Current Affair 1:

Swachh Survekshan 2021

 

Recently, the President awarded the respective cities in the 6th Edition of Swachh Survekshan (SS) 2021 for their performance in maintaining cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation.

JUST LEARN BASIC OF THIS SURVEY.

Swachh Survekshan is an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India. It was launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which aimed to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2nd October 2019.

The first survey was undertaken in 2016 and covered 73 cities; by 2020 the survey had grown to cover 4242 cities and was said to be the largest cleanliness survey in the world.

In a bid to scale up the coverage of the ranking exercise and encourage towns and cities to actively implement mission initiatives in a timely and innovative manner, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is now in the process of conducting the sixth edition of the survey to rank all cities under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) with Quality Council of India (QCI) as its implementation partner.

The objective of the survey is to encourage large scale citizen participation, ensure sustainability of initiatives taken towards garbage free cities (GFC) and open defecation free cities, provide credible outcomes which would be validated by third party certification, institutionalize existing systems through online processes and create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities more habitable and sustainable.

For the fifth consecutive year, Indore was awarded the title of India’s Cleanest City under Swachh Survekshan, while Surat and Vijayawada bagged the second and third spots respectively in the ‘more than 1 lakh population’ category.

In the population category of ‘less than 1 lakh’, Vita, Lonavala and Sasvad, all from Maharashtra, bagged the first, second and third positions respectively.

Varanasi emerged as the ‘Best Ganga Town’ while

Ahmedabad Cantonment won the title of ‘India’s Cleanest Cantonment’, followed by Meerut Cantonment and Delhi Cantonment.

In the category of ‘Fastest Mover’, Hoshangabad (Madhya Pradesh) emerged as the ‘Fastest Mover City’ (in the ‘more than 1 lakh population’ category)

 

Current Affair 2:

UNESCO’s global study, titled “When schools shut: Gendered impacts of COVID-19 school closures”

 

UNESCO’s global study, titled “When schools shut: Gendered impacts of COVID-19 school closures” was published and highlighted limitations on education and learning. The report finds that while gender norms and expectations can affect the ability to participate in remote learning, interventions that challenge gender-based barriers can limit learning loss and drop-out rates when schools reopen safely.

Four main areas where gendered impacts have been observed:

1. Household demands on girls and boys, particularly in the poorest contexts, constrained their ability to participate in remote learning. Girls’ increased time spent at home often carried a greater burden of domestic responsibilitiesBoys’ participation was often limited by the need to earn an income: one-third of respondents in one survey across 55 countries indicated an increase in the prevalence of child labour related to COVID-19 school closures.
2. The gender digital divide significantly constrained girls’ ability to learn online. Girls who did not own mobile phones reported that they relied on their relatives’ devices, typically those belonging to their fathers.
3. Limited data available to date about school return rates also show gender disparities.
4. Beyond education, school closures have impacted children’s health, notably their mental health, well-being and protection. Girls reported more stress, anxiety and depression than boys in 15 countries across the world.
5. LGBTQI learners reported high levels of isolation and anxiety. Fears about increased crime and violence were also reported by boys, particularly in crisis-affected contexts.

Steps taken to provide online education amidst COVID-19 pandemic

PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education: It include eight steps of online education.

 

PM e-VIDYA - A comprehensive initiative has been initiated as part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education. The initiative includes:

 

DIKSHA (one nation, one digital platform) is the nation’s digital infrastructure for providing quality e- content for school education in states/UTs and QR coded Energized Textbooks for all grades are available on it. 35 of the 36 states and UTs have on boarded on DIKSHA platform and contextualised the content as per the local need.

Swayam Prabha TV Channel per class from Class 1 to 12 (One class, One channel).

Shiksha Vani - Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and CBSE Podcast.

DAISY - Special e-content for visually and hearing impaired developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/ YouTube.

MANODARPAN - Ministry of Education has undertaken a proactive initiative, named, ‘MANODARPAN’ covering a wide range of activities to provide psychosocial support to students, teachers and families for Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing during the COVID outbreak and beyond.

Current Affair 3:

Agriculture Infrastructure Fund

 

We will cover this topic in detail. Life and UPSC both will become easy. For any such schemes, we should always cover introduction, why this was created. It becomes easy then to understand scheme.

Objectives of Scheme

To mobilize a medium - long term debt finances facility for investment in viable projects for post-harvest management Infrastructure and community farming assets through incentives and financial support in order to improve agriculture infrastructure in the country. This financing facility will have numerous objectives for all the stakeholders in the agriculture eco-system.

1. Improved marketing infrastructure to allow farmers to sell directly to a larger base of consumers and will improve the overall income of farmers.
2. With modern packaging and cold storage system access, farmers will be able to further decide when to sell in the market and improve realization.
3. Due to improvements in post-harvest infrastructure, government will further

be able to reduce national food wastage percentage thereby enable agriculture sector to become competitive with current global levels.

1. With a dedicated source of funding, entrepreneurs will push for innovation in agriculture sector by leveraging new age technologies including IoT, AI, etc.
2. It will also connect the players in ecosystem and hence, improve avenues for collaboration between entrepreneurs and farmers.
3. With Credit Guarantee, incentive and interest subvention lending institutions will be able to lend with a lower risk. This scheme will help to enlarge their customer base and diversification of portfolio.
4. Refinance facility will enable larger role for cooperative banks and RRBs.
5. With reduced inefficiencies in post-harvest ecosystem, key benefit for

consumers will be a larger share of produce reaching the market and hence, better quality and prices.

Government Budgetary Support

All loans under this financing facility will have interest subvention of 3% per annum up to a limit of Rs. 2 crores. This subvention will be available for a maximum period of 7 years. In case of loans beyond Rs.2 crore, then interest subvention will be limited up to 2 crores.

Current Affair 4:

About NALSA

 

NALSA is a decentralized body: Remember this also.

In every State, State Legal Services Authority has been constituted to give effect to the policies and directions of the NALSA and to give free legal services to the people and conduct Lok Adalats in the State.  The State Legal Services Authority is headed by Hon’ble the Chief Justice of the respective High Court who is the Patron-in-Chief of the State Legal Services Authority.

In every District, District Legal Services Authority has been constituted to implement Legal Services Programmes in the District. The District Legal Services Authority is situated in the District Courts Complex in every District and chaired by the District Judge of the respective district.

Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 prescribes the criteria for giving legal services to the eligible persons. Section 12 of the Act reads as under: -

Every person who has to file or defend a case shall be entitled to legal services under this Act if that person is a

1. member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe
2. a victim of trafficking in human beings or begar as referred to in Article 23 of the Constitution
3. a woman or a child
4. a mentally ill or otherwise disabled person
5. a person under circumstances of undeserved want such as being a victim of a mass disaster, ethnic violence, caste atrocity, flood, drought, earthquake or industrial disaster
6. an industrial workman

Also see the constitutional provisions regarding Legal Aid:

1. Article 39A of the Constitution of India provides that State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity, and shall in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disability.
2. Articles 14 and 22(1) also make it obligatory for the State to ensure equality before law and a legal system which promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity to all. Legal aid strives to ensure that constitutional pledge is fulfilled in its letter and spirit and equal justice is made available to the poor, downtrodden and weaker sections of the society.

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