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The proportion of women workers participating in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has touched a ten-year high in the ongoing financial year.
According to the latest statistics available with the Union Ministry of Rural Development, 57.8% of the workers who used the scheme this year were women, their highest level of participation since 2012-13.
Out of the 15 States (Kerala, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh), 14 States reported an upward trend in women’s participation.
The only exception is Kerala, where the drop is miniscule. For the last five years, in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, women’s share in the MGNREGA workforce has been hovering between 85-90%.
According to Kerala Rural Development Minister M.B. Rajesh, this phenomena is the result of two factors: market forces and welfare incentives for women MGNREGA workers.
The gap between MGNREGA wages and market wages is high in the State, especially for male workers who are paid far more than female workers in the open market.
This makes MGNREGA work much less attractive for male workers. “Additionally, the State offers incentives for women workers under MGNREGA, such as a dedicated welfare fund which extends insurance against any injury during work, and financial assistance to women workers above the age of 60 years.
The growth spike was higher in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which showed the most improvement in this regard this year. The proportion of women workers in Bihar grew 3.7 percentage points this year, while UP saw a 3.3 percentage point hike.
In Bihar, as per the data till December 30, women were responsible for 56.88% of the total persondays worked under the scheme, which is a significant increase from the 2018-19 figures of 51.75%.
News
Shrimp farms, mangroves to coexist in the Sundarbans (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
A new initiative of sustainable shrimp cultivation provides hope for mangrove restoration in Sundarbans. For several years, environmentalists and experts have expressed concerns over unsustainable aquaculture, particularly shrimp collection, after cleaning large tracts of mangrove forests in Sunderbans.
Under the initiative, Sustainable Aquaculture In Mangrove Ecosystem (SAIME), farmers have taken up cultivation of shrimp at 20 hectares at Chaital in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas, and 10 hectares at Madhabpur in adjoining South 24 Parganas. However, they are doing their part in restoring the mangroves as well.
Dinobandhu Das, a shrimp farmer from Chaital who has two acres under cultivation, says, “Our previous generation has cleared mangrove forests and cultivated shrimps. Under this initiative, we are planting mangrove trees around the shrimp ponds.
Farmers like Animesh Rai and Pintu Kumar Das from Chaital, also part of the initiative, point out that where they had to buy shrimp feed in the past, now the mangrove leaf litter provides nourishment for the crustaceans.
A research program on the contribution of mangrove leaf litter in the nutritional dynamics in SAIME ponds has been initiated in collaboration with the Centre for Excellence in Blue Economy (CoE-BE) of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata.
The community-based initiative of sustainable shrimp cultivation is being conceived by NEWS and Global Nature Fund (GNF), Naturland Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS).
Ajany Dey, Joint Secretary and Programme Director of NEWS, says that the initiative — started in 2019 — has established a collaborative ecosystem integrating several key stakeholders from government departments, academia, and research institutes for co-creation and comprehensive advancement of this project.
This pilot project has come out with a significant result in the last three years’ span, providing a per hectare average yield of fishes and shrimps amounting to 535 kg, out of which shrimp amounts average 275 kg (black tiger shrimp-200 kg and with freshwater giant prawn-75 kg).
The environmental activist also adds that the rate of survival of planted mangrove saplings, which is usually 5-10%, has ranged between 30-50% in the initiative.
India abstains from voting on UN resolution on Israel (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India abstained in the U.N. General Assembly on a resolution that asked the International Court of Justice for its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s “prolonged occupation” and annexation of the Palestinian territory.
The draft resolution ‘Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’ was adopted by a recorded vote on Friday, with 87 votes in favour, 26 against and 53 abstentions, including by India.
The resolution decided to request the UN's highest judicial body to “render an advisory opinion” on “what are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.
It also asked the Assembly “how do the policies and practices of Israel, affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status.
The U.S. and Israel voted against the resolution while Brazil, Japan, Myanmar, and France were among those that abstained.
Before the vote, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said that the “outrageous resolution” calling for the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice is a “moral stain on the U.N. and every country that supports it.
Mr. Erdan added that the decision to hold a vote that deals with Israel on Shabbat is another example of the “moral decay” of the U.N., which prevents Israel's position from being heard in a vote whose results are predetermined.
He added that at the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Week in September 2021, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced in his remarks that if Israel did not withdraw to the 1967 lines within a year, the Palestinians would turn to The Hague.
Science
Sooner or later, India has to develop Omicron-based boosters (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Three years after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, China is witnessing a very high number of daily fresh infections after abruptly abandoning the zero-COVID strategy, leading to hospitals getting overwhelmed and crematoriums struggling to cope up with a large influx of bodies.
In response, countries across the world, India included, have taken several measures to keep the virus spread from China under check.
The exponential increase in daily infections — an estimated 250 million people infected in just 20 days in December — and a high number of deaths in China have brought the focus back to booster shots.
Though a few dozen genome sequences shared by Chinese researchers do not indicate the emergence of any new variants, the high infection rate can possibly churn out new variants with even greater transmissibility, and possibly greater disease severity.
With nearly 92% of adults in India fully vaccinated by mid-October and a very large percentage of people also naturally infected, the hybrid immunity among adults in India is very high.
But the uptake of a booster dose by adults over 18 years has been low — just 28% of adults have taken a booster dose as of December 21.
Besides high hybrid immunity in the population, the other reason for the low uptake could be due to Omicron sub-lineages causing only a mild disease without high rates of hospitalisations and deaths.
If making the booster shots free only for adults over 60 years might have increased the hesitancy, the uptake did not increase much even when made free for all adults for 75 days beginning mid-July.
Personally, I do not believe that booster doses are needed for healthy adults at this time as a public health tool. The bulk of the country has hybrid immunity.
The risk of severe disease and hospitalisations is low in generally healthy individuals,” Dr. Gagandeep Kang, Professor of Microbiology at CMC Vellore.
Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya, physician epidemiologist, concurs with Dr. Kang. “In an Indian setting with high hybrid immunity, the benefit of a third shot is very marginal for healthy adults, if any,” he says in an email.
The vulnerable population sub-groups (over 60 years and those with co-morbidities in the 18-59 years age-group) should get a third dose irrespective of the history of a confirmed COVID-19 infection.
FAQ
How will the free foodgrain scheme work? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In a Cabinet decision on December 23, the Centre decided to provide 5 kg of free foodgrains per month for the 81 crore beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) during 2023, rather than charging them a subsidised amount of ₹3 a kg of rice, ₹2 a kg of wheat and ₹1 a kg of coarse cereal as is currently done.
This will soften the blow of the termination of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), which has provided an additional 5 kg of free grains every month to NFSA beneficiaries after being launched as an emergency measure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 and received multiple extensions since.
In a normal year, without COVID disruptions, the Centre’s food subsidy bill on account of the NFSA amounted to around ₹2 lakh crore.
The PMGKAY effectively doubled that sum for the past two years. Now that the Centre plans to give free foodgrains under the NFSA for a year, it will spend an additional ₹15,000 crore to ₹16,000 crore on that.
However, the Centre will save around ₹2 lakh crore by ending the PMGKAY scheme. Overall, the move will relieve a major burden on the Union Budget.
Experts point out that the move will be even more of a relief for stressed foodgrain stocks. The annual foodgrain requirement for the NFSA is about 520 lakh tonnes, while the PMGKAY required an additional 480 lakh tonnes, according to Food Ministry officials.
At the time when the PMGKAY was launched, foodgrain production, government procurement and government stocks were regularly breaching record levels.
In 2022, however, the situation is different. Rice and wheat harvests have both been lower this year, hit by climatic events and fertilizer shortages in some areas. The global stress due to the Russia-Ukraine war has also led to a situation of high foodgrain inflation.
India’s wheat stocks in particular, have dipped dangerously close to the required buffer stock levels, with the Centre resorting to a ban on exports to ensure food security for the domestic market.
It has also been forced to substantially reduce wheat allocations under the Public Distribution System, and substitute wheat supply with rice in States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Continuing the PMGKAY would have been unsustainable without further increasing procurement levels.
What is the crypto awareness campaign? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) will launch an outreach programme soon to create awareness of cryptocurrencies and online gaming.
The need for the outreach is based on the observation that both crypto-assets and online gaming (that extends to gambling and betting) are still being promoted in a risky manner despite the recent turmoil in the sector.
The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) is managed by the IEPF Authority, which was set up in 2016 under the provisions of Section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013.
The Authority is entrusted with the responsibility of administration of the IEPF, which, besides promoting awareness among investors, makes refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits and debentures and so on to rightful claimants.
As for investment education, the idea is to reach out to household investors, housewives and professionals alike in rural and urban areas and teach them the basics.
Focus areas include primary and secondary capital markets, various saving instruments, the instruments for investment (such as mutual funds, equity, among others), making investors aware of dubious Ponzi and chit fund schemes and existing grievance redressal mechanisms, among other things. Until the end of October, it had conducted more than 65,000 awareness programmes covering 30 lakh citizens.
The crypto dilemma stems from concerns about the unregulated currency having a destabilising effect on the monetary and fiscal stability of a country.
Further, crypto exchanges in India are being investigated for their alleged involvement in unlawful practices such as drug trafficking, money laundering, violating foreign exchange legislation and evasion of GST.
As on December 14, proceeds of crime amounting to ₹907.48 crore have been attached/seized, three persons have been arrested and four prosecution complaints have been filed before the Special Court, Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended framing legislation on the sector. It is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited.
Business
Manufacturing in China weakens amid COVID-19 outbreak (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Chinese manufacturing contracted for a third consecutive month in December, in the biggest drop since early 2020, as the country battles a nationwide COVID-19 surge after suddenly easing anti-epidemic measures.
A monthly purchasing managers' index declined to 47.0 from 48.0 in November, according to data released from the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday. Numbers below 50 indicate a contraction in activity.
The contraction was the biggest since February 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had just started. The weakening comes as China earlier this month abruptly relaxed COVID-19 restrictions after years of attempts to stamp out the virus.
The country of 1.4 billion is now facing a nationwide outbreak and authorities have stopped publishing a daily tally of COVID-19 infections.
Several other sub-indexes, including for large enterprises, production and demand in the manufacturing market also dropped compared to November.
Some surveyed companies reported that due to the impact of the epidemic, the logistics and transportation manpower was insufficient, and delivery time had been extended, a senior economist at the statistics bureau in a published analysis of the December data.
According to data from the bureau, sectors, including construction, saw expansion in December together with sub-indexes that measure industries such as air transport, telecommunications, and monetary and financial services.
The purchasing managers' index for China's non-manufacturing sector also fell to 41.6 in December, down from 46.7 in November.
China is likely to miss its goal of 5.5% economic growth this year, with forecasters cutting their outlook to as low as 3% in annual growth, which would be the second weakest since at least the 1980s.