UPSC Daily Current Affairs | Prelim Bits 05-06-2020

Global Vaccine Summit

• Recently, the Prime Minister of India addressed the virtual Global Vaccine Summit.
• The Summit was hosted by the United Kingdom (UK). Almost 50 countries including the business leaders, UN agencies, civil society, government ministers, Heads of State and country leaders participated in the Summit.
• The Summit was intended to urge nations around the world to pledge funding for vaccinations to protect the world from future outbreaks of infectious diseases.
• The Summit was aimed at raising USD 7.4 million to immunize a further 300 million children in the world's poorest countries by 2025.
• India has pledged USD 15-million as India's contribution to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI).

Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations

• GAVI is a public–private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunization in poor countries.
• GAVI has observer status at the World Health Assembly.
• GAVI's approach to public health has been described as business-oriented and technology-focused, using market-oriented measures, and seeking quantifiable results.
• GAVI is not just a global alliance but also a symbol of international solidarity.

Universal Immunization Program

• Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) was launched by the government in 1985, to prevent mortality and morbidity in children and pregnant women against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases.
• Under UIP free of cost vaccination is provided against twelve vaccine-preventable diseases i.e. Tuberculosis, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Polio, Hepatitis B, Pneumonia and Meningitis due to Haemophilus Influenzae type b (Hib), Measles, Rubella, Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Rotavirus diarrhoea.
• The Country has also digitized the vaccine supply chain and an electronic intelligence network has been developed to monitor the integrity of the cold chain.
• It is to be noted that India is the world’s foremost producer of vaccines and contributes to the immunization of about 60% of the world’s children.

TULIP Portal

• The Urban Learning Internship Program (TULIP) is an online portal jointly launched by Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have jointly launched an online portal.
• The program aims to provide internship opportunities to 25,000 fresh graduates in all Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Smart Cities across the country.
• TULIP has been conceived pursuant to the Budget 2020-21 announcement under the theme ‘Aspirational India' which laid emphasis on changing the approach of education from ‘doing by learning,’ to ‘learning by doing'.
• The internship opportunities will be provided for ‘Smart City’ projects which range from positions in urban planning, water supply, waste management, slum improvement and digital governance among others.
• Applicants must be Indian citizens who have completed their final year of college within the last 18 months and have a degree of B. Tech, B planning, B. Arch, BA, BSc, B.Com, LLB.
• Internship durations can range from eight weeks to one year.
• The TULIP’s launch is also an important stepping stone for fulfillment of MHRD and AICTE’s goal of 1 crore successful internships by the year 2025.

Smart City Mission

• Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, in 2015 launched the initiative to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technology as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens.
• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• It aims to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of Smart Solutions.
• The Mission covers 100 cities for the duration of five years starting from the financial year (FY) 2015-16 to 2019-20.

State of India's Environment 2020

• Recently, the ‘State of India's Environment 2020 in Figures’ report was published by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
• The report outlines the status of sustainable development, livestocks, forests, water, waste, air, land, wildlife and other natural resources, environmental crimes and global economic risk.
• It states that India had around 50 lakh internal displacements caused by disasters and extreme weather conditions like floods, cyclones and drought in 2019.
• According to it, the internal displacements in India were the highest in the world in 2019.
• Internal Displacement refers to the forced movement of people within the country they live in, due to conflict, violence, development projects, natural disasters and climate change.
• It refers to the number of movements, not people, as individuals can be displaced several times.
• Major Factors of Internal Migration in India are as follows

1. Natural Disasters (such as cyclones, flood and droughts)
2. Forced Migration
3. Impact of Covid-19

Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)

• PLFS is India’s first computer-based survey launched by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in 2017.
• Before PLFS the NSSO (previous name of NSO) used to bring the data related to employment and unemployment based on its quinquennial household socio-economic survey programme.
• It has been constituted based on the recommendation of Amitabh Kundu.
• The objectives of PLFS are as follows

1. To estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Worker Population Ratio, Labour Force Participation Rate, Unemployment Rate) in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
2. To estimate employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

• Recently, the National Statistical Office (NSO) released the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for July 2018 to June 2019.

• The highlights of the recent survey are as follows

1. Unemployment Rate - India’s unemployment rate fell to 5.8% during 2018-19 from 6.1% during the same period of 2017-18 - The urban unemployment rate reduced to 7.7% from 7.8% - The rural unemployment reduced to 5% from 5.3%.
2. Labour Force Participation Rate - The labour force participation rate rose to 37.5% during 2018-19 from 36.9% of 2017-18.
3. Female Participation Rate - The female participation rate also improved going up to 18.6% in 2018-19 from 17.5% the year before.
4. Worker Population Ratio - The worker population ratio also increased, to 35.3% as against 34.7% in the 2017-18.

Terminologies

• Unemployment Rate (UR) - UR is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force.

• Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) - LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in the labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population.
• Female Labour Force Participation Rate - It is the share of working-age women who report either being employed, or being available for work.
• Worker Population Ratio (WPR) - WPR is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.
• Activity Status - The activity status of a person is determined on the basis of the activities pursued by the person during the specified reference period.
• Usual Status - The activity status determined on the basis of the reference period of the last 365 days preceding the date of survey, it is known as the usual activity status of the person.
• Current Weekly Status (CWS) - The activity status determined on the basis of a reference period of the last 7 days preceding the date of survey is known as the current weekly status (CWS) of the person.

National Statistical Office

• NSO is the central statistical agency of the Government mandated under the Statistical Services Act 1980 under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• It is responsible for the development of arrangements for providing statistical information services to meet the needs of the Government and other users for information on which to base policy, planning, monitoring and management decisions.
• The services include collecting, compiling and disseminating official statistical information.
• All business operations in NSO are done in compliance with international standards, procedures and best practices.

Source: PIB, the Hindu