DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS
1 – UN Report on Children and Armed Conflict:
Context:
- After 12 years, India is no longer included in the UN report on children and conflict.
Key details:
- The UN Secretary-General deleted India from a list of countries in a study on children and armed conflict.
- Due to reports that security forces in J&K kidnapped, killed, and seriously maimed young boys who had been recruited and employed by armed groups there, India was previously on the list.
- Since 2010, India has not appeared in the study among countries like Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the region around Lake Chad, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
- India has allegedly been “removed from the report in 2023” as a result of efforts made by the administration to “better protect children.”
- According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, new institutional and policy changes that have been implemented since 2019 have made this now attainable.
- Following the removal of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir has established all statutory service delivery mechanisms required by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, including the Child Welfare Committee and Juvenile Justice Boards.
- The Indian government had been working nonstop to have our country’s name taken off of this hateful list.
Source – The Hindu
2 – What is Greedflation:
Context:
- Global economists have stressed the role that corporate greed plays in driving up prices.
Key details:
- Globally, there is broad consensus that corporate greed is the new bad guy fueling inflation, while people bear the brunt of stagnant wages and rising interest rates.
What causes inflation?
- There are two ways that inflation might happen. Price increases can result from either a rise in demand (demand-pull inflation) or a rise in input costs (cost-push inflation).
- How does greedflation work and do developed countries experience it?
- Greedflation simply refers to the hypothesis that business greed is driving up prices. In other words, the profit-price spiral rather than the wage-price spiral is in play here.
- Essentially, greedflation is a situation in which firms raise their prices much above what is required to cover their rising costs in an effort to benefit more from the inflation that consumers were already suffering. As a result, this supports further inflation growth.
- There is growing consensus that the real source of inflation in industrialised countries like the US and Europe is greedflation.
Source – The Hindu
3 – Tarang Shakti; Biggest ever Air Exercise in India:
- Context:
- For its biggest air exercise, the IAF plans to combine forces from 12 different nations.
- Key details:
- The Tarang Shakti exercise is anticipated to be India’s greatest air exercise to date.
- With a range of tools, including transport aircraft and military combat jets, the participating nations will take part in the exercise.
- The air forces of France, Australia, the US, and the UK, among others, are anticipated to take part in the drill.
- The Tarang Shakti exercise is slated between October and November.
- The other air units will observe the drill from the sidelines as six air forces participate.
- IAF took part in INIOCHOS in Greece and Exercise Orion in France earlier in 2023.
- At facilities in Kalaikunda, Panagarh, and Agra in April, the IAF and USAF engaged in a joint exercise known as Cope India-2023.
- The Bastille Day fly-past will also feature three Indian Air Force Rafale fighter jets, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be present at this year’s Bastille Day Parade in France.
Source – The Hindu
4 – Climate change and resurgence of Malaria:
- Context:
- The United States has issued a malaria alert.
- Important details:
- The United States has found five cases of malaria in people who have never visited overseas in Florida and Texas.
- As a result, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US have issued a caution informing physicians to suggest malaria as a potential diagnosis in patients who have a fever of unknown cause.
- Despite considerable advancements in the fight to eradicate malaria worldwide, the dreadful disease could reappear due to climate change.
- Why issue a caution in just five instances?
- The five cases have raised questions because there hasn’t been local malaria transmission in the US for the past 20 years.
- The United States has been reporting roughly 2,000 cases of malaria annually, primarily among foreign visitors, despite the fact that there hasn’t been any recent local transmission.
- The danger is higher in areas where the Anopheles mosquitoes that spread the virus can thrive for most of the year due to environmental conditions.
- Through the bite of an infected mosquito, the parasitic illness malaria is transmitted.
- In America, where the anopheles mosquito that transmits the disease still exists, the parasite has not been present.
- What is the state of malaria worldwide?
- The most recent World Malaria Report estimates that in 2021, nearly half of the global population will still be at risk for malaria.
- The results show that there were 247 million infections and 619,000 deaths from malaria worldwide in 2014.
- Most of these cases—nearly 95%—came from Africa.
- Global malaria cases started to rise in 2020, albeit more slowly than in 2019.
- There are now more effective artemisinin-based combination therapies available, shorter-course p. vivax medicines, and a vaccine for children living in areas with high transmission rates.
- The sustainable development objectives include as their goal the eradication of malaria in at least 35 countries, a 90% decrease in malaria incidence and mortality, and the prevention of recurrence in all malaria-free countries by 2030.
- Malaria is how common in India?
- Despite the fact that malaria cases have been dropping in India, from 2015 and 2022, the number of malaria cases and deaths reduced by 83.36 percent and 85.1%, respectively.
- India is still one of the countries with a high burden of disease.
- India reported 1.7% of the world’s malaria cases in 2021 and 1.2% of the deaths brought on by malaria.
- The nation was in charge of 79% of malaria cases and 83% of malaria deaths in the WHO Southeast Asia region.
- In addition to dealing with a high load of the difficult-to-treat p. vivax infections, India is also working to lower the number of p. falciparum patients.
- Could an increase in malaria cases be caused by climate change?
- The climate plays a significant role in the propagation of the vector-borne disease.
- Due to their high sensitivity to temperature, malaria-carrying mosquitoes can only survive in a narrow range of temperatures that are neither too hot nor too cold.
- If temperatures rise in a state with a high prevalence of the disease, like Odisha, the number of months during which malaria can be transmitted may decrease.
- However, in foothill states like Himachal, malaria would spread for longer months if the temperature increased.
- Increasing temperatures are predicted to make tropical highlands in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Americas more favourable to malaria for an additional 1.6 months, according to a study from 2021 that was published in the Lancet.
- According to this, “Outbreaks can occur in settings where people may be immunologically uneducated and public health systems may be unprepared.
Source – The Hindu
5 – PM-PRANAM; The biofertilizer Scheme:
- Context:
- The government gave its approval to the PM-PRANAM Scheme.
- Key details:
- The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the PM-PRANAM programme, which was specified in the Budget for 2023–2024.
- The government has launched the Prime Minister’s Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Generation, Nourishment, and Amelioration of Mother Earth (PM-PRANAM).
- The PM-PRANAM, which has a total budget of 3,70,128.7 crore, would promote the use of nutrient-based, biofertilizers for sustainable agriculture.
- The PM-PRANAM programme, which includes State governments, strives to save the soil and promote sustainable, balanced fertiliser use.
- The Centre aims to encourage those States to adopt alternative fertilisers with the subsidy that was saved by using fewer chemical fertilisers.
- The PM-PRANAM plan included a variety of activities that would boost farmer income, encourage natural and organic farming, boost soil productivity, ensure soil productivity, and ensure food security.
- The continuance of the urea subsidy policy also received approval by the CCEA, assuring that farmers will always have access to urea at the same cost of 242/45 kg per bag.
- Notably, the nation has increased its use of nano urea, and eight nano urea facilities will be running by 2025–2026.
- In order to promote the organic fertilisers from the Gobardhan plants, a special grant for Market Development Assistance (MDA) has been awarded.
- Additionally, the Gobardhan initiative is promoting compressed biogas plants (CBG), liquid fermented organic manures (FOM), and phosphate-rich organic manures (PROM), which are produced as byproducts from biogas plants.
- Organic fertilisers (FOM/LFOM/PROM) would be affordable for farmers to acquire. The names of these fertilisers will be Bharat Brand FOM, LFOM, and PROM.
Source – The Hindu
