General Studies- II
Topic– Issues relating to development & management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
National Eat Right Mela
Context
Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare inaugurated the second edition of the ‘Eat Right Mela’
About
- Recognizing the significance of street food culture in the country, ‘Eat Right Mela’ is being organized in partnership with the National Street Food Festival by NASVI.
- The 3-day Mela will provide a complete food experience to you and your family.
- It is an opportunity to learn everything you need to know about safe food and healthy diets, including quick tests for adulterants, food and its health and nutrition benefits, dietary advice by experts, Government programmes and initiatives, and much more.
Background
- Food is an essential part of health and wellbeing; and poor diet is one of the risk factors for disease and death.
- Diet-related illnesses are more serious than TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDs taken together and yet, most of us are not mindful of what we eat, when we eat and how we eat.
- As per ICMR we are eating less healthy than what we ate 15 years ago.
Eat Right India Movement
- It is an opportune time to change the way India eats.
- For which, ‘Eat Right India’ Movement, a mass-movement or ‘Jan Andolan’ was launched by FSSAI to coincide with celebrations of 150th years of Mahatma Gandhi.
- The Movement is an effort to bring together other flagship programmes of the government, like Poshan Abhiyan, Ayushman Bharat, Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan and Anemia-Mukt Bharat.
Aim
- The movement aims to cut down salt/sugar and oil consumption by 30% in three years.
- It aims to engage and enable citizens to improve their health and well-being by making the right food choices.
Eat Right India Movement has four key elements
- ‘Swasth Bharat Yatra’, a nationwide cycle relay
- ‘Eat Right Creativity Challenge’ for posters, wall art and digital creatives
- ‘Eat Right Awards’ and ‘Eat Right Start-up Awards’ for industry, individuals and start-ups and
- ‘Eat Right Melas’ to engage, excite and enable citizens and food businesses towards safe and healthy foods.
Key features
- The FSSAI has put in place robust regulatory measures under three major pillars: Eat Safe, Eat Health and Eat Sustainably for the programme.
- FSSAI has prescribed a limit for Total Polar Compounds (TPC) at 25% in cooking oil to avoid the harmful effects of reused cooking oil.
- As part of ‘Eat Right India’ campaign, FSSAI has trained about 1.7 lakh food safety supervisors for capacity building under the Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC) initiative.
- They will sensitise people and food vendors on food safety.
Need of the campaign
- The country is in need of a movement on preventive health for all in the backdrop of the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases including diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases, widespread deficiencies of vitamins and minerals and rampant food-borne illnesses.
- The Eat Right India movement acts as a crucial preventive healthcare measure to trigger social and behavioural change.
General Studies- II
Topic- Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governanceapplications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
Good Governance Index (GGI)
Context
‘Good Governance Index’ launched by MoS (PP) on ‘Good Governance Day’.
About
- Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions launched the ‘Good Governance Index’ on the occasion of Good Governance Day,
- The Good Governance Day is observed on the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
What is Good Governance Index?
The Good Governance Index is a uniform tool across States to assess the Status of Governance and impact of various interventions taken up by the State Government and UTs.
Aim
- The objectives of GGI are to provide quantifiable data to compare the state of governance in all states and UTs.
- To enable states and UTs to formulate and implement suitable strategies for improving governance and shift to result oriented approaches and administration.
How GGI is prepared?
The GGI takes into consideration ten sectors-
- Agriculture and Allied Sectors,
- Commerce & Industries,
- Human Resource Development,
- Public Health,
- Public Infrastructure & Utilities,
- Economic Governance,
- Social Welfare & Development,
- Judicial & Public Security,
- Environment and
- Citizen-Centric Governance.
These ten Governance Sectors are measured on total 50 indicators–
- Difference indicators are given different weightage under one Governance Sector to calculate the value.
- g. under Agriculture & Allied Sector, there are 6 indicators with different weightage, namely-
- Growth rate of agriculture and allied sector (0.4),
- growth rate of food grains production (0.1),
- growth rate of horticulture produce (0.1),
- growth rate of milk production (0.1),
- growth rate of meat production (0.1)
- crop insurance (0.2).
The states and UTs are divided into three groups–
- Big States,
- North-East & Hill States and
- The states and UTs are ranked on all indicators separately, at the same time composite ranking is also calculated for these states and UTs under their respective groups based upon these indicators.
Key Findings of the first GGI Report
Top performers among the big states: Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
The bottom six states are Odisha, Bihar, Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
Among the North-East & Hill States: Top 3 states are Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Tripura. The bottom 3 states are Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
Pondicherry leads among the UTs followed closely by Chandigarh with Delhi bagging the third spot. Lakshadweep is at the bottom among the UTs.
Sector-wise ranking
Environment sector
- The top three states are West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
- The bottom 3 states are Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.
Judicial and public security ranking
- West Bengal is at the bottom two in the judicial and public security ranking. Tamil Nadu tops the chart here.
Economic governance
- Karnataka is at the top under the economic governance category.
Health
- Kerala is at the top in the public health sector.
General Studies- II
Topic- Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.
Universal Postal Union (UPU)
Context
Cabinet approves ratification of the Tenth Additional Protocol to the Constitution of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) signed at 2nd Extraordinary Congress of the UPU.
What is the UPU?
- The Universal Postal Union (UPU) was established in 1874.
- Its headquarters is in the Swiss capital Berne.
- It is the second oldest international organization worldwide.
- The UPU contains four bodies-
- The Congress,
- The Council of Administration (CA),
- The Postal Operations Council (POC) and
- The International Bureau (IB).
Key features
- With its 192 member countries, the UPU is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players.
- It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services.
Functions
- The organization fulfils an advisory, mediating and liaison role, and provides technical assistance where needed.
- It sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.
- It also oversees the Telematics and Express Mail Service (EMS) cooperatives. Each member agrees to the same terms for conducting international postal duties.
The tenth ratification
- The Union Cabinet gave its approval to the ratification of the Tenth Additional Protocol to the Constitution of the Universal Postal Union (UPU).
- It was adopted by 2nd Extraordinary Congress of the Union held at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 3rd to 7th September, 2018.
Benefits of ratification for India
- The approval enables the Postal Administration of India to have the Instrument of Ratification signed with the Director-General of the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union through diplomatic channels along with the approval of other Acts of the Union.
- It will also enable the Department of Posts to bring out any administrative orders to implement the provisions of the UPU Convention in India.
For prelims
Nari Shakti Puraskar 2019
Highlights
- Ministry of Women and Child Development has invited applications for Nari Shakti Puraskar for the year 2019.
- The National Award is given annually to individuals, groups, institutions in recognition of their exceptional work towards the cause of women empowerment, especially for vulnerable and marginalized women.
- Nearly 40 Nari Shakti Puraskar will be given away on International Women’s Day observed on 8th March 2020.
Naming of Tunnel Under Rohtang Pass
Highlights
- The government will name the strategic tunnel under Rohtang Pass.
- It will be named after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his birth anniversary on December 25th.
- The 8.8-km-long tunnel is the world’s longest above an altitude of 3,000 metres.
- The tunnel will cut through Pir Panjal range.
- The Seri nullah default zone lies inside the tunnel.
- The tunnel provides a temporary winter link to the outside world to residents of Lahaul and Spiti.
