Monday, April 11, 2022
Current Affairs- April 11, 2022
INDIA
– Gujarat: PM virtually addresses foundation day celebrations of Umiya Mata Temple in Junagadh
– Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurates Indo-Pak border viewing point in Banaskantha District of Gujarat
– Indian Coast Guard commissions Advanced Light Helicopter MK-III squadron in Bhubaneswar, Odisha
ECONOMY & CORPORATE
– 2.71 lakh persons will be trained over 5 years under PM-DAKSH (Pradhan Mantri Dakshta Aur Kushalta Sampann Hitgrahi) Yojana: Govt.
WORLD
– Pakistan: PM Imran Khan ousted after losing no-confidence motion in National Assembly, the lower house of parliament
– World Homeopathy Day celebrated on April 10; birth anniversary of Dr Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann
– 36th Forbes Annual World Billionaires list topped by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, with a net worth of $219 billion
SPORTS
– Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc wins Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourn
Boys at greater risk of repeating grades, failing to complete education than girls: UNESCO
Boys are more likely than girls to repeat primary grades in 130 out of 142 countries, with data indicating their poorer progression through school, according to a new Global Education report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The report titled ‘Leave no child behind: Global report on boys’ disengagement from education’ pointed out that no less than 132 million boys of primary and secondary school age are out of school.
It said boys are more likely than girls to experience physical bullying and are often targeted because of their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity or expression (SOGIE).
“Boys are more likely than girls to repeat primary grades in 130 out of 142 countries, with data indicating their poorer progression through school. In 57 countries, with data on learning poverty, 10-year-old boys fare worse than girls in mastering reading skills and adolescent boys continue to fall behind girls at the secondary level.
“While girls are more likely than boys to never attend school, boys in many countries are at higher risk of failing to advance and complete their education. As it stands, 132 million boys are currently out of school,” the report stated.
Shedding light on the factors driving boys’ disengagement from education, the UN report attributed the trend to harsh discipline, corporal punishment, gendered norms, poverty and the need to work, among major reasons.
“Poverty and the need to work, for instance, can lead boys to drop out. Gendered norms and expectations can also affect their desire to learn. In particular, certain subjects can run counter to traditional expressions of masculinity, making them unpopular with boys. Harsh discipline, corporal punishment and other forms of violence at school also negatively impact boys’ academic achievement, while increasing absenteeism and dropouts.
“In many countries, boys are at greater risk than girls of repeating grades, failing to complete different education levels and having poorer learning outcomes in school. Where previously boys’ disadvantage seemed most notable in high- or upper-middle-income contexts at the beginning of the millennium, this has shifted and now includes several low- and lower-middle-income countries,” it said.
The report noted that secondary education is where boys’ disadvantage is most prevalent.
“The right to education remains unfulfilled for many boys. Far too many children and youth of primary and secondary school age are out of school. Just over half of them are boys. It has been a concern that COVID-19 pandemic would lead to an increase in school dropouts. In 2020, the last school year before the pandemic, an estimated 259 million children and youth of primary and secondary school age were out of school, 132 million of whom were boys.
“There will not be a clear picture of Covid-19 effects on enrolments before the end of 2022,” it said.
At the global level, almost no country with data has achieved gender parity at the tertiary level.
The gender parity index data in 2019 for tertiary enrolment showed 88 men for every 100 women enrolled at tertiary level. While previously boys’ disengagement and dropout was a concern mainly in high-income countries, several low- and middle-income countries have seen a reversal in gender gaps, with boys now lagging behind girls in enrolment and completion.
“In 73 countries, less boys than girls are enrolled in upper-secondary education. In Mathematics, on the other hand, the gender gap that once worked against girls at the start of the millennium has narrowed or equalised with boys in half of all countries with data.
“Practices such as streaming of classes and gender segregation contribute to boys’ low motivation, underachievement and disengagement from education. Conflict and forced migration exacerbate challenges in accessing and completing education. Language barriers, mobility and discrimination contribute to educational exclusion,” the UNESCO report mentioned.
Experts pointed out that prolonged school closures and longer-term impact of COVID-19 on learning loss and school dropout are likely to exacerbate existing gender disparities unless steps are taken to address the learning needs of all.
“Despite boys’ clear disengagement from and disadvantage in education in certain contexts, there are few programmes and initiatives addressing this phenomenon holistically, with system-level, gender-specific policies even more rare. Scarce policy attention has been given to gender disparities in education that disadvantage boys. Existing policies are predominantly in high-income countries. Few low- or middle-income countries have specific policies to improve boys’ enrolment,” it said.
Advance equal access to education and preventing boys’ drop out, reform traditional practices or adapt their timing, such as initiation ceremonies, which pull boys and young men out of school, building on lessons of the extensive work identifying and addressing barriers to girls’ education, making learning gender-transformative, safe and inclusive for all learners and create gender-transformative and inclusive learning environments that address all learners’ needs, are among the recommendations made in the report.
Source: Indian Express, 11/04/22
Social media has a serious disinformation problem. But it can be fixed
Social media platforms have effectively supplanted traditional information networks in India. The dialectical relationship between online content, traditional media and political networks means that the messages propagated online effectively touch even those who are not yet online.
This ubiquity could have been a golden moment for India — democratising access to information, fostering community, increasing citizen participation and reducing the distance between ordinary people and decision-makers. However, social media platforms have adopted design choices that have led to a proliferation and mainstreaming of misinformation while allowing themselves to be weaponised by powerful vested interests for political and commercial benefit. The consequent free flow of disinformation, hate and targeted intimidation has led to real-world harm and degradation of democracy in India: Mainstreamed anti-minority hate, polarised communities and sowed confusion have made it difficult to establish a shared foundation of truth.
Organised misinformation (disinformation) has a political and/or commercial agenda. However, even though there is growing recognition of the political motivations and impact of disinformation, the discourse in India has remained apolitical and episodic — focused on individual pieces of content and events, and generalised outrage against big tech instead of locating it in the larger political context or structural design issues. The evolution of the global discourse on misinformation too has allowed itself to get mired in the details of content standards, enforcement, fact checking, takedowns, deplatforming, etc — a framework which lends itself to bitter partisan contest over individual pieces of content while allowing platforms to disingenuously conflate the discourse on moderating misinformation with safeguards for freedom of expression. However, these issues are adjunct to the real issue of disinformation and our upcoming report establishes that the current system of content moderation is more a public relations exercise for platforms than being geared to stop the spread of disinformation.
A meaningful framework to combat disinformation at scale must be built on the understanding that it is a political problem: The issue is as much about bad actors as individual pieces of content. Content distribution and moderation are interventions in the political process. There is thus a need for a comprehensive transparency law to enforce relevant disclosures by social media platforms. Moreover, content moderation and allied functions such as standard setting, fact-checking and de-platforming must be embedded in the sovereign bipartisan political process if they are to have democratic legitimacy. If this is not to degrade into legal sanction for government censorship, any regulatory body must be grounded in democratic principles — its own and of platforms.
Given the political polarisation in our country (and most others), the constitution of such a regulator and its operational legitimacy is difficult. However, the failure of a polarised political ecosystem to come to a consensus is not a free pass for the platforms. Platforms are responsible for the speed and spread of distribution of disinformation and the design choices, which have made disinformation ubiquitous and indistinguishable from vetted information. It is thus the responsibility of the platforms to tamp down on the distribution of disinformation and their weaponisation. We argue that platforms are sentient about the users and content they are hosting and bear responsibility for their distribution choices. Moreover, just as any action against content is seen as an intervention in the political process, the artificial increase in distribution of content (amplification) too has political and commercial value.
We recommend three approaches to distribution that can be adopted by platforms: Constrain distribution to organic reach (chronological feed); take editorial responsibility for amplified content; or amplify only credible sources (irrespective of ideological affiliation). The current approach to misinformation that relies on fact-checking a small subset of content in a vast ocean of unreviewed content is inadequate for the task and needs to be supplemented by a review of content creators itself.
Finally, as the country with the largest youth population in the world, it is important that we actively think of how we want our youth to engage in our democratic processes and the role of social media platforms in it. There are three notable effects of social media on our politics, which require deliberation.
First, social media has led to a dislocation of politics with people weighing in on abstractions online while being disengaged from their immediate surroundings. Second, social media has led to a degradation of our political discourse where serious engagement has been supplanted by “hot takes” and memes. Third, it has obscured the providence of consequential interventions in our
political discourse because of opacity in technology.
Meaningful politics, especially in democracies, is rooted in local organisation, discussion and negotiation. However, the structure of social media has facilitated a perception of engagement without organisation, action without consequence. This wasn’t and isn’t inevitable — there are more thoughtful ways to structure platforms, which would help connect and root people in their own communities instead of isolating them locally while “connecting” them virtually.
Instead of moving towards more grounded communities, there is an acceleration towards greater virtuality through “metaverse”. Social media cannot be wished away. But its structure and manner of use are choices we must make as a polity after deliberation instead of accepting as them fait accompli or simply being overtaken by developments along the way.
Written by Ruchi Gupta
Source: Indian Express, 11/04/22
Why central services cannot be exempted from reservation for disabled
In the judgment delivered late last year in Ravinder Kumar Dhariwal and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors., the Supreme Court dealt with the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against a mentally-ill CRPF employee. While concluding that the initiation of the proceedings against the employee was indirectly discriminatory, the Court held that it will have to develop, in an appropriate case, the standard of justification for evaluating the government’s decision to exclude any establishment from the nondiscrimination guarantee contained in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 [RPwD Act].
A case that the SC is currently hearing (National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled v. Department of Empowerment for Persons with Disabilities and Ors.) might just offer it the opportunity to enunciate this standard. The petitioner has challenged a notification issued by the Department of Empowerment for Persons with Disabilities (Department). The impugned notification exempts all categories of posts in the Indian Police Service, the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli Police Service, as well as the Indian Railway Protection Force Service from the mandated 4 per cent reservation for persons with disabilities under the RPwD Act.
This notification is legally and constitutionally untenable. First, on the same day as the issuing of the impugned notification, the Department also issued another notification exempting from the purview of reservation under the RPwD Act posts only of “combatant” nature in the paramilitary police. This classification between combat and non-combat posts was premised on a clear recognition of the fact that persons with disabilities are capable of occupying non-combat posts in the central forces. The Department has offered no justification as to why this classification would not hold good as regards the services covered in the impugned notification.
Second, in an office memorandum issued in January last year, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had identified a range of ministerial/civilian posts as being suitable for reservation for the disabled. The impugned notification is in the teeth of this identification exercise, by virtue of its blanket character. Further, on November 22, 2021, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs released Draft Accessibility Standards/Guidelines for built infrastructure under its purview (police stations, prisons and disaster mitigation centres) and services associated with them. These Draft Standards state that the police staff on civil duty could be persons with disabilities. Curiously, even as the Centre appears committed to creating a more disabled-friendly police service, it has foreclosed the possibility of the disabled being part of the police force through the impugned notification.
Third, the impugned notification appears to be a colourable exercise of power. This is because, as per the RPwD Act, the grant of any exemption has to be preceded by consultation with the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities. It is common knowledge that the office of the chief commissioner has been lying vacant for many years, with the secretary in the Department officiating in that role. Further, in the debate in Parliament at the time of the passage of the RPwD Act, an exchange between Sitaram Yechury and the then Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment is revealing. Yechury had feared that the central government would use the power granted to it under the RPwD Act to exempt people with disabilities from seeking reservation for posts that they are perfectly capable of occupying. The minister had assured that this concern would be addressed in the rules. By issuing the Impugned Notification, the Department has belied that assurance
In a heartening development, on March 25, the SC passed an interim order, allowing physically disabled persons who have cleared the civil services (mains) exam to provisionally apply for posts in the IPS, IRPFS and DANIPS, considering this request to be “just and reasonable”. The Court has asked the government to explain its stance on the impugned notification and listed the matter for April 18.
This case presents the SC with the opportunity to rule that the disabled are not a monolithic entity. Every disabled person is different, and it is unfair to paint all disabled people with the same broad brush, based on a stereotypical understanding of what they can do. Let us hope that the Court recognises that the disabled have the right to exist and work in the world just like their able-bodied counterparts.
Written by Rahul Bajaj , Nishtha Gupta
Source: Indian Express, 11/04/22
Thursday, April 07, 2022
Quote of the Day April 7, 2022
“Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is a simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
Jim Rohn
“सफलता है कुछ सामान्य आदतों का निरंतर अà¤्यास; और असफलता है निर्णय करने में कुछ सामान्य गलतियों को निरंतर दोहराते जाना।”
जिम रोह्न
International Day of Sport for Development and Peace
On 6th April, the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) is observed annually. This day is celebrated to highlight the importance of sports in society.
Overview:
- This day recognizes the positive impact due to sports on the harmony and peace of various communities across the globe.
- Sports help in promoting social ties, peace, and sustainable development across the planet.
History of this day
In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had declared that the 6th of April is to be celebrated as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. April 6th was selected as on this day in 1896 the first-ever Modern Olympics took place in Athens. Since 2014, this day has been annually observed across the planet.
Significance of this day
In 2015, sports were included in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations after it was considered to play a crucial role in sustainable development. Hence, this day acts as a platform for nations to turn their focus to the development of this sector. The nations are encouraged to invest in the development of sports and sporting infrastructures, awareness among the masses, and quality education.
The theme for this year
‘Securing a Sustainable and Peaceful Future for All: The Contribution of Sport’ is the theme for this year’s the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. The theme highlights the importance of sport in creating a better future for humans. The focus of this year’s theme is on lowering Greenhouse Gas emissions and climate change.
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