CURRENT AFFAIRS
TOPICS :
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Mission Shakti
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NIRF ranking
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Randomized control Trails
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Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat
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Right to Repair
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National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment
Mission Shakti
Context:
Ministry of Women and Child development has issued comprehensive guidelines for implementation of Mission Shakti during 15th Finance commission period 2021-22 to 2025-26.
Mission Shakti:
- Mission Shakti is an umbrella scheme under Ministry of woman and child development.
- Mission shakti is an integrated women empowerment programme for the safety, security and empowerment of women.
It has two sub schemes under it,
- “Sambal” is for safety and security of women.
The sambal sub scheme consists of existing schemes of One Stop Centres (OSC), women helplines (181-WHL) and Beti bachao beti padhao (BBBP) along with a new component of Nari Adalats.
- “Samarthya” is for empowerment of women.
Samarthya consists of modified erstwhile schemes of Ujjwala, Swadhar Greh and working women Hostel along with the existing schemes of National creche scheme, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY).
A new component of Gap funding for economic empowerment have also been included in the Samarthya Scheme.
Highlights of Guidelines for implementation:
- All the guidelines will be applicable from April 1st.
- The guidelines aimed at zero budget advertising (most of the BBBP budget was spent on advertising).
- Encouraging higher spending on activities with on ground impact like,
- Activities that promote sports among girls,
- Camps on self-defence,
- Girl’s toilets construction,
- Making sanitary napkin vending machines and sanitary pads, especially in educational institutions.
- MoWCD targets as per guidelines are,
- Improvement in sex ratio at birth (SRB) every year by 2 points.
- Improvement in the Percentage of institutional deliveries at 95% or above.
- Improvement of enrolment in secondary education level and skilling of girls and women by 1% every year.
- Nari Adalat: for providing women with alternative grievance redressal mechanism for resolving the cases of petty nature like harassment, subversion, curtailment of rights or entitlements etc.
- Women help line number 181 will be merged with Emergency Response Support System.
- Infrastructural works: The guidelines also talk about the following works under the scheme.
- Setting up of 300 additional One Stop Centres (OSC) along with upgradation of the existing OSCs.
- Free day care creche to be introduced by the government through Palna
- Half way homes to be set up under Anti trafficking Units, where a group of victims ready for integration, can live and work out of.
- Women empowerment Hubs to be set up at centre, state and district levels to merge and monitor the scheme.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao:
- BBBP was launched in 2015.
- It addresses the issues regarding the women empowerment and the declining sex ratio.
Objectives:
- Ensure survival and protection of girl child along with prevention of gender biased sex selective elimination.
- Improving the sex ratio.
- Ensuring education and participation of girl child.
As per the guidelines, BBBP is to be implemented in all the districts across the nation, at present it is being implemented in 405 districts.
NIRF ranking
Context:
NIRF rankings 2022 were released by the educational minister on 15th July.
About NIRF:
- National institutional ranking Framework (NIRF) was approved and launched by Ministry of human Resources Department in 2015.
- NIRF is a methodology to award rankings of institutions across the country.
Parameters for ranking institutions are,
- Teaching, learning and resources;
- Research and professional practices;
- Graduation Outcomes;
- Outreach and Inclusivity; and
- Perception.
NIRF 2022:
NIRF India rankings 2022 has been announced in 11 categories, which are
- Overall, university, management, college, pharmacy, medical, engineering, architecture, ARIIA (Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements), law and research institutions.
- IIT Madras has retained its top position in overall educational institutes and engineering category as well.
- In universities category, IISC Bangalore has topped.
- JNU and Jamia Islamia Universities stood at 2nd and 3rd
- In medical category, AIIMS Delhi stood at top.
- In management category, IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Calcutta took the top 3 positions.
Randomized control Trails
Context:
Michael R Kremer, Economist and Nobel laurate has said for a diverse country like India Randomized Control Trails (RCT) must be carried out at multiple sites for better analysis and to see differences across sites.
Randomized control Trails:
- RCT is a research design for experimental studies.
- After Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael R Kremer have won Nobel prize, RCT was heavily discussed as they had used RCT in their research study on poverty.
- RCT is generally used when there is a new entrant into an environment.
What are Randomized control Trails?
RCTs divide population into smaller groups to see the outcomes of an external stimulus comparatively.
- For example, if a study has to be done to know free grains distribution scheme helped improve the nutrition levels among people living in a district.
- Then researchers will create two groups within the population by random allocation of people into those groups.
- These two groups will be monitored with one group being given the grains. After a period, details collected to understand the effect of it.
Criticism:
- Some opine that this is fundamentally flawed and can’t be applied to all cases.
- RTCs can’t be used after it has happened, they need to be planned beforehand.
Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat
Context:
Government students from Punjab visited Andhra Pradesh in an cultural exchange programme under the “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat” initiative.
About EBSB:
- It was announced on 31st October 2015, on the occasion of Sardar Vallabhai Patel 140th birth anniversary.
- Through Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat the knowledge of culture, traditions and practices of different states & UTs will lead to an enhanced understanding and bonding among them.
- This will eventually lead to strengthening the unity and integrity of India.
- Aim: to actively enhance the interaction between people of diverse cultures across different states to promote the greater understanding amongst them.
- All the states and UTs are covered under this initiative.
- Under this, states will be paired and will be in effect for one year or till the next round of pairing.
- The states paired will enhance their cultural, academic and economic ties through a wide range of engagements with each other.
- The paired states cover the spheres of music, drama, language, history, cuisine, tourism and other forms of exchange.
Objectives:
- To celebrate the unity in diversity of our nation and to maintain and strengthen the fabric of traditionally existing emotional bonds between the people of our country.
- To establish long term engagements.
- To create an environment that promotes learning between states by states by sharing best practices and experiences.
Right to Repair
Context:
The Department of Consumer Affairs has set up a committee under chairmanship of Nidhi khare (additional secretary) to develop a framework on “Right to Repair”.
Right to Repair:
- Government has proposed to introduce “Right to Repair”.
- Right to repair allows consumers the ability to repair and modify their own consumer products.
- The framework of ‘right to repair’ would mandate the manufacturers to disclose the product details with customers so that they can either repair it by own or by a third-party.
- This will enable the consumers to exercise their ‘right to choose’ in matters of repair.
- Rationale behind this government proposal is after customer buys a product, it is inherent that they must own it completely.
- Objective: to empower the consumers, harmonise trade between the original equipment manufacturers and third-party buyers and sellers; and reduce e-waste.
- Game changer: it will be a game changer for the sustainability of the products and adds employment generation under Atmanirbhar Bharat by allowing third party repairs.
- Other countries with Right to Repair: many countries have recognised “Right to Repair” earlier, such as UK, US and European Union.
National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment
Context:
A national e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment was conducted by the department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DARPG).
About National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment:
- NeSDA framework was first launched in
- it is a periodic assessment with intention of improving the state/union territories and central government in delivery of their online services to citizens.
- this framework based on the Online Service Index (OSI) of UNDESA (United Nations department of economic and social affairs) eGovernment Survey.
- All the government portals that were evaluated were divided into 2 main categories,
- States/UTs/central ministry portal
- State/UT/central ministry services portals.
- Assessment was carried out based on four parameters
- Accessibility,
- Content availability,
- Ease of use and information security,
- Privacy for central ministry portals.
- For central ministry services portals additional 3 parameters were considered they are, End Service delivery, Integrated Service Delivery and Status & Request Tracking.
National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment 2021:
- In this evaluation, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) website has been ranked no.1 under the central ministries portal.
- Digital police portal of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has been placed at 2 under the central ministry services portal.
UPSC Civil Services Daily Current Affairs 16th July 2022
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