News Snippet
News 1: Decline in pre-primary enrolments continued in 2021-22
News 2: Child Welfare Police Officers a must in all police stations
News 3: Amur falcons and Nagaland
News 4: RISAT-2 satellite makes re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere
News 5: Mauna Loa eruption
News 6: Poppy cultivation and Afghanistan
Other important news:
- Bharat Stage emission norms
- Increasing tension in Korean Peninsula
- Impact of US Federal Reserve rate hikes
News 1: Decline in pre-primary enrolments continued in 2021-22
Background
The number of children entering pre-primary classes in 2021-2022 saw a further decline, resulting in 30% fewer students in this school section as compared to pre-Covid as younger students with less access to remote learning continue to bear the biggest brunt of learning loss during the pandemic, according to a report released by the Ministry of Education.
Findings
Enrolment in primary classes, which include classes 1 to 5, saw a drop for the first time, falling from 12.20 lakh in 2020-2021 to 12.18 lakh in 2021-2022. However, the total number of students from primary to higher secondary increased by 19 lakh to 25.57 crore.
Also for the first time since the pandemic, the report records a decline in number of schools due to closures as well as a lack of teachers. There were 20,000 fewer schools in 2021-2022 as the total number of schools dropped from 15.09 lakh to 14.89 lakh.
There were also 1.89 lakh or 1.98% fewer teachers as their number reduced from 96.96 lakh in 2020-2021 to 95.07 lakh in 2021-2022.
Computer facilities were available in 44.75% of schools, while Internet access was available only in 33.9% of schools. However, their availability has improved as compared to pre-Covid when only 38.5% of schools had computers and 22.3% had Internet facilities.
News 2: Child Welfare Police Officers a must in all police stations
Background
The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked the States/Union Territories to appoint a Child Welfare Police Officer (CWPO) in every police station to exclusively deal with children, either as victims or perpetrators.
Child Welfare Police Officer and Special Juvenile Police Unit
Acting on an advisory issued by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, the Home Ministry referred to provisions under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which calls for designating at least one officer, not below the rank of an Assistant Sub-Inspector, as CWPO in every station.
In a note to all Directors-General of Police, the Home Ministry said the Commission had further requested that a Special Juvenile Police Unit in each district and city, which is headed by an officer not below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police, be established.
The unit would comprise CWPOs and two social workers having experience of working in the field of child welfare, of whom one shall be a woman, to co-ordinate all functions of police in relation to children.
National Commission for Protection of Child Rights
- The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is an Indian statutory body established by an Act of Parliament
- The Commission works under the aegis of Ministry of Women and Child Development, GoI
- The Commission became operational on 5 March 2007.
News 3: Amur falcons and Nagaland
Background
Nagaland is undertaking the first avian documentation exercise going beyond the Amur falcons, the migratory raptor that put the State on the world birding map.
Amur Falcon
Amur Falcons breed in eastern Siberia and in winter in southern Africa, often congregating in huge roosts on passage through India. They feed mainly on insects that they either catch on the wing or pick from the ground.
Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals/Bonn Convention
- CMS brings together the States through which migratory animals pass, the Range States, and lays the legal foundation for internationally coordinated conservation measures throughout a migratory range.
- As the only global convention specializing in the conservation of migratory species, their habitats and migration routes, CMS complements and co-operates with a number of other international organizations, NGOs and partners in the media as well as in the corporate sector.
- Migratory species threatened with extinction are listed on Appendix I of the Convention. CMS Parties strive towards strictly protecting these animals, conserving or restoring the places where they live, mitigating obstacles to migration and controlling other factors that might endanger them.
- Migratory species that need or would significantly benefit from international co-operation are listed in Appendix II of the Convention. For this reason, the Convention encourages the Range States to conclude global or regional agreements.
- In this respect, CMS acts as a framework Convention. The agreements may range from legally binding treaties (called Agreements) to less formal instruments, such as Memoranda of Understanding, and can be adapted to the requirements of particular regions.
Central Asian Flyway
Flyways are the geographical area used by a single or group of migratory birds during their annual cycle
The Central Asian Flyway (CAF) covers a large continental area of Eurasia between the Arctic and Indian Oceans and the associated island chains.
The Flyway comprises several important migration routes of waterbirds, most of which extend from the northernmost breeding grounds in the Russian Federation (Siberia) to the southernmost non-breeding (wintering) grounds in West and South Asia, the Maldives and the Indian Ocean Territory.
The birds on their annual migration cross the borders of several countries. Geographically the flyway region covers 30 countries of North, Central, South Asia and Trans-Caucasus.
How many flyways pass through the Indian sub-continent?
1) Central Asian Flyway (CAF)
- This migration route covers over 30 countries for different waterbirds.
- It connects their northernmost breeding grounds in Siberia, Russia to the southernmost non-breeding grounds in West and South Asia, the Maldives and British Indian Ocean Territory.
2) East Asian Australasian Flyway (EAAF)
- It extends from Arctic Russia and North America to the southern limits of Australia and New Zealand.
- It covers large areas of East Asia, all of Southeast Asia. Importantly, it includes eastern India as well as Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
- This flyway region covers 30 countries of North, Central and South Asia and Trans-Caucasus.
- It covers at least 279 populations of 182 migratory waterbird species, including 29 globally threatened and near-threatened species.
3) Asian East African Flyway (AEAF)
- It extends from Arctic Russia to South Africa and Madagascar in Africa.
- In the Indian subcontinent covers the area from west of Tibetan plateau and Himalayas including central Asia and West Asia. North-western India is also covered.
What is Raptor MoU?
Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey in Africa and Eurasia is also known as Raptor MoU. Raptors MoU is an agreement under CMS. India is a signatory to Raptor MoU but it is not legally binding.
News 4: RISAT-2 satellite makes re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere
Background
ISRO’s RISAT-2 satellite, launched in 2009, has made an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. RISAT-2 satellite, weighing about 300 kg, made an uncontrolled re-entry in the Indian Ocean near Jakarta on October 30.
RISAT-2
- RISAT-2 was launched by the PSLV-C12 launch vehicle 13 years ago.
- ISRO said that though the initial designed life of the satellite was four years, due to proper maintenance of orbit and mission planning by the spacecraft operations team in ISRO and by economical usage of fuel, RISAT-2 provided very useful payload data for 13 years.
- RISAT-2, or Radar Imaging Satellite-2 was an Indian radar imaging reconnaissance satellite that was part of India’s RISAT programme.
- It is India’s first dedicated reconnaissance satellite.
- It is designed to monitor India’s borders and as part of anti-infiltration and anti-terrorist operations.
News 5: Mauna Loa eruption
Background
The ground is shaking and swelling at Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, indicating that it could erupt.
Where is Mauna Loa?
Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that together make up the Big Island of Hawaii, which is the southernmost island in the Hawaiian archipelago.
It’s not the tallest (that title goes to Mauna Kea) but it’s the largest and makes up about half of the island’s land mass.
It sits immediately north of Kilauea volcano, which is currently erupting from its summit crater. Kilauea is well-known for a 2018 eruption that destroyed 700 homes and sent rivers of lava spreading across farms and into the ocean. Mauna Loa last erupted 38 years ago.
It’s about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Hawaii’s most populous island, Oahu, where the state capital Honolulu and beach resort Waikiki are both located.
Will Mauna Loa erupt like Kilauea?
Mauna Loa’s eruptions differ from Kilauea’s in part because it is taller. Its greater height gives it steeper slopes, which allow lava to rush down its hillsides faster than Kilauea’s. Its enormous size may allow it to store more magma, leading to larger lava flows when an eruption occurs.
Mauna Loa has a much larger magma reservoir than Kilauea, which may allow it to hold more lava and rest longer between eruptions than Kilauea.
Where will Mauna Loa erupt from?
Scientists won’t know until the eruption begins. Each eruption since 1843 started at the summit. Half the time, the volcano later also began erupting from vents at lower elevations.
The other half of the time it only erupted in the summit caldera. Scientists can’t tell far in advance when and where Mauna Loa will open new vents and erupt. Vents generally form along the volcano’s rift zone.
That’s where the mountain is splitting apart, the rock is cracked and relatively weak and it’s easier for magma to emerge. An eruption from vents on the southwest rift zone could hit residential communities, coffee farms or coastal villages on the west side of the island. Lava could reach homes in just hours or days.
It could take lava weeks or months to reach populated areas on this side of the mountain. Scott Rowland, a geologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said there’s no pattern when it comes to where an eruption will occur. “Just because the last one was on the northeast rift zone does not mean the next one will be down the southwest rift zone,” he said.
Will Mauna Loa explode like Mount St. Helens?
Fifty-seven people died when Washington state’s Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 and blasted more than 1,300 feet (400 meters) off the top of the mountain. Steam, rocks and volcanic gas burst upward and outward.
A plume of volcanic ash rose over 80,000 feet (24,384 meters) and rained down as far as 250 miles (400 kilometers) away. Hawaii volcanoes like Mauna Loa tend not to have explosion eruptions like this.
That’s because their magma is hotter, drier and more fluid, said Hannah Dietterich, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory. The magma in Mount St. Helens tends to be stickier and traps more gas, making it much more likely to explode when it rises.
The gas in the magma of Hawaii’s volcanoes tends to escape, and so lava flows down the side of their mountains when they erupt. Hawaii’s volcanoes are called shield volcanoes because successive lava flows over hundreds of thousands of years build broad mountains that resemble the shape of a warrior’s shield.
Shield volcanos are also found in California and Idaho as well as Iceland and the Galapagos Islands.
Volcanoes like Mount St. Helens are called composite or stratovolcanoes. Their steep, conical slopes are built by the eruption of viscous lava flows and rock, ash and gas. Japan’s Mount Fuji is another example of a composite volcano.
How do scientists monitor Mauna Loa?
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has more than 60 GPS stations on Mauna Loa taking measurements to estimate the location and the amount of magma accumulating beneath the surface. Scientists use tiltmeters to track long-term changes in the tilting of the ground, helping them identify when the ground is swelling or deflating.
A rapid change in tilt can indicate when an eruption will occur. There’s also a thermal webcam at Mauna Loa’s summit that will identify the presence of heat. And satellite radar can keep track of ground swelling and deflation.
Shield volcanoes
These are volcanoes shaped like a bowl or shield in the middle with long gentle slopes made by basaltic lava flows. These are formed by the eruption of low-viscosity lava that can flow a great distance from a vent.
They generally do not explode catastrophically. Since low-viscosity magma is typically low in silica, shield volcanoes are more common in oceanic than continental settings. The Hawaiian volcanic chain is a series of shield cones, and they are common in Iceland, as well.
Stratovolcano or Composite volcano
Composite volcanoes are steep-sided volcanoes composed of many layers of volcanic rocks, usually made from high-viscosity lava, ash and rock debris. These types of volcanoes are tall conical mountains composed of lava flows and other ejecta in alternate layers, the strata that give rise to the name.
Composite volcanoes are made of cinders, ash, and lava. Cinders and ash pile on top of each other, lava flows on top of the ash, where it cools and hardens, and then the process repeats.
Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’
The Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ or Pacific rim, or the Circum-Pacific Belt, is an area along the Pacific Ocean that is characterised by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
It is home to about 75 per cent of the world’s volcanoes – more than 450 volcanoes. Also, about 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur here.
Its length is over 40,000 kilometres and traces from New Zealand clockwise in an almost circular arc covering Tonga, Kermadec Islands, Indonesia, moving up to the Philippines, Japan, and stretching eastward to the Aleutian Islands, then southward along the western coast of North America and South America.
The area is along several tectonic plates including the Pacific plate, Philippine Plate, Juan de Fuca plate, Cocos plate, Nazca plate, and North American plate. The movement of these plates or tectonic activity makes the area witness abundant earthquakes and tsunamis every year.
Along much of the Ring of Fire, tectonic plates move towards each other creating subduction zones. One plate gets pushed down or is subducted by the other plate. This is a very slow process – a movement of just one or two inches per year. As this subduction happens, rocks melt, become magma and move to Earth’s surface and cause volcanic activity
News 6: Poppy cultivation and Afghanistan
Background
Driven by the demand for heroin and other opioids, mostly in the West, Afghanistan’s poppy farmers have figured out that in a broken country where there are no jobs, and the de facto government has no money, poppy guarantees survival.
Afghanistan’s illicit narcotics industry thrived under the puritanical first Taliban regime, it flourished — with some ups and downs mostly related to demand — through two decades of “democracy”, and it continues to do so under the new Taliban regime.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Report
The land under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2021 (October and November are the sowing season) increased by 32 per cent over the previous year.
The UNODC report says the 2021 harvest of 6,200 tonnes, 10 per cent less than in 2021, could be converted into 350-380 tonnes of export-quality heroin.
Eighty per cent of the world’s opiates come from Afghanistan.
With the Taliban back in power, Afghanistan’s situation is not very different from the 1990s. Still international outcasts and with no access to global funding, they are scrambling to raise money by levying taxes, as humanitarian aid keeps Afghanistan going.
Against this background, opiates are now “a crucial pillar of Afghanistan’s economy and permeate the rural society to the extent that many communities…have become dependent on the income from opium to sustain their livelihoods,” the UN report says.
The opiate economy, including local consumption and export, was valued at 9-14% per cent of the country’s GDP. With a shrinking GDP in 2022, it may now represent an even bigger share of the economy, the report says.
Regional concern
Russia and Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbours view drugs as a top concern, more perhaps than the threat of religious extremism, radicalisation, and terrorism. India has voiced concerns about it from time to time.
At the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation security meetings, the threat of terrorism and drug trafficking from Afghanistan are discussed as inter-related threats to regional and global security.
Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle
Golden Crescent
The Golden Crescent is the name given to one of Asia’s two principal areas of illicit opium production and this space covers the mountainous peripheries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, extending into eastern Iran.
Golden Triangle
The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Established: 1997
Headquarter: Vienna, Austria
The agency’s focus is the trafficking in and abuse of illicit drugs, crime prevention and criminal justice, international terrorism, and political corruption. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group.
Other important news
Bharat Stage Emission norms
These are the standards set up by the Indian government which specify the amount of air pollutants from internal combustion engines, including those that vehicles can emit. If these emit more pollutants than the prescribed limit, they don’t get a clearance to be sold in an open market.
Bharat Stage Emission Standards have been instituted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), instituted within the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change.
Vehicle emission norms were introduced in India in 1991 for petrol and in 1992 for diesel vehicles. Since 2000, Euro norms are followed in India under the name Bharat Stage Emission Standards for four wheeled vehicles. Bharat stage III norms have been enforced across India since October 2010.
Upgradation of emission norms
Upgrading the emission norms requires the manufacturing companies to upgrade their technology, which in turn increases the cost of the vehicle. Cost is one of the main reasons for the slow upgrade of emission standards.
However, there are also arguments that the increase in cost is made up by savings in health costs as the pollutants causing diseases are decreased with the upgrade in emission standards. Fuels also play a crucial role in meeting these emission norms. Fuel specifications have also been aligned to its corresponding European production norms.
Increasing tension in Korean Peninsula
Tensions escalated in the Korean peninsula as North Korea fired at least 20 missiles east and west of its southern neighbour, with one landing near South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the two countries were divided in 1953.
The escalation comes after North Korea warned against the recent joint military drills between the United States and South Korea, which it views as provocative and a rehearsal for an invasion.
The US and South Korea began their largest-ever joint drills on Monday, called Operation Vigilant Storm, during a period of national mourning in South Korea, following a deadly crowd surge in Seoul on Saturday in which over 150 people died.
Impact of US Federal Reserve rate hikes
Fed’s continuous rate hikes does not augur well for emerging markets including India. An increase in US interest rates results in an outflow of funds to US markets, putting their stock markets and currencies under pressure. Equity markets are likely to see increased volatility in the next few months.
RBI may not follow the Federal Reserve’s rate hike as it has to consider domestic factors, especially retail inflation, while reviewing the interest rates.
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
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.