Posted On: 12 JUL 2019 3:26PM by PIB Delhi Government of India has launched “LaQshya” (Labour room Quality improvement Initiative) to improve quality of care in labour room and maternity operation theatres in public health facilities. It’s a multipronged approach focused at Intrapartum and immediate postpartum period.
Aim: To reduce preventable maternal and newborn mortality, morbidity and stillbirths associated with the care around delivery in Labour room and Maternity Operation Theatre and ensure respectful maternity care.
Objectives: To reduce maternal and newborn mortality & morbidity due to hemorrhage, retained placenta, preterm, preeclampsia and eclampsia, obstructed labour, puerperal sepsis, newborn asphyxia, and newborn sepsis, etc. To improve Quality of care during the delivery and immediate post-partum care, stabilization of complications and ensure timely referrals, and enable an effective two-way follow-up system.
iii. To enhance satisfaction of beneficiaries visiting the health facilities and provide Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) to all pregnant women attending the public health facilities. Following types of healthcare facilities have been identified for implementation of LaQshya program
Government medical college hospitals. District Hospitals & equivalent health facilities. Designated FRUs and high case load CHCs with over 100 deliveries/month ( 60 in hills and desert areas)
In the 101 countries assessed– 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income –about 1.3 billion people are “multi-dimensionally poor“.
Definition of MPI poor: Multi-dimensional poverty defines poor not only on the basis of income, but on other indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.
Key findings: India specific: Incidence of multidimensional poverty almost halved between 2005-06 and 2015-16, climbing down to 27.5%, indicating that the number of poor people in India fell by more than 271 million within ten years. Incidence of multidimensional poverty halved in India due to faster progress among the poorest in the country. Among states, Jharkhand had the greatest improvement, with Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Nagaland only slightly behind.
However, Bihar was still the poorest state in 2015- 16, with more than half of its population living in poverty. In 2015-16, the four poorest states – Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh – were home to 196 million multidimensional poor people – over half of all the people living in multidimensional poverty in India.
Least poor regions also saw reduction in poverty. Relative to their starting levels, they netted some of the highest rates of reduction. For example, Kerala, one of the least poor regions in 2006, reduced its MPI by around 92%.
The positive trend of pro-poor poverty reduction was seen also across religions and caste groups. In both cases, the poorest groups (Muslims and Scheduled Tribes) reduced poverty the most over the ten years from 2005-06 to 2015-16.
The poorest district is Alirajpur in Madhya Pradesh, where 76.5% of people are poor – the same as Sierra Leone in Sub-Saharan Africa. Only eight countries have higher rates of MPI.
Highlights of the draft: It mandates the landowner to give a notice in writing three months before revising rent. It advocates appointing district collector as rent authority and heavy penalty on tenants for overstaying.
According to it, tenants overstaying will have to pay double the rent for two times and four times thereafter. The security deposit to be paid by the tenant in advance will be a maximum of two months’ rent.
Both landlord and tenant will have to submit a copy of rent agreement to the district Rent Authority which will also have the power to revise or fix rent following a request either by landlord or tenant.
States will be free to adopt the law owing to land being state subject. States will be required to constitute rent courts and rent tribunal. If the landowner refuses to carry out the required repairs, the tenant can get the work done and deduct the same from periodic rent. A landowner cannot enter the rented premises without 24-hour prior notice to carry out repairs or replacement.
Landowner cannot cut power and water supply in case of a dispute with the tenant. Rent Authority may direct for compensation on the person responsible for cutting off or withholding the essential supply. The Rent Authority may levy a penalty be paid to the landowner or tenant if it finds that the application was made frivolously or vexatiously.
Significance: It is an important piece of legislation that promises to ease the burden on civil courts, unlock rental properties stuck in legal disputes, and prevent future tangles by balancing the interests of tenants and landlords.
Need for a law in this regard: Young, educated job seekers migrating to large metropolises often complain of onerous tenancy conditions and obscene sums of money as security deposits that they are asked to fork out to lease accommodation. In some cities, tenants are asked to pay security deposits amounting to 11 months of rent. Also, some house owners routinely breach tenants’ right to privacy by visiting the premises unannounced for sundry repair works. Whimsical rent raises are another problem for tenants, many of whom complain of being squeezed as “captive customers“.
Besides, Tenants are often accused of “squatting” on the rented premises, or trying to grab the property.
About LaQshya: It’s a multipronged approach focused at Intrapartum and immediate postpartum period.
Aim: To reduce preventable maternal and newborn mortality, morbidity and stillbirths associated with the care around delivery in Labour room and Maternity Operation Theatre and ensure respectful maternity care.
Objectives: To reduce maternal and newborn mortality & morbidity due to hemorrhage, retained placenta, preterm, preeclampsia and eclampsia, obstructed labour, puerperal sepsis, newborn asphyxia, and newborn sepsis, etc.
To improve Quality of care during the delivery and immediate post-partum care, stabilization of complications and ensure timely referrals, and enable an effective two-way follow-up system.
To enhance satisfaction of beneficiaries visiting the health facilities and provide Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) to all pregnant women attending the public health facilities.
Following types of healthcare facilities have been identified for implementation of LaQshya program: Government medical college hospitals. District Hospitals & equivalent health facilities. Designated FRUs and high case load CHCs with over 100 deliveries/month (60 in hills and desert areas)
The annual “Kharchi Puja” and festival is meant to cleanse the sins of mortal souls. Originally a Hindu tribals’ festivity, it is now observed by all communities and religions.
The festival features 14 deities – Shiva, Durga, Vishnu, Laxmi, Saraswati, Kartik, Ganesha, Brahma, Abadhi (God of water), Chandra, Ganga, Agni, Kamdev and Himadri (Himalaya). This year the Kharchi Puja mela will be celebrated with the theme of ‘Nesha Mukta Tripura and Save Water’.
Gafa tax: What is it? It is a legislation — dubbed the GAFA tax — an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon – passed recently by France Parliament. With this, France has become the first major economy to impose a tax on digital giants.
The new law aims at plugging a taxation gap that has seen some internet heavyweights paying next to nothing in countries where they make huge profits. The law will levy a 3 per cent tax on total annual revenues of the largest tech firms providing services to French consumers.
What is Merchant Discount Rate and why does it matter? Merchant Discount Rate (alternatively referred to as the Transaction Discount Rate or TDR) is the sum total of all the charges and taxes that a digital payment entails.
Context: Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has put 52 producers, brand owners and importers on notice, for failing to take responsibility for their plastic waste.
What’s the issue? It is eight years since the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was incorporated into the Plastic Waste Management Rules, but municipal and pollution control authorities have failed to persuade commercial giants to put in place a system to collect and process the waste.
Tighter rules in 2016 and some amendments two years later put the onus on producers and brand owners to come up with an action plan for the retrieval of waste within six months to a year, but that too failed to take off.
Concerns: Mountains of garbage with a heavy plastic load have been growing in suburban landfills, out of sight of city dwellers. Without determined steps, the crisis is certain to worsen. Given the role played by packaging, the waste management problem is likely to become alarming.
Need of the hour: The two prongs of the solution are packaging innovation that reduces its use by using alternatives, and upscaling waste segregation, collection and transmission. Recovering materials from garbage should be a high priority, considering that India is the third highest consumer of materials after China and the U.S.; the Economic Survey 2019 estimates that India’s demand for total material will double by 2030 at current rates of growth.
Plastics may be less expensive than other inputs in manufacturing, but recycling them into new products extends their life and provides a substitute for virgin material.
Keeping them out of the environment reduces clean-up and pollution costs. Companies can form waste cooperatives in India, employing informal waste-pickers. Making municipal and pollution control authorities accountable is also equally important.
Government has been implementing various policy initiatives and programmes for development of textiles and handicrafts particularly for technology upgradation, infrastructure creation and skill development.
These include Amended Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (ATUFS), PowerTex India Scheme; National handloom Development Programme; Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks, SAMARTH- scheme for capacity building in Textile Sector, Silk Samagra- integrated silk development scheme, North Eastern Region Textile Promotion Scheme (NERTPS), the National Handicraft Development Programme (NHDP) and the Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme (CHCDS).
Under “Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme” (CHCDS), around 450 Handicraft Clusters have been undertaken across the country including 49 such clusters in Gujarat during the last 5 years to mobilize the artisans into Self-Help Groups, thrift and credit, training of SHGs on various aspects of forming and running community business enterprise.
Under Comprehensive Handloom Cluster Development Scheme(CHCDS), 8 mega handloom clusters have been takenup in a period of 5 years. Under this scheme, 31 block level handloom clusters have also been taken up during 20118-19 for over all development benefiting 26,093 weavers.Under the Comprehensive Powerloom Cluster Development scheme, five powerloom mega clusters are set up in different parts of the country including one at Surat, Gujarat for development of infrastructure and to boost production and export.
Government has been taking various efforts through schemes/programmes to boost textiles and cloth industries including handicrafts across the country including in Gujarat. A special package has been launched in 2016 to boost investment, employment and exports in the garmenting and made-up sector. For development of Knitting and Knitwear Sector, a new scheme has been launched in January 2019 with an outlay of Rs.47.72 crore for a period upto 31.3.2020 in order to boost production in knitting and knitwear clusters at Ludhiana, Kolkata, and Tiruppur which provide employment to nearly 24 lakh persons.
For the development of the handicrafts sector, Government is implementing the National Handicraft Development Programme (NHDP) and the Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme (CHCDS) for providing support on design, technology upgradation, infrastructure development, research and development, market support etc. to handicrafts clusters in the country.