11 October 2018: UPSC Exam PIB Summary & Analysis

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Bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh

• The bilateral trade between the two countries touches $9 billion out of which Bangladesh exports goods worth $900 million.
• India being an immediate neighbour with whom Bangladesh not only shares a long border but also culture, traditions and language will be looking towards India to import the items it needs.
• There is immense scope for increasing Food & Beverages (F&B) exports from India to Bangladesh.
• Fresh fruits going from India to Bangladesh are: mangoes, grapes, pomegranates and apples. 
• Among other F&B products, there is still great scope for added export of dried, shelled chickpeas, fresh or chilled onions and shallots, food preparations, cumin seeds, fresh grapes, semi-milled or wholly milled rice, black fermented tea and partly fermented tea, turmeric and cane sugar.

About:

• Indusfood is being billed as the World Food Supermarket – a one-stop event to source all requirements related to food and beverage from India.

Special Central Government Package for Footwear and Leather Sector

• The Central Government has approved a special package for employment generation in leather and footwear sector.
• The package involves implementation of Central Sector Scheme – Indian Footwear, Leather & Accessories Development Programme (IFLADP) with an approved expenditure of Rs. 2600 Crore for 2017-20.

Aim:

• Development of infrastructure for the leather sector, address environmental concerns specific to the leather sector, facilitate additional investments, generate employment and increase production. Enhanced Tax incentives will attract large scale investments in this sector and reforms in labour laws taking into account the seasonal nature of the sector will support economies of scale.
• In a major boost to the leather industry in Tamil Nadu under the IFLADP four projects with a total outlay of 107.33 crore have been approved by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to facilitate upgradation of infrastructure, job creation and environmental sustainability.
• Projects approved in Tamil Nadu are:

1. Upgradation of Tala Trichy Common Effluent Treatment Plant(CETP) at Trichy,
2. Pallavaram CETP at Nagalkeni Chrompet, and
3. SIDCO Phase-I CEPT at Ranipet and Perundurai leather industries Eco Security Pvt. Ltd. at Erode.

• DIPP has also given in-principal approval for mega leather cluster at Bantala in West Bengal. This will generate employment for around 7000 people and lead to an investment of Rs. 400 to 500 crore.

Background:

• The Leather Technology, Innovation and Environmental Issues sub-scheme under IFLADP provides financial support at 70% of the project cost to leather clusters to meet the prescribed pollution control discharge norms.
• This covers establishment, expansion, upgradation of CETPs, developing secure landfills, common recovery units, management of sludge and any other techniques for hazardous waste management.

Air force commanders’ conference

• Raksha Rajya Mantri addressed the Air Force Commanders on the conference and stressed upon the vital role being played by the IAF for enabling India to be the Net Security Provider in the IOR in furtherance of the Prime Minister’s SAGAR (Security And Growth for All in the Region) Doctrine.
• IAF is the most technologically intensive and quickest military response available to the Government for furthering India’s leverage.
• IAF leading the thrust to promote India’s indigenous bio-jet fuel program would surely go a long way in reducing India’s crude oil import bill by more than 10% and augment farmers’ incomes substantially.
• The Mehar Baba Swarm Drone Competition is a highly exciting development and I wish it all success in identifying innovative technology in Unmanned Aerial Systems.
• IAF is the first service to kickstart an Artificial Intelligence Project with the participation of the private industry and the progress of this project is extremely heartening.  

Context:

• Discussions will take place on maintaining combat worthiness and the cutting edge of IAF by suitably refining the training pattern.
• Training for future inductions like Rafale and Tejas fighter Jets, Chinook and Apache helicopters, SPYDER & Medium Range Surface to Air Missile.           

IND-INDO CORPAT

• Indian Naval Ship Kulish, a Kora class missile corvette, entered Belawan harbour, Indonesia for the opening ceremony of the 32nd edition of India – Indonesia coordinated patrol (IND-INDO CORPAT), to be held from 11 – 27 Oct 2018.
• The ships and aircraft from both the countries would undertake patrolling on the respective sides of 236 nautical miles long International Maritime Boundary Line.
• The visit seeks to emphasize India’s peaceful presence and solidarity with friendly countries towards ensuring good order in the maritime domain, consolidate interoperability and strengthen existing bonds of friendship between the two countries.

Vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region):

• The Indian Navy has been involved in assisting countries in the IOR with EEZ Surveillance, Search and Rescue, other capacity -building and capability-enhancement activities.
• The current deployment will contribute towards the Indian Navy’s effort to forge strong bonds of friendship across the seas and consolidate inter-operability.

TITLI

• Very severe cyclonic storm ‘Titli’ to move north-westwards for next 12 hours and then re-curve north-eastwards towards Gangetic West Bengal across Odisha.
• Rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy falls at a few places and extremely heavy falls at Isolated Places over south Odisha.

LUBAN

• Severe cyclonic storm ‘LUBAN’ over west central Arabian Sea moved initially north-westwards & then westwards and lay centred at 0830 hrs IST of today, the 11^thOctober 2018 over west central Arabian Sea, near latitude 14.5°N and longitude 58.0°E, about 500 km east- southeast of Salalah (Oman), 490 km east-northeast of Socotra Islands (Yemen) and 670 km east- southeast of Al-Ghaidah (Yemen).
• It is likely to intensify further and move west-north-westwards towards Yemen & South Oman Coasts during next 4 days.

Manual Scavenging

• 6^thMeeting of the Central Monitoring Committee to review the implementation of the “Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013” (MS Act, 2013)” held under the chairmanship of Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment.

What the law says:

• The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, forbids the employment of any person for the task of manual scavenging by any agency or individual. As picking up untreated human excreta is harmful to one’s health and hygiene, the Act seeks to completely ban the practice.
• In 2013, right after the prohibition act came into force, the government had recognised 12,742 manual scavengers in 13 states, out of which 82 per cent were from Uttar Pradesh.
• The act lays down the rules and procedure for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers through training in alternate employment, financial help and help with purchasing property.
• The act recognises that every local authority (municipality or panchayat), cantonment board and railway authority is responsible for surveying its area to identify manual scavengers.
• The act defines what is ‘hazardous cleaning’. It mandates that the person who is getting the job done must provide the cleaner with ‘protective gear’.
• Requirements of oxygen cylinder, torches, and constant monitoring of workers through computers etc. are not mentioned in the act and hence are not provided to the cleaners.
• The primary step under the act has been to demolish the insanitary latrines, open drains and pits.

Positive Effect of Law:

• The Supreme Court issued a slew of directions in 2014 to prevent and control the practice and also to prosecute the offenders. It also directed the government to pay a compensation of 10 lakh rupees to the family members of those killed in acts of manual scavenging since 1993.

World Bank’s Human Capital Index

• The World Bank released a Human Capital Index (HCI) as part of the World Development Report 2019.
• The HCI has been constructed for 157 countries. It claims to seek to measure the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18.
• The HCI index values are contended to convey the productivity of the next generation of workers, compared to a benchmark of complete standard education and full health.

The HCI has three components:

1. Survival, as measured by under-5 mortality rates;
2. Expected years of Quality-Adjusted School which combines information on the quantity and quality of education (quality is measured by harmonizing test scores from major international student achievement testing programs and quantity from number of years of school that a child can expect to obtain by age 18 given the prevailing pattern of enrolment rates across grades in respective countries); and
3. Health environment using two proxies of (a) adult survival rates and (b) the rate of stunting for children under age 5. 

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