Current Affair 1:

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)

 

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is a statutory body under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights (CPCR) Act, 2005 under the administrative control of the Ministry of Women & Child Development ,Government of India.

The Commission's Mandate is to ensure that all Laws, Policies, Programmes, and Administrative Mechanisms are in consonance with the Child Rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Child is defined as a person in the 0 to 18 years age group.

The Commission visualizes a rights-based perspective flowing into National Policies and Programmes, along with nuanced responses at the State, District and Block levels, taking care of specificity and strengths of each region. In order to touch every child, it seeks a deeper penetration to communities and households and expects that the ground experiences gathered at the field are taken into consideration by all the authorities at the higher level.

Thus, the Commission sees an indispensable role for the State, sound institution-building processes, respect for decentralization at   the  local  bodies  and  community level and larger societal concern for children and their well-being.

Laws to prevent child marriages in India:

• The Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 to restrict the practice of child marriage.
• The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 to address and fix the shortcomings of the Child Marriage Restraint Act.

Current Affair 2:

Breastfeeding And Law

 

1st August to 7th August of every year is celebrated as the World Breastfeeding Week.

In India, although there is no law mandating breastfeeding,

The Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992 discourages infant milk substitutes, their sales, promotion etc. and prohibits people from trying to suggest that infant milk substitute is equally good or an alternative of mothers' milk.

The Act has many laudable provisions, including ban on advertising infant milk substitutes and ban on incentivising or inducing people to opt for such substitutes, and instead mandates that such substitutes should declare clearly in capital letters that "mother's milk is best for your baby". Distribution of infant milk substitute has been permitted only in cases of orphanages. Thus, the objective of the Act is to encourage breast feeding and discourage infant milk substitutes.

 

Despite such provisions, disguised commercials on television about infant milk substitutes are rampant. As one could see, the implementation of the Act is far from satisfactory. Therefore, it’s time to look beyond the said Act and take positive initiatives to make breastfeeding possible without any hinderance. Such an approach is possible in view of Article 15 (3) of the Constitution of India, which permits special provisions to be made for women and children.

Moreover, India is a signatory to the Convention on Child Rights. Article 3 of CRC mandates that in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration. Article 6 (2) provides that States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child and Article 24 of the Convention provides that;

"States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services."

Besides the above-mentioned Act, which indirectly approaches the issue of breast feeding, there are other legislations which also deal with the issue. The necessity of nursing break has been recognized in a limited manner under Indian law. For instance, under the Maternity Benefits Act, employers are required to provide nursing breaks of prescribed duration for new mothers in order to express breast milk for nursing child, until a child reaches the age of 15 months. Nursing breaks are fully paid.

In fact, the 2017 amendment of the Maternity Benefit Act, mandated that employer has to provide for creche in case more than 50 employees are employed and an employee is allowed four visits to the creche.

 

Current Affair 3:

Variable Rate Reverse Repo (VRRR) auction

 

When banks would like, they can keep/deposit money with RBI at (fixed) reverse repo for overnight without any limit. (Presently there is no limit how much funds bank can keep but it can change with time)

But if RBI is seeing that the economy is flush with liquidity and/or inflation is high (which is presently the condition) then on RBI's discretion, it conducts VRRR auction. RBI will ask banks that you can keep/deposit money with RBI and RBI will pay interest above reverse repo rate (and below repo rate) BUT that rate will be decided through auction. So, let us say RBI wants to absorb Rs. 50,000 crore liquidity then RBI will select those banks which quotes (asks for) minimum interest rate above reverse repo rate. This VRRR auction can be for overnight or for longer period.

So, 'reverse repo' is a monetary policy tool and VRRR is also a monetary policy tool.

Current Affair 4:

Accelerating the circular economy with a digital backbone

 

By and large, today’s manufacturing takes raw materials from the environment and turns them into new products, which are then discarded into the environment.

It’s a linear process with a beginning and an end. In this system, limited raw materials eventually run out. Waste accumulates, either incurring expenses related to disposal or else pollution. Additionally, manufacturing processes are often themselves inefficient, leading to further waste of natural resources.

In a circular economy, however, materials for new products come from old products. As much as possible, everything is reused, re-manufactured or, as a last resort, recycled back into a raw material or used as a source of energy.

Currently, most circular economy initiatives are individual projects focused on physical materials and resources. However, to scale these solutions globally and across industries, we need to build coherent digital foundations.

Without the internet as a foundation, the digitization of society would have been significantly slower, with fewer attractive business models and less impact on economic growth and poverty reduction.

Similarly, without a digital foundation, a circular economy will happen more slowly, with fewer attractive circular business models and less impact on global climate goals, economic growth, and poverty reduction.

Current Affair 5:

Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI)

 

It has been joined in by 25 countries and seven international organisations as member till date. Bangladesh is the new entrant to CDRI.

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) is a partnership of national governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks and financing mechanisms, the private sector, and knowledge institutions that aims to promote the resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks, thereby ensuring sustainable development. Explore this website to learn more about working for CDRI.

CDRI promotes rapid development of resilient infrastructure to respond to the Sustainable Development Goals’ imperatives of expanding universal access to basic services, enabling prosperity and decent work.

The CDRI was launched by Prime Minister Modi in September 2019 at the UN Climate Action Summit.

Is CDRI an intergovernmental organization?

CDRI is a multi-stakeholder global partnership of national governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks and financing mechanisms, the private sector, and academic and knowledge institutions. At present, it is not an intergovernmental organization, which are ordinarily treaty-based organizations.

What would be the rights and obligations that joining CDRI would entail for its member nations?

Envisioned as a partnership, the CDRI is not organized around the notion of rights and obligations. However, national governments that endorse the Charter and become a member of the CDRI have a key role in setting its substantive agenda as well as in its governance. It may be noted that the policies, standards and other outputs of CDRI would not be binding on its members.

 

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