Friday Factly 5 June 2020

GS-2

Health

As per National Health Profile 2019 of Central Bureau of Health Intelligence(CBHI), there are 7, 13, 986 total government hospital beds available in India. More precisely, this amounts to 0.55 beds per 1,000 population. Many States even lie below the national figure, Bihar is one of them, experiencing an acute shortage of government hospital beds with just 0.11 beds available per 1,000 population.

COVID-19

India’s 10.5 million community workers brave all odds to ensure that India wins the battle against corona virus with minimal casualties and losses.

Violence on Doctors

According to a 2017 study by the Indian Medical Association, over75 per cent of doctors have faced violence at work and 56.5 percent had thought of hiring security at the place of their practice.

Non-Communicable Diseases

According to a WHO report (2015), nearly 5.8 million people in India die every year of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Poverty

Half a billion people could be pushed into poverty as economies around the world shrink because of the coronavirus outbreak, a new study has warned.

Alcohol Death

According to the WHO, 5.3 per cent deaths worldwide are linked to alcohol, and in the age group 20 to 39, this figure rises to 13 per cent. The evidence on the relationship between alcohol and sexual and intimate partner violence globally is overwhelming.

Death and Infant Mortality Rates

• According to the data released by the Registrar General of India, the national birthrate in 2018 stood at 20, and death and infant mortality rates stood at 6.2 and 32,respectively.
• Madhya Pradesh has the worst infant mortality rate in the country while Nagaland hasthe best. Chhattisgarh has the highest death rate, while Delhi has the lowest. Bihar continues to remain at the top of list in birth rate while Andaman and Nicobar is at the bottom. These details were released by the Centre recently in its Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin based on data collected for 2018. The data shows that againstthe national infant mortality rate (IMR) of 32, Madhya Pradesh has an IMR of 48 andNagaland 4. Bihar has the highest birth rate at 26.2 and Andaman and Nicobar Islandshas a birth rate of 11.2. Chhattisgarh has the highest death rate at 8 and Delhi, analmost entirely urban state, has a rate of 3.3, indicating better healthcare facilities.

Primary Health Centre

• India is facing a shortfall of 22% in the number of primary health centres(PHC) and 30% in the number of community health centres (CHC) — thefirst points of contact for India’s rural populace to avail of healthcarefacilities. The highest shortfall is in the states of West Bengal, UttarPradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh — which also happen to be the chief ‘supplier states’ for migrant labour across India.
• According to this Mint report, only 11% of sub-centres, 13% PHCs and 16% CHCs meet the Indian Public Health Standards. 60% of PHCs have just one doctor while 5% have not even that, according to the Economic Survey 2018-19 — meaning, that should there be an outbreak of Covid-19 in rural India, it may well be impossible to contain it.

Death penalty

• Seventy-two per cent of all cases in which Delhi trial courts awarded the death penalty from 2000 to 2015 cited “collective conscience of the society” as an influencing factor, a study by Project 39A, a criminalreforms advocacy group, has found.
• This was also true of 42% of cases in Madhya Pradesh and 51% of casesin Maharashtra during the same period, according to the study.

Infant mortality

• The main factor behind under-5 mortality is child and maternalmalnutrition—accounting for around 68.2% of under-5 deaths and83% of neonatal deaths in India in 2017
• The main factor behind under-5 mortality is child and maternalmalnutrition—accounting for around 68.2% of under-5 deaths and83% of neonatal deaths in India in 2017. The other reasons for under-5deaths are lack of access to drinking water and sanitation (10.8%) andair pollution (8.8%).
• As per a 2019 Lancet study, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar andAssam have the highest malnutrition levels in the country. They losemore than 60,000 disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) per 100,000due to child and maternal malnutrition, while the second set of poorperformers—Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Nagaland andTripura—have DALYs between 50,000 and 59,999.Some solutionssuggested by the researchers on the U5MR trends in India includemicroplanning based on real data of deaths and their causes.

GS-3

FDI

The total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow into India grew 18 per cent in 2019-20 to $73 billion. The total FDI has doubled since 2013-14 from $36 billion to $73 billion now.

Oil

India consumes around 500,000 barrels of crude oil every day. Of that,it imports (approximately) 450,000 barrels per day, making it the third largestcrude market in the world. Every month, on average, 70 loadedVLCC (very large crude carriers), accounting for 10% of the global tanker market of 700 ships, bring crude oil to India. Approximately 60% of this oil is discharged in and around the Jamnagar area, and then carried by pipelines to the refineries in Jamnagar, Mathura, Panipat, Bina and Bhatinda. And 50% or so is sourced from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Iran and Iraq.

Pharmaceuticals

• Pharmaceuticals and refined petroleum oil accounts for 45% of India’s toAfrica.
• Private consumption account of 55-60% of the GDP

Imports

As per Commerce Ministry, India imported $467.2 billion worth of commodities between April and March 2019-2020. Of this, leather and leather products were $1.01 billion, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones were about $22.4 billion and electrical and non-electrical machinery were $37.7 billion, while machine tool imports were about $4.2 billion.

MSME

• MSME and migrant workers contribute 40% of GDP.

Oil Import

Against the projected $111.3 billion (233 million tonne) for FY20, India imported just $95.5 billion (207 million tonne) of crude oil in April February of the fiscal, which was even 7.2 per cent lower than in the year ago period (6.6 per cent lower in rupee term).

Unemployment

• In 2018, the Periodic Labour Force Survey data, saw the openunemployment rate for the overall labour force shoot up from 2.2 per cent in2011-12 to 6.1 per cent — that’s a tripling in a matter of six years. Openunemployment rates had never risen beyond 2.1-2.2 per cent.
• Youth unemployment rates went up from 6.1 per cent in 2011-12 to 17.8 percent in 2017-18. The unemployed among 15-29 year-olds rose from ninemillion to 25 million over that period. ‘Youth Not in Labour Force,Education or Training’ shot up from 83.7 million to 100 million in the samesix years.

Military Expenditure

The global military expenditure rose to $1917 billion in 2019 with India andChina emerging among the top three spenders, according to a report by a Swedish think tank, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Global Terrorism

India has moved to the seventh position from the previous year’s eighth in the annual Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2019. The countries ahead of it are Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan and Somalia.

GDP of China

• In 2018, the last year for which we have systematic data, China, with a GDP of $13.6 trillion, was the second largest economy in the world, behind the US ($20.5 trillion), but far ahead of Japan ($4.9 trillion), Germany ($4.0 trillion), Britain ($2.8 trillion), France ($2.8 trillion) and India ($2.7 trillion).
• In 2018, China was also the largest trading nation in the world. Its exportswere worth $2.5 trillion, substantially ahead of the US ($1.6 trillion). Andin 2018, China attracted over $203 billion worth of net foreign directinvestment (FDI), much more than Germany, Japan, UK, France as well asIndia ($42 billion), and second only to the US ($258 billion), showing howmonumental foreign investment in China had become.

Informal Economy

• Statistics suggest that the size of the informal economy is far frominsignificant. At the last count, 90.6 per cent of India’s workforce wasinformally employed (Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18).
• This estimate includes those who are employed in informal enterprises(unincorporated small or unregistered enterprises) as well as informalworkers in the formal sector (workers in the formal sector who are notprovided any social security benefits by employers). The previousemployment unemployment surveys suggest that the share of informallyemployed has been persistently high.
• Between 2004-05 and 2017-18, a period when India witnessed rapideconomic growth, the share of the informal workforce witnessed only amarginal decline from 93.2 per cent to 90.6 per cent.
• While there was some decline in the share of workers employed ininformal enterprises over this time period (from 87.4 per cent to 81.1 percent), the share of informal workers in the formal sector increased from5.8 per cent to 9.5 per cent.

Migrant Labour

• Estimates prepared by this author and updated from time to time suggestthat short-term and circular migrants in the informal wage economy couldnumber million.
• About 40% of these migrants work in the construction sector and 15% inagriculture. The rest are engaged in manufacturing, transport, and otherservices.
• With accompanying family members, their numbers would not be lessthan 100 million. About half these laborers are interstate workers.

State of Global Air

The study titled “State of Global Air 2019” reported that the life on average of a

South Asian child growing up in current high levels of air pollution will be shortened by two years and six months, while the global life expectancy loss is20 months.

Labour Migration

Out of India’s total workforce of 471.5 million, only 12.3% are regular workers receiving some form of social security, while the rest are mostly casual workers or petty producers surviving under various degrees of informality (for 2018).

According to the 2011 Census, there were 54.3 million persons (workers as well as non-workers) in the country who migrated from one State to the other. The ‘heartland’ States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh accounted for 48.9% of these interstate migrants, much higher than their combined share in India’s population (of 36.8%).

GDP and Per capita Income

India’s GDP story is interesting: We crossed the UK two years ago, France last year, and will cross Germany and Japan in the next five years. That will leave only America and China ahead of us. But our per capita GDP story is embarrassing. We once equalled Korea (1960) and China (1997) but today there are 138 countries ahead of us.