Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Pakistan withdraws terror charges against Hafiz Saeed

News:

• Pakistani authorities have withdrawn terrorism charges against Hafiz Saeed and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), paving the way for the possible release of the man designated a terrorist by the UN, the U.S. and India for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Beyond News:

• Saeed and the JuD are already banned by the UN, while the U.S. has announced a $10 million bounty for his arrest.
• Saeed had challenged his detention in the Lahore High Court, alleging that it was due to U.S. pressure and he had never been charged for any crime.
• 

 Doklam derails train plan?

News:
Officials cite ‘lack of response’ from China company to high-speed train project

Beyond News:

• An ambitious high-speed train project to connect Chennai and Mysore, via Bengaluru, has been delayed as a Chinese company has maintained silence after completing a feasibility study a year ago.
• They suggest that the “lack of response” may be due to the Doklam standoff.
• An internal brief of the Mobility Directorate on the status of nine high-speed projects of the Railways shows that the 492-km Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysuru corridor lies in limbo because the Chinese company has failed to respond to the Ministry’s communiques.

{Op-Ed} The case for a public health cadre.

Key aspect: Opinion deals with keeping a designated officer for health cadre who is specially trained in that area.

Current scenario:

•  The 12th Five Year Plan and the National Health Policy, 2017 have also strongly advocated establishing a public health management cadre to improve the quality of health services by having dedicated, trained and exclusive personnel to run public health facilities.
• Recently, Odisha, with the support of the Public Health Foundation of India, has notified the establishment of a public health cadre in the hope of ensuring vast improvement in the delivery of health care.

Need for such a cadre? 

• The idea is on the lines of the civil service — of having dedicated, professionally trained personnel to address the specific and complex needs of the Indian health-care
• Doctors with clinical qualifications and even with vast experience are unable to address all these challenges, thereby hampering the quality of our public health-care system.
• In the absence of a public health cadre in most States, even an anaesthetist or an ophthalmologist with hardly any public health knowledge and its principles is required to implement reproductive and child health or a malaria control programme.

Benefits

• This will definitely improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Indian health system.
• The poor will also stand to benefit as this will reduce their out-of-pocket expenditure and dependence on prohibitively expensive private health care.

• Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Make pollution-free crackers

News:

• Scientists have been asked to develop zero-pollution firecrackers that do not cause health hazards to children

Beyond News:

• This was urged by Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan Flagging off the ‘Run for Clean Air’ campaign here as a part of the ‘Clean Air Campaign’.
• The ‘Clean Air Campaign’ was launched to create awareness on air pollution.

Indian economy on very solid track in the medium term

News:

• IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the Indian economy was on a “very solid track” in the medium term, days after the International Monetary Fund lowered its growth forecast for the current and the next year.

Beyond News:

• The IMF last week lowered India’s growth projection to 6.7% in 2017, 0.5 percentage points less than its previous two forecasts in April and July, attributing it to demonetisation and introduction of the GST.
• It also lowered the country’s growth for 2018 to 7.4%, 0.3 percentage points less than its previous two projections in July and April.
• India’s growth rate in 2016 was 7.1%, which saw an upward revision of 0.3 percentage points from its April report.

GDP may grow at 7% in FY18: NITI Aayog

• NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar has said the economic slowdown that began in 2013-14 has bottomed out and the GDP is likely to grow at 6.9-7 % this fiscal and 7.5% in 2018-19.
• On a quarterly basis also, the growth in the first quarter of the current fiscal had slipped to 5.7%.

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