CURRENT AFFAIRS
TOPICS :
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Delay in the Completion of Bharatmala project
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India Signs MoU with Namibia to Reintroduce Cheetahs
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Growing trend of giving up Citizenship
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National Statistical Office
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Glioblastoma Awareness Day
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Mechanised Scarecrows
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Henley Passport Index
Delay in the Completion of Bharatmala project
Context:
As per the rating agency ICRA (Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency), ambitious road connectivity programme under Bharatmala Pariyojana Programme (BPP) may face delay of around six years and estimated to be completed by 2027-28.
About Bharatmala Pariyojana Programme:
- Bharatmala Priyojana programme (BPP) is an umbrella scheme for highway sector under Ministry of Road transport and Highways. Launched in 2015.
- Under phase 1, It involves the development of 24,800 km national highways and a residual of 10,000km of highways pending under erstwhile National Highway Development Programme (NHDP) which is supposed to be completed by 2021-22 at an estimated outlay of Rs.5,35,000.
- It is being implemented by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), the major project awarding is done by NHAI.
Aim:
- To Optimization of efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps through effective interventions.
- Such as development of Economic Corridors, Inter Corridors and Feeder Routes, National Corridor Efficiency Improvement, Border and International connectivity roads, Coastal and Port connectivity roads and Green-field expressways.
- Also aims the generation of large number of employment opportunities through direct or indirect employment.
Reasons for Delay:
Reasons that caused the delay in project are delay in land acquisition, significant rice in cost of acquisition and bottlenecks due to outbreak of covid-19 pandemic.
Status of the project:
- From the launch of project as of December 2021, around 20,632kms (60%) of total 34,800kms highways has been awarded.
- As of march 2022, 8,134 kms (23%) of the total length under project has been completed.
ICRA:
- ICRA (Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency) is an Indian independent and Professional investment information and credit rating agency.
- It was set up in 1991 by leading financial/ investment institutions, commercial banks and financial service companies.
- International credit rating agency Moody’s investors service is a the largest indirect stake holder of ICRA.
India Signs MoU with Namibia to Reintroduce Cheetahs
Context:
Union Minister for Environment, forest and climate change signed an MoU with the deputy Prime Minister and foreign Minister of Namibia covers cooperation on wildlife conservation and sustainable biodiversity utilisation.
Highlights of the MoU:
- Aim of the MoU: to facilitate cheetah conservation in both countries through exchange of expertise, sharing of good practices related to wildlife conservation, technology use and sustainable management of biodiversity.
- As per the pact, Namibian candidates will be trained by India in wildlife management courses at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
Cheetah reintroduction:
- Aim of cheetah reintroduction: To establish viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator.
Thereby, Contributing to the global conservation efforts of cheetah.
- The Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh has been identified for the reintroduction of cheetahs by the Environmental ministry in collaboration Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
- First batch of eight cheetahs with four male and four female cheetahs will arrive from Namibia at Kuno National Park in august.
- Current carrying capacity for Kuno National Park is 21, after restoration of larger landscape it is expected to hold about 36 cheetahs.
- An awareness campaign will also be launched among the local communities and villages to be stakeholders in the project.
- Indian conservationists and forest officers will receive training from Cheetah managers and biologists from Africa.
Cheetah:
- After 70 years the cheetah will be seen in India.
- Cheetah in India was declared extinct in 1952.
- IUCN status:
- But as there is significant decline in its population, scientists are calling for its status to be changed to
- In North Africa and Asia, it is considered critically endangered.
- CITES: Appendix I
Growing trend of giving up Citizenship
Context:
Union Ministry of Home Affairs has reported the data of citizenship renounced in 2021 in the parliament.
Data of renounced citizenship:
- In the last 3 years total of more than 3.9 lakh Indians have given away their citizenship. 2021 alone witnessed 1.63 lakh Indians renouncing their citizenship.
- Of those, US emerged as the top choice among the 103 countries where emigrants settled. In 2021, total of 78,000 Indians took US citizenship.
- No of Indians given away citizenship in 2019 is 1.44 lakh and in 2020 the number is about 85,256.
- In 2021, largest number of Indians went to US, followed by Australia (23,533), Canada (21,597) and United Kingdom (14,637).
Possible Reasons for renouncing Citizenship:
- In India there is no provision for allowing dual citizenship hence, when an Indian takes another citizenship his/her citizenship will automatically terminate.
- There many reasons and they vary among different socio-economic and ethnic groups.
- Most of the people leave for other countries for better jobs and better living conditions.
- Some older people have to leave the country in order to live with their family settled overseas.
- Some high-profile cases people leave country maybe because of the fear of legal action for alleged crimes.
- As per Global Wealth Migration review, the high-net-worth individuals left the country because of rising crime rates or lack of business opportunities.
- GWM review also stated the other reasons such as safety of women and children, lifestyle factors like climate and pollution, better healthcare facilities, to escape oppressive governments etc.
Global wealth Migration review:
- It is published by AfrAsia bank in collaboration with World Wealth.
- It analyses the global trends in wealth migration.
Citizenship termination:
The citizenship Act, 1955 provides for three ways to lose citizenship of India. They are,
- Renunciation: a voluntary act by which person after acquiring the citizenship of another country renounces his Indian citizenship.
- Termination: when a citizen of India voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another country, Indian citizenship automatically ceases.
- Deprivation: it is a compulsory termination of citizenship of India obtained by naturalisation or the registration process. When it is found out that the citizenship is acquired through fraud or false representation or being disloyal to the constitution then by an order of the Government of India the citizenship is deprived.
National Statistical Office
Context:
National statistical office (NSO) has released the Working Paper on compilation of Labour indicators of Minimum Set of Gender Indicators.
Data by NSO:
- NSO has developed three labour indicators they are, “proportion of employed working part time, by sex”, “employment rate of persons age 25-49 living in a household with a child under 3 years and with no children under age 3 years living the household, by sex”.
- There are more females working in part time than males across the ages both in rural and urban areas.
- Female employment rate in age group 25-49 with at least one child under 3 years is less than that of their employment with no child under age 3. There is no difference in case of males with respect to presence of child under 3 years.
- In both rural and urban areas, part timers as a proportion of total employed are more in the 60+ age groups the among males and urban females.
National Statistical Office (NSO):
- It is Statistical wing of the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI).
- National statistical Office (NSO) is formed as a result of the merger of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) and central statistical office (CSO) in 2019.
- National statistical commission under the chairmanship of C. Rangarajan has recommended the creation of NSO.
- It is headed by secratary of the statistics and programme implementation.
Glioblastoma Awareness Day
Context:
Glioblastoma awareness Day is observed on July 20. It seeks to encourage increased public awareness about glioblastoma an aggressive form of cancer.
Glioblastoma:
- It is a malignant tumour affecting the brain or spine.
- It can develop at any age but most often it affects older persons.
Some of the signs of glioblastoma are,
- Headache, nausea or vomiting, confusion or a decline in brain function, memory loss, difficulty with balance, personality changes or irritability etc.
- Treatment: depends on individual generally it includes surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
Mechanised Scarecrows
Context:
To prevent the increasing cases of Elephant herds destroying the crops and property, Maharashtra state department has decided to resort to mechanised Scarecrows.
Mechanised Scarecrows:
- Mechanised scarecrows or Jumbo hooters are used to scare the intruding animals away with light and sound combination.
- Unlike solar powered fence it is a non-intrusive measure.
- It is installed at the field’s boundary. When a wild animal enters the premises, it will raise an alarm which will alert the quick response team and villagers or the owner.
- A pilot project has been already initiated in a village in the Dodamarg- Amboli region of Sindhudurg district.
- This system will also help in the prevention of man animal conflict.
Henley Passport Index
Context:
Japan, Singapore and South Korea have the most powerful passport in 2022 as per the Henley Passport Index.
The passport Index:
- The index is published by the Henley and partners which is a immigration consultancy.
- Japanese passport provides hassle free entry into 193 countries.
- India’s passport ranked 87th. China ranked 69th.
- UK and US occupied sixth and seventh positions
- Afghanistan stands least in the list.
UPSC Civil Services Daily Current Affairs 21st June 2022
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