Current Affairs Of Today Are
1) NITI Aayog on GDP
The road to a $5 trillion economy by 2025 is beset with many speedbreakers, the NITI Aayog has warned the government
Inflation Rate
- A measure of growth without accounting for inflation has to be at least 12.4% on average if that target has to be reached. The current rate was a mere 8% in the first quarter of the current financial year.
- The government is expected to release data for the second quarter ( July to September) later this month. Experts estimate that growth will dip in Q2 compared to Q1 in both real and nominal terms.
- While GDP growth in real terms in Q1 stood at 5%, staterun lender State Bank of India recently estimated that this could dip to 4.2% in Q2, with a corresponding dip in nominal growth as well. Real GDP growth accounts for inflation.
Domestic investment and Consumption
"Domestic investment and consumption" are the only dependable drivers for sustainable re-acceleration (of the economy). “However, a deceleration in investment is visible, primarily in the household sector, due almost entirely to real estate.
Gross fixed capital formation in the subsector of ‘dwellings, other buildings, and structures fell from 12.8% of GDP in 201112 to 6.9% in 2017-18.
The slowdown in the domestic market is also because of limited availability of capital with the banks which are tied down due to high nonperforming assets in heavy industry and infrastructure
Structural Changes
The “structural changes” that in the power sector, there is a high crosssubsidisation in favor of residential tariffs leading to very high industrial tariffs. The electric power transmission and distribution (T&D) losses in India stand at 19%, higher than that of Bangladesh and Vietnam.
2) Stubble Burning Report
- The Central and State governments released data on stubble burning
- Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told the Rajya Sabha that the events had declined 19% this year, including a 16.8% reduction in Punjab.
- However, Punjab’s Pollution Control Board (PCB) data show an increase of 2.3% in the number of incidents.
Why there is a Difference?
The Centre’s data come from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which monitors stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh using satellite data and counts the number of incidents from the beginning of October. According to the ICAR’s latest daily bulletin, Punjab saw 49,787 incidents between October 1 and November 21. However, the PCB routinely counts stubble burning incidents from September 24, given that paddy harvesting begins in early to midSeptember. It recorded 52,154 incidents between September 24 and November 21, compared with 50,970 in the year earlier period.
Haryana had recorded a 25.1% reduction in incidents, while Uttar Pradesh had seen a 36.8% drop.
Improvement Factor
The ₹1,151.8 crores Centrally funded scheme to distribute stubble management machines to farmers as well as State schemes to compensate farmers who did not burn their fields
The Punjab government acknowledged that the increase in incidents showed that some farmers continued to defy the ban on burning crop residue and said it was optimistic that the “burnt area” figure would show improvement.
3) Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) School
- 13 officers from seven nations, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Morocco, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania, who graduated from the Indian Navy’s Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) School on completion of their course.
- It was the first time an officer from Morocco had come down for training at the ASW School
- Besides the professional training, the international trainees, some of them accompanied by their spouses, get a chance to tour places across India
4) Malnourished Children
- As per the report of NFHS-4 conducted in 2015-16, 35.7% of children under 5 years of age are underweight and 38.4% are stunted indicating a reduction from the previous NFHS – 3 conducted in 2005-06, which reported 42.5% children under 5 years of age as underweight and 48% stunted.
- Further, as per the report of Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) conducted during 2016-18, the prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among children is 34.7%, 17%, and 33.4% respectively, which indicates further reduction when compared to the levels reported by NFHS-4; and hence an improvement from the previous status.
Steps were taken by the Government
- The Government has accorded high priority to the issue of malnutrition and is implementing several schemes like Anganwadi Services, Scheme for Adolescent Girls and Pradhan MantriMatruVandanaYojna (PMMVY) under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme as direct targeted interventions to address the problem of malnutrition in the country.
- Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition are treated at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres established by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
National Health Mission (NHM), a flagship programme of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, to address malnutrition inter alia include promotion of appropriate Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices, Anaemia Mukt Bharat, Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation, de-worming, promotion of iodized salt, Vitamin-A supplementation, Mission Indradhanush to ensure high coverage of vaccination in children, conducting intensified diarrhoea control fortnights to control childhood diarrhoea, management of sick severely malnourished children at Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers, monthly Village Health and Nutrition Days, Home Based Newborn Care (HBNC) and Home-Based Young Childcare (HBYC) programmes and Rashtriya Bal SwasthyaKaryakram.
The government set up POSHAN Abhiyaan on 18.12.2017 for a three-year time frame commencing from 2017-18 with an overall budget of Rs. 9046 Crore. To ensure a holistic approach, all 36 States/UTs and districts have been covered. The goals of POSHAN Abhiyaan are to achieve improvement in the nutritional status of children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women, and Lactating Mothers in a time-bound manner during the three years with fixed targets
Conclusion
The Abhiyaan aims to reduce malnutrition in the country in a phased manner, through a life cycle approach, by adopting a synergized and result oriented approach. The Abhiyaan will ensure mechanisms for timely service delivery and robust monitoring as well as intervention infrastructure. Target is to bring down the stunting of the children in the age group of 0-6 years from 38.4% to 25% by the year 2022. The major activities undertaken under this Abhiyaan are ensuring convergence with various other programs; Information Technology enabled Common Application Software for strengthening service delivery and interventions; Community Mobilization and Awareness Advocacy leading to Jan Andolan- to educate the people on nutritional aspects; Capacity Building of Frontline Functionaries, incentivizing States/ UTs for achieving goals, etc.
5) Adarsh Station Scheme
Adarsh’ Station Scheme has been started since 2009-10 and presently, up-gradation of Railway stations is taken under the ‘Adarsh Station Scheme’. Since then, 1253 stations have been identified for development under ‘Adarsh Station Scheme’ out of which 1149 stations so far have been developed under ‘Adarsh Station Scheme’ and remaining stations are targeted to be developed by 2019-20.
Various passenger amenities which, inter-alia, include improvement to façade of the station building, retiring room, waiting room (with bathing facilities), separate waiting room for ladies, landscaping of circulating area, earmarked parking, signages, Pay & Use toilets, Foot Over Bridge, ramps at entry to station, etc. are proposed to be provided at Railway stations which are identified for development under this scheme as per the respective category of the station and the works for which are funded under Plan Head ‘Passenger Amenities’.
Upgradation / modernization of stations on Indian Railways is a continuous and on-going process. Works for improvement of passenger amenities are undertaken depending upon need, the volume of passenger traffic and inter-se priority, subject to availability of funds.
6) Monitoring System for Steel Imports
The Government has introduced a Steel Import Monitoring System (SIMS) vide Notification dated 5th September, 2019 which has changed the import policy of specific iron and steel items appearing in Chapter 72, 73 and 86 of Indian Trade Classification (Harmonised System) [ITC (HS)], 2017, Schedule – I (Import Policy) from 'free' to 'free subject to compulsory registration'. This will require importers of 284 tariff lines of iron and steel to submit advance information of their imports on an online system to get an automatic registration number.
An importer can apply for registration not earlier than the 60th day and not later than the 15th day before the expected date of arrival of the import consignment. The validity of registration will be for 75 days. The only thing to be entered by an importer in the Bill of Entry is the registration number and expiry date of registration.
Purpose of SIMS
The purpose of SIMS is to gather advance information on important items of iron and steel and make it available to the stakeholders including Government and Indian domestic industry in responding to the market conditions in a more dynamic manner.
7) India to host Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of SCO Member States next year
The 5th Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member States’ Heads of Ministries and Departments of Science and Technology and Permanent Working Group on S&T Cooperation concluded in Moscow, Russia.
Eight SCO Member States’ Heads of Delegation signed the Protocol of 5th Meeting of Ministries and Departments of S&T at the end of the three-day meeting.
The meeting agreed with India's proposal to host the SCO Forum of Young Scientists and Innovators in 2020. The leaders also approved holding a joint competition for SCO Multilateral R& D projects by end of 2020. Rules for joint competition and funding as well as financial support mechanisms will be prepared and worked out in due course.
India will be the host of Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of SCO Member States in 2020, which will approve the Draft SCO Roadmap on cooperation between research institutions of SCO Member States for the period 2021-2023.
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