Current Affairs – January 5, 2021

 

India

National Metrology Conclave 2021

On January 4, 2021, the Council of scientific and Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratory organised the National Metrology Conclave. During the conclave the Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the National Atomic Time Scale and Bhartiya Nirdeshak Dravya to the nation. He also laid Foundation stone to the National Environmental Standard Laboratory.

40th Indian scientific expedition to Antarctica

On January 4, 2021, 40th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica was launched. The expedition was flagged off from Goa with 43 members.

Supreme Court repeals confiscation of cattle

On January 4, 2021, the Supreme Court asked the centre to repeal its three-year-old law which allowed seizure of livestock from people even before they were found guilty of cruelty towards them. The 2017 law allowed authorities to seize cattle over suspicion of cruel treatment.

Foundation stone of Engineering and Management courses buildings at JNU

On January 4, 2021, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank laid the foundation stone of buildings for School of Engineering and Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

TRIFED signs MoU to set up TRIFOOD parks

The TRIFED signed MoU with the Akhil Bhartiya Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra to set up TRIFOOD parks in Madhya Pradesh.

Economy and corporate

Manufacturing sector shows marginal improvement in December

According to the Purchasing Managers Index the manufacturing sector activities showed marginal improvement in December as compared to the previous month. However, Employment generation remained low.

World

World Braille Day: January 4

On January 4, 2021, the United Nations observed the World Braille Day. The day is being marked since 2019.

Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act

The US Congress recently passed the Malala Yousafzai scholarship act. The act will expand the number of scholarships been awarded to the Pakistani women. The scholarships provided for Pakistani women to receive higher education top

Nancy Pelosi re-elected as speaker of House of Representatives

On January 3, 2021, the Congresswoman Nancy pelosi was re-elected as the speaker of US House of Representatives for the 117th Congress.

Brian Urquhart dies

on January 2, 2021, the British diplomat Brian Urquhart who is known for developing the United Nations practice of peacekeeping died at the age of hundred and one.

 Google workers form Union

more than 200 Google employees have formed a workers Union in the United States. The union aims to ensure that employees work at a fair wage, without fear of abuse or discrimination.

Sports

Teimour Radjabov wins Airthings Masters

Teimour Radjabov won 200,000 USD Airthings Masters online rapid chess final on January 3, 2021.

Khelo India Sports: Assam Rifles Public School wins first prize

on January 4, 2021, the Union Minister for youth affairs and sports Kiren rijiju launched the Assam Rifles Public School in Shillong. It is the Sports School. Sofa nine such sports schools have been approved across the country. In the North Eastern region Assam Rifles Public School is the first Sports School under khelo India programme.

Community action, with a focus on women’s well-being, can fight malnutrition

 

Anganwadi workers, ASHAs, ANMs and anganwadi supervisors can work together with panchayat members to ensure that all children and mothers are covered with immunisation, antenatal care, maternity benefits and nutrition services

On an MGNREGA worksite in Kolar, Karnataka, a male worker came up to me and said that men ought to be paid more than women. I asked him why. “Adhu yaavaagalu hange,” he replied: That was how it always was. Not so in MGNREGA, I told him.

With equal wages for women and men, and direct payments to workers’ bank accounts, MGNREGA helps to increase women’s incomes. Another major programme which can improve women’s livelihood, their social empowerment and their lives is the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). Increased incomes give women more voice in family decisions, and the ability to care better for their families and themselves.

Data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) shows gains in some important areas. In most of the 22 states and Union territories surveyed, infant mortality rates and under-five mortality rates have fallen; and institutional births and child immunisation rates have increaOn child malnutrition, the NFHS’s findings are worrying. Beyond behaviour change communication and regular monitoring, direct nutrition interventions are key, especially during pregnancy, breastfeeding and in the early years of a child’s life. Pregnant women, lactating mothers and young children need hot cooked meals with adequate protein, milk, and green leafy vegetables. States like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have replaced take-home rations for mothers with daily hot cooked meals.sed. Access to improved drinking water and sanitation has increased in almost all areas surveyed.

While providing hot cooked meals frontline health workers also have the opportunity to give pregnant women iron, folic acid and calcium tablets. They are also engaged in early childhood stimulation activities and parenting sessions. Instead of frontline workers going to each woman’s house, women coming to the anganwadi makes it easier to provide all women with appropriate services and counselling. Mothers’ lunch groups at the anganwadi can also function as informal social networks. A study by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) of Karnataka’s Mathrupoorna programme for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers found a reduction in anaemia, improved gestational weight gain, improved birth weight, and reduced depression among women participants.

Beyond the “first thousand days”, the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition and its social determinants call for a life cycle approach. Such an approach should address the complex social ill of child marriage. One of the best ways to prevent child marriage is by supporting girls to stay in high school. Grass roots social empowerment programmes should focus on increasing girls’ enrolment, access and retention in secondary education. The nutritional status of adolescent girls could be improved by extending the mid-day meal programme to secondary educational institutions, as some states have done.

Malnutrition should also be understood in the context of women’s work. Childcare enables women to earn a livelihood. Longer working hours for the anganwadi, such as in Karnataka where it runs from 9.30 am to 4 pm, will help women go out to do paid work, including on MGNREGA worksites. Mobile creches for younger children at these worksites and construction sites will help women to work without anxiety about their children’s safety and well-being.

The anganwadi system needs strengthening. Anganwadi supervisors can be supported with interest-free loans and fuel allowance for two-wheelers, enabling them to provide regular guidance to their cluster. Their skills should be upgraded with certificate courses on nutrition and early childhood stimulation. Online training at scale has been the discovery of the pandemic year. Anganwadi workers and supervisors can be supported for professional development through live online sessions on nutrition, growth monitoring and early childhood education.

Anganwadi infrastructure needs attention: Sturdy buildings, kitchens, stores, toilets, play areas and fenced compounds, functional water connections and arrangements for handwashing are urgent imperatives. To cater to multiple meal requirements, anganwadi kitchens need double-burner stoves, gas cylinders, pressure cookers and sufficient steel cooking vessels. Kitchen gardens should be planted with drought-resistant and highly nutritive plants like moringa.

The most effective platform for community action on the ground is the gram panchayat. We often talk of the “last mile” for communication services. The panchayat should be the first mile for social welfare services. There are around 2,50,000 gram panchayats in India, and nearly 14 lakh anganwadis, the majority in rural areas. The anganwadi committee, chaired by a stakeholder mother and including other parents, grandparents and the panchayat ward member, should be a subcommittee of the gram panchayat. It should meet every month on a fixed day, and its discussions should be presented to the gram panchayat for action.

Exclusion and convergence are two major challenges in social welfare programmes. Local governments are the best placed to address the problem of exclusion. They can ensure coverage of the poorest women and children, especially nomadic and semi-nomadic communities, and seasonal migrants such as brick workers and sugarcane harvesters. Panchayats are also the best forum to prevent child marriage and ensure that all girls stay in school.

Convergent action on the ground is one of the strengths of gram panchayats. Anganwadi workers, ASHAs, ANMs and anganwadi supervisors can work together with panchayat members to ensure that all children and mothers are covered with immunisation, antenatal care, maternity benefits and nutrition services. Gram panchayats can use their funds, converged with MGNREGA, to strengthen anganwadis. They can engage women’s collectives under NRLM for anganwadi and school needs, and provide panchayat services such as end-to-end solid waste management, water pump operations, surveys, bill collections and management of fair price shops. Such steps will increase women’s individual and group incomes in sustainable ways. They will also lead to greater social and economic empowerment of women, their participation in local governance, and, eventually, better nutrition for all.

Written by Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta

Source: Indian Express, 5/01/21

Sexual violence in rural India draws on hierarchies of land, caste, patriarchy

 

Hierarchies of caste, class, and gender intersect to form a cocktail of horrors for the women of rural India — we must understand these nuances in order to form any policy that meaningfully tackles gender-based violence in India.

Since the Bhanwari Devi rape case in 1992 and the Khairlanji rape and massacre in 2006 to the Hathras case in 2020, successive Central and state governments have failed to address sexual violence as the multi-dimensional issue that it is. Hierarchies of caste, class, and gender intersect to form a cocktail of horrors for the women of rural India — we must understand these nuances in order to form any policy that meaningfully tackles gender-based violence in India.

Caste is the fault line that runs through rural India, the parts I call home. My constituency is in the rural and agrarian district of Ambedkar Nagar, with parts that lie in its much more famous neighbour, Ayodhya. I grew up in the Ambedkar Nagar (then part of Faizabad district) of the 1980s, where gunda raj was the only raj. A lot of that has changed now, due, in part, to an increased police presence and a steady urbanisation of people’s aspirations. But what has remained constant is rural India’s obsession with the caste order. This is how society has functioned for millennia: The lower castes have served the upper castes as potters, labourers, masons and cleaners, while the upper castes work to keep the status quo, adopting a few lower-caste families along the way as serfs in the world’s oldest feudal system.

In the political economy of post-Independence India, land is the currency that reigns supreme in the hinterlands. Land is class, power and honour. Its exclusive ownership is the basis of maintaining the caste order. The dominant castes in a particular region have traditionally been the largest landowners, and the benefits of the Green Revolution and the neo-liberal economic order have disproportionately benefited them and seldom the landless labourers who belong overwhelmingly to the lower castes.

But the post-Independence politics of Bahujan-Dalit mobilisation began challenging these ancient hierarchies. The reservation guaranteed by Babasaheb Ambedkar witnessed an emergence of a politically and economically influential sub-caste of Dalits in each state of the country. With the advent of Bahujan politics in Uttar Pradesh, oppressed castes found themselves represented in positions of power. This was an affront to the existing order. As a highly coveted resource, land is a flashpoint of conflict: In the Khairlanji rape and massacre, the upper castes retaliated brutally and bestially against the Bhotmanges, a Scheduled Caste family in the village, after the Bhotmanges filed a police complaint in In traditionally patriarchal societies, women are the currency of honour. A family’s, a community’s, a caste’s honour is inextricably tied to the “honour” of their female members — their purity, their morality, their chastity. Sexual violence operates on the nexus of land, caste, and patriarchy. It becomes a tool to maintain the status quo of land and caste. Sexual violence against women from lower caste communities is seldom about the individual woman; more often than not, it is about robbing the honour of a community, a caste, a family.

In the war of land and caste, women are both collateral and weapons. During land disputes between two caste groups with a large differential of power and influence, women’s bodies become collateral damage. But there is a different dynamic in conflicts among caste groups who are relatively close together in the caste (and class) order. When strongmen from one group pay a threatening visit to the property of another group, the defending group will bring their women out of the home, making them stand with the men. This is a deterring tactic — if threatened or harmed by the strongmen, a woman’s complaint warrants Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (outraging the modesty of a woman).

That police officials often fall in favour with the dominant caste groups has been much discussed. But it is because SHOs and SPs are under pressure from the administration to not register sexual crimes under their jurisdiction, since these cases make them targets for transfers and dismissals. This fear of bureaucratic reprisal sets the apathetic tone for investigations as well. The retaliatory cases of violence against women that are registered after land conflicts make it harder for genuine cases of sexual assault to get their due process.

Any attempt to tackle this situation can’t focus on police reform, caste discrimination, patriarchy and reforms in land ownership alone. We must take an intersectional approach that targets all of the issues. Land ownership reform must tackle the irregularities of demarcation and the lack of proper records. Sound policy involving all stakeholders should also tackle the illegal constructions on abadi land and banjar zameen. The goal of annihilating caste cannot be achieved without mammoth efforts in educational, professional, and social integration of lower castes into every field, be it healthcare, judiciary, education, entertainment, or sports.

In tandem with land and caste reforms, we must tackle the persistence of patriarchy in our society. “Women’s empowerment” is a buzz phrase for political and corporate organisations, but we must view these promises with a critical eye: In the last few central budgets, the Ministry of Women & Child Development has under-utilised its funds for multiple programmes aimed at women’s empowerment. We must demand more representation of women in positions of power — be it through reserved seats in MP, MLA, and MLC elections, or the judiciary and corporate boards. We must work for quality sexual education and consent training for our youth, with the aim of not just preventing sexual assault but also equalising and normalising healthy relations among members of different genders and sexes. And lastly, we must bridge the gender divide in access to the transformative and emancipatory power of consumer technology.relation to a land dispute.

Written by Ritesh Pandey

Source: Indian Express, 4/01/21

Quote of the Day December 31, 2020

 

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”
Dalai Lama

“हम बाहरी दुनिया में तब तक शांति नहीं पा सकते हैं जब तक कि हम अन्दर से शांत न हों।”
दलाई लामा

Current Affairs – December 31, 2020

 

Cabinet Approvals

• Industrial Corridor nodes at Krishnapatnam. It was proposed by DPIIT.
• Tumakuru Industrial Area in Karnataka
• Multi-modal Logistics Hub and Multi-modal transport hub at Greater Noida
• Export of Akash missile system
• Interest subvention for ethanol distilleries
• India mission in Estonia, Paraguay and Dominican Republic in 2021
• India-Bhutan MoU in peaceful use of outer space

India

Global Pravasi Rishita portal launched

On December 30, 2020, the External Affairs Minister launched the Global Pravasi Portal and application to connect with Indian diaspora across the world.

Indian Navy and DRDO conduct SAHAYAK-NG

The Indian Navy and Defence Research Development Organization conducted the maiden test trail SAHAYAK-NG. SAHAYAK-NG is the first indigenously designed and developed air dropped container from IL 38SD aircraft of Indian Navy. The main objective is to provide critical engineering stores to ships that are deployed more than 2,000 kilometres from the coast.

PRAGATI: PM reviews several projects

On December 30, 2020, PM Modi chaired the 34^th PRAGATI interaction. PRAGATI is Pro-Active Governance and Timely implementation involving central and state governments.

Deputy Chairperson of Karnataka Legislative Council found dead

On December 29, 2020, the deputy chairperson of the Legislative council S L Dharme Gowda was found dead on railway track at Chikmagalur. He was a Janata Dal legislator.

Lok Sabha MP Manasukh Vasava withdraws resignation from BJP

The Lok Sabha member of Bharuch in Gujarat, Mansukh Vasava resigned from BJP on December 30, 2020. He is to submit his resignation during the coming budget session of the parliament.

Nagaland declared disturbed area under AFSPA

On December 30, 2020, the entire Nagaland was declared as disturbed area for six more months by the central government. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act has been in force in Nagaland for several decades.

Economy and Corporate

Filing of IT returns extended

The Government of India recently extended the last date of Income Tax returns till January 10, 2021.

Indian Army inducts indigenously made short span bridges

Indian Army has inducted three sets of ten-metre short span bridges in close coordination with private industries and DRDO. This will help in providing mobility of own forces.

World

UK: COVID-19 vaccine by Oxford-AstraZeneca approved

The UK Government has approved the emergency supply of AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccines. The Serum Institute of India has tied up with AstraZeneca to supply the vaccines in UK.

The Nagaland deadlock

 

With the threat of China looming over, peace talks with NSCN-IM must not be allowed to lose momentum.

The peace talks between the Centre and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isaac-Muivah) (NSCN-IM) have hit a dead end, prompting NSCN leader Muivah to dash off a letter to the Prime Minister, asking for talks to be resumed “at the highest, that is Prime Minister’s level, without preconditions, in a third country”. In the past, former Prime Ministers P V Narasimha Rao, H D Deve Gowda and Atal Bihari Vajpayee have had direct talks with NSCN leaders abroad.

The recent overture by Niki Sumi faction of the NSCN (Khaplang) to rejoin peace talks with the government followed by the surrender of 53 insurgents of the Yung Aung faction of NSCN (Khaplang) on December 25 augurs well for the possibility of accelerating peace talks. NSCN (K) had earlier abrogated the ceasefire in 2015 when it found itself being sidelined by the government.

In his speech delivered on the eve of Nagaland’s 58th statehood day on November 30, Governor R N Ravi, who also happens to be the interlocutor for talks with NSCN (IM) leaders, in very unambiguous terms said that the demand for a separate Constitution and flag will not be accepted.

The NSCN (IM) has refused to accept Ravi as an interlocutor. In the past, he has described NSCN (IM) as “armed gangs” and asked the Nagaland CM to contain them, besides ordering all state government employees to declare if they had any relatives in the militant outfits. The recent government directive to Assam Rifles to intensify operations against the Naga groups also seems to have hit a raw nerve.

The Naga insurgency is one of the oldest in the country. After the 1975 Shillong Accord, a faction of the erstwhile Naga National Council led by Isaac Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah chose to part ways. The rank and file of the hitherto outlawed Naga Army surrendered and were inducted into the newly raised battalion of the Border Security Force (BSF). The faction opposed to the Shillong Accord went on to form the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in 1980, with its base in the dense forests of northern Myanmar in the eastern Naga Hills. While Isaac Swu was appointed the chairman of the newly-formed outfit, Shangwang Shangyung Khaplang and Thuingaleng Muivah took on the mantle of vice-chairman and general secretary, respectively

Despite the security forces going on the offensive against the NSCN cadres, the latter went on a massive recruitment drive enhancing the strength from a modest 150 to 3,000. Pitted against their own erstwhile colleagues who had joined the BSF, the NSCN suffered heavy casualties. Nevertheless, the NSCN spread across Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

A failed assassination attempt on Isaac Swu and Muivah by Khaplang’s loyalists in April 1988 led to a split in NSCN into NSCN (Isaac-Muivah) and NSCN (Khaplang) groups. A lurking suspicion that the Isaac-Muivah were holding secret parleys with the government led to the failed attack.

The proliferation of other insurgent groups in the Northeastern region lent ideological support to the NSCN (IM). Militant outfits like the Hmar People’s Convention (HPC), the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and several others looked up to NSCN (IM) not just for basic logistics support but also for weapons and training.

Khaplang formed the United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNLFWSEA) – a conglomerate of 11 militant outfits. After Khaplang’s death in June 2017, Khango Konyak was the natural choice to don the mantle of chairman of UNLFWSEA. He was impeached and replaced by Yung Aung as leader of NSCN(K) while Paresh Barua, the leader of United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) (ULFA-I), assumed leadership of the UNLFWSEA.

After incessant efforts made by then PM Deve Gowda, NSCN (IM) leaders agreed to come to the negotiating table. Ceasefire was declared in August 1997 and since then the negotiations have been on, initially with Swaraj Kaushal as the interlocutor and then with K Padmanabaiah and RS Pandey. The NSCN (K), too, declared ceasefire in April 2001 but abrogated it in 2015.The Centre banned the outfit for five years which was extended by another five years on September 28 last.

With the NSCN(I) leader Isaac Swu admitted in a New Delhi Hospital in August 2015, the government hurriedly came up with a one-page Framework Agreement (FA) signed by T Muivah and N Ravi in the presence of PM Modi, which was termed as a historic end to the 60-year-old insurgency that kept the Northeast on boil. For reasons unknown, the FA was kept under wraps. Swu died on June 28, 2016.

In August this year, the NSCN (IM) divulged the contents of the original FA, while accusing Ravi of amending the document by deleting the word “new” in one sentence, thereby altering the meaning to the advantage of the government. This was not taken kindly by the NSCN (IM) leaders, who rejected Ravi as an interlocutor.

After the arrival of T Muivah in New Delhi for the talks and refusal to enter into any kind of negotiations with Ravi, the Prime Minister’s Office directed two top officials of the Intelligence Bureau to carry the talks further. With the government sticking to its stand that Nagaland will not be allowed to have its own flag and constitution, further negotiations hit a dead end.

Having abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and thus having divested the state of its flag and constitution, the Centre is in a quandary. Resumption of insurgency could prove too costly a gamble for the country. Our relationship with China is at its lowest ebb. The role of the Chinese in whipping up insurgency in the Northeast is too well-known to ignore. A permanent solution to the Naga issue will ease the tension in the Northeast, forcing the Chinese PLA to turn its back on the insurgent groups operating there.

Written by M.P. Nathanael 

(The writer retired as inspector general of police, CRPF)

Source: Indian Express, 30-12-20

Women must be centre-stage in water and sanitation

 

In 2018 the rallying call of the Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) campaign of “Satyagraha se Swachhagrah” - rode on the back of the big change in sanitation habits in India .

In May 2014, India was shaken by the rapes of two adolescent girls in rural northwest India, when they were out in the evening to defecate in an open field. In a recent study in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies on Women’s Experiences of Defecating in the Open, one respondent said: Some men would hide and watch us defecating and then talk about it. This often put my husband to shame and even led to quarrels, with my husband scolding me for not remaining hidden.

Fortunately, sanitation continues to be central to the government’s agenda. With the Covid-19 pandemic, it is recognised that by addressing sanitation and water issues, we improve hygiene, health, gender, and livelihoods. The Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 (SBM) aims, among other things, to find solutions for sustained behaviour change, addressing women and their personal hygiene needs.

There is a growing consensus now that whereas the statutory framework relating to sanitation is gender neutral in its approach, the policy framework does recognise gender-related issues. However, when it comes to implementation, it is evident that sanitation-related needs and vulnerabilities of women need to be better addressed. Examples such as women not being consulted in decisions taken on sanitation-related matters such as the building and use of toilets and failing to take into account the prevalent socio-cultural norms, which for generations have defined the status of women as one that needs to be protected from all forms of exposure, while, at the same time, forcing them to defecate in the open even if this is in groups, substantiate this contention.

Nor should communication only focus on women, as if men could do whatever they liked; 100% open defecation free, cannot be achieved without men also being engaged.

The famous promotional videos of SBM casting its celebrity ambassador, Vidya Balan portrayed a scene, where the protagonist asked a man on his wedding day whether he had a toilet at home, to which the answer was negative. This prompted the person to ask the bride to remove her veil explicitly giving a message that a man who lets his wife defecate in the open has no right to let his wife observe purdah. In other words, the man has to build a toilet to be able to enforce the purdah system. Later, the video was amended to “clean” the message — all communication needs to be re-checked through a gender lens.

Several research studies have indicated that girls drop out of schools due to inadequate sanitary facilities being provided especially during their menstruation periods. Facilities need to be provided — and their awkwardness needs to be addressed too.

Much work has been done to alter some of these norms and beliefs, with women clearly coming to the forefront to take charge of addressing their own needs, supported by various government schemes and non-governmental organisations.

In Odisha, women and transgender Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have been engaged in the operation and maintenance of treatment facilities in eight cities; in Jharkhand, trained women masons built over 15 lakh toilets in one year, and the state was declared open defecation free (rural) much ahead of the national cut-off date of October 2, 2019.

These examples are rapidly increasing throughout the country, with women being able to push through reforms that better their overall wellbeing either through the help of support groups or through community-led efforts. Water management, sanitary complexes that answer their needs, and a host of other requirements to help them in their daily lives are now being driven by them.

The livelihood creation opportunities are immense whether from building the infrastructure, maintaining and operating the facilities or the communication programmes in communities — and women can play a part in all of these .

The India Sanitation Coalition is committed to looking at these reforms through a gender lens to ensure unintended biases do not creep in. Policies on water and sanitation need to keep the needs of women centre-stage — indeed enable them to be agents of change.

Naina Lal Kidwai is chair, India Sanitation Coalition and FICCI Water Mission

Source: 31-12-20