To fulfil Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of a clean and hygienic India. Target: ODF by October 2,2019 · Over 6.98 crore household toilets constructed since the launch of the Mission (as on 31st March 2018), 7.15 crore toilets constructed as on 10/05/2018.
· 3.44 lakh villages in 361 districts made ODF (as on 31st March, 2018), 3.6 lakh villages and 383 districts made ODF as on 10/05/2018
4,465 open defecation free villages under Namami Ganga. · Sanitation Coverage increased from 38.70% in 2014 to 82.72% as on 31.03.2018, 83.43% as on 10/05/2018 . · Incentive for individual toilet increased to Rs. 12,000.
To improve the cleanliness levels in rural and urban areas, priority to girl toilets in schools. Rs 365 crore used for school toilets & renovation of defunct toilets.
Swachh Bharat Cess Contribution to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the form of Swachh Bharat Cess is collected and spend to achieve the objective.
Swachch Bharat Urban Launched on 2.10.2014 to make 4,041 cities and towns Open Defecation Free and clean by October 2019 & achieve 100% solid waste management. · Milestones Achieved
47.10 lakhs individual household toilets constructed so far.
3.18 lakhs Community and Public Toilet seats constructed so far.
2679 cities have been so far self-declared Open Defecation Free and after third party certification 2,133 cities/ ULBs have been certified as Open Defecation Free (ODF).
62,436 urban wards covered under 100% Door to Door collection of solid waste.
Waste to Compost total achievement 13.11 lakh TPA from 145 functional Plants.
Around 88 Mega Watts of energy is being produced from waste.
Rs 6,592 crores released to states under various Mission components till date.
Swachh Survekshan 2018 (SS 2018) has been taken up, covering all 4041 ULBs in the country, making it the largest sanitation survey in the world. SS 2016 and SS 2017 had covered 73 cities and 434 cities respectively.
Star rating protocol for garbage free cities has been launched, making it the first of its kind initiative to institutionalize a single metric for evaluating cities’ cleanliness status.
Google maps business listing initiative for Public toilets has been taken up as a first of its kind initiative, for all 106 cities (cities with more than 5 lakh population and state capitals).
The targets were fully achieved with 4,17,796 toilets added to 2,61,400 government elementary and secondary schools during the year from 15.8.2014 to 15.8.2015.
This includes schools in the most difficult to reach areas in the country such as districts facing Left Wing Extremism (LWE), in forests, remote mountainous terrain and in crowded slums.
"With this, about 14.31 crore students in 11.02 lakh government schools all over the country now have access to gender segregated toilet facilities."
A joint initiative with Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation to leverage achievements of complementary program-Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and Kayakalp
- Rural drinking water supply coverage - No. of fully covered habitations increased from 73.66% as on 1.4.14 to more than 78.14 % on 31.3.2017.
About 2,70,000 habitations covered from 2014-2017.
More than 56.41 percent of the rural population have access to piped water supply.
17% Households have piped water connections. Clean Water to Arsenic and Fluoride affected 27544 habitations by March 2021.
· To provide safe drinking water to over 27,544 arsenic and fluoride affected habitations in the next four years.
· Focus on Arsenic/Fluoride affected habitations under the National Water Quality Sub-Mission of NRDWP.
A total 221 projects have been taken up under Namami Gange programme for various activities such as sewage infrastructure, ghats& crematoria, river front development, river surface cleaning, institutional development, biodiversity conservation, afforestation and rural sanitation at a total cost of Rs 22,238 crore, Out of these 221 projects, 58 projects have been completed and balance projects are at various stages of execution.
97 towns have been identified along main stem of river Ganga generating 3603 Mld (estimated for year 2035) of sewage. The existing sewage treatment capacity in these towns is 1651 Mld.
In the first phase, 95 sewerage projects have been taken up in 61 of the 97 towns. These projects will create another 1940 Mld STP capacity at a cost of INR 14,458 Cr.
Ten (10) major towns contribute almost 64% of present sewage generation of these 97 towns. The towns are: Haridwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Farrukhabad, Varanasi, Patna, Bhagalpur, Kolkata, Howrah and Bally. All the requirements of sewage treatment infrastructure in these 10 towns have been fully addressed. Twenty Four (24) of the 95 projects undertaken have been completed, creating 186 mld STP capacity thereof, and presently in operation.
Out of 95 Projects, Forty One(41) projects are under progress and other 30 projects are under various stages of tendering. This will create an additional sewage treatment capacity of 1754 mld.
The projects taken up so far will take care of all the interventions required for all 5 states – Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar Jharkhand and West Bengal in respect of sewage treatment requirement till year 2035 on the main stem of river Ganga.
In addition, 10 projects have been taken up on Ganga tributaries, like Yamuna (Sonepat and Panipat in Haryana, Delhi, Mathura and Vrindavan in UP), Ramganga (Moradabad, UP), Saryu (Ayodhya, UP) and Kosi (Naugachia, Bihar).
These projects are for creating 1353 Mld sewage treatment capacity at a cost of INR 3028 Cr. From these, two projects of Haryana 70 mld of new treatment capacity has been created & operational apart from rehabilitation of another 75 mld treatment capacity.
In the next phase, towns along major tributaries of river Ganga are being taken up. A comprehensive study is underway to identify the sewage treatment infrastructure related requirements in these towns.
Projects have been taken up for 24X7 cleaning of ghats at Varanasi, Bithoor, Kanpur, Allahabad, Mathura-Vrindavan and Haridwar to avoid solid waste disposal into river from ghats and also to improve public facilities and cleanliness. In consideration of the encouraging results from this project, ghat cleaning activity is being extended to ghats of other major towns along rivers Ganga and Yamuna.
Ghats & Crematoria Development of Ghats & Crematoria works in select cities have been taken up and work on 151 Ghats and 54 Crematoria is in progress at various places and likely to be completed by March 2019. 24 ghats were completed in West Bengal from 2011 to 2014 which are under maintenance. The focus now is to complete the ghats and crematoria under construction.
River Surface Cleaning 11 Trash Skimmers have been deployed in 11 cities i.e. Delhi, Haridwar, Mathura-Vrindavan, Garhmukteshwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Sahibganj, Nabadwip and Kolkata to arrest floating material and to tackle river surface pollution.
Industrial Pollution Management 952 Grossly Polluting Industries (GPIs) have been identified on main stem of river Ganga after reinventorisation exercise carried out by CPCB (2017-18) wherein permanently closed GPIs have been removed and new industries have been added in the list.
Surprise inspection of GPIs (as on 15th June 2018), 253 are non-complying, 180 have been issued closure directions and 73 have been issued show cause notices.
A preliminary estimate suggests a significant reduction of BOD discharge from 132 TPD in 2012-13 to 67 TPD in 2017 from industrial sources (~49 % reduction).
As on 02.07.2018, 764 industries have been connected to CPCB server and directions have been issued to remaining GPIs for installation and connectivity to CPCB server.
12 Technical Institutes engaged for surprise inspections of 952 Grossly Polluting Industries w.e.f 2nd April 2018. As on 16th July, 2018, inspection of 929 GPIs has been completed by the TPIs.
Out of 929 GPIs inspected by GPIs, 318 inspections reports have been processed by SPCBs. Action has been taken by SPCBs on 29 non-complying industries (25 Show cause issued and 4 letter issued for compliance).
Water Quality Monitoring 138 locations (20 km interval) water quality monitoring carried out. 94 Manual water quality stations 44 Real Time Water Quality stations Dissolved Oxygen levels improved at 33 locations, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) decreased at 26 locations and coliform bacteria count decreased at 30 locations (2016 vs 2017 data).
Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoDWS) identified 1707 Gram Panchayats situated on the bank of River Ganga in 5 State (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal).
578 Crores has been released to Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoDWS) for construction of toilets in 1707 Gram Panchayats of 5 Ganga Basin States.
Consortium of 7 IITs has been engaged in the preparation of Ganga River basin Plan and 65 villages have been adopted by 13 IITs to develop as model villages. UNDP has been engaged as the executing agency for rural sanitation programme and to develop Jharkhand as a model State at an estimated cost of Rs. 127 Crore.
· 100 places of historical, cultural, social and religious importance to be taken up for intensive clean-up campaigns to make them world class in terms of swachhata
· Work has already begun in 20 such places in the first two phases
· Each Ministry of GoI has pledged an action plan to inculcate swachhata and sanitation in their spheres of influence
· For year 2017-18, 72 Ministries/ Departments allocated Rs 18,154.64 crore for activities under Swachhata Action Plan (SAP)
· As per details uploaded by Ministries/ Department on SAP Portal, Rs, 12,230.92 crore has been utilized (as on 9 May 2018)
Initiative for Environment Protection · All Environment Clearances made online. · National Air Quality Index launched on 6th April, 2015 to monitor the quality of air in major urban centres across the country on a real-time basis.
· Six sets of Waste Management rules notified India declared its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) in the run to COP-21 at Paris in December 2015.
The third countrywide assessment of the status of tigers, co-predators and their prey, released in January, 2015 using the refined methodology as recommended by the Tiger Task Force.
The findings indicate a countrywide 30% increase in tiger numbers in 2014 with an estimated number of 2,226, as compared to 1706 tigers, according to the 2010 estimation.
- More than 29.83 crore LED bulbs
- Energy saved per year- 38,743 mn kWh
- Cost saving per year INR 15,497 Cr
- CO2 Reduction per year- 3,13,82,026 t CO2
- Avoided Peak Demand- 7,757 MW
The “Future of Work in India” survey of of 770 companies conducted by the WEF (World Economic Forum) included various sectors such as textiles, banking & financial services, transport & logistics, and retail.
Highlights and findings of the report: Major gender gap in Indian corporates: Four out of five retail firms hire less than 10% women. Companies in India experiencing the highest growth prefer hiring men and technology-led job growth benefits men more than women. Notably, while one in three companies preferred hiring men, only one in 10 companies said they wanted to hire more women, accentuating the gender gap rampant in the country.
Statistics: The report found that just 2.4% of these have half or more female employees, and as many as 71% have fewer than 10%. Out of this 71%, 30% companies have no female employees, and another 32% have less than 5%. The sector-wise breakup showed that 79% companies in retail, and 77% in transport & logistics, have less than 10% female employees, while banking & finance companies have 61% female participation and textiles 64%.
Global comparison: India’s female workforce participation is mere 27% and stands 23% points lower than global average. Jobs in India are experiencing highest growth and companies are hiring women at only 26%. Women in India are entering workforce at a slower rate than current female workforce participation.
More than 33% of the total companies said that they prefer to hire men, as compared to just over one-tenth that said that they are looking to hire more women going forward. In the last five years, the surveyed companies stated that they hired just 26% female workers in the job roles that saw the most growth, which is less than India’s already low female labour force participation of 27%.
About WEF: The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests. The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. Moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does.
The Task Force is the second country-led public-private collaboration of the World Economic Forum’s Closing the Skills Gap Project after South Africa.
About Closing the skills gap task force: The task force will bring together leaders from business, government, civil society and the education and training sectors to accelerate the future-proofing of education and training systems in the country.
The goal of the Task Force is to develop an action plan to address skills gaps in India and make the Indian workforce ready for jobs of future.
Significance: With more than half of our population in the working age, skills development will be critical to sustaining inclusive growth and development in India.’ The “Closing the Skills Gap” task force will be a significant step to accelerate the impact on skills development already achieved by bringing together relevant stakeholders to act collectively.
Closing the Skills Gap Project by WEF: The Closing the Skills Gap Project aims to create global and national platforms to address current skills gaps and to reshape education and training for the future. It works at three levels:
Country implementation deep-dives: At the national level, the Closing the Skills Gap Task Forces provides a platform for multi-stakeholder collaboration to close the skills gap and prepare for the future of work. Each Closing the Skills Gap Task Force brings together leaders from business, government, civil society, and education and training sectors to accelerate reskilling and upskilling efforts in the current workforce and the future-proofing of national education and training systems.
Global and regional knowledge exchange: At the global level, an informal Global Alliance for Closing the Skills Gap provides an exclusive global platform for leaders and experts from business, government, civil society, and the education and training sectors to build consensus, share ideas, and identify preferred models and best practices.
Global business commitments: With skilling, reskilling and upskilling becoming a clear “no-regret” move for addressing the flux in labour markets, there is a rapid movement of multinational businesses towards such efforts for their employees, communities and wider audience. Managed strategically, this can be impactful and a win-win for companies and workers alike. As a first step, the Forum is consolidating global business commitments with the goal to reach 10 million people by January 2020.
These gravity assists will help the spacecraft tighten its orbit closer and closer to the Sun over the course of the mission.
What next? Throughout its mission, the probe will make six more Venus gravity assist and 24 total passes by the Sun. This manoeuvre will change Parker Solar Probe’s trajectory to take the spacecraft closer to the Sun.
About the mission: What is it? NASA’s historic Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize our understanding of the sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. Parker Solar Probe will travel through the sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.
Journey: In order to unlock the mysteries of the sun’s atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus’ gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the sun. The spacecraft will fly through the sun’s atmosphere as close as 3.9 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before.
Goals: The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles.
Parker Solar Probe has three detailed science objectives: Trace the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the solar corona and solar wind. Determine the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind. Explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles.
Why study corona? The corona is hotter than the surface of the sun. The corona gives rise to the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged particles that permeates the solar system. Unpredictable solar winds cause disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field and can play havoc with communications technology on Earth. Nasa hopes the findings will enable scientists to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment.
Why do we study the sun and the solar wind? The sun is the only star we can study up close. By studying this star we live with, we learn more about stars throughout the universe.
The sun is a source of light and heat for life on Earth. The more we know about it, the more we can understand how life on Earth developed.
The sun also affects Earth in less familiar ways. It is the source of the solar wind; a flow of ionized gases from the sun that streams past Earth at speeds of more than 500 km per second (a million miles per hour).
Disturbances in the solar wind shake Earth’s magnetic field and pump energy into the radiation belts, part of a set of changes in near-Earth space known as space weather.
Space weather can change the orbits of satellites, shorten their lifetimes, or interfere with onboard electronics. The more we learn about what causes space weather – and how to predict it – the more we can protect the satellites we depend on.
The solar wind also fills up much of the solar system, dominating the space environment far past Earth. As we send spacecraft and astronauts further and further from home, we must understand this space environment just as early seafarers needed to understand the ocean.
Facts for Prelims: The previous closest pass to the Sun was by a probe called Helios 2, which in 1976 came within 27 million miles (43 million km). By way of comparison, the average distance from the Sun for Earth is 93 million miles (150 million km).
As per the MoU, ROSCOSMOS has offered ride to Indian astronaut short visit to International Space Station (ISS) on board Soyuz spacecraft for short training mission in 2022.
About Gaganyaan: It is India’s first manned space mission. Under it, India is planning to send three humans (Gaganyatris) into space i.e. in low earth orbit (LEO) by 2022 i.e. by 75th Independence Day for period of five to seven days.
India plans to build a crew vehicle that can accommodate 2 or 3 astronauts and human rate its GLSV Mk-III launcher.
Recent technological advancements: In what appears to be a preparation for the Gaganyaan mission, ISRO recently conduced its first ‘pad abort’ test that was successful.
The ‘pad abort’ test or Crew Escape System is an emergency escape measure that helps pull the crew away from the launch vehicle when a mission has to be aborted. The test was conducted at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
The Pad Abort Test demonstrated the safe recovery of the crew module in case of any exigency at the launch pad.
Way ahead: A manned space mission is very different from all other missions that ISRO has so far completed. In terms of complexity and ambition, even the missions to the Moon (Chandrayaan) and Mars (Mangalyaan) are nowhere in comparison.
For a manned mission, the key distinguishing capabilities that ISRO has had to develop include the ability to bring the spacecraft back to Earth after flight, and to build a spacecraft in which astronauts can live in Earth-like conditions in space.
If India does launch the Gaganyaan mission, it will be the the fourth nation to do so after the United States, Russia and China.
The announcement for the centre was made on the occasion of Dolphin day (October 5), observed in Bihar for protection and conservation of Gangetic river dolphin to create awareness to save endangered species.
Role: NDRC will play important role in strengthening conservation efforts and research to save endangered mammal whose population is decreasing. Bihar is home to around half of the country’s estimated 3,000 dolphin population.
About Gangetic Dolphins: The Ganges River dolphin, or susu, inhabits the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems of Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. It is classified as endangered by the IUCN.
This dolphin is among the four “obligate” freshwater dolphins – the other three are the baiji now likely extinct from the Yangtze river in China, the bhulan of the Indus in Pakistan and the boto of the Amazon River in Latin America. Although there are several species of marine dolphins whose ranges include some freshwater habitats, these four species live only in rivers and lakes.
Being a mammal, the Ganges River dolphin cannot breathe in the water and must surface every 30-120 seconds. Because of the sound it produces when breathing, the animal is popularly referred to as the ‘Susu’.
Threats: The survival of the Ganges River dolphin is threatened by unintentional killing through entanglement in fishing gear; directed harvest for dolphin oil, which is used as a fish attractant and for medicinal purposes; water development projects (e.g. water extraction and the construction of barrages, high dams, and embankments); industrial waste and pesticides; municipal sewage discharge and noise from vessel traffic; and overexploitation of prey, mainly due to the widespread use of non-selective fishing gear.
Bisphenol A (BPA): BPA is commonly used to coat the insides of food cans, bottle tops and water supply lines, and was once a component of baby bottles.
Concerns: While BPA that seeps into food and drink is considered safe in low doses, prolonged exposure is suspected of affecting the health of children and contributing to high blood pressure.
Tiny spheres to trap BPA- how they function? The micron-sized spheres developed resemble tiny flower-like collections of titanium dioxide petals.
The supple petals provide plenty of surface area for researchers to anchor cyclodextrin — a benign sugar-based molecule often used in food and drugs. It has a two-faced structure, with a hydrophobic (water-avoiding) cavity and a hydrophilic (water-attracting) outer surface.
BPA is hydrophobic and naturally attracted to the cavity. Once trapped, reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by the spheres degrades BPA into harmless chemicals.
What is it? It is a joint Maritime Exercise between India and Japan. It was started in January 2012 with special focus on Maritime Security Cooperation.
Why in News? The 3rd edition of Japan-India Maritime Exercise (JIMEX) is being held at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. JIMEX-18 is aimed to enhance interoperability, improve understanding and imbibe best practices between navies of two countries.
Nobel Peace Prize: Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad have jointly been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. They were given award for their efforts to end use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament.