“In matters of conscience the law of majority has no place.”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
“विवेक के मामलों में बहुमत के नियम का कोई स्थान नहीं है।”
मोहनदास करमचंद गांधी (1869-1948)
“In matters of conscience the law of majority has no place.”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
“विवेक के मामलों में बहुमत के नियम का कोई स्थान नहीं है।”
मोहनदास करमचंद गांधी (1869-1948)
The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023, released on March 29th, 2023, has ranked over 1,600 universities from around the world, evaluating their performance across 51 subjects. Indian universities have made significant progress this year, with 44 courses from Indian universities ranked among the global top 100.
The QS World University Rankings by Subject aims to provide students, parents, educators, and policymakers with a tool for assessing the performance of universities in specific subject areas. The rankings are based on four indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per paper, and H-index.
According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023, Indian universities have performed well in several fields. Indian universities have excelled in Computer Science, Chemistry, Biological Sciences, Business Studies, and Physics. In the dentistry program, the Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences had the best performance globally, achieving a perfect score in citations per paper and H-index.
IIT Delhi’s Electrical Engineering program broke into the top 50 categories globally in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023. Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Sociology program took 68th place, showing a rise of 33 places.
India is the fourth-largest producer of research globally, according to the QS. Between the years 2017 and 2022, research output in India grew by 54%. However, only 15% of India’s publications were cited in top journals from 2017 to 2021, a lower percentage than the United Kingdom and Germany, which have top journal citation percentages more than double that of India.
India’s overall performance improved by 17.2% year on year in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023. This progress is noteworthy, considering the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, among countries having over 10 universities featured in the rankings, Mainland China improved the most in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023.
Every year on March 30, people around the world celebrate the International Day of Zero Waste, a day designated by the United Nations General Assembly to promote reducing waste and sustainable consumption and production patterns. This day promotes the creation of a more sustainable and waste-free world.
The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution on December 14, 2022, designating March 30 as the International Day of Zero Waste. The proposal was co-sponsored by Turkey and 105 other countries and is part of a series of resolutions dealing with waste. It aims to achieve all the objectives and targets in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by promoting zero-waste initiatives.
The theme of the International Day of Zero Waste in 2023 is “Achieving sustainable and environmentally sound practices of minimizing and managing waste.” This theme emphasizes the importance of promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns to reduce the negative impact of waste on the environment.
According to the UN data, around 2.24 billion tons of municipal solid waste are produced each year. Only 55% of them is being disposed of in managed facilities. Also, an estimated 931 million tons of food are either lost or wasted every year, and approximately 14 million tons of plastic waste enters aquatic ecosystems each year. These numbers highlight the adverse consequences of waste on the environment, including landfills, pollution, and resource depletion.
The International Day of Zero Waste seeks to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns by encouraging individuals, communities, and organizations to adopt practices that minimize waste, reuse and recycle materials, and reduce the amount of waste generated. Initiatives like clean-up campaigns, recycling drives, educational programs, and advocacy campaigns are being conducted on this occasion to enable community mobilization towards a more sustainable and waste-free world.
The International Day of Zero Waste promotes SDGs 11 and 12, which aim to make cities and communities more sustainable and promote responsible consumption and production. These goals align with the broader agenda of the United Nations to promote sustainable development and address the challenges posed by climate change, environmental degradation, and poverty.
International Day of Zero Waste is jointly overseen by the UN-Habitat and the UNEP. Member countries, UN organizations, civil societies, private entities, academia, youth and other stakeholders are encouraged to participate in activities that create awareness of of national, subnational, regional, and local zero-waste initiatives and their role in enabling a sustainable development.
Source: https://www.gktoday.in/topic/international-day-of-zero-wastes/
Psychological stress is also the result of embedded discrimination
An important sign of gender inequality across the world is the pay gap between men and women doing the same job and with the same level of productivity. Globally, women earn only 77 cents on an average for every dollar earned by a man. This gap is present in India too, and may be worsening over time. Between April and June 2022, the female wage rate ranged across states from just over 50% to 93.7% in rural India, and from just under 50% to 100.8% in cities. The gap in rural areas has worsened over the last decade in most states. The urban gap has, however, diminished. The data have been released by the National Statistical Office in the report, Women and Men in India 2022. In some states where the male wage is among the highest in India, the gender gap is also the widest. The data do not reveal any obvious patterns. According to the report, in the states of West Bengal, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, the rural wage gap has increased by more than 10% between 2011-12 to 2022. These three states have different patterns of development, ranging from very rapid to quite slow. The figures are perhaps indicative of the deep-rooted patriarchal belief that women are less productive and more likely to leave the labour force or be absent.
The pay gap is not only unfair in terms of the ethics of equal pay for equal work but it also has long-term consequences for the economic development of a nation. The lifetime earnings of women turn out to be less compared to men. Women often end up in poverty despite having similar wage employment. Poverty is disempowering. Thus, the ability of a woman to have an effective influence over decisions affecting her own life, such as education, health, personal expenses and childcare, is likely to be poor. This engenders low self-esteem and self-worth, reinforcing beliefs of gender inequality. Psychological stress is also the result of embedded discrimination. In some situations where women may have other job opportunities available, they may not work for the same employer for long. This creates a self-fulfilling condition of lower productivity for women. This is caused by the fact that they are either constantly on the lookout for higher-paying jobs or for matrimonial alliances to augment their access to a higher family income. Getting rid of the wage gap and other forms of discrimination is not too difficult, provided there is adequate political will among those who govern.
Source: Telegraph, 27/03/23