Friday Factly 31 July 2020

General Studies-1

Women:

• India’s Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) stands at 122 as per the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin from last year — a significant decline from an MMR of 556 in 1990.
• A parallel decrease in the prevalence of child marriage is also noted — 58 per cent in 1970-80 to 21 per cent by 2015-16.
• There is, however, a wide variation amongst states — highest in West Bengal at 39 per cent followed by Bihar and Jharkhand. The 2015-16 national family health survey (NFHS 4) also confirms the urban-rural difference in the incidence of early marriage — 17.5 per cent in urban and 31.5 per cent in rural women.
• With no education, 44.7 per cent women are married before 18 years. This drops to 39.7 per cent with primary education, 23.2 per cent with secondary education and 2.9 per cent with higher education. 

Australian bush fire

• Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced during Australia’s devastating bushfires of the past year, scientists say.

General Studies-2

Child Marriage:

• In the latest survey, NFHS-4 of 2015-16, the proportion of child marriages in India is 26.8 per cent, down from 47 per cent in 2005-06
• Along with such impressive declines, NFHS-4 shows that only 6.6 per cent were marrying below the age of 15.

Migrant labour:

• Migrant account for 20 per cent of the total workforce — this puts their number anywhere between 100 million and 140 million.
• Migrants are responsible for 10 per cent of GDP

General Studies-3

Agriculture:

• According to estimates of NITI Aayog, the country would need around $4.5 trillion for investment in infrastructure by 2030.
• Total production of food grains reached a record 296 million tonnes in 2019- 20, registering an annual average growth of 3.6 per cent over the last decade.
• Total horticulture production also reached an all-time high of 320 million tonnes, growing at an annual average rate of 4.4 per cent over the last 10 years.
• India is now one of the leading producers of milk, cereals, pulses, vegetables, fruits, cotton, sugarcane, fish, poultry and livestock in the world. Buffer stocks in cereals currently stand at 91.6 million tonnes or 2.2 times the buffer norm

GST:

• One positive sign is that the number of taxpayers registered under GST stood at 1.08 crore as early as April 2018, and rose to 1.23 crore by June 2019, where it has more or less stayed since.
• The second is that there has been a consistent and steep rise in the cumulative number of returns filed, which stood at over 47 crore in June 2020.
• Finally, in the period up to March 2020, while public and private limited companies and public sector undertakings accounted for 6.5 per cent of taxpayers and 72 per cent of total collections, proprietorships and partnerships accounted for 91 per cent of taxpayers and 21 per cent of collections.  

Pharma Market in India:

• According to DoP data, pharmaceuticals and medical devices industry in India is worth is ₹3,79,751 crore.
• Of this ₹2,08,729 crore consists of the domestic market and  ₹81,551 crore is import dependent, while ₹1, 71,022 crore is exports.

Tiger

• According to Status of Tigers Report 2018 tigers were observed to be increasing at a rate of 6 per cent per annum in India from 2006 to 2018.
• There were nine tiger reserves when Project Tiger started in 1973. Now, India has 50 tiger reserves.
• Seventy per cent of the world’s tigers are in India and the conservation effort has been a huge success

Tiger Reserve:

Seventeen of India’s 50 tiger reserves are approaching their peak carrying capacity. In fact, nearly a third of the country’s tigers today live outside protected areas (PA)