24 April 2024, The Hindu
Reversing the global democratic recession
Page 6
GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- India is in the midst of its most significant electoral exercise and it might be worthwhile to scrutinise people’s changing perceptions about their political ecosystems in both the largest democracy and other smaller democratic spaces elsewhere.
- Such an exercise may help us understand the prevailing global situation and work on the future course of action.
- A Pew Research Center’s global survey reveals the evolving state of democracies across 24 countries.
- Conducted between February 20 and May 22, 2023, this survey of 30,861 respondents delves into the complex fabric of democratic ideals, revealing both global trends and nuanced regional variations.
Insuring the future
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), the apex regulator of insurance products, has asked companies to enable a wide demographic of citizens to benefit from health insurance.
- Most significantly, it directs insurance providers to make health insurance available to senior citizens, as those above 65 are currently barred from issuing new policies for themselves.
- This is clearly an acknowledgement of demographic changes underway in India.
- Though India’s population figures have not been officially accounted for since 2011, estimates from the UN Population Fund and experts suggest that India’s is nearly level with China and may have surpassed it sometime in 2023.
- The India Ageing Report 2023, which draws from UN projections, estimates that India’s cohort of seniors — those above 60 — will increase from about 10% of the population (149 million in 2022) to 30% (347 million) by 2050.
- That is more than the current population of the U.S. Several of the most developed countries already have their senior demographic (65-plus) ranging from 16% to 28%.
- That is already precipitating considerable worry within these populations on access to health care, affordable medicine and appropriate care-giving infrastructure to support them.
Towards a less poor and more equal country
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GS 2: Issues relating to poverty and hunger
- In March, World Inequality Lab, a global research centre focused on inequality and public policies, published a working paper titled, 'Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of Billionaire Raj'.
- The authors — Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi — combined data from national income accounts, wealth aggregates, tax tabulations, rich lists, and surveys on income, consumption, and wealth to present their results.
- First, let’s look at income inequality. By 2022-23, the report states, 22.6% of India’s national income went to just the top 1% in the country, the highest in the last 100 years.
- And just the top 0.1% of the population earned nearly 10% of the national income in India. The share of the top 1% in the national income is among the highest in the world.
An overview of the PMAY-U scheme
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GS 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and the States and the performance of these schemes
- As the current Union government completes two terms, one of its flagship programmes was Housing For All (HfA) by 2022, both in urban and rural areas, planned under the PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana) scheme in 2015.
- While the PMAY is a centrally sponsored scheme both the Union and the State governments are supposed to financially contribute to it.
- The declared objectives of the scheme included rehabilitation of slum dwellers with private developers’ participation; promotion of affordable housing for the weaker sections through Credit Linked Subsidy Schemes (CLSS); affordable housing in partnership with public and private sectors; and subsidy for Beneficiary-led Construction (BLC).
‘Inflation vulnerable to rising heat’
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GS 3: Indian Economy (Inflation)
- Extreme weather conditions may pose a risk to inflation, along with prolonged geopolitical tensions that could keep crude oil prices volatile, the Reserve Bank's April Bulletin said on April 23.
- The retail based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has eased to 4.9% in March after averaging 5.1% in the preceding two months.
‘April Flash PMI signals quickening in combined economic output’
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- Combined output from India’s manufacturing and services sectors may have grown at the fastest pace in almost 14 years this month, with the services activity rising to a three-month high, as per the HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for April.
- A spurt in international sales this month is reckoned to have bolstered new order inflows for manufacturing and services firms, with fresh export orders seen to have grown at the fastest pace since September 2014.
NABARD unveils strategy to mobilise green financing
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GS 3: Environment- Conservation
- National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) on the occasion of Earth Day unveiled its Climate Strategy 2030 document which aims to address India’s need for green financing.
- NABARD said since India requires approximately $170 billion annually to reach a cumulative total of over $2.5 trillion by 2030, the current green finance inflows are critically insufficient.
New type of host defence against Zika, dengue viruses revealed
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- The mere presence of a virus in a bodily fluid doesn’t mean it is transmitted via that route. The Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses are present in fluids like saliva and semen but don’t spread orally or sexually.
- This fact has puzzled scientists for years, and now a research team has finally explained why.
- On March 29, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) posted a tweet that sparked concerns among scientists and prompted many to contact the WHO to say there was enough evidence to discredit the tweet’s contents, and suggest it steer clear of such assertions.
- The tweet was later proven to be factually incorrect but the WHO remained unconvinced for almost two years.
