations with the most conducive environment for financial inclusion.
More on the Topic:
- The Global Microscope assesses the enabling environment for financial inclusion across 5 categories and 55 countries.
It covers five domains:
- Government and Policy Support
- Stability and Integrity
- Products and Outlets
- Consumer Protection
- Infrastructure
- The 2019 edition featured 11 new gender-focused indicators that measured financial inclusion for both women and men.
- EIU is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper.
Key Findings:
- The overall environment for financial inclusion has improved globally with India, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay and Mexico having the most favourable conditions for inclusive finance.
- However, only one-third of countries include a gender approach in their financial inclusion strategies, and even fewer have set clear, gender-related goals.
Financial Inclusion and India:
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has prepared a draft National Strategy for Financial Inclusion to deepen financial services’ coverage in the country. The strategy is expected to be finalised in 2019 and will cover a five-year period.
- The RBI has set up a high-level committee to review the existing status of digitisation and devise a medium-term strategy for increasing digital payments.
- In August 2019, the RBI released the Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox (RS), which created the basis for a regulatory sandbox that allows fin-tech start-ups to live-test innovative products and services.
Source: Hindu
Network of Creative Cities
Topic: Culture
In News: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has included Mumbai and Hyderabad in its network of ‘Creative Cities’ among the 66 cities selected on the occasion of World Cities Day 2019 (31st October).
More on the Topic:
- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has included Mumbai and Hyderabad in its network of ‘Creative Cities’ among the 66 cities selected on the occasion of World Cities Day 2019 (31st October).
- Mumbai has been designated as Creative City of Films and Hyderabad as a Creative City of Gastronomy.
- Earlier, Indian cities like Chennai and Varanasi have been included in UNESCO Cities of Music while Jaipur has been included in the City of Crafts and Folk Arts.
- By joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), the cities pledge to share best practices and develop partnerships involving public and private sectors as well as civil society to strengthen the creation, production, and distribution of cultural activities.
About UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN):
- The UNESCO Creative Cities aims to achieve Sustainable Development Goals through innovative thinking and action.
- Sustainable Development Goal 11 aims for Sustainable Cities and Communities.
- Also, cities are championing sustainable development actions that directly benefit communities at the urban level.
- The network covers seven creative fields: crafts and folk arts, media arts, film, design, gastronomy, literature and music.
Source: Hindu
Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development
Topic: Environment and Ecology
In News: Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shri Prakash Javadekar approved the proposal of New Regional Centre of the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development at Ladakh.
More on the Topic:
- The Trans Himalayan landscape lies above 3,000 Mean Sea Level and is characterized by extreme cold climate. It has very sparse vegetation. The annual rainfall in these regions is 9-10 cm with more than 300 sunny days.
- The Institute helps in understanding the landscape and its components in a better way. This will aid in developing strategies and implementation plans for addressing the issued of environmental conservation and sustainable development.
- The GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development has its headquarters located at Kosi-Katarmal, Uttarkhand.
- The institute caters to environment management, policies for sustainable development of communities and conservation of natural resources in the Indian Himalayan Region.
Objectives of the Institute:
- To promote alternative and innovative livelihoods for climate change vulnerable cold-desert communities
- To strengthen and establish the solutions and approaches towards addressing water scarcity.
- To facilitate conservation of important cold desert habitats and biodiversity
- To foster climate smart communities in the Himalayan landscape
Source: Hindu
Indian Brain Atlas
Topic: Science and Technology
In News: Researchers at International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-H), Hyderabad, have created the first-ever Indian Brain Atlas referred to as IBA 100.
More on the Topic:
- Till now the ‘standard’ brain templates created using Caucasian brains were used for neuroscience studies. These standards are not ideal to analyze brain differences from other ethnicities, such as Indian population.
- Even Chinese and Korean brain templates had been constructed but until now there was no corresponding template constructed for the Indian-specific population.
Highlights of the Study:
- Study has revealed that Indian brain, on an average, is smaller in height, width and volume when compared to Caucasian and eastern (Chinese and Korean) populations. The differences were found even at structure level, like in volume of hippocampus and so on.
- The implications of the findings includes better and early diagnosis of treatment outcomes of neurological problems or brain related ailments such dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other brain-related ailments.
- Baseline: Since birth, the brain grows at an alarming rate, but according to experts, it is around age 20-30, that the brain is said to be fully developed, or mature. Therefore researchers collected the scans from an equal number of healthy male and female subjects who fell in age group of 21-30 years, considered as the baseline.
- Curbing Misdiagnosis: Medical practitioners depend on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan to decide on line of treatment and since the references they use are the one’s created by MNI, based on Caucasian brains, thus the revelations by current findings on Indian brains, show that the differences in MRI scans that can emerge by comparisons (because Indian brains are smaller than Caucasian) can be alarming and lead to misdiagnosis.
Way Ahead:
- The next step would be to prepare atlases for different age groups to study age related affects on brain anatomy. Researches will now collect MRI scans to create brain atlases for different age groups, such as 20-30, 30-40, 40-50 and 50-60, which will be beneficial to track brain and see how it ages over time and in the long run understand dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s etc.
Source: Hindu
National Pension Scheme
Topic: Government Schemes
In News: Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has now permitted Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) to enrol in National Pension Scheme (NPS) at par with Non-Resident Indians.
More on the Topic:
- It is a government-sponsored pension scheme. It was launched in January 2004 for government employees. However, in 2009, it was opened to all sections.
- The scheme allows subscribers to contribute regularly in a pension account during their working life.
- On retirement, subscribers can withdraw a part of the corpus in a lumpsum and use the remaining corpus to buy an annuity to secure a regular income after retirement.
- This system is managed by PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority).
- Any Indian citizen between 18 and 65 years can join NPS.
- An NRI can join NPS. However, the account will be closed if there is a change in the citizenship status of the NRI.
- Now, any Indian citizen, resident or non-resident and OCIs are eligible to join NPS till the age of 65 years.
Source: Hindu
Falling Child Sex Ratio
Topic: Social Issues
In News: The child sex ratio is continuously falling in India which is a matter of national concern.
More on the Topic:
- India’s child sex ratio has further declined to 896 in 2015-17 from 898 in 2014-16 and 900 in 2013-15, according to Sample Registration Survey (SRS).
- Child sex ratio is defined as the number of females per thousand males in the age group 0–6 years in a human population. Sex Ratio is a tool to determine gender equity of the population.
- The child sex ratio was 914 in decade 2001-2011. In decade 1991-2001, the child sex ratio was 927 and it has dropped by 13 points in the decade 2001-2011. Interestingly, in 1961, the ratio was 976 girls for every 1,000 boys in this age-group. This means that over the last 50 years, the sex ratio has fallen by 63 points.
- Declining child sex ratio is a silent emergency. But the crisis is real, and its persistence has profound and frightening implications for society and the future of humankind.
- Low sex ratio at birth (SRBs) starting from the Seventies have led to large numbers of “surplus men” today in countries like India and China.
- There are concerns that skewed sex ratios lead to more violence against men and women, as well as human-trafficking.
- Marriage becomes problem for some males: In India, some villages in Haryana and Punjab have such poor sex ratios that men marrying brides from other States. This is often accompanied by the exploitation of these brides.
- Household chores of females such as child rearing, housekeeping and other works remain as serious problems.
Causes of falling child sex ratio in India:
- Female Feticide: The rapid spread and use of ultrasound as well as amniocentesis for sex determination are playing vital role in female foetus-induced abortions which is called as High-tech sexism by Amartya Sen.
- Female Infanticide: In India there is still preference for male child and in some areas of the country the female infanticide is still common. At least 117 million girls around the world demographically go “missing” due to sex-selective abortions according to United Nations Populations fund.
- Education: Due to illiteracy, people are unaware about the power and role of women in today’s era. The role of education has a great influence on the sex ratio scenario of India. Child marriages are a common part of the Indian society. Most of the girls are prone to the issue of child marriage at a very early age. This makes them to stay away from the education and are compelled to take the responsibilities of the household.
- Poverty: Poverty is one of the factors which is responsible for the declining sex ratio. States like Tamil Nadu have a high sex ratio but the poverty rate is low. There are states wherein due to poverty, a lot of girls are denied of nutritious food. This deprives the women and girl child from a living a healthy life.
- Social status of women: In most parts of India, women are merely considered as an object. People are worried about the dowry issue with the birth of a girl child. Due to financial problem, most of the families in rural areas prefer male child over female.
- Lack of empowerment of women: There is a lack of empowerment of women especially in the rural areas. Women do not enjoy opportunities as men do. Due to lack of education, women are unable to establish their roles in many places. The state of Uttar Pradesh has become like a grave for girls.
- Male domination: Majority of the places in India follow the patriarchal system. In India, males are considered to be the only bread earners. The methods of sex determination and female foeticide are adopted which is main reason of declining number of females especially in North India.
- Infant and Maternal Mortality: Infant mortality rate is the number of death of babies before the age of one. Due to female foeticide, the sex ratio declines terribly. Maternal mortality also contributes to the declining sex ratio as most of the women die during the childbirth due to improper care and less facilities.
- Impact of Population Policies: Under family planning policies, families want one or two children and generally prefer male child over female child. It is also true in case of China which had adopted one-child policy for long and has huge male population now.
Problems Associated with Skewed sex ratio:
- It will bring down country’s reproductive potential by lowering net reproduction rate.
- The rapidly declining sex-ratios are turning into a demographic nightmare of frightening proportions.
- Low sex ratio at birth (SRBs) starting from the Seventies have led to large numbers of “surplus men” today in countries like India and China.
- There are concerns that skewed sex ratios lead to more violence against men and women, as well as human-trafficking.
- In India, some villages in Haryana and Punjab have such poor sex ratios that men marrying brides from other States. This is often accompanied by the exploitation of these brides.
Model Mains Question: What are the government initiatives to curb the skewed sex ration in India?
Source: Hindu
