In News: The Ministry of Road Transport And Highways has recently reported that the number of road accidents has considerably declined in 2020 compared to the 2018 figures.

About the News:

• The Ministry has noted that the number of road accidents, deaths, and people injured has declined from 2018 to 2020.
• The fall has been particularly sharp from 4.5 lakh accidents (1.5 lakh deaths) in 2019 to 3.5 lakh accidents (1.3 lakh deaths) in 2020.
• The Ministry provided information on various facets of road accidents in the country during the calendar year 2020 through its ‘Road accidents in India-2020’

Key Highlights of the Report:

• There were a total of 1,31,714 deaths due to road accidents in India, where:
  1. Speedingaccounted for 3% of deaths.
  2. Non-wearing of helmetsresulted in 1% of deaths and
  3. Non-use of seatbeltscaused 5% of deaths.

• Road Traffic Injuries are the eighth leading cause of deathglobally for all ages and the first cause in the 5-29 years age group.
• India accounts for almost 10% of all crash-related deathswhile accounting for only 1% of the world’s vehicles.
• Tamil Nadu had the highest number of road accidents in 2020, while Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of deaths as a result of such accidents.
• Interventions focusing on four key risk factors such asspeeding, drunk driving, and non-use of crash helmets and seatbelts could prevent 25% to 40% of 13.5 lakh fatal road injuries worldwide every year.

Other Observation:

• The number of road accidents has been on a decline since 2016 except for a marginal increase of 0.46% in 2018. 
• For the second consecutive year, the total number of road accident fatalities and the persons injured have declined in 2020 compared to 2015.

• For the third consecutive year in 2020, the fatal road accident victims largely constitute young people in the productive age groups.
  • Young adults aged 18 - 45 years accounted for 69% of victims in 2020.
  • People in the working age group of 18-60 years share 87.4% of total road accident fatalities.
• There has also been a decline in the number of fatal accidents, i.e., accidents involving at least one death compared to the 2019 figures.
• Interestingly, in 2020, National Highways, State Highways and Other Roads reported a smaller number of accidents, fatalities, and injuries as compared to the previous year.
• The Major States that significantly reduced road accidents in 2020 are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka and the major States that achieved a significant reduction in road accident fatalities in 2020 are Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.

Source:

• Telling Numbers: Decline in road accidents and deaths since 2018
• Deaths due to road accidents decreased 13% on year in 2020: Govt

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• Telling Numbers: Decline in road accidents and deaths since 2018

In news

The National Education Policy, which was launched in 2020 has completed two years recently. On this occasion, the Central Government has launched a slew of initiatives in the education and skill sectors.

Initiatives Launched:

• Establishment of Indian Knowledge System (IKS)- Ministry of Education Innovation Cell (MIC) for technology demonstration.
• Introduce 75 Bharateeya games in schools.
• Kalashala initiative in 750 schools to promote and support local arts.
• Skill India partnership with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for a three- years degree programme and help students to attain more livelihood opportunities.

• Vidya Amrit Portal to scale up micro-improvements taking place in school education.
• 750 virtual labs in science and mathematics and 75 skilling e-labs for simulated learning environments will be set up in 2022-23.
• National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA) to prepare an initial cadre of high-quality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Teachers in Anganwadis.
• School Innovation Policy to promote creativity, innovation, problem-solving and entrepreneurship skills of students.
• Higher education portal for students in rural areas to bridge the digital divide.

About NEP

• NEP 2020 is the first educational policy of the 21st century, built on the foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability.
• The policy is aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and aims to transform India into a vibrant knowledge society and global knowledge superpower, by making both school and college education more holistic, flexible, and multidisciplinary.

• It will be suited to the 21st century needs and aimed at bringing out the unique capabilities of each student.

Achievements of Policy

• Since its implementation, 28 states and six union territories (UTs), 2,774 Innovative Councils at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been formed.
• With HEIs and 69.1 lakh students, a single national online internship platform has been formed under the NEP.
• Further, nine lakh people would benefit with the help of the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) 
• Also, over 153 universities have adopted Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) courses.
• Twelve NISHTHA teacher training modules on the pedagogy and implementation of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy are being imbibed by over 2.5 million teachers through the DIKSHA online platform.
• To ensure equity in prior learning, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has designed a special 90-day School Preparation Module (SPM) for all grade 1 entrants, entitled, Vidya Pravesh      

Source:

• NEP 2020 two years celebration Updates: 200 virtual labs, Vidya Amrit Portal among newly launched initiatives
• Union Home & Cooperation Minister Shri Amit Shah launches education and skill development-related initiatives to mark two years of the launch of the National Education Policy

Image source:

• National Education Policy 2020: All You Need to Know

In News:

A recent analysis of India’s employment trend has showcased India’s unique job crisis.

About the News:

• The analysis has noted that there are fewer people currently employed in agriculture, but the transformation has been weak.
• Those moving out of farms are found working more in construction sites and the informal economy than in factories.

Highlights of India’s Employment Trends:

• India’s working population engaged in farming has fallen quite significantly during the last three decades.
• In 1993-94, agriculture which accounted for close to 62% of the country’s employed labour force, now accounts for only 4% (reduced roughly a third in 25 years).

Weak structural transformation

• Firstly, there has been a reversal of the trend in the last two years, which has seen the share of those employed on farms rise to 44-45%.
• This has primarily to do with the Covid-induced economic disruptions.
• Secondly, even the movement of the workforce from agriculture that India has witnessed over the past three decades or more does not qualify to be what is called “structural transformation”.
  • Such transformation would involve the transfer of labour from farming to sectors – particularly manufacturing and modern services-where productivity, value-addition and average incomes are higher.

• However, the share of manufacturing (and mining) in total employment has actually fallen along with that of agriculture (refer to figure).
• The surplus labour pulled out from the farms is being largely absorbed in construction and services.
  • While the services sector does include relatively well-paying industries such as information technology, business process outsourcing, etc, the bulk of the jobs, in this case, is in petty retailing, small eateries, domestic help, sanitation, and similar other informal economic activities.
  • This is also evident from the low share of employment in organised enterprises, defined as those engaging 10 or more workers.
• Thus, the structural transformation process in India has been weak and deficient.
  • There is a movement of labour taking place away from farms but that surplus labour isn’t moving to higher value-added non-farm activities, specifically manufacturing and modern services (the familiar ‘Kuznets Process’).
  • Instead, the labour transfer is happening within the low-productivity informal economy.
• Weak structural transformation explains the tendency of rural families for pursuing multiple livelihoods, many of whom cling on to their small plots of land, even while earning incomes wholly or predominantly from non-farm sources.

A picture in contrast - The IT sector:

• Between March 2020 and June 2022, the combined employee headcount at India’s top five IT companies post-pandemic has gone up from 11.55 lakh to 15.69 lakh (a jump of nearly 36%) when most other sectors, barring agriculture, were shedding jobs and slashing salaries.
• The IT industry is clearly an isolated island of the Indian economy that added jobs during the pandemic and is continuing to do so.
• Much of the IT sector’s recent success is courtesy of exports. These have boomed due to Covid’s triggering increased demand for digitisation.
  • India’s net exports of software services have surged from $84.64 billion in 2019-20 to $109.54 billion in 2021-22.

Source:

• Explained: India’s unique jobs crisis
• Explained: How India's growing job crisis frustrates its youth

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• Explained: India’s unique jobs crisis

Mrs Annie Besant in cooperation with Bal Gangadhar Tilak started the Home Rule League Movement on 1^st August 1916 with Dadabhai Naoroji as its President. Home Rule Movement was launched by Indian Nationalists in 1916 as a response & reaction to circumstances prevailing in India.

The term Home Rule was used for the first time in India by Annie Besant. It was adopted by Ireland where a similar movement was in place against British Rule.

The Home Rule Movement had two branches, the first headed by Tilak with its headquarters at Pune and the second by Annie Besant headquartered at Adyar (near Madras).

Source:

• https://www.indianage.com/indian_history
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Home-Rule-League

Image Source:

• https://www.paperjewels.org/postcard/home-rule-league-madras

• Context: The Prime Minister has recently launched India's first international bullion exchange - India International Bullion Exchange (IIBX)- in Gujarat.
• The bullion exchange was launched at the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) in Gandhinagar.
  • Bullion refers tophysical gold and silver of high purity that is often kept in the form of bars, ingots, or coins.
  • A bullion Exchange is a market through which buyers and sellers trade gold and silver as well as associated derivatives.

• IIBX was first announced in the 2020 Budget 2020 for easing the Gold Import by Jewellers in India.
• It is a platform that not only enrols jewellers to trade on the exchange but has also set up the necessary infrastructureto store physical gold and silver.
• It will facilitate efficient price discovery with the assurance of responsible sourcing and quality, besides giving impetus to the financialization of gold in India.
• It will empower India to gain its rightful place in the global bullion market and serve the global value chainwith integrity and quality.

Source:

• PM Modi launches India’s 1st international bullion exchange in Gandhinagar

Image source:

• https://housing.com/news/india-international-bullion-exchange-iibx-inaugurated-at-gift-city-gandhinagar/

• Context: A recent study has noted that Chabahar Port's link in Iran with the International North-South Transport Corridor is said to enhance connectivity with Central Asian countries, drive investment and deepen cultural and political ties.
• INSTC is a multi-modal transportation established on 12^thSeptember 2000 in St. Petersburg, by Iran, Russia and India for the purpose of promoting transportation cooperation among the Member States.

• It was expandedto include eleven new members, namely: the Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Armenia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Ukraine, Republic of Belarus, Oman, Syria, Bulgaria (Observer).
• It envisions a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail and road routesfor transporting freight, aimed at reducing the carriage cost between India and Russia by about 30% and bringing down the transit time from 40 days by more than half.
• This corridor connects the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Seavia the Islamic Republic of Iran and then is connected to St. Petersburg and North Europe via the Russian Federation.

Source:

• Bringing Eurasia closer

Image source:

• Bringing Eurasia closer

• Context: According to a recent report, ‘Cryptojacking’ attacks on computer systems have gone up by 30% to 66.7 million in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of 2021.
• Cryptojacking is a cyber-attack wherein a computing device is hijacked and controlled by the attacker, and its resources are used to illicitly mine cryptocurrency.

• In most cases, the malicious programme is installed when the user clicks on an unsafe link, or visits an infected website and unknowingly provides access to their Internet-connected device.
• The Reason behind cryptojacking is that: Coin mining is a legitimate, competitive process used to release new crypto coins into circulation or to verify new transactions.
  • It involves solving complex computational problems to generate blocks of verified transactions that get added to the blockchain.
  • The reward for the first miner who successfully manages to update the crypto ledger through this route is crypto coins.
  • But the race to crack this crypto code needs considerable computing power involving state-of-the-art hardware and electrical power to keep the systems involved up and running.
  • Cryptojackers co-opt devices, servers and cloud infrastructure, and use their resources for mining. The use of ‘stolen’ or cryptojacked resources slashes the cost involved in mining.
• Cryptojacking is a concern as it is hard to detect and the victims of these attacks mostly remain unaware that their systems have been compromised

Source:

• Explained: What is cryptojacking, the cyber-attack carried out by crypto miners?

Image source:

• https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/internet/story/cryptojacking-attacks-rose-by-8500-per-cent-globally-in-2017-105549-2018-04-04

• Context: Recently, the Union Government has announced the formation of the Cotton Council of India.
• The Government has set up Cotton Council of India, under chairmanship of Industry Veteran, to resolve the issues related to the pricing of cotton and yarn and bring tangible improvement in the sector.

• The council will discuss, deliberate, and prepare a robust action plan for bringing out improvement in the sector.
• India has the distinction of having the largest area under cotton cultivation which is about 37% of the world area under cotton cultivation between 12.0 million hectares to 13.5 million hectares.
• India is one of the largest producer of cotton in the world accounting for about 24% of the world cotton production.
  • The yield per kgs hectare which is presently 469 kgs/ha is still lower against the world average yield of about 808 Kgs kgs /ha.
• The leading cotton producing state in India is Gujarat, followed by Maharashtra, Telangana, etc.
• There are four cultivated species of cotton viz. Gossypium arboreum, G.herbaceum, G.hirsutum and G.barbadense.
  • And, India is the only country in the world where all the four cultivated species are grown on commercial scale.
• In 2020, India stood as the third highest exporter of raw cotton globally, accounting for about 10.2% of the total global exports.

Source:

• Centre announces formation of Cotton Council of India under Chairmanship of Suresh Bhai Kotak
• National Cotton Scenario
• Cotton Industry and Exports
• https://www.nfsm.gov.in/BriefNote/BN_Cotton.pdf

Image source:

• https://www.tractorjunction.com/blog/cotton-production-in-india-process-benefits/

Essence – The article says that RBI alone may not be able to maintain the CPI inflation within the permissible range using its REPO rate tool. This is because Food and beverages have a majority share in the CPI basket, especially tomatoes, which is not the case in developed countries. Added to this, certain government policy decisions, climatic vagaries and certain international turmoil are also said to affect food inflation.  

Thus, India needs to revisit its inflation control strategy to include some other tools than only relying on the REPO rate. 

Why should you read this –  

• To understand the factors that affect inflation
• To know about an alternative way to control inflation. 

Source -

• https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/on-food-inflation-the-humble-tomato-has-challenged-the-mighty-rbi-8062777/lite/

Essence:

On World Nature Conservation Day, the article highlights on how Indian Civilization is based on the concept of mutual co-existence and the need to live in harmony with all other life forms on earth. It mentions excerpts from the “Atharva Veda” that says, “The earth is my mother and I am her son.”

It discusses the rate of extinction that species face due to deforestation each year and India’s commitment to proactively protect at least 30% of the land, water, and oceans.

This could be done through ‘One Planet Summit, 2021,’ and the “Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar” campaign for environmental protection.

Why should you read this article?

• To understand and devise plans to counter the challenges of climate change.
• To understand the environmental values.
• To understand the steps taken by India to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Source:

• https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/m-venkaiah-naidu-writes-global-biodiversity-crisis-defining-issue-8055701/

Background:

The Bharuch district administration and the Gujarat Government has recently covered 100% of beneficiaries in the district under four national schemes that are for widows and senior citizens.

• The district’s drive to enrol all beneficiaries was named “Utkarsh Pahel”.
• Between January and May, Surat enrolled 13,431 beneficiaries under four schemes namely:

• 1. Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Vrudhhavasta Pension Yojana (IGRVPY)
  2. Niradhar Vrudh Sahay Yojana (NVSY)
  3. Ganga Swaroop Arthik Sahay Yojana (GSASY) and
  4. Rashtriya Kutumb Sahay Yojana (RKSY).
• The campaign saw the coming together of local leaders, the district administration and the Ankleshwar Industries Association (AIA), a body of industries manufacturing chemicals, drugs, petroleum products, etc.
• AIA played a major role by identifying 305 youths and paying an incentive of Rs 250 to Rs 500 per enrolment.

Source:

• How Bharuch covered 100% of beneficiaries under four welfare schemes

Image source:

• How Bharuch covered 100% of beneficiaries under four welfare schemes