IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Delhi: Proposal to cut NCR area to preserve farm land

News

• Due to a difficulty in maintaining financial and administrative efficiency over a large area and to protect farmer-owned land from rapid urbanisation, the National Capital Region Planning Board is (NCRPB) explored the possibility of reducing the area of the National Capital Region (NCR) area at a stakeholder conference held with the states of Rajasthan, UP and Haryana, and the Union Territory of Delhi Friday at Vigyan Bhawan.

National Capital Region Planning Board

• • The NCR consists of 14 districts of Haryana, eight of Uttar Pradesh, two of Rajasthan, and the whole of Delhi, and is spread over approximately 55,083 sq km.
  • A presentation in the conference showed that a large region of Delhi was problematic due to factors such as sparse overall development impact, thin spread of limited resources and difficulty to sustain growth over a large area, with options of linear development near transport corridors getting preference.
  • The NCRPB presented two recommendations reduction of the NCR area either to 35,483 sq km or 45,583 sq km. No area from Delhi will be reduced as per both the recommendations.
  • Both recommendations envision a reduction of 9,327 sq km and 3,927 sq km respectively from Haryana, and 10,947 sq km and 6,747 sq km respectively from Rajasthan.
  • The area from UP is set to increase as per both options by 374 sq km and 1,174 sq km respectively.
  • Many additional districts from the three states will also be partially included as per the recommendations.

Explained: What China’s lowest birth rate says about the country’s one-child policy

News

• The birth rate in China has fallen to the lowest in 70 years. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the birth rate in 2019 was at 10.48 per 1,000, the lowest since 1949. The number of babies born in 2019 fell by over 580,000 to 14.65 million.
• This fall in birth rate can be largely attributed to China’s one-child policy, which came into force in 1979 under then leader Deng Xiaoping.

China’s one-child policy

• The policy was introduced amid concerns that China’s growing population, which at the time was approaching a billion, would impede economic progress.
• The policy, which was implemented more effectively in the urban areas was enforced through several means, including incentivising families financially to have one child, making contraceptives widely available and imposing sanctions against those who violated the policy.
• Sometime in the early 1980s, the state also used forced abortions and sterlisations. The policy was criticised and remained controversial because it was considered to be a violation of human rights and was unfair to the poorer Chinese since the richer ones could afford to pay the economic sanctions if they violated the policy.
• Due to the policy, while the birth rate fell, the sex ratio became skewed towards males. This happened because of a traditional preference for male children in the country, due to which abortion of female fetuses rose and so did the number of girls who were placed in orphanages or abandoned.
• In 2015, China decided to end the policy and allowed all families to have two children.
• According to a report, even though China’s one-child policy is no longer in force, its effects are still being felt. China’s population has aged faster than elsewhere, which will slow down the country’s growth potential.
• This means that China won’t reap the full benefits of its economic growth and will need other ways to support it. This is not the case with India and some other Asian economies such as Indonesia and the Philippines, countries that have young populations.
• India’s population, for instance, will start aging from the middle of this century onwards.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Explained: What is Pulse Polio programme, why India still runs it

News

• On January 18, the Rashtrapati Bhavan became the site of a polio vaccination drive, to mark the beginning of this year’s Pulse Polio Programme.
• The Union health ministry has launched the campaign to check the disease that affects children at a young age.

Polio

• The World Health Organization (WHO) defines polio or poliomyelitis as a highly infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children.
• The virus is transmitted by person-to-person, spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis.
• Initial symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and pain in the limbs. In a small proportion of cases, the disease causes paralysis, which is often permanent. There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented by immunization.

Pulse Polio programme

• India launched the Pulse Polio immunization programme in 1995, after a resolution for a global initiative of polio eradication was adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 1988.
• Children in the age group of 0-5 years are administered polio drops during national and sub-national immunisation rounds (in high-risk areas) every year.
• According to the Ministry of Health, the last polio case in the country was reported from Howrah district of West Bengal in January 2011. The WHO on February 24, 2012, removed India from the list of countries with active endemic wild polio virus transmission.
• Two years later, the South-East Asia Region of the WHO, of which India is a part, was certified as polio-free.
• Under the Pulse Polio programme, all states and Union Territories have developed Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to respond to any polio outbreak in the country. Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans (EPRP) have also been developed by states, indicating steps to be undertaken in case of detection of a polio case.
• To prevent the virus from coming to India, the government has since March 2014 made the Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) mandatory for those travelling between India and polio-affected countries, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Syria and Cameroon.

India pledges $50 mn assistance to Sri Lanka

News

• India pledged $50 million assistance to Sri Lanka as National Security Advisor Ajit Doval called on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and discussed a range of bilateral issues, including strengthening cooperation in defence, intelligence sharing and maritime security.
• Doval pledged that India will provide USD 50 million to Sri Lanka to help the country purchase equipment for its security forces.

Accidents, suicides claimed lives of 2,200 personnel in 2014-2018 period

News

• As many as 2,200 Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel died in accidents and suicides in a span of five years from 2014 to 2018, with the annual figures of such casualties coming down in recent years, according to an official data.

Casualties coming down

• In 2018, 104 CAPF personnel died in accidents while 28 in suicides, totalling 132 deaths during the year, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data showed.
• In 2014, when the NCRB had first collected data of such cases linked to CAPF, 1,232 accident-related deaths were reported and suicide figures stood at 175.
• The number of accident-related deaths stood at 113 in 2017, 260 in 2016 and 193 in 2015, while suicide cases stood at 60 in 2017, 74 in 2016 and 60 in 2015, the NCRB data from the corresponding years showed.
• According to the data, 1,902 CAPF personnel died in accidents, while 397 in suicides, totalling 2,199 such casualties from 2014 to 2018.
• The NCRB has included data from five forces — Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) besides Assam Rifles (AR) and National Security Guard (NSG).
• Working under the Union Home Ministry, CAPFs play a vital role in guarding borders and assisting Centre and state governments in maintenance of internal security and in curbing other illegal or unlawful activities.
• As on January 1,2018, the CAPFs had the actual strength of 9,29,289 personnel, according to the latest report of the NRCB, which works under the MHA and is responsible for collection and analysis of crime-related data.
• A cause-wise analysis of accidental deaths of CAPF personnel revealed that maximum causalities of forces have been reported under ‘Killed in Action or Operation or Encounters’7 per cent (33 out of 104 deaths) in 2018, the NCRB said.
• It was followed by ‘deaths due to other causes’ accounting for 21.2 per cent (22 deaths), while road or railway accidents’ (21 out of 104 deaths) accounted for 20.2 per cent of total fatalities during the year, it stated.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Stage set for first operation to give tiger prosthetic limb

News

• The stage is set for the first-ever operation to fix prosthetic limb to a tiger in captivity at the Gorewada Rescue Centre.

First attempt in the world

• This will be the first attempt anywhere in the world to fix a prosthetic limb to a tiger.
• The tiger, named Sahebrao, has been in captivity for about seven years after it was rescued from a poachers’ trap in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district in 2012.
• After the rescue, his front left paw developed gangrene and had to be amputated. Since then, Sahebrao has been limping.

Pune City Police gets award for ‘Third I’ initiative

News

• The Pune City Police received an ‘Award of Recognition’ from the Computer Society of India of their ‘Third I’ technological initiative, during a function held in Bhubaneswar.

Third I: Enhancing Policing Preventing Crimes Using Digital Technologies’. It was implemented in all police stations under the Pune City Police Commissionerate last year.

After NGT rap, Pune civic body to spend Rs 50 lakh to clean Mutha river

News

• Four months after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) censured it over encroachments near Mula and Mutha, the rivers that run through the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to appoint a private agency to clean up the river at an estimated cost of Rs 50 lakh.

Encroachment

• In September last year, a committee constituted by the NGT had acknowledged the problem of encroachment on Mutha, Mula-Mutha, Mula and Pawana riverbeds.
• The Tribunal had recommended identification and immediate removal of encroachment, also directed the authorities to use satellite images to prevent their recurrence.
• The committee had further said that encroachment has blocked the course of the river and flood zones. It pointed out that untreated domestic waste water was being released in rivers at various locations through drains and nullahs.
• To carry out the debris removal work, the private agency will have to use JCB machines and heavy-capacity trucks. It will also have to update the civic administration daily on the progress of work. The debris removed from the riverbed have to be dumped at a location as per directions of the PMC.

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