A big boost for public health

Unlike polio and smallpox, the risk of maternal and neonatal tetanus will always exist. Tetanus spores are always a part of the environment. Thus ‘elimination’ must be seen as an enduring pursuit.

Maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT) is no longer a major public health problem in the World Health Organisation (WHO) South-East Asia region. The WHO South-East Asia Region has eliminated MNT as a major public health problem.As immunisation coverage and access to maternal and newborn health care has increased, the number of mothers and newborns suffering agonising deaths on account of the disease has declined to below one in every 1,000 live births at the district level. This is a major achievement.

In 1989, when the fight against neonatal tetanus (and, consequently, maternal tetanus) began, tetanus toxins were claiming the lives of approximately 7,87,000 newborns across the world. Unhygienic conditions during delivery and inadequate umbilical cord care saw to it that these toxins could infect mother and child, causing muscle spasms, lockjaw, and often death.

With recent elimination successes in India and Indonesia, the South-East Asia region has reached a milestone.

Though elimination took longer than expected, it is a victory that must be savoured. At the same time, however, it is a victory that is by no means final.

Unlike the situation with diseases such as polio and smallpox, the risk of MNT will always exist. Tetanus spores are always a permanent part of the environment, meaning public health setbacks could once again compromise mothers and their newborns. In relation to MNT, “elimination” must be seen as an enduring pursuit.

Strengthening measures that facilitated elimination in the first instance can best guarantee the ongoing safety of mothers and their newborns.

Innovative strategies

Sustaining and enhancing access to quality maternal and newborn health care is critical. By providing expectant mothers the ability to access quality antenatal and safe-birthing services, health systems throughout the region diminish the risk of tetanus infection, as well as other potentially lethal complications. Though countries in the region have made important gains have been made in the region, the momentum must be accelerated. There must be innovative strategies deployed to reach those ‘unreached’, such as increased training of skilled birth attendants at community-level facilities, or providing cash transfers to every mother who has an institutional delivery, for example.

Immunisation coverage must be maintained and enhanced. Expectant mothers must receive the necessary tetanus toxoid vaccine, or combination vaccine, as a matter of priority and at the appropriate stages of pregnancy.

As Indonesia’s campaign to vaccinate brides-to-be demonstrates that positive initiatives need not be confined to the pregnancy or neonatal periods. Just as newborns receive tetanus immunisations as part of their routine immunisation schedule, children must receive booster doses as and when appropriate. A good place for this to happen is at school. Despite the region’s newly validated status, health authorities must ensure that preventing maternal and neonatal tetanus remains prominent on the list of vaccine-preventable diseases, and that opportunities to immunise against tetanus are grasped.

Effective engagement with communities is essential. Communities that have difficulties accessing care or which lack experience doing so must be further encouraged to avail themselves of the benefits maternal and newborn health care brings. Messages related to tetanus immunisation and safe-birthing must remain integrated with other outreach activities, and disseminated among the most vulnerable. Harmful traditional practices should be discouraged, while at the same time continuing to build relationships that promote trust, respect and inclusiveness.

A positive experience with health care providers can have far-ranging effect, not only for an individual but also a community.

Tracking progress

A robust and effective surveillance system is vital to tracking progress in these key areas. After all, the failure of any one of them can mean the death of a mother or newborn through tetanus infection. By closely monitoring incidences ofMNT, authorities can evaluate the impact of their efforts, and, if found lacking, better calibrate them in future. In-depth knowledge of the causes of every case of maternal or neonatal tetanus, combined with a resolve to ensure it is not repeated, can be the only appropriate response. However great the recent achievement is, it remains unacceptable that any woman or child should suffer the devastating disease.

Along with conducting routine vaccine-preventable disease surveillance, WHO is committed to realising the unfinished Millennium Development Goal agenda as it relates to maternal and newborn health, which will in turn help allay tetanus’s menace. Efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage — a priority area of WHO in the South-East Asia region — will similarly enhance health equity, ensuring that tetanus’s tendency to prey on the most vulnerable is rebuffed. It is no coincidence that the first countries in the region to eliminate the problem also had the strongest health systems.

That MNT has been eliminated as a major public health problem in the South-East Asia region is reason to celebrate.

Newborns across the region are now safer from the disease than at any other time in history, but we must not be misled by our successes.

Maternal and neonatal tetanus remains a burden, and could make a comeback in significant numbers in future. By enhancing the reach and quality of maternal and newborn health care, increasing immuniSation coverage, leveraging greater community buy-in, and ensuring detailed surveillance, we can avert this possibility.

 

High-speed Spanish Talgo train begins trial run in U.P.

Besides reducing travel time, Talgo’s lighter trains consume 30 per cent less energy.

The trial of Spanish train Talgo, the lighter and faster vehicle whose speed goes up to 115 kms per hour, was conducted between Bareilly and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh as part of the Railways’ strategy to increase the speed of trains.

“It was a smooth ride,” said a senior railway official after nine Talgo coaches were hauled by a 4,500 HP diesel engine on the 90-km line for the first trial run.

 

India’s poor institutional memory

The big problem is that there is too little learning across the system. States continue to try to reinvent the wheel 

How well has India done in the first two years of the Modi government? The verdict in the media seems to be: well begun but hardly done yet. A larger question is, how well has India done since it became independent 69 years ago. Then, as now, there was a new, untested government. And the question then was, as now: will the new government learn fast how to guide the development of a large, poor, democratic country with high aspirations.
Development is the result of enterprises and institutions in a country learning to do new things they have not done before. The faster they learn, the faster the country develops and grows. What are the impediments to faster learning in a country and to a government’s learning? Insights can be found by comparing countries that have progressed at different rates. If one has gone further than another in the same time, starting from similar conditions, what enabled it to learn and develop faster?
China and India, the two billion-plus Asian giants, provide a good comparison to extract hypotheses about country-level learning. Both countries, with similar size economies and similarly poor, started on their journeys of development in the middle of the last century. Without doubt, China has developed and grown much faster than India. Its economy is now five times the size of India’s and China is far ahead of India in human development indicators too: health, education and reduction of poverty.
A recent study, by Luke Jordan (then with the World Bank) and Sebastien Turban and Laurence Wilse-Samson of Columbia University, contrasted the abilities of the Indian and Chinese states to learn. It pointed to several differences. The Chinese state seems to be more deliberate in its approach to learning. It encourages a city or province to experiment with new policies, observes outcomes, and then applies what is learned to the rest of the country. Top-level leaders are selected from those who have managed a complex system well at a lower level—as head of a city or provincial government. When a single, authoritarian, political party runs the country everywhere, the centre can manage political promotions and ‘organizational learning’ across the system. Singapore, a tiny, centrally managed country that has developed remarkably well, has been able to manage these processes even more easily.
Chinese and Singaporean methods cannot be copied in India, a nation with greater political variety and social diversity. Since top-down directives cannot work in India, its leaders must find other ways to remove the learning disabilities within a complex system.
For this, Indian leaders should address systemic issues like the poor ‘institutional memory’ within the Indian government. New governments and ministers want to show they are different from their predecessors. They ignore whatever little (or much) their predecessors had learned. Within the government, senior officers are moved around frequently—for political reasons, or for advancing their own careers. Therefore, even if there are records ‘on file’ of what went on before, there is very little transmission of ‘tacit’ knowledge of complex issues. This deeper learning is lost in the changes.
While the frequency of changes of government will be determined by the democratic process, transfers within the government need not be as frequent as they are—some officers moving through several postings in a year. Though it will be hard on their egos, ministers and government functionaries should be required to extensively debrief their predecessors. Before they announce a new scheme to show how smart they are, and tweet to show how stupid their predecessors were, they should be required to humbly learn, for the sake of the country, how to make ongoing schemes work better.
India is a very large and diverse country, which at long last may be realizing that it cannot be managed from the centre. The states, whether or not they and the centre are ruled by the same party, must have the freedom to develop their own appropriate solutions. Cities and villages must become more capable of self-government. Among the many benefits of localization of governance is the opportunity for many different solutions to emerge. India can be the world’s biggest laboratory for multiple experiments in social and economic change—and indeed it already is. However, an Indian problem is that there is too little learning across the system. States and cities continue to try to reinvent the wheel, either because they do not know what others have learned, or because of the ‘not invented here’ desire to show off one’s own smartness.
Incredible India needs platforms for distilling and sharing learning across the country, among states, cities and villages, and across ministerial silos too. Indeed, this is the charter of the NITI Aayog, which has replaced the Planning Commission, which for too long tried to plan and manage India’s development from the centre. The NITI Aayog is on a very steep learning curve. Learning platforms are not merely websites and portals. Effective learning platforms must have processes for transmission of tacit knowledge too.
India, with its scale and its diversity, and for the speed with which it must now learn to catch up with others, must create the world’s most dynamic learning system.

Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) scheme

EESL Distributes LED Bulbs Under “UJALA” in the Range of Rs. 75-95 across 16 States

The LED bulbs under Government of India’ s Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) scheme  are being distributed across 16 States in the country in the price range of Rs 75- 95.  The project, executed by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), under the administration of Ministry of Power, procures high quality LED bulbs from leading manufacturers through a transparent bidding process. In the latest round of procurement, which ended on March 31, 2016, the lowest procurement cost was Rs. 54.90 (exclusive of taxes and administrative costs).

The government, through aggregation and transparent procurement has achieved a rapid decline in LED prices. In the first round of procurement held in January 2014, EESL achieved the lowest bid at Rs. 310. The prices for the subsequent procurements for other states, during September 2014 to February 2015, ranged between Rs. 204 to Rs. 104.

EESL has pooled the prices of all the previous procurements since 2014 and the passed on the direct benefit to the consumers across states. Various state-specific taxes and other administrative costs like distribution, awareness, etc are added to the pooled procurement price. Therefore, the cost of the LED bulb has been brought down to a price range of Rs. 75 - Rs. 95, after addition of administrative costs, distribution and awareness cost. Therefore, the variation in the final cost of the bulbs is owing to the difference in taxes across states.

The Government has ensured transparency and encouraged competition by using e-procurement of goods and services. This has resulted in significant reduction in transaction cost and time and enhanced process efficiency. This in turn has led to a much larger participation of bidders thereby increasing competition and reducing the procurement cost of LED bulbs.

The target of the programme is to replace all the 77 crore incandescent bulbs sold in India by LEDs. This will result in reduction of 20,000 MW load, energy savings of 100 billion kWh and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions savings of 80 million tons every year. The annual saving in electricity bills of consumers will be Rs. 40,000 crore, considering average tariff of Rs. 4 per kWh.

Small Wind Energy and Hybrid Systems (SWES)

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is implementing a programme to promote the installation of Small Wind Energy and Hybrid Systems (SWES) with the objective to provide electricity in unelectrified areas or areas with intermittent electric supply. The first- such Pilot-cum- demonstration project of 25 KW capacity will be installed at the wind turbine test station of National Institute of Wind Energy at Kayathar, Tootikudi District, Tamil Nadu. 

Under the programme, MNRE provides Central Financial Assistance (CFA) to community users for installation of such systems. The total installed capacity as on 31st March 2016 is 2.69 MW. There are 6 small wind turbine manufacturers and 9 models empanelled under this programme. 

The SWES projects have been highly successful in USA and European countries. Initially, 10 such demonstration projects will be supported for grid integration. The tentative cost for each of the roject will be in the range of Rs 2-3 lakh per KW, depending upon the configuration and location of the projects. The Ministry will support upto 50% of the project cost. 

achievements/initiatives of Ministry of Law & Justice in last two years

Ministry of Law & Justice25-May, 2016 18:11 IST

Dv Sadananda Gowda highlights achievements/initiatives of Ministry of Law & Justice in last two years

Union Law & Justice Minister Shri D.V. Sadanada Gowda today addressed  the media here in New Delhi and gave an account of the achievements/initiatives of ministry his ministry  in last two years. Following is the detail of his narrations:

Initiatives towards Ease of Doing Business

v    To ensure speedy and fair disposal of commercial disputes, a new Act namely, the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act 2015 has been enacted by Parliament. It is Government’s endeavour to make India an investor friendly destination and enhance its ranking in Ease of Doing Business.

v    The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 has been amended to make Arbitration as preferred mode for settlement of commercial disputes by making it more user-friendly, cost effective, leading to expeditious disposal of cases. This Bill was pending before the Government since 2003.

Initiatives towards better management of litigation

v    Draft National Litigation Policy is under formulation to make Government a responsible and efficient litigant. The Draft National Litigation Policy shall facilitate in bringing down unwarranted litigation.

v    For proper monitoring of the pending court cases of the entire Government of India, a web portal Legal Information and Management Based System (LIMBS) has been set up.

v    19 Law Officers (including AG/SG) and 34 ASGs in High Courts have been appointed. Fresh panels of Counsels were approved for Supreme Court/High Courts/Central Administrative Tribunals/Armed Forces Tribunal/District Courts/Armed Forces Tribunal.

v    Fee revision of Law Officers and Legal Counsels was upwardly revised to the extent of 50% from the rates existing prior to 1.10.2015.

Initiatives towards Minimum Government Maximum Governance

v    Four Acts have been enacted to repeal the obsolete and redundant laws. In total the aforesaid four enactments have repealed 1175 Acts. This exercise was taken up after 14 years, earlier being taken up only in the year 2001.

v    Major exercise for convergence of Tribunals to reduce the number of tribunals is being carried out. High level Inter-Ministerial Group has been constituted for consideration of the issue.

Initiatives towards digital India and e-Governance

v    A major change has been introduced to receive applications for appointment of Notaries online along with supporting documents w.e.f. 1.1.2016.

v    e-Governance and E-courts usage have started in Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) leading to faster disposal of cases with less hassles to litigants. 

v    Digitisation work of Appeals has been undertaken in ITAT. Once the digitisation work is complete, all the appellate records shall be accessible from any station and any appeal can be taken by e-court in any location.

v    Web portal named LIMBS has been introduced for Centrally monitoring cases of UoI pending in various courts and Tribunals. 

Initiatives towards Computerisation of Courts

v    eCourts Mission Mode Project has been taken up for universal computerization of district and subordinate courts with an objective of providing designated services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary.

v    During the first two years of NDA rule i.e. 2014-15 and 2015-16, Rs.212.23 cr were released to various States for eCourts projects against Rs.122.41cr released during UPA-II rule for the years 2012-13 and 2013-14, thus, registering an increase of 73.4%.

v    eCourts Phase-II projects aims at automation of workflow management, enabling the courts to exercise greater control in management of cases. This will also include installation of touch screen based kiosks, use of e-filing, e-payment and mobile applications and composite set of services through Judicial Service centres.

v    Case status information in respect of over 6.11 crore pending, decided cases and more than 2.4 crore orders/judgements pertaining to District and Subordinate Courts are available online.

v    Over 4000 court officials and 14000 Judicial Officers have been trained on computerization of Judiciary. Laptops have been provided to 14,309 judicial officers.

Initiatives towards Justice Delivery

v    Appointment of Judges in higher judiciary has been undertaken.  86 additional Judges were made permanent, 51 new judges were appointed and appointment of another 170 is being processed.

v    Judges’ sanctioned strength of the High Courts has been increased from 906 on 01.06.2014 to 1065 as on 27.4.2016. In the case of District/Subordinate Courts, the sanctioned strength has been increased from 17,715 at the end of 2012 to 20,502 in December, 2015.

v    Pecuniary jurisdiction of Delhi High Court has been increased from Rs. 20 lakhs to Rs. 2 crore, facilitating access to justice within the vicinity of the location of District Courts.

v    Department of Justice has been implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary. On account of concerted efforts by all stakeholders, the availability of judicial infrastructure for subordinate courts has increased considerably in the recent past.

Initiatives towards Access to Justice Projects

v    300 Paralegal Volunteers of Odisha, 400 Para Legal Volunteers of North Eastern States and 187 Para Legal Volunteers of J&K have been trained under the activities of State Legal Services Authorities.

v    Legal literacy has been incorporated into National Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA) and activities have been started in States- 62 Districts of Uttar Pradesh and 31 Districts of Rajasthan.

v    Helpdesks for Juveniles in Observation Homes have been established in Maharashtra.

v    50 voice based Legal Information Kiosks have been established in the State of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

v    46 Legal Aid Clinics have been established in two most backward districts of Nagaland – Tuensang and Mon.

v    MoU has been signed between Department of Justice and NLMA (National Literacy Mission Authority) for initiating legal literacy activities by SRC Assam, Shillong, J&K and Arunachal Pradesh.

Other important initiatives

v    21^st Law Commission of India has been reconstituted in September, 2015.  Chairman/Member has been appointed.

v    The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been constituted to monitor and evaluate the implementation of legal services programmes and to lay down policies and principles for making legal services available under the Act. A total number of 2,49,996 persons have been benefitted through Legal Services and advice from 1.04.2015 to 31.01.2016.

v    As on 30.09.2015, more than 15.14 lacs Lok Adalats have been organized in the country since inception. More than 8.25 crore cases including cases pending in the courts as well as those at the pre-litigation stage have been settled in these Lok Adalats. A total number of 746,29,721 cases have been settled in such National Lok Adalats since November, 2013 to 2015.

v    Promotion of Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism through National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) at the national level and State Legal Services Authorities at State level.

v    DoJ has taken up with all High Courts and Supreme Court for implementation of Incheon strategy to facilitate people with disability.

v    Proper training to Judicial Officers in international best practices w.r.t. alternate dispute resolution, quick and easy entity structuring, restructuring, incorporation, evolution and exit, tax reforms in the light of Make in India and Start-up India.

v    Process Re-engineering (PR) exercise taken up to modernize the existing processes and procedures and introduce new processes and procedures to expedite disposal of cases.

v    101 Legislative Bills were introduced in the Parliament. 75 Bills have been enacted into Acts and two constitutional Acts were enacted.

Bharatavani Multi-lingual App: Unique multiple source of worlds

Bharatavani Multi-lingual App: Unique multiple source of worlds

Alongwith the Bharatavani portal, MHRD has also launched the Bharatavani Multi-lingual App called Bharatavani. This App will enable users to search for one language text in another language as well as get meanings in different languages. Currently the App has 35 multilingual Dictionaries and MHRD aims to extend it to 250 dictionaries in a years time. This App, on the day of its launch becomes India’s first and largest multilingual dictionary. Our endeavour is to make it the world’s biggest online multilingual dictionary source.

Salient features : Bharatavani makes available knowledge already published by Government and publicly funded institutions all over the country and puts its across for free and fair public usage, by deploying a robust, interactive, user friendly web tools. Its content is protected by fair usage clauses under the Indian Copyright Act.

The Bharatavani Portal would publish the content in the following main sections:

1.                  Paa Thyapustaka Kosha : Textbooks by various authorities

2.                  Jnana Kosha : Encyclopedic Knowledge base in all languages

3.                  Shabda Kosha: Dictionaries, Glossaries, Terminologies,

4.                  Bhasha Kosha: Language learning books

5.                  Suchanaa Praudyogikii Kosha : It tools ( right now linked to TDIL)

6.                  Bahumaadhyama Kosha: Multimedia content