Thought Chakra Daily Current Affairs – 21 July 2022

Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) has hit 51% mark

Mission – 55 litres of water per person per day to every rural household through Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) by 2024. (launched in 2019 and funding is demand driven)

Ministry of Jal Shakti

• 51% of project completion is done.
• Running Water – less than 17% of households to more than 34% now in less than 3 years.
• 1.4 million soak beds have been constructed in schools and anganwadis to use recycled water in tap connections.
• village certification as Har Ghar Jal – formal resolution by the gram panchayat, with a video recording of the session which has to be uploaded on the portal.
• Best performing states – Haryana, Telangana and Goa
• Progressing states – Punjab, Gujarat and Bihar

Additional Details –

• Mission is about –
  • Functionality of existing water supply
  • Monitoring Water Supply
  • Coordinated use of surface water and groundwater
  • Grey water treatment and its use
  • Functional tap connection to Schools, Anganwadis, Gram Panchayat buildings, Health centres and community buildings etc.
  • Technological interventions for removal of contaminants
  • Prioritizing provision of Functional Household Tap Connection in drought-prone and desert areas and poor water quality affected areas

Pulwama Mission Youth IAS

Part of the movement the district administration has started to engage youth and realize their potential.

Initiative ‘Be a Deputy Commissioner for a day‘ – higher secondary level students are encouraged to get involved in administrative matters.

• Motivation to join civil services in south Kashmir’s most militancy-affected district of Pulwama.
• Understand youth’s concern.
• Changing the behavioral pattern of the dejected youth and students
• Motivation to become Social change agents.
• Building trust.

Central Bank Digital Currency

Central Bank Digital Currency implementation in a phased manner by RBI for wholesale and retail segments.

• It is simply the digital form of a country’s fiat currency.
• Central bank issues electronic tokens.
• It is not comparable with private virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies.
• It is a sovereign-backed digital currency.

Benefits –

• Social benefits and other targeted payments
• Faster cross-border remittance payments.
• Inclusive development – helping bridge the digital divide.
• Instant lending to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)

Need –

• reduce the cost of currency management.
• real-time payments without any inter-bank settlement.
• Reduce Cost – high currency-to-GDP ratio(India) – cost of printing, transporting and storing paper currency.

Challenges –

• Cybersecurity threat.
• Lack of digital literacy
• Issue with regulation, tracking investment, Taxing individuals etc.
• Certain basic information about an individual – Threat to Privacy

National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme, 2007

Under the NCLP scheme, no data has been obtained for child labour in the country.

Reason – Drying up of funds under NCLP – merger with Samagra Siksha Abhiyan.

• Children in the age group of 9-14 years, are enrolled in the NCLP Special Training Centres.
• They are provided with bridge education, vocational training, stipend, mid-day meal, health care, etc.
• After, mainstreamed into the formal education system.

“Child labour” is defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.

• A study conducted last year by UNDP and Coca-cola company said that there is still vagueness in the definition of child labour.

Provisions related to child labour in India –

• Provisions of Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 – employment of children below the age of 14 years in any commercial enterprise is illegal. (child labour in “family or family enterprises” exception)
• Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour – Article 23
• No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed in work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment – Article 24
• Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 – working child in the category of children in need of care and protection. (no limitation of age or type of occupation)
• India has ratified the International Labour Organizations Convention (ILO) no 138 (minimum age for employment) and Convention no 182(worst forms of child labour).

Twiplomacy

Twitter diplomacy, also called “Twiplomacy” or “hashtag diplomacy” – use of the social media website Twitter by heads of state, leaders of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and their diplomats for diplomatic outreach and public diplomacy.

India-Africa Trade and Investment Agreement (IATIA)

Government has restated the need for IATIA.

To strengthen the India-Africa partnership under the African continent free trade area (AfFTA).

Initiatives for Africa –

• PIDA ( Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa)
• Pan-African E-Network
• Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program
• Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (2017)
• ‘Focus Africa’ Programme

Minimum Support Price

The government constituted a committee headed by former Union Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agrawal to look into the issues of minimum support price (MSP).

MSP is the rate at which the government buys grains from farmers.

Centre announces the MSP (not legally guaranteed) for 22 mandated crops (and Fair & Remunerative Price, or FRP, for sugarcane) on the basis of the recommendations of the CACP.

Crops –

• 14 Kharif crops (paddy, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi, tur/arhar, moong, urad, groundnut, soya bean, sunflower, sesamum, nigerseed, cotton)
• 6 rabi crops (wheat, barley, gram, Masur/lentil, rapeseed and mustard, and safflower)
• 2 commercial crops (jute and copra)

CACP takes into account various factors including demand and supply; cost of production; market trends; a minimum 50% margin over the cost of production; and likely implications of MSP on consumers.

• CACP calculates three types of costs — A2, A2+FL and C2
• For each mandated crop for different states.
• Based on Swaminathan Committee recommendations
  • A2: is the actual paid-out cost incurred by a farmer
  • A2+FL: the actual paid-out cost plus the value of family labour
  • C2: it includes A2+FL + Rental Value of Own Land
• CACP eventually recommends and the government announces MSP.
• Basis of MSP is A2+FL.
• Protesting farmers have been demanding MSP based on C2, besides a legal guarantee.

India and Namibia sign MoU to bring cheetahs to India

Officials are trying to complete the first transfer of African Cheetahs to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park.

Has been extinct in the country since 1952.

• African Cheetah –
• IUCN – Vulnerable
• Location – Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa
• Asian Cheetah –
• IUCN – Critically Endangered
• Location – Central Iran (Only surviving Cheetah population in Asia)
• King Cheetah –
• IUCN – Vulnerable
• Mutation of African Cheetah with three dark white straps from neck to tail.