Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 09 September 2020

::NATIONAL::

NSO report finds inadequate vaccination to 40% of children

Although almost all children in India are vaccinated against tuberculosis, and receive their birth dose of polio vaccine, two out of five children do not complete their immunisation programme, according to the ‘Health in India’ report recently published by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO).
Most of these children remain unprotected against measles, and partially protected against a range of other diseases.
In the national capital, less than half of all children have been given all eight required vaccines.The report is based on the 75th round of the National Sample Survey (July 2017-June 2018) on household social consumption related to health.
Across the country, only 59.2% of children under five years are fully immunised, according to the NSO report. This contradicts the Centre’s Health Management Information System portal data, which claimed that full immunisation coverage for 2017-18 stood at 86.7%.
About 97% of children across the country received at least one vaccination — mostly BCG and/or the first dose of OPV at birth — a statistic that remains steady across income groups and geographies. However, only 67% of children are protected against measles.
Among States, Manipur (75%), Andhra Pradesh (73.6%) and Mizoram (73.4%) recorded the highest rates of full immunisation. At the other end of the spectrum lies Nagaland, where only 12% of children received all vaccinations, followed by Puducherry (34%) and Tripura (39.6%).

SC asks centre to make up for loss of green cover in Char Dham project

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Centre to adhere to a Union Road Ministry circular of March 2018, which had advised against building full-fledged roads cutting across the fragile Himalayan slopes, while implementing the ₹12,000-crore ambitious Char Dham project for better connectivity to pilgrimage centres in Uttarakhand.
The project had proposed the widening of single-lane roads into double-lanes by up to 10 metres, developing the highways and thereby improving access to the Char Dham (four shrines) — Yamunotri, Gangotri, Badrinath and KedarNath.
Environmentalist groups, led by the Dehradun-based Citizens for Green Doon, had moved the apex court after they failed in the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
The petitioners had contended that the project was proceeding without environmental clearances and the debris was being disposed haphazardly. Earlier, the NGT had found no need for an environmental clearance.

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::ECONOMY::

CARE ratings moots rural spending to overtake urban in mid term

Higher demand across rural India which is being seen as the only silver lining for economic growth over the next two-three quarters, has led packaged consumer goods companies to accelerate spends on hinterlands, with rural spending on distribution outreach, consumer promotions and products overtaking that of urban spends this year.
“Favourable monsoon, record kharif crop sowing and high reservoir levels would spur rural incomes that could push up demand at the onset of the festive quarter; this would be a silver lining for economic growth as other sectors have seen more adverse impact of the pandemic,” CARE said.
The report said the agriculture sector contributes nearly 15% of India’s GDP, and that the economy is banking on the farm sector to grow by 3.5-4% across all quarters to prop up GDP growth.
Companies are also pinning hopes on the rural bounce back fuelled by higher farm incomes, good monsoons, government stimulus and reduced impact of lockdowns, because macro indicators of overall economic revival in the immediate term remain challenging.
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted by a massive 23.9% in the first quarter of current fiscal. Fitch said India recorded one of the sharpest GDP contractions in the world in the April-June quarter.

PSU’S to join ISA coalition on sustainable action climate

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister DharmendraPradahan today said that five Public Sector Undertakings under his Ministry will be joining International Solar Alliance (ISA) Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) as Corporate Partners.
He said, Indian Oil and Gas companies are actively taking part in this clean energy transition. He said, in order to reduce carbon footprint, these companies will be focusing more on green energy investments such as renewables and biofuels.
He said, the government is also actively encouraging industry as well as Oil and Gas companies to become participants in this solar transition. On the achievements made in the sector so far, the Minister said that our oil and gas companies are also making efforts to deploy solar panels across the value chain of their operations, and current installed solar power capacity is 270 Mega Watt.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Bangladesh asks facebook to abide by its rules and regulations

The Government of Bangladesh has asked Facebook to abide by the rules and regulations of the country in matters relating to both revenue and content.
In a virtual meeting with Facebook officials at its regional Headquarters in Singapore on Monday, Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar asked Facebook to comply with all the relevant laws and regulations of Bangladesh including the Digital Security Act.
The Minister also asked the company to appoint resellers and representatives to pay taxes to the government for its operations in Bangladesh.
Mustafa Jabbar reminded Facebook that it has the responsibility not to allow content that is against the socio-cultural values of Bangladesh or promotes communal disharmony, pornography, rumour or terrorist activities in the country.
Facebook officials assured the government that they will comply with the relevant rules and regulations of the country. It informed that it has appointed a Bangladeshi person Sabnaj Rashid Dia as Bangladesh Affairs Officer of Facebook in the country for speedy resolution of issues.
Srilanka reports diesel patch behind burning bunker
The Sri Lankan Navy on Tuesday reported a ‘diesel patch’ behind oil tanker MT New Diamond, which recently went ablaze drifting off Sri Lanka’s south eastern coast.
Form the time the large vessel carrying 2,70,000 tonnes of crude oil — from Kuwait to Odisha — went up in flames on Thursday, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard personnel, along with the Sri Lankan Navy, have been fire-fighting to douse the flames. “The flames are under control,” Captain de Silva told The Hindu.
India on Tuesday sent fresh supplies of chemicals to help battle a new blaze spotted on Monday night, a press statement from the Indian Coast Guard said.
According to the Sri Lankan Navy, the fire-fighting teams have, over the past few days, continued to spray a large volume of sea water to extinguish the fire onboard.As a result, the engine room of the ship was flooded with sea water, making it lying in a position called ‘trim by aft’.

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::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

China successfully launches experimental reusable spacecraft

An experimental reusable spacecraft launched into orbit two days ago by China has successfully returned to a designated site on Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The successful experiment marks an important breakthrough in China's technology to reuse spacecraft, which would provide the country more convenient and cheaper space round-trips for it to use the space in a peaceful way, Xinhua said.
Three years ago, China said it would launch a spacecraft in 2020 that can fly like an aircraft and would be reusable, increasing the frequency of launches and lowering mission costs.
It is not known if the experimental spacecraft launched by China was a fixed-wing craft like the U.S. Space Shuttle. If it was similar to the X-37B, it would be about a fifth of the Space Shuttle in size.

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::SPORTS::

India extends contract of foreign coaches eyeing 2024 Olympics

The Sports Ministry has extended the contract of 9 foreign coaches and support personnel, including High Performance Director of athletics with an eye on the 2024 Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games 2022.
In July this year, the Sports Ministry had decided to draw up extended contracts for foreign and Indian coaches in sync with the Olympic cycle.
This decision was taken by the Ministry with a focus on the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, and to ensure Olympic-bound athletes are able to train consistently and in continuity with one coach and improve their performance as per the international standards.

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