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Saturday, June 04, 2016

India ranks 70th on `Good Country' index, Sweden first
London:
PTI


Sweden has been voted as the best country in the world when it comes to serving the interests of its people and contributing to the common good of humanity while India figured low at 70th position on a list of 163 nations.According to the `Good Country' 2015 index which seeks to measure how countries contribute to the global good, Sweden, relative to the size of its economy , does more “good“ and less harm than any other country . The report ranked a total of 163 countries taking 35 different UN and World Bank indices into account, inclu ding global contributions to science, culture, peace and security , climate change and health and equality .
The top 10 best countries included Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany , Finland, Canada, France, Austria and New Zealand, whereas Libya was ranked as the least “good“ country in the world. India figured at 70th position overall, three places below China, with the best ranking (27th) in `international peace and security' and the worst (124th) in `prosperity and equality'.
While the country stood at 37th position in health and wellbeing and 62nd in science and technology , it was ranked 119th in culture, 106th in climate and 100th in world order.“The Good Country Index is pretty simple: to measure what each country on earth contributes to the common good of humanity , and what it takes away , relative to its size,“ the report said.
The biannual index was founded by Simon Anholt, a British government adviser whose aim is “to find ways of encouraging countries to collaborate and co-operate a lot more, and compete a bit less“.


Source: Times of India, 4-06-2016
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72 more emoticons like shrug, selfie coming soon
Andrew Griffin
THE INDEPENDENT


Everyone's emoji vocabu lary is about to receive a huge expansion as authorities roll out new pictures.The Unicode Consortium, which maintains the standards for emoji so that they can work across sites, is sending out a new update.And it includes a wide variety of pictures.
Some of those serve obvious purposes, like a picture that shows someone rolling on the floor laughing or a shrug. Others are slightly more unexpected, like a face with a cowboy hat and a gherkin.
Yet more tend to build on existing pictures to give them more possibilities. That includes the addition of a glass of milk, clinking glasses and a tumbler full of whiskey , building on the existing beer and martini glasses.
It could still take some time for the emoji to actually arrive on your phone. Though the consortium will approve the new emoji towards the end of the month, they have to be drawn and integrated into particular operating systems by the firms that make them.
That has led to some problems with the little images, which experts have said can potentially cause huge amounts of confusion because each company draws them differently .

Source: Times of India, 4-06-2016
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Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Over 2000 Indians got HIV due to unsafe blood transfusions in 18 months


Around 2000 Indians were infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after getting botched blood transfusions, in the last 18 months, according to data shared by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) on Tuesday.
The NACO, in a reply to an RTI query sent by activist Chetan Kothari, said that 2,234 people from across India contracted the deadly virus, between October 2014 to March 2016, because of unsafe blood transfusion processes followed by hospitals in India.
About 16% (361 cases) of those affected hailed from Uttar Pradesh, making the state’s hospitals most unsafe among Indian states, followed by Guiarat with 13% (292 cases) and Maharastra 12% (276 cases).
Many union territories like Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and few north-eastern states drew a blank. But according to Kothari it may be because their governments are not maintaining proper records.
Tripura, a state where HIV prevalence doubled between 2007-2015 while it dropped nation wide, also drew a blank in the list.
Remote places like Andaman, Meghalaya, Sikkim have not recorded even one case of this nature because they may lack adequate means to test blood during or after donation. Also, they may not even be aware of the cases of AIDS due to lack of proper labs,” Kothari told HT.
“A basic testing kit costs around Rs 1,200. But many hospitals do not follow proper procedure,” said Kothari.
However, NACO’s assistant director general, Dr Shobini Rajan, in a live chat with The Hindu , said, there is “no shortage of testing kits for all the blood banks supported through the NACO programme.”
“States and blood banks also have standing instructions to procure through their resources to mitigate stock outs so as to ensure mandatory blood testing,” Rajan said during the live chat.
Also, these figures need not worry those who donate blood, as there is no chance of them contracting the virus. “We can donate without fear, as that does not impose any risk whatsoever of transfusion transmitted infections. Needles are attached to the bag and cannot be reused,” Rajan said during the chat.

Source: Hindustan Times, 1-06-2016
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Existence & Individuality
ACHARYA MAHAPRAJNA


An individual has two aspects: his individuality and the essential existence. Existence means to be aware of being alive. Individuality means to be something. When we mark name and form, we observe individuality . When we observe the degree of awareness, we see the existence that operates behind the individuality .As an individual, Mahavira is the originator of an order, the spokesman of the dharma of order and the initiator of a system. Essentially , he is neither a preceptor nor a follower, neither a spokesman of a dharma nor a listener, neither a dualist nor a non-dualist.
Dual and non-dual, interpretation and acceptance, theological law-giving and submission to it are all branches of individuality . Through his life, Mahavira moves from individuality to existence.
On the plane of individuality , Mahavira's logic is different.He says, `Kill no creature'. He would say , “As you shun pain, so do other creatures.“ In their common aversion to pain, the killer and the killed have the same identity . Observing this common characteristic would quench all urge to violence.
Mahavira was a votary of existence but he was aware of the expectations of an individual.To advance an individual towards pure existence, his individuality was also to be made instrumental. Mahavira said, “Monks! Before discussing religion with an individual, keep in mind who he is and whose votary he is.“ Triumph and defeat bear significance for an individualist. A votary of existence is indifferent to both.
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India Ranks Fourth in Global Slavery Survey
Rakhi Mazumdar
Kolkata:


Findings suggest 18m in the country live under conditions of modern day slavery
India has been ranked fourth in a global survey that lists 167 countries where modern slavery is prevalent.The findings of the survey released on Monday indicate some 1.4% of the population -roughly around 18 million people -in the country is living under conditions of modern day slavery. The segments implicated include domestic work, construction, sex industries, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, manual labour and forced begging.
North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India and Qatar are the top five on the list that ranks the countries in terms of slavery as a proportion of population. However, India's absolute slavery figures remain highest with an estimated 18.35 million enslaved people, followed by China (3.39m), Pakistan (2.13m), Bangladesh (1.53m) and Uzbekistan (1.23m).
Conducted across 15 states that account for 80% of the total population and covering nearly 14,000 respondents, the India State Survey 2016 was conducted by Gallup and the Walk Free Foundation which has been conducting such annual global surveys since 2013. “The prevalence of slavery severely affects the country's attractiveness as an investment destination. As an international investor, I run to places and look at macroeconomic indicators before making investment decisions. A government committed against slavery would definitely figure high up on my investment list,“ Andrew Forrest, chairman of Australian iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group and a prime mover behind the Walk Free Foundation, told ET in an exclusive chat from London. Forrest has spent the better part of his time in the past four years to end slavery and was exposed to the problem through his daughter who went to do voluntary service in Nepal.
The findings are likely to make a lot of people in India uneasy, if not embarrassed. Forrest, however, said they did not face any major resistance during the survey and in dustrialists like Ratan Tata supported it. Also, on December 3, 2015, major religious leaders of India proclaimed the existence of modern slavery and their combined will to defeat it. “It was the Indian government who in 2013 encouraged our attempt to introduce country-by-country independent measurement through the Global Slavery Index as the first but most critical step to managing it out of existence,“ Forrest said.
“We maintained a dialogue with a number of govern ment departments during the course of the survey and briefed them on the findings. We are standing on ed ge of extinction of slavery. India is crucial to the who le effort towards removing slave ry,“ he added.
A key part of the initiative would include Indian corporates and business houses, he said, adding, “To begin with, each one of them would have to decide to look closely at their own supply chains to search for and eliminate instances of bonded or forced labour.“ It is part of corporate governance and is a sound business practice since one could be crucified in the international market for including a business that even accidentally uses bonded la bour, he added.
A big eye opener was the fact that a lot of Indian workers face exploitation outside India, like construction workers from South India who work in the Middle East. Fiona David, executive director (global research) at Walk Free Foundation, said quantification of slavery in a large and complex country like India prompted them to undertake a state level survey in 2016. The organisation is engaging with legal experts in India to take its findings on to the next level and help bring meaningful policy changes to end slavery which acts as negative economic multiplier, David said.
In India, the informal nature of its labour economy impacts on vulnerability and accounts for a large chunk of the incidence of modern slavery with common drivers like poverty, deep structural inequalities like gender, caste and is distinct state by state. For instance, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha were affected by Naxalite violence where boys and girls between 6 and 12 years were recruited in specific children's units. UP is a source, transit and destination state for modern slavery.
UP's 619-km stretch of open borders with Nepal, proximity to Bangladesh and New Delhi, and home to tourist destinations of Varanasi and Agra, facilitate the flow of vulnerable people and impede the ability of law enforcement to detect human traffickers.


Source: Economic Times, 1-06-2016
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Monday, May 30, 2016

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents


Vol. 51, Issue No. 22, 28 May, 2016

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National Education Policy recommends Creation of All India Education Service


The key recommendation of the committee on National Education Policy, which submitted its report to the HRD ministry recently, is the creation of an All India Education Service. Other changes in the policy may range from pedagogy to structural changes.
It was in the 1980s that an all-India education service was first proposed by the then Education Secretary Anil Bordia. Later, Kapil Sibal, that time HRD Minister, was in favour of the concept but failed to implement it. Thematic consultations were held by HRD ministry, University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education, National Council for Teacher Education, National Council for Educational Research and Training and several centrally-funded universities and institutions, autonomous bodies and attached offices.
This time, the committee consisted of T S R Subramanian, former Cabinet Secretary as the Chairperson and Shailaja Chandra, former Chief Secretary, NCT of Delhi, Sevaram Sharma, former Home Secretary, NCT of Delhi, Sudhir Mankad, former Chief Secretary, Gujarat and J S Rajput, former Director, NCERT.

Source: Digital Learning, 30-05-2016
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