1)Accessible India (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) :-
- DEPwD – Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities , has launched the Accessible India Campaign as a nation-wide flagship campaign for achieving universal accessibility for the PwDs.
- For PwDs , universally is critical for enabling them to gain for equal opportunity and live independently.
- Persons with Disabilities(Equal opportunities, Protection of rights and Full participation ) Act ,1995 under section 44,45,46 categorically provides for non-discrimination in transport and non-discrimination in built environments.
- UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (UNCRPD), to which India is a signatory , under article 9 casts obligations on the governments for ensuring the PWDs accessibility to :-
- Information
- Transportation
- Physical Environment
- Communication Technology
- Accessibility to services as well as emergency services
- Keeping this in view and creating India as a more inclusive and accessible society , the Government of India has launched this program.
2)Chennai Floods – What has gone wrong-
- The recent floods in Chennai and the unprecedented inability to deal with it , shows that in our way towards economic growth , environment has taken a back seat.
- The flood is akin to Mumbai flood of 2005 . Both the cities are coast facing and both have grown enormously as a city in the last few decades.
- Chennai , its soil and rock types suggest that the city is historically a flood plain.
- Chennai had more than 600 waterbodies in the 1980s, but a master plan published in 2008 said that only a fraction of the lakes could be found in a healthy condition. According to records of the State’s Water Resources Department, the area of 19 major lakes has shrunk from a total of 1,130 hectares (ha) in the 1980s to around 645 ha in the early 2000s, reducing their storage capacity. The drains that carry surplus water from tanks to other wetlands have also been encroached upon.
- Chennai has only 855 km of stormwater drains against 2,847 km of urban roads. Thus, even a marginally heavy rainfall causes havoc in the city.
- Urban sprawls such as Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Srinagar etc. have not paid adequate attention to the natural water bodies that exist in them. In Chennai, each of its lakes has a natural flood discharge channel which drains the spillover. But we have built over many of these water bodies, blocking the smooth flow of water. We have forgotten the art of drainage. We only see land for buildings, not for water.
- Chennai’s human-made drainage is no replacement for its natural drainage systems — analysis shows that there are natural canals and drains that directly connect the city with wetlands, waterbodies and rivers such as the Cooum and the Adyar that run through Chennai.However real-estate has been built upon the flood plains, and with a slight heavy rain, poorly constructed drainage system which are silted , the water stays on the road and it has no where to go in the concrete jungle.
- Also , the freak weather is predicted as an extension of climate change. The data vindates this stance. The rains in Chennai have broken a 100-year record (374 mm in just 24 hours). In November, the city had received 1,218 mm of rain, which was almost three times more than the average the city receives (407 mm).
- Urban planning withe out due consideration for environment has been a major cause of worry in India. Many coastal cities have been lost to the times of history and major cause of disappearance of coastal cities is attributed to either climate change or bad urban planning, focusing mainly on drainage system.
- Environmental swings are inevitable , and improper planning accentuates the devastating capacity of the calamities.
Way Forward :-
- Every city has it’s carrying capacity and once it’s overrun , it becomes almost impossible for the city to sustain life.Hence , pro-active measures needs to be taken to release the stress of the mega cities of India.Satellite cities can be built which can release the stress of our urban sprawl.
- Though we have a flood plain zoning and management , it has not been adhered to.Political class need to listen to the environmentalists and engage not only the civil engineers but environmental engineers in the planning process.
- SMART CITY in this regard is an ambitious project , which not only aims retrofitting the existing cities but also plans to build new cities which could take the demographic pressure of our mega cities.
- However the project has came too late, we are not in the brink of climate change , we are already in it, thus this needs speedier implementation.
- It was often cited in the time of relief and rescue work that our Air force could not find a high ground to land and carry on the rescue work. In this regard , as a short term measure , high ground structure and homes has to be built so as to, not only provide shelter in the times of disaster but also give the rescue team a base to operate from.
3)Toda tribe of Nilgiris :-
- The Nilgiris, (blue mountains) first explored by British writer John Sullivan in 1819 is the pride of South India. Everything about the hills is amazing; more so its name which is derived from a wild flower called Neela Kurinji (bluish-violet colour) that blossoms once in every 12 years.
- Even more exotic is the first ever tribal natives of Nilgiris, the Toda (Thuda) clans who were first spotted by the British.
- The Toda clan to this day are distinctly different from the rest of the Tamil tribes or plainsmen. They are an exotic race, whose facial features (barring gene mutations) are very un-south Indian. For one, they are generally not dark; they are fair-skinned, ruddy with constant exposure to sunny to rainy weather.
- The Englishmen who resided in Nilgiris then were amazed and also appreciative of the Toda’s good looks as also their pride, as has been written in their analogies. The Toda would never turn his head and admire the foreigner as we would even today.
- There are 15 Toda clans presently in Nilgiris, each having its own temple and head priest. They are close to the Hindus in religion.
- The language is Proto Dravidian, their prayer is not in their spoken tongue. Even linguist Emino in 1930s was unable to decipher their prayer lingo. The Toda culture is unlike other tribal cultures across India
- Todas are totally vegetarian; their diet is milk and milk products. They are pastoral by birth but now many have moved to agriculture too.
4)Agra to host first ever international bird fete:-
- In a bid to promote Uttar Pradesh as an international bird-watching destination, the State Forest department, in collaboration with FICCI, is planning to hold a three-day international festival on birds at the National Chambal Sanctuary (NCS) in Agra.
- The festival starts on December 4 and will end on December 6.As many as 25 top international bird experts and over 80 Indian ornithologists are expected to attend the first-of-its-kind festival.
Birdman of India- Salim Ali
- Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was an Indian ornithologist and naturalist. Sometimes referred to as the “birdman of India”.
- Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and his bird books helped develop ornithology
- He became the key figure behind the Bombay Natural History Society after 1947 and used his personal influence to garner government support for the organisation, create the Bharatpur bird sanctuary (Keoladeo National Park) and prevent the destruction of what is now the Silent Valley National Park. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1958 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1976.
- His magnum opus was however the 10 volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan written with Dillon Ripley.
5)Change of guard – Chief Justice of India :-
- Justice Tirath Singh Thakur was sworn in as 43rd Chief Justice of India by President Pranab Mukherjee recently.
- Appointment of CJI:-
- According to the convention, the present Chief Justice recommends the name of his successor to the government.
- After the Law Ministry clears his name, the file will go to the Prime Minister’s Office and finally reaches the President, after whose approval the Warrant of Appointment will be issued
- Article 124 of the Constitution of India provides for the manner of appointing judges to the Supreme Court.
- Though no specific provision exists in the Constitution for appointing the Chief Justice, who, as a result, is appointed like the other judges.
- Usually the seniority take precedence.However, this convention has been breached on a number of occasions, most notably during the premiership of Indira Gandhi, who appointed A.N. Ray superseding three judges senior to him allegedly because he supported Gandhi’s government, during the Emergency, a time when her government was becoming increasingly mired in a political and constitutional crisis.
Question Of the Day (150-200)
- What is urban sprawl ? In your view, can the mega cities of India withstand natural calamities.What are the different types of disaster vulnerability of our Mega cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata ?
- What is the state of affairs for PwDs in India ? What measures are required to make India more accessible to the PwDs.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.