05 May 2023

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

 1 – Smart Cities Mission: GS II – Government Policies and Interventions:

Context:

• The Smart Cities Mission’s deadline has been moved from June 2023 to June 2024 by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry (MoHUA).

What is the mission of smart cities?

• It is a MoHUA effort that was started on June 25, 2015, as a centrally sponsored scheme.
• A two-stage competition (from January 2016 to June 2018) resulted in the selection of 100 cities (to be developed as Smart Cities) in order to promote towns that offer fundamental infrastructure as well as a clean and sustainable environment.
• 66 of the cities, with a combined population of less than 1 million, are small and are carrying out two-thirds of the projects.

It seeks to:

• Drive economic growth through thorough work on the city’s social, economic, physical, and institutional pillars, and enhance livability through clever solutions.
• Focus on achieving sustainable and inclusive growth by developing replicable models that serve as beacons for other aspirant cities.

The idea of “Smart Cities” is founded on six key tenets, which are as follows:

Which initiatives were suggested?

• The project involves converting a few sections of ped-friendly roads into more expensive ones by installing water pipelines and building STPs.
• A few PPP infrastructure initiatives are also mentioned, such as multi-modal transportation hubs, common mobility cards, and public bike sharing.
• In order to keep an eye on all security, emergency, and municipal services, all 100 cities have built integrated command and control centers.
• Many of the cities transformed these into emergency response units at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

How far along are the projects?

• Although the Ministry changed the deadline for all cities to June 2023 in 2021, the projects were originally supposed to be finished in five years.
• The 100 cities had given work orders for 7,799 projects totaling Rs. 1.80 lakh crore as of March 2023.
• Seventy-five percent of the improvements have been finished in 50 of the 100 communities, and the remaining work should be finished by June.
• The documentation, diffusion, and institutionalization of best practices and innovations, however, would take more time to complete.
• The extension of the deadline to June 2024 will allow all 100 smart communities to finish their initiatives as well as record and share the mission’s lessons learned.

Source à The Hindu

2 – Zero Hunger: GS II – Social Issues:

Context:

• India should place a special and immediate emphasis on India’s youngest children in order to attain the objective of zero hunger.

Why do the youngest children in India require urgent care?

• At six months old, the WHO recommends that at least 33% of a person’s daily caloric intake come from food.
• The remaining calories are provided to the kid through “on-demand” breastfeeding.
• The NFHS-5 reports that 18% of mothers stated that their kid (between the ages of 6-23 months) had “zero-food” or no food in the 24 hours prior to the survey.
• Six out of ten youngsters do not drink milk (“zero-milk”), and over 40% went a whole day without eating any grains (such as roti, rice, etc.).
• Serious questions about extreme food insecurity are raised by this.

Impact and severity of undernutrition in early children:

• the proportion of kids that are underweight for their age (stunting).
• given their height, weighing less (wasting).

Actions taken:

• The flagship initiative for maternal and child nutrition is called Mission Poshan 2.0.
• the National Food Security Act of 2013.
• The Zero Hunger Programme was launched in 2017 and aims to enhance nutrition, health, and agriculture.
• Campaign to Eat Right in India.
• Fortification of food.
• PM GARBI BALYA Yojana Anna.

Challenges:

• Zero-food emphasizes that achieving food security does not always entail reaching sufficiency in food production (the world’s top producer of milk).
• Insufficient information (food-based metrics) about food and dietary consumption makes it difficult to evaluate how well government initiatives are performing.
• the expanding impact of non-communicable diseases in India, particularly cardiovascular disease.
• disruptions to the world’s food production and distribution systems, made worse by the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

What should be done?

• The particular nature of the inadequacies must be determined because the factors that lead to stunting or wasting in children are multifaceted.
• For this, assessments utilizing modules created by the FAO on household-level food insecurity can be modified.
• Any evidence-based policy will be built on top of this.
• The creation, implementation, and oversight of policies should be the responsibility of several (and not just one) ministries/departments of the Indian government.

Source The Hindu

3 – Article 142: GS II – Constitution-related issues:

Context:

• In accordance with Article 142 (1) of the Constitution, which grants it the power to “complete justice” in any cause or matter, the Supreme Court of India has decided that it has the authority to directly award divorce to couples.

How did SC respond?

• Even if one of the parties is unwilling, the court may disregard The Hindu Marriage Act (HMA), 1955’s necessary six-month waiting time for divorce and permit the dissolution of the marriage on the basis of an irretrievable breakdown.

Relevance of the choice:

• The decision allows couples to avoid the drawn-out procedure of getting a divorce order through family courts, which are now handling a huge number of cases that are similar.

Regarding Article 142:

• The Supreme Court has discretionary authority under Article 142 (1), which specifies that the SC may pass any decree or issue any orders necessary to provide full justice in any cause or matter that is currently before it.

Application:

• Release of AG Perarivalan, one of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case’s life-sentenced prisoners; Taj Mahal’s purification; and the Ayodhya dispute case.

Significance:

• It has been used to defend the rights of various groups within society and acts as a system of checks and balances between the legislature and the executive branch of government. It completely justifies different underprivileged facets of society or safeguards the environment.

An illustration of judicial overreach:

• State highways were added to the court’s prohibition on the selling of alcohol along national and state routes.
• Impact Article 142 contains some unfavorable characteristics, including uncertainty, encouraging judicial overreach, and unaccountability. The definition of “complete justice” is still ambiguous, and decisions made by the Supreme Court have added to the confusion.

Source The Hindu

4 – Periyar Tiger Reserve: GS II – Environmental Conservation:

Context:

• Arikompan, a wild tusker, was successfully relocated to the Mullakkudy forest region of the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Thekkady, close to Seeniyaroda.

Location:

• Falls in the Keralan Western Ghats districts of Idukki and Pathanamthitta

Formation:

• both a Tiger Reserve and a Sanctuary, respectively, were established in 1950.
• Name Its name comes from the River Periyar, which originates within the reserve.

Drainage:

• Mullayar and Periyar are the two main rivers that flow through the reserve.

Flora:

• Tropical evergreen, semi-evergreen, moist deciduous, and grassland forests can be found inside the sanctuary.

Fauna Mammals:

• Nilgiri Tahr, tiger, elephant, lion-tailed macaque, etc. Birds: racket-tailed Drongos, the big Malabar Hornbill, darters, cormorants, and kingfishers. Reptiles include king cobras, monitor lizards, and pythons.

Tribals:

• The reserve is home to six tribal groups, including the Mannans, Paliyans, Malayarayans, Mala Pandarams, Uralis, and Ulladans.

Source The Hindu