UPSC NEWS DIARY FOR TODAY 21 JULY, 2022 | DAY LONG CURRENT AFFAIRS DIGEST FOR UPSC

”UPSC News Diary For Today” is every day published in the evening between 6-7 PM and contains all current affairs articles from the day on a single platform. ”UPSC News Diary For Today” covers various topics from UPSC Syllabus and is very helpful and time managing for UPSC Aspirants. The framing of this daily current affairs compilation article is easy to read and understandable also.

In the ”UPSC News Diary For Today” article, we focus on both UPSC Preliminary and Mains exam-oriented current affairs & prepare a gist of daily important news articles from leading National Newspapers, PIB, and other various official sources.

I2U2

• The world is caught up in a perfect storm. The climate crisis, a war in Europe, the long tail of Covid and changing geopolitical realities have given rise to energy and food insecurity.
• While energy insecurity is being experienced by most countries in varying degrees, food security is going to be a central issue in Africa, Latin America, East Asia and West Asia.
• It is increasingly clear that world must shift their economy to more sustainable pathways. However, not all countries are equally placed to make this transition, and I2U2 (Israel, India, US, UAE) grouping presents an important opportunity to rectify the situation.
• I2U2 is an effort to channel investments and leverage innovation for new initiatives in water, energy, transportation, space, health and food security. The goal is near- and long-term food and energy security.
• Success of I2U2’s efforts is critical, especially in light of the changing geopolitical scenario. It brings together two regions where stability and peace are often under threat – West Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

BA.5

• BA.5 is a sister variant of the Omicron strain that has been dominant worldwide since the end of 2021, and has already caused spikes in case rates – even with reduced testing – in countries including South Africa, where it was first found, as well as the United Kingdom, parts of Europe, and Australia.
• According to the World Health Organization’s most recent report, it was behind 52% of cases sequenced in late June, up from 37% in one week. In the United States, it is estimated to be causing around 65% of infections.
• Like its closely related sibling, BA.4, BA.5 is particularly good at evading the immune protection afforded either by vaccination or prior infection.

WMD & their DS (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Amend Bill, 2022

• The Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Amendment Bill, 2022 amends a 17-yr-old law, enacted in 2005.
• The Bill amends the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005.
• The 2005 Act prohibits unlawful activities (such as manufacturing, transport, or transfer) related to weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.  Weapons of mass destruction are biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons.
• It’ll boost national security and strengthen India’s credentials and global image.
• The Bill bars persons from financing any prohibited activity related to weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.
• To prevent persons from financing such activities, the central government may freeze, seize or attach their funds, financial assets, or economic resources (whether owned, held, or controlled directly or indirectly).
• It may also prohibit persons from making finances or related services available for the benefit of other persons in relation to any activity which is prohibited.

SVAMITVA Scheme

• The Central Sector Scheme, SVAMITVA, aims to provide the ‘Record of Rights’ to village household owners possessing houses in inhabited areas, called Abadi in some States, with legal ownership rights (Property cards/Title deeds).
• Under the scheme, the land parcels in rural inhabited area of all the villages are surveyed using drone technology.
• The scheme aims to cover 6.62 lakh villages in the country from Financial Year 2020-21 to Financial Year 2024-25.
• It is being implemented with the collaborative efforts of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Survey of India (SoI), State Revenue Department, State Panchayati Raj Department and National Informatics Centre.

Online education in India

Online education in India UPSC: Relevance

• GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Education in India: Context

• Recently, the Minister of Education has informed the Rajya Sabha about the steps taken by the government to make online education more conducive in India.

Benefits of online education in India

• Accessibility: The most important benefit of online education is that is can be accessed by anyone who owns an internet-supported smartphone.
• Productivity: Online education enhances productivity as it uses adaptive technologies and cut down the travel time of the students. The increased time would ensure that the students are giving due duration to their studies.
• Efficiency: It is more efficient than offline schooling in terms of effectiveness, affordability, accessibility, time consumption, and education quality.
• Reduces rural-urban divide: Online education can resolve challenges related to educational equity. Online education has the ability to reduce the rural-urban divide in terms of quality education.
• Reduces migration: Many students move to urban areas for quality education. Online education has restricted migration as it has made education accessible to the rural hinterlands.

Issues of online education in India

• Access: During Covid-19, a study was conducted by the Azim Premji Foundation that showed that almost 60 percent of school children in India cannot access online learning opportunities. Moreover, a report by Oxfam India found that even among students of urban private schools, half of the parents reported issues with Internet signal and speed.
• Content: The present curriculum of India was not designed to be integrated with technology. Due to this reason, a teacher finds difficult to make the curriculum digital-friendly.
• Issue of privacy: A young student may not know to protect his/her personal data. Given the issue of digital illiteracy in India, online education might actually lead to more harm than good.
• Lack of soft skills: Offline education is not only for giving enriching content, but also for ensuring that soft skills like interpersonal skills, empathy, respect, etiquette, sharing, caring can also be taught to the students. These skills are difficult to teach in an online medium.

Steps taken by government for  online education

• DIKSHA: It is the nation’s digital infrastructure for providing quality e-content for school education in states/UTs: and QR coded Energized Textbooks for all grades (one nation, one digital platform)
• One earmarked Swayam Prabha TV channel per class from 1 to 12 (one class, one channel)
• Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and CBSE Podcast- Shiksha Vani
• Special e-content for visually and hearing impaired developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/ YouTube
• PRAGYATA guidelines were issued to the States/UTs to facilitate continued education through various modes.
• The Ministry has undertaken a proactive initiative, named, ‘MANODARPAN’ covering a wide range of activities to provide psychosocial support to students, teachers and families for Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing during the COVID outbreak and beyond.

Read current affairs for UPSC

Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS)

PACS UPSC: Relevance

• GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

Cooperative societies in India: Context

• Recently, the Minister of Cooperation has informed the Rajya Sabha that draft model bye-laws are being prepared for bringing professionalism, transparency and accountability in their operation.

What is a PACS?

• A Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) is a basic unit and smallest co-operative credit institution in India. These institutions have been building blocks of rural cooperative banking in India, for over a hundred years.

Issues of PACS

• Multiple issues: Many committees have reported various issues plaguing the PACS such as; lack of active participation by the members, lack of professionalism, absence of corporate governance, politicisation and bureaucratisation, and ageing and unenthusiastic employees.
• Reduced credit: Agricultural credit to rural areas from PACS was 60% in 1950s that have been reduced to 14% now due to the coming of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) and the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).
• Dependence on higher financial agencies: The lending-centric approach, coupled with poor governance systems, led to dependence on higher financing agencies for resources. It has further led to recurrent losses, deposit erosion, and poor portfolio quality.
• Short term agriculture credit: The limited business activity of providing only short-term agriculture credit has resulted in concentration risk in the business portfolio of PACS.

Benefits of PACS

• Small and marginal farmers: The share of small and marginal farmers in total loan amount disbursed by cooperatives is around 70%.
• Cooperative credit structure: India’s cooperative credit structure constitutes one of the largest rural financial systems in the world.
• Democratic: PACS are unique as it is controlled by democratic member, with members as owners and customers of the institution.
• PACS covers around 90% of the villages in the country which continue to remain the only institutions at the village level that understand the rural ethos.
• Vast outreach: They have the potential to provide services that no other financial institution can provide due to their vast grassroot level outreach.
• Much before the advent of ‘Financial Inclusion’ and ‘Farmer Producer Organisations’, PACS have been performing these functions as peoples’ collectives, serving vulnerable sections of the rural population.

Steps needed to strengthen PACS

• PACS can meet the entire requirements of farm households from covering credit, input and output marketing, custom hiring of agri equipment, processing, retail services, etc.
• PACS that can provide all types of services under one roof, contributing to enhanced production levels and marketing opportunities.
• NABARD has envisaged transformation of 35,000 PACSs as MSCs over the next three years, to overhaul the working of PACS.
• Draft model bye-laws are being prepared in consultation with the State Governments, National Cooperative Federations and all other stakeholders for bringing professionalism, transparency and accountability in their operation.
• A centrally sponsored project for Computerization of 63,000 PACS has been launched to further help them in their digitalization and end-to-end automation of their businesses.

PACS in India: Way forward

• PACS deserve another policy push, which can occupy a prominent space in the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat as they have the potential to be the building blocks of an Atmanirbhar village economy.

Read current affairs for UPSC

NITI Aayog Report on Digital Banks

Digital banking in India: Relevance

• GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

Digital banks in India: Context

• Recently, NITI Aayog has released a new report on digital banks where it has offered a template and roadmap for a licensing and regulatory regime for digital banks.

NITI Aayog Report on Digital Banks: Key points

• The report also focusses on avoiding any regulatory or policy arbitrage, besides offering a level playing field to incumbents as well as competitors.
• The report studies the prevailing gaps and the global regulatory best practices in licensing digital banks, given the need for leveraging technology effectively to cater to the needs of banking in India.

NITI Aayog Report on Digital Banks: Recommendations

• The report recommends a calibrated approach, which comprises the following steps:
  • Issue of a restricted digital bank licence: It means the license would be restricted in terms of volume/value of customers serviced.
  • Licensee enlistment in a regulatory sandbox framework enacted by the Reserve Bank of India.
  • Issue of a ‘full-scale’ digital bank licence: The license should be contingent on satisfactory performance of the licensee in the regulatory sandbox, including salient, prudential and technological risk management.
• The report also maps prevalent business models in the digital segment and highlights the challenges presented by the ‘partnership model’ of neo-banking.
• Neo banking has emerged in India due to a regulatory vacuum and in the absence of a digital bank licence.

Digital bank regulatory index

• The methodology for the licensing and regulatory template is based on an ‘digital bank regulatory index’.
• It is comprised of four factors
  • entry barriers;
  • competition;
  • business restrictions; and
  • technological neutrality.
• The elements of these four factors are then mapped against the five benchmark jurisdictions of Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia and South Korea.

What is Digital Banking?

• Digital Banking refers to present and future electronic banking services provided by a licensed bank for the execution of financial, banking and other transactions through electronic devices over web sites (i.e., online banking), mobile phones (i.e., mobile banking) or other digital channels as determined by the bank.

Digital banking in India

• Strengthened financial inclusion: Schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, India Stack, Jan Dan-Aadhar-Mobile (JAM) trinity, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has made financial inclusion a reality for Indians.
• Implementation of schemes: A ‘whole-of-India approach’ towards financial inclusion has also resulted in Direct Benefit Transfer through apps such as PM-KISAN and extending microcredit facilities to street vendors through PM-SVANIDHI.
• Open banking: India has also taken steps towards operationalizing its own version of ‘open banking’ through the Account Aggregator (AA) regulatory framework enacted by the Reserve Bank of India.

Read current affairs for UPSC

The Editorial Analysis: Saving Mothers

MMR in India: Relevance

• GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Maternal mortality rate: Context

• Recently, PLOS Global Public Health has published a report that casts a shadow over the progress of health care targeting women in the country.

Maternal mortality rate: Key points

• The study also questions the reliability of India’s periodic estimates of maternal mortality ratio (MMR).

What is MMR?

• MMR is the number of mothers who die from complications in pregnancy for every one lakh live births.
• Maternal mortality indicates a woman’s ability to access health care, contraceptive devices, nutrition, and, is a mark of the efficiency of a health-care system in responding to demands made of it.

MMR in India

• International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) took data from routine records of maternal deaths under the Health Management Information System, with Census data and the Sample Registration System (SRS), and provided the MMR for all States and districts of India.
• 70% of districts in India have reported MMR above 70 deaths — a target under the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
• Many of the districts in southern India and Maharashtra have an MMR of less than 70.
• The north-eastern and central regions have the least number of districts with an MMR less than 70.
• Significantly, it also demonstrates the presence of huge within-State inequalities, even among the better performers — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.
• According to the SRS (2016-18), only Assam (215) has an MMR of more than 200, while in this district-level assessment, the indications are that about 130 districts have reported above 200 MMR.

MMR in India: Way forward

• The high MMR is an indication of the inadequacy of responsiveness of health systems. So, immediate action is required to meet the SDG goal regarding MMR.
• Improvements in access to contraceptives, antenatal care, post-delivery health care, body mass index, and the economic status, births in higher ages, will help reduce MMR.
• Improving overall care for women, and keeping real time track of such crucial health data will benefit immensely in reducing MMR.

Read current affairs for UPSC

Sharing is caring!