Comprehensive Current affairs 15 October 2020

India sets up Panel of Secretaries to streamline telecom spectrum allocation.

The Government of India formed a Panel of Secretaries under cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba to streamline the spectrum allocation process and examine it.

• The Panel has been constituted to streamline the allocation of spectrum. It will analyse the potential of drawing up an annual calendar for the public sale of airwaves that may give telcos a transparent street map of the quantum in addition to the frequency of spectrum on supply for industrial use.

• Besides cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, the Panel also constitutes the secretaries of house, defence, railways, telecom, I&B and division of the house. The first meeting of the newly constituted panel was held on 12 October, 2020.

• The immediate and initial task for the panel is to resolve a tussle between the telecom department and Department of Space on 5G spectrum in the 26 GHz band. The DoS has chunks of these coveted airwaves but the department is refusing to part with it. The DoT and the telcos are in need of the super-efficient millimetre waves for commercial use, given that the global 5G ecosystem is rapidly developing around this band. If access to these airwaves is denied, 5G network deployment costs would reach high.

The spectrum trade at the moment has a debt of over Rs. 8.55 lakh crore together with these associated to authorities dues on airwave purchases. It has spent an amount of Rs.2.51 lakh crore on shopping for spectrum within the six auctions since 2010. The discussions about this will happen when the federal government plans to carry a 4G airwaves sale early subsequent 12 months. The final sale happened in October 2016.

Uttarakhand to Start Plantation Drive to Clear Compensatory Afforestation Backlog in other states.

Uttarakhand Forest Department is to set up a plantation drive in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan to clear the backlog for compensatory afforestation over the following two years. The Compensatory afforestation is done against the transfer of forest land for non-forestry purposes.

• In compensatory plantation, 1,100 vegetation are planted over an area of one hectare.

• Compensatory afforestation is done against the transfer of forest land for non-forestry purposes. Non-forestry purposes done in the transfer of forest includes mining, construction of dams etc.,

• The report of the Uttarakhand Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) steering committee made the state government have done afforestation on the 24,908 hectare land as of now.

• CAMPA has set a target of afforestation on 33,944 hectare.

•Uttarakhand is facing a shortage of 5,535 hectares of land for the plantation drive. To overcome the shortage, the CAMPA steering committee came up with a proposal for a plantation drive in other states. However, for implementing the proposal of the department, the Uttarakhand government will require to bring about a report on availability or unavailability of the land within

the state. So, The District authorities of Uttarakhand have also been asked to create land banks for compensatory afforestation.

E- Sanjeevani Initiative records 5 lakh teleconsultations.

Union Health Ministry’s E- Sanjeevani Initiative recently recorded 5 lakh teleconsultations. The initiative recorded one lakh consultations in just 17 days.

• Top 3 states with highest teleconsultations include Tamil Nadu (1,69,977) Uttar Pradesh (1,34,992) and Himachal Pradesh (39,326).

• Presently, 26 states are using two versions of eSanjeevani’s telemedicine namely, eSanjeevani OPD (Patient-to-Doctor) and e-Sanjeevani AB-HWC (Doctor-to-Doctor)

• As per the government report, 20% of the patients have used e-Sanjeevani services for consultation more than once.

• Currently, eSanjeevani AB-HWC is functional at 4,000 Health and Wellness Centres in our country.

About e-Sanjeevani:

e-Sanjeevani OPD was launched on April 13, 2020, and e-Sanjeevani AB-HWC was launched in November 2019. E-Sanjeevani was launched by the Health Ministry in November 2019. It is a national telemedicine service that offers teleconsultations enabling patient to doctor consultations from their home.This e-Sanjeevani platform has launched two types of telemedicine services that is Doctor-to-Doctor and Patient-to-Doctor Tele-consultations. The telemedicine platform is hosting various OPDs, which include Gynaecology, ENT, Ophthalmology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the AIDS/HIV patients, Non-Communicable Disease etc.

 

 FATFs Asia Pacific Group marks Pakistan on Enhanced Follow-up List.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Asia Pacific group has kept Pakistan in its ‘Enhanced Follow Up’ list. The organisation had downgraded Pakistan status from “regular follow-up”.

• The Asia-pacific group of FATF submitted the report called “Follow up report on the mutual evaluation of Pakistan”.

• The report states that the progress of Pakistan to combat the Financing of terror system and anti-money laundering made by the FATF has remained the same in 2020 as compared to that of 2019.

• Enhanced follow up status means the country needs to provide reports on monthly basis compliance to the Financial Action Task Force.

• Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) report also showed the gaps in the process of developing and identifying vulnerabilities, threats and risks.

• After the publication of a National Risk Assessment (NRA) 2017, on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing by Pakistan, The MER report came.

• The MER highlighted that 2017 NRA had not been circulated to private sector stakeholders and they were not yet subjected to the comprehensive Anti-money Laundering and Terrorist Financing measures.

•Pakistan has made significant progress to implement the FATF’s plan of action after the publication of the earlier report. Pakistan is unlikely to be placed in the FATF’s blacklist. Pakistan was under the FATF grey list in the year 2019. After that, Pakistan passed three bills to combat the terrorism and money laundering - Anti-terrorism act (Amendment) Bill 2020, Anti-money laundering (Amendment) Bill and Islamabad capital territory Waqf properties Bill, 2020.

Fifth Meeting of India-Mexico Bilateral High Level Group on Trade, Investment and Cooperation Held.

 The fifth meeting of India and Mexico Bilateral High-Level Group on Trade, Investment and Cooperation was held through video conferencing on 9th October 2020. In this meeting both the countries reviewed their bilateral trade, investment and commercial relations.

• The official discussed several topics including the Bilateral investment treaty, Cooperation Framework on phytosanitary and sanitary products, Audiovisual co-production, Technical barriers to trade, Market access for Agricultural Products, Cooperation in intellectual property rights and Promotion of tourism and the improvisation of people to people contact.

• They also reaffirmed to diversify their bilateral relationship in the trade of Pharmaceuticals, Medical equipment, Healthcare, Agro products, Fisheries, Food processing industries and Aerospace.

• Both the Countries signed the following MOUs between Mexican Chamber of Electronics telecommunication & information Technologies (CANITEI), Electronics & Computer software export Promotion Council of India (ESC), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & industry (FICCI), Mexican Business Council of foreign trade investment & Technology (COMCE), Export of products from India to Mexico in sectores like jewellery, gems, Textiles, leather and software and Import of products to India from Mexico like machinery, fertilizers, petroleum and Chemicals.

Focus on Civil Services Mains:

Corporatization of Ordnance Factory Board.

The Centre’s move to corporatize the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has been strongly opposed by the trade unions.

OFB is an umbrella body for the ordnance factories and related institutions, and is currently a subordinate office of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The first Indian ordnance factory was set up in the year 1712 by the Dutch Company as a GunPowder Factory, West Bengal.

 It is a conglomerate of 41 factories, 9 training Institutes, 3 regional marketing centres and 5 regional controllers of safety.

Headquarters: Kolkata

Significance: A major chunk of the weapon, ammunition and supplies for not just armed forces but also paramilitary and p744olice forces comes from the OFB-run factories.

Production includes: Civilian and military-grade arms and ammunition, explosives, propellants and chemicals for missile systems, military vehicles, armoured vehicles, optical devices, parachutes, support equipment, troop clothing and general store items.

Corporatization:

In September 2020, an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) for Corporatization was constituted under the chairmanship of the Defence Minister.

Aim:

To oversee and guide the entire process, including transition support and redeployment plan of employees while safeguarding their wages and retirement benefits.

The corporatization will result in the conversion of the OFB into (single or multiple) fully (100%) government-owned entities under the Companies Act, 2013 like other public sector undertakings.

Reasons for Corporatization:

A performance evaluation by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report for 2019 on the OFB highlights a few of the lacunae, which ails this organisation.

Overheads (expenses not directly attributed to creating a product or service) constitute a staggering 33% of the overall allotted budget for the year.

The major contributors being supervision costs and indirect labour costs.

 Delayed Production: The Ordnance factories achieved production targets for only 49% of the items.

More than half the inventory (52%) was store-in-hand, procured for manufacture but not used within the year by the factories.

The Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, also calls for the Corporatisation of OFB for: ‘improving autonomy, accountability and efficiency in ordnance suppliers’.

Apprehensions:

One of the main apprehensions of the employees is that corporatisation (ownership and management lies with the government) would eventually lead to privatisation (transfer of ownership and management rights to the private player).

The new corporate entities would not be able to survive the unique market environment of defence products that has very unstable demand and supply dynamics.

Restructuring will result in greater autonomy and lesser government control over the corporation but there is a fear of job loss.

Way Forward

The corporatisation of OFB is likely to transform ordnance factories into a modernised, state of the art facility with flexible and better decision making in its functioning.

Currently the MoD has deferred the ongoing process till the talks with the unions protesting, reach to a meaningful conclusion. This is a welcome step.

The broader consultation, on all the major concerns, is essential for sensitive issues like corporatization. Here, the need is to have a reflective road-map for the plan. This can help to ease the apprehensions regarding the corporatization.

 Aquaponics Facility.

A pilot ‘Aquaponics facility’ has been developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mohali at Guru Angad Dev Veterinary University (GADVASU), Ludhiana.

State-of-the-art facility: It is equipped with advanced sensors for monitoring and automated controls of the farming system.

The supercomputing power being provided by C-DAC in developing agriculture technology.

Funding Support was provided by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity).

Other Features:

The facility is nearly 100% organic.

Needs much less land for a given yield of crop.

Consumes 90% less water.

The fish and plants grown together are more nutritious.

Significance:

Demand for fishes and crops (lettuce, spinach, capsicum, coriander, broccoli and some other leafy plants) is increasing rapidly in urban areas.

The aspirational rural youth will be drawn into the mainstream with help of this technology and agri-economy will get a boost.

This technique will help the farmer in increasing the productivity of his land.

Also augment farmer’s income especially in non-coastal areas.

Aquaponics is a system that combines hydroponics, soil-less agriculture, and aquaculture within a closed system.

 Hydroponics: It is a method of growing plants in a water-based, nutrient-rich solution.

Hydroponics does not use soil, instead, the root system is supported using an inert medium such as clay pellets.

The basic premise behind hydroponics is to allow the plant’s roots to come in direct contact with the nutrient solution, while also having access to oxygen, which is essential for proper growth.

Aquaculture: Breeding, raising, and harvesting fish, and aquatic plants.

There are three biological components in the aquaponics process: fish, plants, and bacteria (for cycling of nutrients- ammonia to nitrate conversion).

Process:

With aquaponics, the farmer combines the aquaculture with hydroponic vegetables – the fish waste provides fertilizer for growing plants.

The plants absorb nutrients and filter the water. This filtered water is used to replenish the fish tank. This is an environment friendly technique.

The result is value-added, local production of both fish and vegetables together, using the same water.

Benefits:

Extremely water efficient.

Does not require soil.

Does not use fertilizers or chemical pesticides.

Prevents aquaculture waste from polluting nearby watersheds.

Higher control on production leading to lower losses.

Can be used on non-arable lands such as deserts, degraded soil or salty, sandy islands.

 While the creation of an aquaponics system may require a large initial investment, once it has been built it only incurs low recurring costs.

In addition, aquaponics can offer quality-of-life improvements because the food is produced locally using comparatively simple harvest methods and culturally appropriate crops can be grown.

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.

C-DAC is the premier Research & Development organization of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) for carrying out R&D in IT, Electronics and associated areas.

India's first supercomputer PARAM 8000 was indigenously built (in 1991) by the C-DAC.

Various activities of C-DAC in the area of agriculture:

Electronic Nose and Vision (ENOVISION) system for measuring quality parameters of tea and rice.

This work is being extended to other products such as chilli, turmeric and to environmental engineering.

C-DAC has also developed Wireless Data Logger used for determining the fitness of perishable agricultural items.

Ubiquitous Agriculture (u-Agri): An Internet of Things (IoT) based system for acquiring micro-climate information from agricultural fields and providing personalized and localized advisories on Pest and Disease Forewarning and Irrigation Scheduling, to farmers.

World Mental Health Day 2020.

World Mental Health Day is observed on 10th October every year, with the overall objective of raising awareness of mental health issues around the world and mobilising efforts in support of mental health.

• Theme: Mental Health for All, Greater Investment – Greater Access

The Big Event for Mental Health: It is the first ever global online advocacy event on mental health, hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the day.

•Impact of Covid-19 on Mental Health: Surveys have indicated that the pandemic is increasing mental health problems.

Half the respondents from seven countries in a survey by non-profit International Society for the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement reported negative effects on mental health. Practo, an integrated health care company, reported a 665% jump in the number of mental health consultations.

More than two-thirds of the queries were from those aged 21-40.

Anxiety, stress and panic attacks were the most commonly discussed topics.

In the United States, more than 90% of respondents to a survey of Harvard Medical School reported increased worry, frustration, boredom or anxiety.

The global economic cost of mental illness is expected to be more than USD 16 trillion over the next 20 years, which is more than the cost of any other non-communicable disease.

More Vulnerable: People in younger age, female gender and those with comorbidities reported more psychological impact.

Causes:

Related to Pandemic: The pandemic has increased isolation and loss of income which are well known triggers of mental health conditions.

The disease itself has been reported to lead to neurological and mental complications such as delirium, agitation and stroke.

The Covid-19 has disrupted or halted mental health services in 93% of the countries.

Funding and aid: Lack of funding for huge challenges posed by pandemic and mental health issues.

 The World Health Organisation (WHO) pointed out that countries are spending less than 2% of their health budget on mental health.

Only around 1% of the international aid available for health is earmarked for mental health.

Indian Scenario:

A report published in The Lancet Psychiatry in February 2020 indicates that in 2017, there were 197.3 million people with mental disorders in India.

The top mental illnesses were depressive disorder (45.7 million) and anxiety disorder (44.9 million).

The contribution of mental disorders to the total DALYs in India increased from 2.5% in 1990 to 4.7% in 2017.

Depressive disorder and anxiety disorder contributed the most to the total mental disorders DALYs.

Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs): The burden of disability associated with a disease or disorder can be measured in units called disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

DALYs represent the total number of years lost to illness, disability, or premature death within a given population.

Budgetary Spending: The year 2020 began with a reduction of budget allocation for mental health in India.

India’s healthcare budget in 2018 was Rs. 52,800 crore, of which Rs. 50 crore was for mental health and that was reduced to Rs 40 crore the following year.

India is barely spending 0.5% of the health budget on this sector.

Initiatives: The Mental Health Care Act (MHCA) 2017 came into force in 2018 to meet the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which India ratified in 2007.

 KIRAN:

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has launched a 24/7 toll-free helpline to provide support to people facing anxiety, stress, depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health concerns. Manodarpan Initiative: It is an initiative of the Ministry of Education under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

It is aimed to provide psychosocial support to students, family members and teachers for their mental health and well-being during the times of Covid-19.

Mental Health Care Act, 2017

Right to make an Advance Directive, wherein patients can state on how to be treated or not to be treated for the illness during a mental health situation.

Right to appoint a Nominated Representative: A person shall have the right to appoint a nominated representative to take on his/her behalf, all health related decisions like:

Right to access mental health care,

Right to free & quality services,

Right to get free medicines,

Right to community living,

Right to protection from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,

Right to live in an environment, safe and hygienic, having basic amenities,

Right to legal aid, and No Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) without anesthesia.

This act brought changes in Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code (which criminalized attempted suicide). The attempt to commit suicide is punishable only as an exception.

 Way Forward

Increasing the number of psychologists and psychiatrists alone won’t help. Stigma and awareness are two separate issues although interlinked. They need to be addressed in parallel in order to tackle the burden of mental illness.

Community Partnership: By forming self-help groups of carers families along with NGO’s which brings community participation and helps reduce the social stigma associated with mental illness.

Increase Resources:

Increasing mental healthcare facilities and related infrastructure through more resource allocation in the budget.

Adequate Mental healthcare professional availability.

Empathetic Service delivery: Delivery of services should be sensitive, compassionate and free from stigma and discrimination in public healthcare institutions.