Daily Practice Sheet 8 May 2021

  • May 8, 2021
  • Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
  • Category: DPS
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Daily Practice Sheet

8 May 2021

 

Daily Prelims Topic

  • Lokayukta
  • Variants and the covid surge:
  • Non-steroidal Inflammatory drugs
  • Sovereign Credit Rating
  • “The state of Working India 2021” report
  • Vaccine delivery by droned
  • Karen insurgency
  • Cowin

Daily Mapping

  • Mt sinabaug

Daily Data

Rising cash usage

According to the data released by the Reserve Bank of India, the currency with public rose by Rs 15,919 crore in the fortnight ended April 23 to cross the Rs 28 lakh crore mark for the first time due to pandemic and lockdown.

Space Tourism market

UBS estimates the space tourism market to be worth $3 billion by 2030.

State of Working India 2021 Report (Employment, rising inequality)

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially increased informality in employment, leading to a decline in earnings for the majority of workers, and consequent increase in poverty in the country.
  • 100 million jobs were lost nationwide during the April-May 2020 lockdown.
  • Though most of these workers had found employment by June 2020, about 15 million remained out of work. As for income, “for an average household of four members, the monthly per capita income in Oct 2020 (₹4,979) was still below its level in Jan 2020 (₹5,989),” the report noted.
  • post-lockdown, nearly half of salaried workers had moved into informal work, either as self-employed (30%), casual wage (10%) or informal salaried (9%).
  • Education, health and professional services saw the highest exodus of workers into other sectors, with agriculture, construction and petty trade emerging as the top fallback options. For Hindus, agriculture was the major fallback sector, absorbing 10-20% of workers from other sectors, while for Muslims, it was trade, absorbing 20-35% of workers from other sectors.
  • Due to the employment and income losses, the labour share of the GDP fell by 5 percentage points, from 32.5% in the second quarter of 2019-20 to 27% in the second quarter of 2020-21.
  • Of the decline in income, 90% was due to reduction in earnings, while 10% was due to loss of employment.
  • Monthly earnings of workers fell on an average by 17% during the pandemic, with self-employed and informal salaried workers facing the highest loss of earnings.
  • While the poorest 20% of households lost their entire incomes in April-May 2020, “the richer households suffered losses of less than a quarter of their pre-pandemic incomes.
  • A 10% decline in mobility was associated with 7.5% decline in income.
  • During the lockdown and in the post-lockdown months, 61% of working men remained employed while 7% lost their job and did not return to work. But in the case of women, only 19% remained employed while 47% suffered a permanent job loss.
  • About 33% of workers in the 15-24 years age group had failed to regain some form of employment even by December 2020. The corresponding figure for those in the 25-44 years category was 6%.
  • With 230 million falling below the national minimum wage threshold of ₹375 per day during the pandemic, poverty rate has “increased by 15 percentage points in rural and nearly 20 percentage points in urban areas

Daily Mains Mantra

GS 1: Society

  1. What do you understand by identity politics? Discuss how does it impact the society? [Reference: The Hindu]

GS 1: Geography

  1. Discuss the locational factors responsible for Bangalore becoming an IT hub. [Reference: The Hindu]

GS 2: Polity

  1. Alternate centers of power in democracy include the political opposition, higher judiciary, higher civil service, media, university, trade unions and other collectives of working people, and peaceful resistance of the people themselves. Elaborate their role as oxygen of any democracy. [Reference: Indian Express]

GS 2: International Relations

  1. Discuss the role of TRIPS regime in ensuring growth of innovation. Discuss need and implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine considering “Vaccine as public good”. [Reference: Indian Express]

GS 3: Environment

  1. What do you understand by climate adaptation? How it is different from climate mitigation? Discuss if climate adaptation should be a public good, rather than asset class. [Reference: Bloomberg Quint]

GS 3: Science and Technology

  1. What do you understand by health equity? How does patent impact global health equity? [Reference: The Hindu]
Daily Practice Sheet