Daily Current Affairs

DSI adoption at COP15 can financially help protect biodiversity in India (GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• Digital Sequence Information (DSI) which was adopted as part of the historic deal to protect biodiversity at the COP15 conference will ensure the flow of funds to countries like India for the conservation of nature.

 

Details:

• Through the Nagoya Protocol, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity aims to distribute benefits arising from genetic resources between users who are corporate entities and providers who are indigenous communities and farmers conserving these resources in developing countries.
• But now, with DSI technology, companies can use nucleotide sequences of genetic resources using genetic engineering, without needing to physically access resources from their country of origin.
• At COP15, developing countries have maintained that benefits resulting from DSI should also be shared equitably.

 

ABS Mechanism:

• DSI is now a part of the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) under Target 13 and Goal C and could benefit developing countries from funds accruing from the products manufactured using DSI Technology.
• The parties had agreed upon a consensus to bring DSI into the access and benefit sharing (ABS) mechanism.
• DSI will ensure that products manufactured using DSI Technology would be covered under the benefit-sharing mechanism. This will help to finance biodiversity conservation in developing countries including India.
• Benefit-sharing should be ensured by mechanisms that do not limit access to DSI. This is a fundamental shift away from traditional control-oriented ABS to a new idea of open access (OA) and benefit-sharing (BS).

 

Current deliberations:

• The deliberations are currently focused on bringing DSI into the Nagoya Protocol for access and benefit sharing (ABS) for commercial utilisation.
• The deliberations are also focused on how developed countries can assist developing countries through funds mobilised from DSI.
• While developed countries from Europe have been arguing to set up a multilateral funding mechanism which can be used to park funds accruing from DSI, developing countries have been requesting for the establishment of both a multilateral and a bilateral mechanism, whenever the source of the biological resource is known.
• Similarly, many developed countries have opined that tracking of DSI is not practical which is not agreeable to countries like India, South Africa, and Latin American Countries, he said.

 

Way Forward:

• Adoption of DSI would go a long way to meet the financial requirement for biodiversity conservation in developing countries in the coming years. The biodiversity funding gap is estimated to stand at around USD 700 billion every year.
• India's Biological Diversity Act, of 2002 already regulates information associated with biological resources under the benefit-sharing mechanism and the Post-2020 GBF would go a long way towards making it more explicit by bringing DSI under the ABS mechanism.  

Social Progress Index (SPI) for States and Districts received by EAC-PM

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

Why in news?

• Recently, the Social Progress Index (SPI) for States and Districts made by the Institute for Competitiveness and Social Progress Imperative was submitted to Economic Advisory Council- Prime Minister and released.

What isSocial Progress Index (SPI)?

• SPI is a comprehensive tool that can serve as a holistic measure of a country's social progress at the national and sub-national levels.
• The index assesses states and districts based on 12 components across three critical dimensions of social progress: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity.
• The index uses an extensive framework comprising 89 indicators at the state level and 49 at the district level.

 

Three critical dimensions:

1. Basic Human Needs assess the performance of states and districts in terms of Nutrition and Basic Medical Care, Water and Sanitation, Personal Safety and Shelter.
2. Foundations of Wellbeing evaluates the progress made by the country across the components of Access to Basic Knowledge, Access to Information and Communication, Health and Wellness, and Environmental Quality.
3. Opportunity focuses on Personal Rights, Personal Freedom and Choice, Inclusiveness, and Access to Advanced Education.

 

Based on the SPI scores, states and districts have been ranked under six tiers of social progress. The tiers are

1. Tier 1: Very High Social Progress;
2. Tier 2: High Social Progress;
3. Tier 3: Upper Middle Social Progress;
4. Tier 4: Lower Middle Social Progress;
5. Tier 5: Low Social Progress; and
6. Tier 6: Very Low Social Progress.

 

Key Findings:

• Puducherry has the highest SPI score of 65.99 in the country, attributable to its remarkable performance across components like Personal Freedom and Choice, Shelter, and Water and Sanitation.
• Lakshadweep and Goa closely follow it with scores of 65.89 and 65.53, respectively. Jharkhand and Bihar scored the lowest, 43.95 and 44.47, respectively.

 

Basic Human Needs:

• For the dimension of Basic Human Needs, Goa, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, and Chandigarh are the top four states with the best performance in Water and Sanitation and Shelter as compared to the other states and union territories.
• In addition, Goa has the highest component score for Water and Sanitation, followed by Kerala, scoring the highest across the Nutrition and Basic Medical Care component.
• For Shelter and Personal Safety, Chandigarh and Nagaland have emerged as the front-runners, respectively.

 

Foundations of Wellbeing:

• Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, and Goa have emerged as the best-performing states for the Foundations of Wellbeing.
• Within the dimension for the Access to Basic Knowledge component, Punjab has the highest component score of 62.92, while Delhi has topped the list for Access to Information and Communication with a score of 71.30. For Health and Wellness, Rajasthan has the highest component score of 73.74.
• For Environmental Quality, the top three states belong to the northeast region, namely, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Meghalaya.

 

Opportunity dimension:

• Tamil Nadu has achieved the highest component score of 72.00 for the Opportunity dimension.
• Within this dimension, Andaman and Nicobar Islands have the highest component score for Personal Rights, while Sikkim has topped the list for Inclusiveness.
• It is commendable to witness Puducherry attaining the highest scores across two components in this dimension, i.e., Personal Freedom and Choice and Access to Advanced Education.

 

Way Forward:

• The report is based extensively on objective data and is primarily a normative/prescriptive exercise.
• It presents a cross-section of data across states and districts and the focus is on looking at various tiers of development by grouping the states rather than the individual rankings of the selected states and districts

Jaisalmer villagers march 225 kilometres to get sacred groves listed as ‘oran land’

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• Residents from around 40 villages of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan have walked 225 kilometres to protect community-conserved sacred spaces known as ‘orans’. Currently, the biodiversity hotspots are classified as wastelands. 

Details:

• The villagers walked to the district headquarters of Jaisalmer to submit a letter to the collector. They asked them to recategorise the area as ‘oran land’.
• The current categorisation is causing a loss of biodiversity and is affecting the livelihood of the locals in the area, as huge chunks of land are being allotted for setting up solar plants. 

 

What are orans?

• The orans are among the last natural habitats of the great Indian bustard.
• These orans are hotspots of biodiversity with trees and flowers like rohida, bordi, kumbhat, and desi babool in large numbers.
• There are different varieties of grasses like sevan and murath as well, making these grasslands home to more than 250 species of birds and animals, including the great Indian bustard, McQueen bustard, chinkara, Indian desert cat, desert fox, etc.

 

What is the issue?

• The open stretch of land, which receives long hours of sunlight and brisk winds, has become a hub of green energy with windmills and solar photovoltaic dotting it. 
• The orans are listed as ‘wastelands’ in the revenue records. The Degrai Oran is around 10,000 hectares (60,000 bighas), but only 4,000 hectares are recognised as oran, which are listed as common land. The rest is categorised as wasteland.
• The government is allotting these lands for solar projects to make them ‘useful’. There are other orans like Mokla, Salkha, Kemde, which also spread across several hectares but are listed as wastelands.
• Rajasthan-based non-profit Ecology, Rural Development & Sustainability (ERDS) Foundation documented 100 orans and identified 30 more with the help from the Jaisalmer Chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

 

Demand of villagers:

• The Supreme Court in 2018 had ordered the orans be recorded as ‘deemed forests’ in the revenue records in the TN Godavarman vs. Union of India case, but not even one oran has been recorded as a deemed forest so far. 
• Most people in the Jaisalmer district are indirectly dependent on animal husbandry for employment. Almost all the ancient orans of the district are located in the middle of livestock-dominated villages, where agriculture is prohibited due to ancient social and religious beliefs. 
• The government has allotted vast chunks of lands under the orans to energy companies and it is creating pressure on the remaining grazing lands. Many types of grass have started disappearing and the area’s natural biodiversity is being affected. 
• The villagers have raised this issue of conservation and correcting the land records to accommodate the orans. If corrected, local people can take their cattle to graze and depend on them for livelihood, but so far, no action has been taken.  

Indias Smart Cities Mission wins the Platinum Icon in Digital India Awards 2022

 (GS Paper 2, Governance)

Why in news?

• The Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs won the Platinum Icon in the Digital India Awards 2022 for their initiative “DataSmart Cities: Empowering Cities through Data” under the ‘Data Sharing and Use for Socio Economic Development’ category.
• The DataSmart Cities Initiative is a key step in creating a robust data ecosystem that enables evidence-based decision-making in cities. 

Details:

• The Digital India Awards (DIA) is a prestigious National competition that seeks to encourage and honour innovative digital solutions by government entities in realising the Digital India vision.
• The category ‘Data Sharing and Use for Socio Economic ‘Development’ emphasizes on sharing of Government Data by Ministries/Departments/Organizations, States, Cities and ULBs to create a vibrant data ecosystem in the country for analysis, decision-making, innovation, services, economic development and public good.

 

Digital India Awards:

• The Awards instituted in 2009 are one of a kind in India for honouring the efforts of different Government entities in the digital realm.
• These are conducted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY).
• The seventh edition of Digital India Awards (DIA) is being held in 2022.
• Digital India Awards (DIA) presents an opportunity to bring to the fore digital initiatives being adopted to transform India into a digitally empowered society & knowledge economy.
• These awards are instituted under the aegis of National Portal of India to encourage and honour innovative digital solutions by government entities at all levels. DIA 2022 aims to inspire and motivate not only government entities but also start-ups in fulfilling the Digital India vision.

 

DataSmart Cities Initiative – Smart Cities Mission

• To leverage and utilize valuable data being generated in cities via network of intelligent devices and systems, the Smart Cities Mission, MoHUA launched the DataSmart Cities (DSC) Initiative across 100 Smart Cities.
• The DSC uses a three-pronged approach – People, Process, Platforms – to imbibe a culture of data awareness and data usage in city functioning.
• Propagating the importance of data for accelerating the power of city’s existing initiatives, various digital platforms such as Smart Cities Open Data Portal (SCODP),India Urban Observatory (IUO),India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX),Assessment & Monitoring Platform for Liveable, Inclusive & Future-ready urban India (AMPLIFI) and Geo-spatial Management Information System (GMIS) have been developed to enable cities better manage, share, and leverage available data.
• These platforms together host 55,000+ datasets and 1,400+ APIs engaging 15 Lakh+ users for evidence-based planning, cross-city assessments, multi-disciplinary research and improving socio-economic outcomes.