IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Women to be encouraged not to wear ‘ghoonghat’ to cast vote in Rajasthan

News

• Rural women will be encouraged to not wear “ghoonghat” when they go to cast their vote during the Panchayat elections being held in Rajasthan this month, an official said.

Awareness campaign

• The idea is a part of an awareness campaign that has been introduced by the Women and Child Development Department after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s call for eradicating the custom of “ghoonghat” or veil.
• Various activities with the involvement of district administration officials, grassroots workers, public representatives, social workers have been planned under the campaign.
• Various activities are being held to motivate women to not wear “ghoonghat”. Rural women are also being inspired to not wear “ghoonghat” when they go to cast their vote during the Panchayat elections this month.
• Gehlot has on different occasions called for eradicating the practice of ‘ghoonghat’, saying this was an obstacle in women empowerment.

 ‘2019 was warmest year for oceans than any other time in recorded human history’

News

• A recent study has pointed out that the world’s oceans were the warmest in 2019 than any other time in recorded human history, especially between the surface and a depth of 2,000 metres.

Warmest year for oceans

• The study found that the past decade has decidedly been the warmest on record for the world’s ocean temperatures and the last five years held the highest record.
• As a worrying trend, researchers said that the 2019 ocean temperature is about 0.075 degrees Celsius above the 1981-2010 average. To reach this temperature, they said, the ocean would have taken in 228 Sextillion Joules of heat.
• As part of the study, the scientists used a new analysis method to take into account potentially sparse data and time discrepancies in instruments that were previously used to measure ocean warmth, especially from the ocean surface to 2,000 metres deep.
• As an additional data set, the research also incorporates ocean temperature changes recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US. These two data sets suggested that the past five years have been the warmest on record for global ocean temperatures.
• Additionally, the scientists also compared the 1987-2019 data recording period to the 1955 to 1986 period.
• Out of this analysis, found that over the past 60 years, the more recent warming was about 450 per cent that of the earlier warming, which reflected a huge increase in the rate of climate change globally.
• As per the data, 2019 broke the previous records set in prior years for global warming, and the effects are already appearing in the form of more extreme weather, rising sea levels and harm to ocean animals.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Explained: What is the Centre’s recent policy for treatment of rare diseases?

News

• The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare published a national policy for the treatment of 450 ‘rare diseases’.
• Among other measures, the policy intends to kickstart a registry of rare diseases, which will be maintained by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
• The revised policy says assistance of Rs 15 lakh may be provided for the treatment of some such diseases.

Rare diseases

• Broadly, a ‘rare disease’ is defined as a health condition of low prevalence that affects a small number of people when compared with other prevalent diseases in the general population.
• In the US, for instance, a rare disease is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people. The same definition is used by the National Organisation for Rare Disorders (NORD).
• The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has listed 7,000 rare diseases. While a majority of rare diseases are believed to be genetic, many such as some rare cancers and some autoimmune diseases are not inherited, as per the NIH.
• According to the policy, rare diseases include genetic diseases, rare cancers, infectious tropical diseases, and degenerative diseases. As per the policy, out of all rare diseases in the world, less than five per cent have therapies available to treat them.
• In India, roughly 450 rare diseases have been recorded from tertiary hospitals, of which the most common are Haemophilia, Thalassemia, Sickle-cell anemia, auto-immune diseases, Gaucher’s disease, and cystic fibrosis.

The need for such a policy

• The policy was created on the direction of the Delhi High Court to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This was in response to writ petitions for free treatment of such diseases, due to their “prohibitively” high cost of treatment.
• A policy was deemed necessary to devise a “multipronged” and “multisectoral” approach to build India’s capacity for tackling such ailments, including by gathering epidemiological data, arriving at a definition and estimating the cost of such diseases.
• Rare diseases pose a significant challenge to health care systems because of the difficulty in collecting epidemiological data, which in turn impedes the process of arriving at a disease burden, calculating cost estimations and making correct and timely diagnoses, among other problems.
• Many cases of rare diseases may be serious, chronic and life-threatening. In some cases, the affected individuals, mostly children, may also suffer from some form of a handicap.
• As per the 2017 report, over 50 per cent of new cases are reported in children and these diseases are responsible for 35 per cent of deaths in those below the age of one, 10 per cent of deaths between the ages of one and five, and 12 per cent between five and 15.

How does it work?

• Under the policy, there are three categories of rare diseases requiring one-time curative treatment, diseases that require long-term treatment but where the cost is low, and those needing long-term treatments with high cost.
• Some of the diseases in the first category include osteopetrosis and immune deficiency disorders, among others.
• As per the policy, the assistance of Rs 15 lakh will be provided to patients suffering from rare diseases that require a one-time curative treatment under the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi scheme. The treatment will be limited to the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.

Centre rolls out disclosure scheme to tag rogue drones

News

• Days after a US drone attack killed Iran’s top military commander General Qassem Soleimani, the Civil Aviation Ministry has announced a scheme for voluntary disclosure of “non-compliant” unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, being operated inside India to make up for the lack of a comprehensive database.

Disclosure scheme

• The government has asked the owners of unregistered drones to submit the required information to the government by January 31.
• The Ministry’s notice pointed out that upon successful submission of voluntary disclosure, a Drone Acknowledgement Number (DAN) and an Ownership Acknowledgement Number (OAN) will be issued online.
• The DAN or OAN does not confer any right to operate drones in India if it does not fulfill the provisions given in the CAR.
• The Civil Aviation Ministry has finalised the National Counter Rogue Drone Guidelines to lay down an array of counter-rogue measures and guidelines that can be deployed for handling threats to installations from UAVs.
• India has a ‘No Permission-No Takeoff’ (NPNT) policy for UAVs, which mandates the drone to be operated only with a regulatory permission received through the Digital Sky Platform. Further, the pilot also needs certification, requiring a remote pilot licence or an unmanned aerial operator permit before operating a drone.
• Penalties under the Aircraft Act and the Indian Penal Code have been prescribed for those failing to comply with norms.

32,000 refugees identified in 21 UP districts: minister

News

• The government in Uttar Pradesh said it has started the process to identify refugees and 32,000 such people have already been identified in 21 of the 75 districts of the state after the notification for implementation of the new citizenship law (CAA) .
• The districts from where the first list has arrived include Sahranpur, Gorakhpur, Aligarh, Rampur, Pratapgarh, Pilibhit, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bahraich, Lakhimpur, Rampur, Meerut and Agra.

After demolition, Supreme Court asks Kerala govt to clear debris in Maradu

News

• “It is a painful job, a painful duty,” the Supreme Court said as the Kerala government brought to its notice the demolition of the four apartment complexes built in violation of Coastal Regulation Zone(CRZ) norms at Maradu in Kochi.
• A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra referred to news reports about the demolition which took place over the weekend and asked the state to do the needful to clear any debris and restore the area.

Violation of Coastal Regulation Zone 

• The court had earlier asked the state to provide Rs 25 lakh each as initial compensation to the flatowners and said the state could recover it from the builders responsible. The court also appointed a committee under a retired High Court judge to assess the compensation and fix liability on those responsible.
• A counsel told the bench that some flat owners had more than one apartment in the demolished buildings but the committee has said that compensation would be paid for one flat only.
• The bench asked the affected flat owners to file a proper application so that the court can look into it.
• Acting on the report of an expert committee appointed by it, the Supreme Court had ordered demolition of the apartment complexes on May 8 and directed that the task be completed in a month.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

India’s WPI inflation rises to 2.59 per cent in December: Government data

News

• The wholesale inflation across the country rose to 2.59 per cent in December 2019, according to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

Wholesale inflation

• The wholesale price index (WPI) grew 0.58 per cent during the month of November 2019 and it rose to 3.46 per cent in December 2018, the data showed.
• The rise in WPI during the previous month was attributed to the spike in the prices of food articles like onion and potato.
• The rate of rise in prices of ‘Food Articles’ rose to 13.24 per cent in December 2019 against 11.08 per cent a month ago, while for the ‘Non-Food Articles’ it witnessed a four-fold jump to 7.72 per cent from 1.93 per cent in November 2019, the commerce ministry data revealed.
• Among the food articles, vegetable prices rose sharply by 69.69 per cent in December primarily due to onion prices, which saw a whopping 455.83 per cent rise. This apart, potato prices also rose to 44.97 per cent.

Centre to Haryana government: Send detailed proposal about ESZ

News

• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFC) has instructed the Haryana Forest and Wildlife Department to send a detailed proposal about declaring 0 metre to 1,500 metre area starting from Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary in Chandigarh to within Panchkula district as eco-sensitive zone (ESZ).

Eco-sensitive zone

• • The area comprising 1,500 metres starting from the edge of Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary in Chandigarh covers at least five villages of Panchkula.
  • The matter related to ESZ area in Punjab and Haryana around Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary is already pending in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
  • The proposal about ESZ within Panchkula was sent to the Central government in 2019. Recently, MoEFC marked some queries on the proposal. The department had sent the theoretical proposal merely mentioning the names of five villages.
  • The queries to the Haryana Wildlife and Forest Department were sent after it had demanded that the Punjab and Haryana should also declare 2 km to 2.75 km from the sanctuary boundary as ECZ.
  • Punjab has stuck to its earlier stand of declaring merely 100 metres area from the boundary of Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary as ECZ. The 100-metre area covers a little portion of Kansal village in Mohali district.
  • In September 2015, the Central government had issued a draft notification only for the sanctuary area falling under Chandigarh, ignoring Punjab and Haryana.
  • Although UT had declared its ESZ in 2017, it had urged the Central government to compel Punjab and Haryana also to declare their ESZ around Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary.

Vulnerable, small nations now lead charge to submit new climate plans ahead of COP 26 in UK

News

• Since last year’s climate summit, over 100 governments (nearly double) have indicated to the United Nations their willingness to submit updated climate plans in 2020 in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, suggests data from the UN’s climate body and 2019 UN COP25 hosts Chile.

Submit updated climate plans

• Significantly, while India has held out against updating its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), at least 4 out of 5 countries it shares borders with, namely Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar have agreed to update their NDCs this year.
• Their decision to update their NDCs is significant as it comes in the run-up to the COP26 to be held in Glasgow in the United Kindom in November 2020.
• India, China, and Japan are among those countries yet to announce when they will release new emission targets.
• Additionally, over 120 countries have also informed the United Nations that they have either signed off on plans for net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 or are working towards this target.
• These figures are critically important as it comes at the beginning of a year which witnesses violent bush fires in Australia and floods in Indonesia that continue to highlight the intensity of the global climate crisis.
• The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the UNFCCC is expected to take place from 9-19 November 2020, in Glasgow, UK.

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