Friday Factly 4 June 2021

General Studies – 1

A total of 1,742 children were orphaned, 140 abandoned and 7,464 children have lost one parent because of the Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020, as per National Commission for Child Rights (NCPCR).
9,346 in total — are in need of care and that 3,711 children are in the 8-13 age group

152 million children around the world are still in child labour, 73 million of them in hazardous work.
A Government of India survey (NSS Report No. 585, 2017-18, Statement 3.12, p.35) suggests that 95% of the children in the age group of 6-13 years are attending educational institutions (formal and informal) while the corresponding figures for those in the age group of 14-17 years is 79.6%.
The Census of India 2011 reports 10.1 million working children in the age group of 5-14 years, out of whom 8.1 million are in rural areas mainly engaged as cultivators (26%) and agricultural labourers (32.9%)
UNESCO estimates based on the 2011 Census record 38.1 million children as “out of school” (18.3% of total children in the age group of 6-13 years).

90 per cent of families witnessed reduction in their incomes during the course of the last 13 months (CMIE).
In May 2021, Azim Premji University also reported that an additional 23 crore people had been pushed below the poverty threshold of Rs 375 per day. This has almost completely reversed the number of 27 crore people lifted out of poverty between 2005 and 2015 (source: World Bank).

Stress on water resources

Of 1,123 billion cubic metres (BCM) of usable water resources, 690 BCM is surface water. India’s reservoir capacity for surface water resources is only 258 BCM.
For paddy, for instance, shifting farming practices to the most efficient ones could reduce water use by 25% in Maharashtra and 73% in Andhra Pradesh. Overall, 20-47% of irrigation water could be saved between 2030 and 2050—and reallocated to other sectors— if farmers adopted water-saving irrigation practices.
As India grows, total water withdrawal will jump from 949 BCM in 2010 to 1,058 BCM in 2050. Agriculture’s share will rise from 77% in 2010 to 81% in 2050. Savings of just 1 BCM in agriculture could provide water to 4.2 million urban households annually.
Although India has the largest number of farmers practising natural farming (800,000), they account for only 0.7% of farmers. Organic farming covers just 2% of net sown area.
The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture gets only 0.8% of the agriculture ministry’s budget

India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 7.3% in 2020-21.
At a level of Rs 99,700, India’s GDP per capita is now what it used to be in 2016-17 — the year when the slide started.

Between 1993-94 and 2004-05, monthly per capita consumption of edible oils increased from 0.37 kg to 0.48 kg in rural areas, and from 0.56 kg to 0.66 kg in urban areas.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, the per capita availability of vegetable oils in the country has been in the range of 19.10 kg to 19.80 kg per annum during the last five years.
In 2019-20, domestic availability of edible oils from both primary sources (oilseeds like mustard, groundnut etc.) and secondary sources (such as coconut, oil palm, rice bran oil, cotton seed) was only 10.65 million tonnes against the total domestic demand of 24 million tonnes — a gap of over 13 million tonnes.
In 2019-20, the country imported about 13.35 million tonnes of edible oils worth Rs 61,559 crore, or about 56% of the demand.

India’s forex reserve was record high of $592.894 billion on the week ending 21st may led by flow of FDI and FPI.FDI

India’s unemployment rate, even according to the government’s own surveys, was at a 45-year high in 2017-18.
Between 2012 and 2018, the total number of employed people fell by 9 million — the first such instance of total employment declining in independent India’s history
As against the norm of an unemployment rate of 2%-3%, India started routinely witnessing unemployment rates close to 6%-7% in the years leading up to Covid-19.

In the worst-ever contraction in 2020-21, the farm sector actually grew by 3.6%.
During the period real gross value added at basic prices (previously known as GDP at factor cost) was at minus 6.2%.
There have been four instances of negative GDP growth earlier: 1979-80, 1972-73, 1965-66 and 1957-58. All four were drought years, with agricultural de-growth surpassing that of overall GDP in each of them

Around 12.3 billion sanitary napkins, amounting to 113,000 tonnes of waste, reached India’s landfills every year, according to a new study.

The UN says humans are consuming 1.6 times the resources the planet can restore every year, and that there is a need to rewild an area the size of China by 2030 to meet commitments on nature and climate; a similar effort needs to be made for oceans as well.
There is 90% likelihood that at least one year between 2021 and 2025 will become the warmest on record. (WMO)

Global unemployment is expected to be at 205 million in 2022, surpassing the 2019 level of 187 million, according to World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021.
The jobs shortfall induced by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was 75 million in 2021 and is expected to be 23 million in 2022, warned the