Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will deliver a video address on the occasion of World Youth Skills Day tomorrow. The day marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of Skill India Mission. A Digital Conclave is being organized by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to mark the occasion.
Background Skill India is an initiative of the Government of India which has been launched to empower the youth of the country with skill sets which make them more employable and more productive in their work environment. Skill India offers courses across several sectors which are aligned to the standards recognised by both, the industry and the government under the National Skill Qualification Framework.
The courses help a person focus on practical delivery of work and help him enhance his technical expertise so that he is ready for day one of his job and companies don’t have to invest into training him for his job profile.
The Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is releasing index numbers of wholesale price in India for the month of June, 2020 (Provisional) and for the month of April, 2020 (Final) in this press release. Provisional figures of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) are released on 14th of every month (or next working day) with a time lag of two weeks of the reference month and compiled with data received from institutional sources and selected manufacturing units across the country. After 10 weeks, the index is finalized and final figures are released and then frozen thereafter.
INFLATION The annual rate of inflation, based on monthly WPI, stood at (-1.81%) (provisional) for the month of June, 2020 (over June, 2019) as compared to 2.02% during the corresponding month of the previous year.
The movement of the index for the various commodity groups is summarized below:- PRIMARY ARTICLES (Weight 22.62%) The index for this major group increased by (2.28%) to 139.3 (provisional) in June, 2020 from 136.2 (provisional) for the month of May, 2020. Prices of Crude Petroleum & Natural Gas (16.30%), Food Articles (1.97%) and Non Food Articles (1.71%) increased as compared to May, 2020. Prices of Minerals (-1.72 %) declined as compared to May 2020
FUEL & POWER (Weight 13.15%) The index for this major group increased by (5.50%) to 88.3 (provisional) in June 2020 from 83.7 (provisional) for the month of May, 2020. Prices of Mineral oils group (12.54%) increased compared to month of May, 2020. Prices of Coal and Electricity remain unchanged.
MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS (Weight 64.23%) The index for this major group increased by (0.42%) to 118.6 (provisional) in June 2020 from 118.1 (provisional) for the month of May, 2020. Out of the 22 NIC two-digit groups of Manufactured products, 13 groups that have witnessed increasein prices are manufacture of food products;printing and reproduction of recorded media; wearing apparel; chemicals and chemical products; pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemical and botanical products; rubber and plastics products; other non-metallic mineral products; basic metals; fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment; electrical equipment; motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers; other transport equipment; other manufacturingin June as compared to May, 2020. Whereas the groups that witnessed decreasein prices were manufacture of beverages; tobacco products; textiles; leather and related products; wood and of products of wood and cork; paper and paper products; machinery and equipment and furniturein June as compared to May, 2020. While the Manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products remained unchanged in June compared to May, 2020.
The figures of WPI for June, 2020 have been compiled at a response rate of around 70 percent. These provisional figures of WPI will undergorevision as per the final revision policy of WPI.
WPI FOOD INDEX (Weight 24.38%) The Food Index consisting of ‘Food Articles’ from Primary Articles group and ‘Food Products’ from Manufactured Products group have provisionally increased from 146.1in May, 2020 to 148.6in June, 2020. The annual rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index increased from 2.31% in May, 2020 to 3.05% in June, 2020.
FINAL INDEX FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL, 2020 (BASE YEAR:2011-12=100) For the month of April, 2020 the final Wholesale Price Index and inflation rate for 'All Commodities' (Base: 2011-12=100) stood at 119.2 and WPI based rate of inflation stood at (-1.57%).Indices for the month of April 2020 are finalized in the light of improved response rate from the selected sources.
Note: Price Data are collected from selected institutional sources and industrial establishments spread across the country online through web based portal maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Guidelines on Digital/ Online Education provide a roadmap for carrying forward online education with enhanced quality: Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’
Guidelines recommend a cap on duration and number of online sessions in a day for students from Class I to XII Posted On: 14 JUL 2020 4:50PM by PIB Delhi
Union Human Resource Development Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' released PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education through online medium in New Delhi today. Minister of State for HRD Shri Sanjay Dhotre was also present through online medium.
Speaking on the occasion , Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said that COVID-19 pandemic has led to closure of schools and has impacted over 240 million children of the country who are enrolled in schools. Extended school closures may cause loss of learning. Shri Pokhriyal said that to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, schools will not only have to remodel and reimagine the way teaching and learning have happened so far, but will also need to introduce a suitable method of delivering quality education through a healthy mix of schooling at home and schooling at school.
The Minister informed that PRAGYATA guidelines have been developed from the perspective of learners, with a focus on online/blended/digital education for students who are presently at home due to lockdown. He added that these guidelines on Digital/ Online Education provide a roadmap or pointers for carrying forward online education to enhance the quality of education. The Minister highlighted that the guidelines will be relevant and useful for a diverse set of stakeholders including school heads, teachers, parents, teacher educators and students. The guidelines stress upon the use of alternative academic calendar of NCERT, for both, learners having access to digital devices and learners having limited or no access.
The PRAGYATA guidelines include eight steps of online/ digital learning that is, Plan- Review- Arrange- Guide- Yak(talk)- Assign- Track- Appreciate. These steps guide the planning and implementation of digital education step by step with examples.
Speaking on the occasion Shri Dhotre said that the PRAGYATA guidelines have been prepared by the Ministry of HRD to ensure the safety and academic welfare of the students. He said that the online education has filled lot of gaps during the pandemic but utmost care has to be taken while using digital technologies to educate the students. He hoped that these guidelines will help students, teachers, parents, heads and other stakeholders to learn online safety practices. Shri Dhotre also lauded the efforts of the Ministry to bring out PRAGYATA guidelines which will provide a safe and secure digital learning environment.
The guidelines outlines suggestions for administrators, school heads, teachers, parents and students on the following areas: Need assessment Concerns while planning online and digital education like duration, screen time, inclusiveness, balanced online and offline activities etc level wise
Modalities of intervention including resource curation, level wise delivery etc.
Physical, mental health and wellbeing during digital education Cyber safety and ethical practices including precautions and measures for maintaining cyber safety
Collaboration and convergence with various initiatives
Mizoram experienced at least eight moderate earthquakes between June 21 and July 9. The tremors ranged from 4.2 to 5.5 on the Richter scale The epicentre of most of these quakes was beneath Champhai district bordering Myanmar.
Recent findings: A recent study has indicated that Mizoram is caught between two subterranean faults– Churachandpur Mao Fault and Mat Fault.
Churachandpur Mao Fault runs north-south into Myanmar along the border of Champhai. Mat Fault runs northwest-southeast across Mizoram, beneath the river Mat near Serchhip.
There are several shallower transverse or minor faults in between these two major faults that are deeper.
What is a fault? A fault is a thin zone of crushed rock separating blocks of the earth’s crust. When an earthquake occurs on one of these faults, the rock on one side of the fault slips with respect to the other.
Faults can be centimeters to thousands of kilometers long. The fault surface can be vertical, horizontal, or at some angle to the surface of the earth.
Faults can extend deep into the earth and may or may not extend up to the earth’s surface.
Context: The Supreme Court, in a significant decision, has confirmed that persons suffering from disabilities are also socially backward and entitled to the same benefits of relaxation as Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe candidates in public employment and education.
The Court has upheld a 2012 judgment of the Delhi High Court in Anamol Bhandari (minor) through his father/Natural Guardian v. Delhi Technological University in a significant decision.
What was the case? A petition was filed Aryan Raj, a special needs person, against the Government College of Arts, Chandigarh.
The college denied Mr. Raj relaxation in minimum qualifying marks in the Painting and Applied Art course. The college insisted that disabled persons too need to meet the general qualifying standard of 40% in the aptitude test, whereas SC/ST candidates were given a relaxation to 35%.
Need for reservations: Intellectually/mentally challenged persons have certain limitations, which are not there in physically challenged persons.
What needs to be done? New academic courses should be crafted to specifically cater to the needs of intellectually disabled persons.
The subject experts should examine the feasibility of creating a course which caters to the specific needs of such persons.
They may also examine increasing the number of seats in the discipline of Painting and Applied Art with a view to accommodating such students.
Pakistan will allow Afghanistan to send goods to India using the Wagah border from July 15. The decision is part of Islamabad’s commitment under Pakistan-Afghanistan Transit Trade Agreement.
However, Islamabad is silent about allowing the same facility to India for exports to Afghanistan.
About APTTA: Afghanistan–Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (also known as APTTA) is a bilateral trade agreement signed in 2010 by Pakistan and Afghanistan that calls for greater facilitation in the movement of goods amongst the two countries.
What are the problems with APTTA? Pakistan has lately closed its borders with Afghanistan multiple times, where it has used blockades for arm-twisting political circles in Afghanistan.
This usually causes priced to spiral in Afghan markets as costlier or smuggled imports are what satiates demand.
Iran has decided to move ahead with the construction of a railway line from Chabahar port to Zahedan without any assistance from India due to delay in funding.
What’s the issue? The railway line project was part of India’s commitment to the trilateral agreement with Afghanistan and Iran to build an alternate trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
The deal was finalised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tehran in 2016.
Indian Railways Construction Ltd (IRCON) had promised assistance to the railway line project besides financing worth $1.6 billion. However, the work was never started as the United States imposed sanctions on Iran.
While there was a waiver on US sanctions for the specific railway line project, India found it hard to pick equipment suppliers who were worried about possible action from the US.
Concerns for India: The development comes at a time when Iran is seeking to finalise a 25-year economic and security partnership with China. The deal is worth $400 billion.
The deal between Iran and China — if finalised — could result in a vast expansion of Chinese presence in various sectors of Iran including banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and numerous other projects.
Considering that Iran has been an important strategic ally for New Delhi, the deal could hurt India’s prospects in the region, especially at a time when its relations with China have soured further in the aftermath of the recent border standoff.
Where is Chabahar Port? Located on the Gulf of Oman and is the only oceanic port of the country.
Why Chabahar port is important for India? With this, India can bypass Pakistan in transporting goods to Afghanistan. It will also boost India’s access to Iran, the key gateway to the International North-South Transport Corridor that has sea, rail and road routes between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia.
It also helps India counter Chinese presence in the Arabian Sea which China is trying to ensure by helping Pakistan develop the Gwadar port. Gwadar port is less than 400 km from Chabahar by road and 100 km by sea. From a diplomatic perspective, Chabahar port could be used as a point from where humanitarian operations could be coordinated.
The India VNR 2020 report is titled “Decade of Action: Taking SDGs from Global to Local”.
Background: NITI Aayog has the mandate of overseeing the adoption and monitoring of SDGs at the national and sub-national level.
Details: The report is a comprehensive account of the adoption and implementation of the 2030 Agenda in India.
Apart from presenting a review of progress on the 17 SDGs, the report discusses the policy and enabling environment, India’s approach to localising SDGs, and strengthening means of implementation.
About the United Nations HLPF: The establishment of the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) was mandated in 2012 by the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), “The Future We Want”.
The HLPF meets annually in July for eight days under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations. It replaced the Commission on Sustainable Development, which had met annually since 1993.
Functions: The HLPF is the main United Nations platform on sustainable development. It has a central role in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the global level.
What is Voluntary National Review (VNR)? VNR is a process through which countries assess and present progress made in achieving the global goals and the pledge to leave no one behind.
The purpose is to present a snapshot of where the country stands in SDG implementation, with a view to help accelerate progress through experience sharing, peer-learning, identifying gaps and good practices, and mobilizing partnerships.
The reviews are voluntary and state-led and are aimed at facilitating the sharing of experiences, including successes, challenges and lessons learned.
The process of preparation of a country’s VNR provides a platform for partnerships, including through the participation of various relevant stakeholders.
How COVID 19 situation exposed mismatch in our governance systems? Governance systems at all levels, i.e. global, national, and local, have experienced stress as a fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Breakdowns in many subsystems had to be managed at the same time — in health care, logistics, business, finance, and administration. Solutions for one subsystem backfired on other subsystems.
What’s the issue? There is a mismatch in the design of governance institutions with the challenges they are required to manage. Systems and subsystems are working in isolation and not in coordination.
For example: Lockdowns to make it easier to manage the health crisis have made it harder to manage economic distress simultaneously.
Diversion of resources to focus on the threat to life posed by COVID-19 has increased vulnerabilities to death from other diseases, and even from malnutrition in many parts of India.
Challenges to be addressed: The global challenges listed in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations are systemic challenges.
All these systemic problems are interconnected with each other. Environmental, economic, and social issues cannot be separated from each other and solved by experts in silos or by agencies focused only on their own problems.
Need of the hour: Solutions must fit the specific conditions of each country, and of each locality within countries too, to fit the shape of the environment and the condition of society there.
Locals must be active contributors of knowledge for, and active participants in, the creation of the solutions. Knowledge of different experts — about the environment, the society, and the economy — must come together to fit realities on the ground.
A case for local systems (Can be used in ethics answers): Governance of the people must be not only for the people. It must be by the people too.
Gandhiji and his economic advisers, J.C. Kumarappa and others, developed their solutions of local enterprises through observations and experiments on the ground.
F. Schumacher author of Small is Beautiful, had proposed a new economics, founded on local enterprise, very consistent with Gandhiji’s ideas. Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, in 2009, had developed the principles for self-governing communities from research on the ground in many countries, including India.
It is a village in the Leh district of Ladakh, India. It is located in the Durbuk tehsil, in the area known as “Chushul valley”.
It is close to Rezang Laand Panggong Lake at a height of 4,360 metres. Chushul is one of the five officially agreed Border Personnel Meeting pointsbetween the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army of China for regular consultations and interactions between the two armies to improve relations.
This place is famous for the Indian Army who fought to the ‘last man, last round’ at Rezang La (Chushul) on November 18, 1962. Without this crucial victory, the territory might have been captured by China.
Why in News? India and China are scheduled to hold the fourth round of Corps Commanders talks at Chushul.
These are two new Israeli assault rifles now set to be manufactured in India.
The assault rifles will be manufactured under Make in India initiative in Madhya Pradesh by joint venture PLR Systems, which is already producing arms like Tavor.
Construction work has begun in Lincolnshire on the world’s longest subsea power cable (767km), which will run between Britain and Denmark to share renewable energy between the two countries.
Recently, Arunachal Pradesh chief Minister released a book titled “Tangams: an Ethnolinguistic study of the critically endangered group of Arunachal Pradesh”.
Tangams are a little-known community within the larger Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh.
Tangams are now concentrated in only one village (Kugging), with 253 reported speakers.
As per the UNESCO World Atlas of Endangered Languages (2009), Tangam — an oral language that belongs to the Tani group, under the greater Tibeto-Burman language family — is marked ‘critically endangered’.
13th July 2020 marks the 206th Birth Anniversary of Bhanubhakta Acharya.
Bhanu Jayanti is also celebrated across the state of Nepal on 13th July every year.
Bhanubhakta Acharya was the first writer to translate the Great Epic of Ancient India- Ramayana from Sanskrit to Nepali. He was born in Nepal.