Friday Factly 2 April 2021

  • November 22, 2021
  • Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
  • Category: Friday Factly
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GENERAL STUDIES 1

Emission of Greenhouse gases

The global shipping industry accounts for nearly 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

GENERAL STUDIES 2

HC Vacancy

The total sanctioned strength in the 25 High Courts is 1,080. However, the present working strength is 661 with 419 vacancies as on March 1

Per capita water Availability

The average annual per capita water availability in the year 2011 has been assessed as 1545 cubic meters. Further, based on the above study, the average annual per capita water availability may further reduce to 1486 cubic meters by 2021. (Ministry of Jal Shakti)

Pendency of cases

  • According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), a government platform monitoring judicial data, backlog of cases in district courts saw a sharp increase of 18.2 per cent between December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2020.
  • In the 25 high courts across the country, pendency of cases in 2019-2020 increased 20.4 per cent. In the previous year, in 2018-2019, it increased only5.29 per cent.
  • In the Supreme Court, pendency rose 10.35 per cent — from 60,469 cases on March 1, 2020 to 66,727 on March 1, 2021

Water crisis in India

  • As per the Central Water Commission’s reassessment of water availability using space inputs (2019), India receives a mean annual precipitation of about 3,880 billion cubic meters (BCM) but utilizes only 699 BCM (18 percent) of this; the rest is lost to evaporation and other factors. The demand for water is likely to be 843 BCM in 2025 and 1,180 BCM by 2050.
  • As per the Niti Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index (2019), 75 per cent households in India do not have access to drinking water on their premises and India ranks 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index.
  • India is identified as a water stressed country with its per capita water availability declining from 5,178 cubic metre (m3)/year in 1951 to 1,544 m3 in 2011 — this is likely to go down further to 1,140 cubic metre by 2050.
  • Agriculture uses about 78 per cent of fresh water resources.

Borrowing by states

The states and Union Territories have collectively borrowed ₹7.98 lakh crore from the markets in 2020-21 ending March which is ₹25,393 crore or around 3% less than the indicated debt for the fiscal

Healthcare workforce in India

Acute shortage of health workforce:

  • The density of qualified active health workforce in India is as low as 12-13 doctors (including AYUSH practitioners) and nurses/midwives per 10,000 persons, which is almost half of the WHO-recommended minimum threshold of 22.8 health workers per 10,000 persons required for achieving 80% coverage of assisted deliveries by a skilled birth attendant.
  • The PLFS of the NSSO for 2018-19 reflects that more than 30% of doctors and more than 50% of nurses with adequate qualifications are not part of the current health workforce.
  • The number of nurses per doctor in India is very low, approximately 1.3 nurses per doctor on an average, as against three nurses per doctor in developed countries.

Skewed distribution

Less developed states like Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh having health worker population ratio of as low as 6-8 health workers per 10,000 persons. Also, more than 60% of doctors and a little over 50% of nurses/midwives are employed in the private sector, while public facilities in different states report high level of vacancies against the sanctioned posts of health workers.

GENERAL STUDIES 3

Defence

  • By 2030, India’s aerospace and defence industry is estimated to reach a market valuation of around $70 billion (Maier+Vidorno).
  • According to government data, India has around 194 start-ups in the defence tech space that are leveraging new-age technologies to come up with solutions for empowering the nation’s defence and security
  • The 15th Finance Commission suggested for a non-lapsable modernisation fund of Rs 2.38 lakh crore for five-year period for defence and internal security.

Unemployment

  • The unemployment rate has fallen 7 per cent for the 15 and above age population in recent months. (CMIE)
  • Among casual wage workers employed during the January-March quarter in 2020, 50 per cent joined the ranks of unemployed and another 10 per cent exited the labour force.
  • Only one out of three casual workers in urban areas could hold on to their job with another 5 per cent moving into the self-employed category. The regular salaried workers fared better but even among them 10 per cent lost jobs and another 5 per cent moved out of the labour force.

Nutri Cereals:

  • The central government hereby declares millets comprising Sorghum (Jowar), Pearl Millet (Bajra), Finger Millet (Ragi/Mandua), Minor Millets — Foxtail Millet(Kangani/Kakun), Proso Millet (Cheena), Kodo Millet (Kodo), Barnyard Millet (Sawa/Sanwa/ Jhangora), Little Millet (Kutki) and two Pseudo Millets (Blackwheat (Kuttu) and Ameranthus (Chaulai) which have high nutritive value as “Nutri Cereals” for production, consumption and trade point of view.
  • According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, compared to rice Fox tail millet has 81% more protein, Little millet has 840% higher fat, 350% higher fiber and 1,229% higher quantity of iron. There has been demand to declare these crops as Nutri Cereals to boost its demand and allow farmers to get higher prices. Even noted agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan had suggested the name change in 2006.

Need for investment health workforce

Even if 100% of the new graduates join health workforce, it will take more than 10 years to add 2.5 lakh health professionals to the existing qualified active health workforce of about 15 lakh.

Water crisis

  • India’s per capita water availability has fallen from 5,178 cubic meters per day in 1951 to 1,544 in 2011 and is projected to fall to 1,140 by 2050.
  • NITI Aayog pointed out some years ago, water stress could shave off around 6% of India’s potential growth by 2030.
  • While Bihar needs just 799 litres to produce one kg of sugar, Maharashtra, a major cane-growing state, needs 2.7 times as much water. In the case of paddy, Punjab has the highest productivity in the country when it comes to the amount of crop that is grown per acre of land, but when the same exercise is done for water, Punjab is the worst

Data leak

Cybersecurity experts claim that data of as many as 10 crore MobiKwik users have been leaked and put up for sale on the darkweb.

Friday Factly