Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Supreme Court asks Parliament to frame laws to bar those accused of crimes from fighting elections

News

• Political parties have to display the criminal record of candidates who contest on their ticket on their official websites, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court directed on September 25, 2018.

      Beyond News

• Parties should also issue a declaration on the criminal antecedents of their candidates in a widely circulated publication, said a Bench.
• To facilitate this transparency by parties, candidates should first give complete information about their criminal past or pending cases to the parties on whose ticket they intend to contest elections, stated the judgment.
• This is to ensure that the ordinary voter can have an “informed choice” about who he has to vote for in a country “tired of money and muscle power,” said the court.
• The direction to compel political parties to go public about their “criminal” candidates is a step to “foster and nurture an informed citizenry” and to protect the “culture and purity in politics.”
• The court said criminal politicians are nothing but a liability to this country. Their presence in power strikes at the roots of democracy. Criminalisation of politics and corruption, especially at the entry level of elections, has become a national and economic terror. It is a disease which is self-destructive and becoming immune to antibiotics, opined the court.
• Parties need to come clean about the criminal elements within their apparatus.
• The candidate should fill up in block letters the complete details of their criminal antecedents, if any.
• Instead, it urged Parliament to consider such a disqualification, saying the nation eagerly awaits its decision. It noted that the Election Commission of India has its hands tied, watching on as criminalisation of politics at the entry level is on the rise.

India ranks 158th in ‘human capital’ score, behind Sudan

News:

• India ranks 158th in the world for its investments in education and health care, according to the first-ever scientific study ranking countries for their levels of human capital.

Findings

• The nation is placed behind Sudan (ranked 157th) and ahead of Namibia (ranked 159th) in the list. The U.S. is ranked 27th, while China is at 44th and Pakistan at 164th.
• The study, says that India is ranked at 158 out of 195 countries in 2016, an improvement from its position of 162 in 1990. It showed that India is falling behind in terms of health and education of its workforce, which could potentially have long-term negative effects on the Indian economy.
• The study is based on analysis of data from sources, including government agencies, schools, and health care systems.
• The study, conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the request of the World Bank, is the first of its kind to measure and compare the strength of countries’ “human capital”. The study underscores that when a country’s human capital score increases, its economy grows.
• The study places Finland at the top. Turkey showed the most dramatic increase in human capital between 1990 and 2016; Asian countries with notable improvement include China, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. Within Latin America, Brazil stands out for improvement. All these countries have had faster economic growth over this period than peer countries with lower levels of human capital improvement.
• In addition, the greatest increase among sub-Saharan African countries was in Equatorial Guinea.

Sushma Swaraj to focus on climate change, South-South cooperation at U.N.

News

• External Affairs Minister kicked off her week-long diplomatic engagements at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), attending a special meeting on drugs convened at the instance of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Beyond News

• External Affairs Minister will also attend a special meeting on climate changebeing convened by Secretary General António Guterres during her stay in New York.
• The 73rd UNGA is taking place against the backdrop of increased American hostility towards the world body in particular and multilateralism in general. Mr. Trump believes that multilateral global bodies and treaties function to the detriment and at the cost of the U.S.
• The U.S has reduced its funding for the U.N. and either withdrawn or threatened to withdraw from several U.N. bodies under the Trump presidency.
• As Mr. Trump pushes ahead with his America First agenda at the UNGA and on the sidelines, India will be trying to secure its interests and preserve its standing through several diplomatic initiatives this week, according to a senior official overseeing the Minister’s engagements.
• With America rolling back its interest in global security and development, under the Trump administration, the Security Council’s prominence has diminished, an Indian official pointed out. While America is on retreat, no other country is stepping up to fill the leadership vacuum in the U.N., and Ms. Swaraj’s engagements will account for this situation.
• External Affairs Minister met Federica Maria Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Morocco Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita. External Affairs Minister “discussed strengthening cooperation in areas of commerce, pharma, cyber security, defence and culture,” with Mr. Bourita, MEA spokesperson said.

Indo-Portugal cultural fete set to begin in Goa

News

• The Semana da Cultura Indo Portuguesa, an annual event that features cultural exchanges between Portugal and Goa, will complete a decade with the 10th edition of the event set to begin in Panaji later this week.

Beyond News

• The event will celebrate and appreciate the richcultural flavours of the two nations India and Portugal.
• Like previous editions, this year’s edition too will have a film festival, a concert by a Fadista, Fado singing competition, music workshops, a photography exhibition and Indo-Portuguese cuisine workshops.
• A Photography Exhibition will be hosted at the Institute Menezes Braganza.

India only SAARC country to have a quit-line number for tobacco users

News

• India has become the first and only SAARC country to have a quit-line number on tobacco products.

Beyond News

• The Union Health Ministry has already made 85% pictorial health warning mandatory on both sides of packets containing cigarettes, bidis, and chewing tobacco.
• The quit-line number will be printed on all tobacco products manufactured after September 1, 2018.
• India is the fourth country in Asia after Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore to have this government helpline for those looking at quitting tobacco. At least 46 countries have quit-line numbers as part of health warning labels on tobacco product packaging.
• India’s current international ranking for package warnings is number three in the world, as outlined in the October 2016 Canadian Cancer Society’s ‘Cigarette Package Health Warning International Status Report’, that ranked 205 countries worldwide.
• The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) 2016-17 by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had put to rest all apprehensions about the effectiveness of warnings, since 62% of cigarette smokers and 54% of bidi smokers shared that they thought of quitting because of the 85% pictorial warnings on the packets. And 46% of smokeless tobacco users thought of quitting because of the warnings on smokeless tobacco products.
• The findings revealed a growing demand for cessation centres as 55% of smokers and 50% of smokeless tobacco users were planning or thinking of quitting tobacco use.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Mosquito population made extinct with genetic tweak

News

• Scientists said, they had succeeded for the first time in wiping out an entire population of malaria-carrying mosquitos in the lab using a gene editing tool to programme their extinction.\
• So-called gene drive technology works by forcing evolution’s hand, ensuring that an engineered trait is passed down to a higher proportion of offspring across many generations than would have occurred naturally.

Findings

• In experiments with the species Anopheles gambiae, scientists at Imperial College London tweaked a gene known as doublesex so that more females in each generation could no longer bite or reproduce. After only eight generations, there were no females left and the population collapsed due to lack of offspring.
• Malaria sickened more than 200 million people worldwide in 2016 and killed nearly 450,000. It remains one of the most deadly of infectious diseases.
• Previous attempts by the same team and others to induce the genetically programmed extinction of mosquitos in the laboratory ran into “resistance” in the form of mutations that fought back against the high-tech engineering.
• The next step will be to test the technology in a confined laboratory setting that mimics a tropical environment.
• The doublesex gene targeted in the experiments is deeply “conserved”, meaning that is formed tens or even hundreds of millions of years ago and is today shared by many insects with only minor variations.
• Some scientists and technology watchdog groups have called for a moratorium on gene drive research.
• There are ecological risks from manipulating and removing natural populations, such as destroying food webs and shifting the behaviour of diseases, as well as social risks of disrupting agriculture and enabling new weapons.

Panel approves nutrition norms

News

• India’s top nutrition panel has recommended that severely malnourished children must be fed freshly cooked food prepared from locally available cereals, pulses and vegetables, and distributed by anganwadi centres, as part of the country’s first-ever guidelines for nutritional management of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM).

Beyond News

• The measures are part of the community-based health management of children suffering from SAM.
• The norms were okayed by a scientific sub-committee under the NTBN, according to the minutes of the meeting issued last week.
• The guidelines outline the role of anganwadi workers and auxillary nurse midwives (ANMs) in identifying severely wasted children, segregating those with oedema or medical complications and sending them to the nearest health facility or nutrition rehabilitation centres.
• The remaining children are enrolled into “community based management”, which includes provision of nutrition, continuous monitoring of growth, administration of antibiotics and micro-nutrients as well as counselling sessions and imparting of nutrition and health education.
• According to the recommendations, anganwadi workers have to provide modified morning snacks, hot cooked meals and take home ration for SAM children.
• Locally available cereals, pulses, green leafy vegetables and tubers, vitamin C rich fruits, as well as fresh milk and 3-4 eggs every week” have also been prescribed.
• Importantly, the government has also revised the method to be used to measure wasting and advised calculating weight based on the height of children instead of the mid-upper arm circumference.

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