National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 13th February 2020

Nutrition and Government Schemes

Topic: Governance

In News: The urgency around nutrition was reflected in the Union Finance Minister’s Budget speech, as she referred to the “unprecedented” scale of developments under the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition, or POSHAN Abhiyaan, the National Nutrition Mission with efforts to track the status of 10 crore households.

More on the Topic:

• Types of Nutrition Deficiency: There are multiple dimensions of malnutrition that include calorific deficiency, protein hunger and micronutrient deficiency.
• Calorific deficiency: The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme provides a package of services including supplementary nutrition, nutrition and health education, health check-ups and referral services addressing children, pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls, key groups to address community malnutrition, and which also tackle calorific deficiency and beyond.
• Protein Hunger: Pulses are a major contributor to address protein hunger. A scheme for State and Union Territories aims to reach pulses into welfare schemes (Mid-Day Meal, Public Distribution System, ICDS) is functioning in this regard.
• Micronutrient deficiency: The Horticulture Mission can be one of the ways to address micronutrient deficiency effectively. In 2018-19, the Government of India launched a national millet mission which included renaming millets as “nutri-cereals” also launching a Year of Millets in 2018-19 to promote nutritious cereals in a campaign mode across the country. The momentum given to these cereals not be sustained.
• POSHAN Abhiyaan: The POSHAN (PM’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment) Abhiyaan was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 8, 2018. The scheme aims to ensure holistic development and adequate nutrition for pregnant women,mothers and children. It is to ensure that malnutrition doesn’t affect children’s cognitive development or physical growth. The initiative seeks to reduce the level of stunting, undernutrition and low birth weight by 2% each, and anaemia by 3%. It aims to reduce stunting from 38.4% (NFHS-4) to 25% by 2022. A key idea of the initiative is to incentivise Anganwadi Workers (AWs) for using ICT-based tools, making it easier to implement and monitor the programme. The Union government had signed a loan deal worth US $200 million with the World Bank for the POSHAN Abhiyaan.
• Nutrition through Agriculture: The Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh which was launched in 2019 by Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a recent attempt to bridge nutrition gap. The BPKK will be a repository of diverse crops across agro-climatic zones in India for better nutritional outcomes. The country has been broadly divided into fifteen agricultural regions based on agro climatic features, particularly soil type, climate including temperature and rainfall and its variation and water resources.

Source: Hindu

Contraction of Infrastructure Sector

Topic: Economy

In News: The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the December data which showsthe IIP contracted by 0.3 per cent.

What is IIP?

• The IIP is an index used to track the performance of the industrial sector in the Indian economy. It does this by mapping the volume of production.
• But since it is an “index”, it targets a basket of industrial products ranging from the manufacturing sector to mining to energy and allocates different weights to them.
• Then, depending on the production of this basket, it throws up an index value. The index value is then compared with the value of the index in the same month a year ago to arrive at a percentage growth or decline figure.

How is IIP data read?

• There are two ways to understand the IIP data. One can either drill down the IIP data and look at the sectoral performance where the whole industrial sector is divided into three sub-sectors, namely manufacturing, mining and electricity — or look at the use-based classification.

Sectoral Classification:

• In the sectoral classification, manufacturing has the highest weight of 77.6%, mining has 14.4% share and electricity has 8% weight. In December, while production in mining grew by 5.4%, in manufacturing, which is the biggest chunk, production contracted by 1.2%; electricity contracted too, albeit marginally.

User Based Classification:

• Within the use-based classification, data is provided for six categories. These are :-
• Primary Goods (consisting of mining, electricity, fuels and fertilisers) — this has a weight of 34%
• Capital Goods (e.g. Machinery items) — this has a weight of 8%
• Intermediate Goods (e.g. yarns, chemicals, semi-finished steel items, etc) — this has a weight of 17%
• Infrastructure Goods (e.g. paints, cement, cables, bricks and tiles, rail materials, etc) — this has a weight of 12%
• Consumer Durables (e.g. garments, telephones, passenger vehicles, etc) — this has a weight of 13%
• Consumer Non-durables (e.g. food items, medicines, toiletries, etc) — this has a weight of 15%.
• In December, while production of primary goods and intermediate goods has picked up, that of capital goods has contracted heavily. This shows there is little demand for new machinery, which in turn shows there is little enthusiasm in the economy to make new investments. The other three categories also witnessed contraction.

What it Indicate?

• Observers who have tracked IIP for long argue that the key variable from the point of view of sustained growth or decline is the category of “intermediate goods”. That’s because it tallies with the order books.
• If intermediate goods are growing at a sustained pace month after month, then the domestic economy cannot continue to flounder for long. Similarly, if this category shows contraction, sustained growth appears far away.
• This category has grown by 12.5%; in November it grew by over 17%, in October it grew by over 22% and in September by 7%. As such, there is hope that perhaps the economy has seen its worst.
• However, the weakness across most other categories continues to be a matter of worry.

Source: Hindu

Yara Virus

Topic: Health

In News: In a lake in Brazil, researchers have discovered a virus that they find unusual and intriguing. Called Yaravirus, it has a “puzzling origin and phylogeny”.

More on the topic:

• The Yaravirus infects amoeba and has genes that have not been described before, something that could challenge how DNA viruses are classified.
• The researchers found the Yaravirus while looking in the lake for giant viruses that infect amoeba.
• Because of the Yaravirus’s small size, it was unlike other viruses that infect amoeba and they named it as a tribute to Yara, the “mother of waters” in the mythological stories of the Tupi-Guarani indigenous tribes.
• The amount of unknown proteins composing the Yaravirus particles reflects the variability existing in the viral world and how much potential of new viral genomes are still to be discovered.
• The virus does not infect human cells.

Source: India Today

Plea to ban sale of acid in Delhi

Topic: Social Issues

In News: The Delhi High Court sought the Delhi government”s stand on a plea by an acid attack survivor, who has alleged that the chemical was still easily available in the capital despite the Supreme Court directions to regulate its sale.

More on the Topic:

• In her plea, the acid attack victim alleged that the statutory rules which regulate the sale of acid were not being implemented here by authorities and acid was easily available for purchase across the counter in retail stores of Delhi.
• The apex court in its judgement in the Laxmi Agarwal acid attack case had issued guidelines with regard to the ban and regulation on sale of acid, but the same were not being implemented.

Overview of the guidelines:

• Acid should be sold only to people who show a valid identity card.
• Buyers will also have explain why they need the chemical and sales will have to be reported to the police.
• There will also be more compensation for victims.

Challenges and concerns:

• In clear defiance of the Court’s guidelines, acid is regularly available in India across various pharmacy or grocery shops.
• Although the acid available in markets is diluted, there is complete absence of regulation to determine if the level of dilution confirms to the prescribed safety levels.
• The issue of compliance has been brought to the Court’s notice by a writ petition which is currently pending. Such clear defiance of the Court’s guidelines has resulted in easy availability of acid and is an encouraging factor for prospective perpetrators.

Way Ahead:

• The government at every level including all the state governments need to answer the question of why acid is still available for sale in the market.
• Political Will is the need of the hour.

Source: Hindu

School health programme under Ayushman Bharat

Topic: Government Policies

In News: Government launched a School Health Programme under Ayushman Bharat-Health & Wellness Centres that will teach skills ranging from emotional wellbeing, mental health, interpersonal relationships to values and maintaining healthy lifestyle.

More on the Topic:

• The first phase of implementation will be in all the public upper primary, secondary and senior secondary schools of aspirational districts.
• The program has been jointly rolled out by Ministries of Health & Family Welfare and Human Resource Development.
• This initiative will further strengthen the concept of preventive, promotive and positive health, which forms the fundamental cornerstone of the Health & Wellness Centres of Ayushman Bharat scheme.
• It will be effectively linked with other government initiatives such as Fit India movement, Eat Right campaign, Poshan Abhiyaan for an all-round and holistic development model of health for the school children etc.
• While the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) developed 24-hour curriculum, training materials for training of nodal teachers, facilitators guide were developed in consultation with union health ministry.
• In the SCP health promotion and prevention activities program has been added in addition to ongoing health screening program through Rasthriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) teams and provision of services (IFA, Albendazole and sanitary napkins).
• Themes of the Programme: Growing up healthy, emotional wellbeing and mental health, interpersonal relationships, values and responsible citizenship, gender equality, nutrition, health and sanitation, promotion of healthy lifestyles, prevention and management of substance misuse, reproductive health and HIV prevention, safety and security against violence and injuries, and promotion of safe use of internet, media and social media are the 11 identified themes.

Source: Hindu

Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA)

Topic: International Relations

In News: The Union Cabinet approved the protocol to amend the DTAA (Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement) that was signed between India and Sri Lanka.

More on the Topic:

• A DTAA is a tax treaty signed between two or more countries. Its key objective is that tax-payers in these countries can avoid being taxed twice for the same income. A DTAA applies in cases where a tax-payer resides in one country and earns income in another.
• DTAAs can either be comprehensive to cover all sources of income or be limited to certain areas such as taxing of income from shipping, air transport, inheritance, etc.

Benefits of DTAA:

• DTAAs are intended to make a country an attractive investment destination by providing relief on dual taxation. Such relief is provided by exempting income earned abroad from tax in the resident country or providing credit to the extent taxes have already been paid abroad.
• For example, if a person is sent on deputation abroad and receive emoluments during stint away from home, income may sometimes be subject to tax in both the countries. The person can claim relief when filing tax return for that financial year, if there is an applicable DTAA.
• Similarly, if the person is an NRI having investments in India, DTAA provisions may also be applicable to income from these investments or from their sale. DTAAs also provide for concessional rates of tax in some cases.

Source: Hindu