Cabinet Decides to Strengthen NE Autonomous Councils

Cabinet has approved the amendment to Article 280 and the sixth schedule to the Constitution in order to increase powers of Autonomous Councils in Sixth Schedule areas of North East.

• The sixth schedule to the Constitution includes 10 autonomous district councils of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.

Approved Amendments

• Amendment in article 280 to mandate the Finance Commission to recommend devolution of financial resources. This will significantly improve the financial resources and powers of the autonomous districts councils.
• Transfer of additional 30 subjects, including departments of Public Works, Forests, Public Health Engineering, Health and Family Welfare, Urban Development and Food and Civil Supply to Karbi Anglong Autonomous Territorial Council and Dima Hasao Autonomous Territorial Council in Assam.
• Renaming of few existing autonomous councils as the present jurisdiction of these councils extend to more than one districts.
• Increase in seats in Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (from 30 to 50 seats), Dima Hasao Autonomous District Council (30 to 40 seats), Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (30 to 42), Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (30 to 40) and Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (30 to 34).
• Provide for elected village municipal councils which will be empowered to prepare plans for economic development and social justice, including those related to agriculture, land improvement, implementation of land reforms, minor irrigation, water management, animal husbandry, rural electrification, small scale industries and social forestry.
• Elections to these village and municipal councils will be conducted by the State Election Commission. There will be a provision for anti-defection too.
• Reservation of at least one-third of seats for women in the village and municipal councils in the sixth schedule areas of Assam, Mizoram and Tripura.
• At least two nominated members in all autonomous councils will be women.
• Meghalaya has for the time being kept out of the purview of the provision for elected village and municipal councils and one-third reservations for women.

Future of Work: ILO

Recently International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Global Commission on the Future of Work has published Future of work report 2019 titled " Work for a brighter future".

• The report calls on governments to take steps to address the challenges caused by unprecedented transformations going on in the world of work.

Key Findings

• According to ILO, Globally 190 million people are unemployed, while 300 million workers live in extreme poverty. At the same time wage gaps are growing at a time of declining wage growth.
• Technological advances – artificial intelligence, automation and robotics – will create new jobs, but those who lose their jobs in this transition may be the least equipped to seize the new opportunities.
• Adopting sustainable practices with clean technologies will create millions of jobs but other jobs will disappear as countries scale back their carbon- and resource-intensive industries.For example:
  • Implementing the Paris Climate Agenda could create 24 million new jobs, but it could still be brutal to the 6 million workers expected to lose their jobs in the transition to a greener economy.
• Changes in demographics are significant as expanding youth populations in some parts of the world and ageing populations in others may place pressure on labour markets and social security systems, yet in these shifts lie new possibilities to afford care and inclusive, active societies.
• The future of work requires a strong and responsive social protection system based on the principles of solidarity and risk sharing, which supports people’s needs over the life cycle
• There is an urgent need to seize the opportunities presented by these transformative changes to create a brighter future and deliver economic security, equal opportunity and social justice – and ultimately reinforce the fabric of our societies.

Recommendations

• A universal labour guarantee that protects fundamental workers' rights, an adequate living wage, limits on hours of work and safe and healthy workplaces.
• Guaranteed social protection from birth to old age that supports people's needs over the life cycle.
• A universal entitlement to lifelong learning that enables people to skill, reskill and upskill.
• Managing technological change to boost decent work, including an international governance system for digital labour platforms.
• Greater investments in the care, green and rural economies.
• Development of the rural economy, where the future of many the world’s workers lies, should become a priority.
• A transformative and measurable agenda for gender equality.
• Reshaping business incentives to encourage long-term investments.
• Place people at the centre of economic and social policy.
• International governance system be set up to police the gig economy, and ensure that ‘digital labour platforms’ such as Uber and Swiggy respect certain minimum rights and protections.

Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019: WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a list of “Ten threats to global health in 2019”.

Ten Threats and India

• Air pollution, climate change
  • Nine out of 10 people are breathing polluted air across the world.
  • India, with 18% of the world’s population, sees 26% of the global premature deaths and disease burden due to air pollution.
• Noncommunicable diseases
  • Noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, are collectively responsible for over 70% of all deaths worldwide, or 41 million people.
  • This includes 15 million people dying prematurely, aged between 30 and 69.
  • India has been named as the “diabetes capital of the world”. India’s current estimated cancer burden — over 1.5 million new cases — is predicted to nearly double in coming 20 years.
• Global influenza pandemic
  • WHO has said that the world may face another influenza pandemic. But, the only thing we don’t know is when it will hit and how severe it will be.
  • Until January 13, 1,694 cases of swine flu had been reported in India this year, with 49 deaths. In 2018, 14,992 cases and 1,103 deaths were reported countrywide.
• Fragile, vulnerable settings
  • More than 1.6 billion people (22% of the global population) live in places where challenges such as drought, famine, conflict, and population displacement and weak health services have left them without access to basic care.
  • The massive distress in India’s farm sector has engendered waves of internal migration for work. This migrant population often live in unhygienic conditions with very little access to basic care.
  • Natural calamities routinely bring health crises like the Kerala floods last year were followed by a leptospirosis outbreak.
• Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
  • The ability of bacteria, parasites, viruses, and fungi to resist antibiotics threatens our ability to fight with them.
  • Drug resistance is driven by the overuse of antimicrobials in people and in animals, especially those used for food production, as well as in the environment.
  • AMR is also a result of the rampant over-the-counter sale of medications without the prescription of a registered medical practitioner.
  • India, China, and the Russian Federation accounted for 47% of the global incidence of MDR-TB (Multidrug-Resistant- Tuberculosis) in 2016. India has an AMR policy but the implementation is poor.
• Weak primary healthcare
  • Primary health care is usually the first point of contact people have with their health care system, and ideally should provide comprehensive, affordable, community-based care throughout life.
  • Many countries do not have adequate primary health care facilities. This neglect may be due to a lack of resources in low- or middle-income countries and possibly also due to focus on single disease programmes in the past few decades.
  • In India, the primary care arm of Ayushman Bharat, with a proposed 1,53,000 health and wellness centers, has received less attention than Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana(i.e. The insurance aspect of Ayushman Bharat).
  • Rural health statistics for 2017, in India, show around 8,000 posts of doctors in primary health centers are vacant (against a requirement of almost 27,000), and almost 2000 of the total 25,000 Primary Health Centres’ have no doctors at all.
• Vaccine hesitancy
  • Vaccine hesitancy – the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines – threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases.
  • Vaccination prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations is improved.
• Dengue
  • Dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that causes flu-like symptoms and is lethal and kills up to 20% of those with severe dengue.
  • WHO estimates 40% of the world is at risk of dengue, with around 390 million infections annually.
  • Dengue is endemic to India and its season is lengthening significantly. Until November 25, 2018, India saw 89,974 dengue cases and 144 deaths.
• HIV
  • According to the WHO, nearly a million people every year die due to HIV/AIDS. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 70 million people have acquired the infection, and about 35 million people have died. Today, around 37 million worldwide live with HIV.
  • India has launched a test and treat policy, made HIV treatment the right of every individual. India has also enacted the HIV/AIDS Act, 2018 which makes anti-retroviral therapy a legal right for Indians with HIV/AIDS.
• Ebola, other high threat pathogens
  • WHO’s identifies diseases and pathogens that have the potential to cause a public health emergency but lack effective treatments and vaccines.
  • This list includes Ebola, Zika, Nipah, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and disease X, which represents the need to prepare for an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious epidemic.
  • While India saw no case of Ebola, but several Indian states battled Zika in October-November 2018, and at least 17 people died of Nipah infection Kerala over April and May.

World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2019: UN

According to the UN's World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2019, India will continue to remain the world's fastest-growing large economy in 2019 as well as in 2020.

Findings

India

• India's economy is expected to grow at 7.4% during 2018-19, 7.6% in 2019-20, and 7.4% in 2020-21.
  • The reasons for high growth projections are robust private consumption, a more expansionary fiscal stance and benefits from previous reforms.
  • However, for a sustained and a more robust growth, sustained recovery of private investment remains a crucial challenge.
• Other major challenge is the job creation rates in the formal sector, leaving many workers underemployed or in low-salary jobs. Strengthening labour market indicators is a crucial aspect to forge a more inclusive development trajectory.
• Female labour force participation remains low and is declining.
• Earlier, International Monetary Fund (IMF) too had projected India’s GDP to expand 7.5% in FY20 and 7.7% in FY21.

Global

• Global growth is expected to remain at 3% in 2019 and 2020.
• The global economy is facing number of risks, which include an escalation of trade disputes, an abrupt tightening of global financial conditions, and intensifying climate risks.

National Bench of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT)

The union cabinet has approved the creation of National Bench of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT).

• The National Bench of the Appellate Tribunal will be situated at New Delhi.
• GSTAT will be presided over by the President and will consist of one Technical Member (Centre) and one Technical Member (State).
• Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal is the form of the second appeal in GST laws and the first common forum of dispute resolution between Centre and States.
• The appeals against the orders in first appeals issued by the Appellate Authorities under the Central GST (CGST) and State GST (SGST) Acts lie before the GST Appellate Tribunal.
• CGST Act provides for the Appeal and Review Mechanism for dispute resolution under the GST Regime.
• The act empowers the Central Government to constitute, by notification, an Appellate Tribunal known as the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal for hearing appeals against the orders passed by the Appellate Authority.

Benefits

• A unified GST Appellate Tribunal will decide on cases where there are divergent orders at the state level to ensure that there is uniformity in redressal of disputes arising under GST, and therefore, in the implementation of GST across the country.
• The dispute resolution forum is extremely crucial as conflicts arise between several states among themselves and with the central government over indirect tax revenues.

Important Facts for Prelims (24th January 2019)

ROSHNI

• It is an app to help visually impaired, to differentiate between new post demonetization currencies of India.
• It is developed by IIT Ropar, Punjab.
• Earlier the visually impaired persons differentiated the currencies based on the length and width of the note, but after demonetization it became very difficult for them to identify the denomination, due to similarity in the sizes of new and old notes.
• The user has to bring the currency note in front of phone camera and the App would provide audio notification intimating the currency note denomination to the user.
• It is the first Android App and it works well in broad range of light conditions and holding angles.
• The Seeing AI App by Microsoft is the only other App that facilitates recognition of both old and new Indian currency notes, but it is an iOS (iPhone OS) App and not available for visually impaired.

Two Rhinos in Kaziranga Find a New Home

• Recently, two rhinos translocated to Manas National Parkfrom Kaziranga.
• The augmentation of Rhinos is part of the initiative “Bring Back Manas", a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Rescued calves were raised at Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) at Kaziranga.
• Both have been radio-collared so that their movement in the wild is monitored.
• Until now more than 50 calves stranded in the wild at Kaziranga National Park for various reasons, in most cases due to floods, have been rescued.
• Kaziranga National Park has over 2,200 one horned Rhinos and, there is a need for more national tiger reserve to have good population of Rhinos, to maintain the food chain and ecosystem.
• Along the terai arc. Manas National Park, Jaldapara National Park has about 50 rhinos and Dudhwa Tiger Reserve over 30 Rhinos.

Indian Africa Field Training Exercise 

• Indian Africa Field Training Exercise (IAFTX) is scheduled to be conducted in Pune from 18 March to 27 March 2019.
• It aims at synergysing humanitarian mine action, joint peace operations and to boost strategic and military cooperation, between African countries and India.

Global Talent Competitive Index-2019

• India secures 80^th rank on the Global Talent Competitive Index.
• It measures the ability of countries to compete for talent.
• It is released by INSEAD business school in partnership with Tata Communications and Adecco Group.
• Its theme is "Entrepreneurial Talent and Global Competitiveness".
• This Index takes into account variables such as ease of hiring, gender earnings gap, and prevalence of training in firms.
• India's biggest challenge is to improve its ability to attract and retain talent.
• India needs to address its poor level of Internal Openness in particular with respect to weak gender equality and low tolerances towards minorities and immigrant.