Quality of life in 116 major cities to be assessed; City Liveability Index launched

Quality of life in 116 major cities to be assessed; City Liveability Index launched

Andhra Pradesh tops in urban reforms; Rs.500 cr incentive disbursed to 16 good performers

In yet another major initiative, the Ministry of Urban Development today launched the ‘City Liveability Index’ for measuring the quality of life in 116 major cities including smart cities, capital cities and cities with a population of above one million each.
The Index, a Common Minimum Reference Framework to enable the cities know where they stand in terms of quality of life and the interventions required to improve the same was today launched by the Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu here today at a National Workshop on Urban Transformation.
Stating that cities are now moving on a well thought out course of infrastructure development under new urban missions launched during the last three years, Shri Naidu said “ Time has now come to measure life quality in cities and rank them accordingly”.
In a first of its kind Index to be introduced in the country, cities will be assessed on a comprehensive set of 79 paratmeters to capture the extent and quality of infrastructure including availability of roads, education and health care, mobility, employment opportunities, emergency response, grievance redressal, pollution, availability of open and green spaces, cultural and entertainment opportunities etc.
After selecting the agency for undertaking this assessment next month, data collection will be completed in the next about six months.
The Ministry of Urban Development today disbursed Rs.500 cr as incentive to 16 States that performed well in implementing urban reforms during 2016-17. Progress in respect of reforms like e-governance, Audit of accounts, Tax revision policies and extent of tax revenue collection, Energy and Water Audit, Establishing State Level Financial Intermediaries for resource mobilization, Credit Rating etc., was taken into account.
Andhra Pradesh topped the list scoring 96.06% marks. Others who received the incentive fund in order of merit were; Odisha (95.38%), Jharkhand (91.98%), Chattisgarh (91.37%), Madhya Pradesh (90.20%), Telangana (86.92%), Rajasthan (84.62%), Punjab (77.02%), Kerala (75.73%), Goa (75.38*), Mizoram (75.00%), Gujarat (73.80%), Chandigarh (72.73%), Uttar Pradesh (70.67%) and Maharashtra (70.52). Marks scored by these States was considered for deciding the quantum of incentive with high scorers getting more.
Shri Rajiv Gauba, Secretary (UD) said that reform incentive fund for the next three financial years will be increased from the present allocation of Rs.900 cr to Rs.10,000 cr to promote next generation reforms that would make a substantial difference to urban governance and service delivery and resource mobilization by urban local bodies.

The roots of rural distress Forgiving farm loans is no solution. The data shows there’s a far more fundamental problem—most agricultural households are unable to keep body and soul together

There’s nothing new about rural distress. Nor is it surprising. If the income of almost 70% of farm households is less than their consumption expenditure, according to the government’s own data, then it’s obvious they’ll be “distressed”. Yet that’s the inescapable conclusion from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report that mapped the income, expenditure and indebtedness of agricultural households in India in 2013.

Consider Chart 1, which shows average monthly income from all sources and consumption expenditure for households with different sizes of farm holdings. For households with farms up to 1 hectare, aka marginal farmers, average monthly consumption is more than total income. They can barely scratch out a living from their handkerchief-sized plots. What else can these households do but borrow to make ends meet?

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The chart also shows that for farm households that have a hectare of land or less, net receipts from cultivation make up less than half their total income. They manage to eke out a precarious living by supplementing their income with income from wage labour, animal husbandry and other non-farm businesses.

The proportion of receipts from farming goes up as land holdings increase. Any waiver of crop loans, therefore, benefits those with large landholdings the most.

The next obvious question is—how many households do we have that own 1 hectare or less? The answer (in Chart 2), again taken from NSSO figures, is 69.4%. So, the majority of agricultural households are in chronic distress, unable to keep the wolf from the door. Another 17.1% households—those owning between 1 and 2 hectares—had an average monthly surplus of Rs891. A major illness, or perhaps a couple of bad monsoons, would be enough to wipe out all their savings.

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But this is India and the broad averages do not show the whole picture. We need to look at the caste factor too: 82.7% of scheduled caste agricultural households are marginal farmers. Chart 3 shows that, for scheduled caste households, average monthly consumption expenditure exceeds monthly income in all major states except Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Maharashtra. Ironically, the last two states are at the forefront of the current farmers’ unrest. Eight decades after B.R. Ambedkar wrote his Annihilation of Caste, the bulk of Dalit farmers in the country are unable to scrape a bare living.

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Who will gain the most from a bank loan waiver? Chart 4 shows the sources of loans for farmers. The poorest of them borrow mainly from moneylenders and this proportion goes down as one moves up the land-holding status ladder. As is clear from the chart, it is the relatively prosperous farmers who benefit the most from a loan waiver by banks.

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How important are bank loans as a source of borrowing in the states of Uttar Pradesh(UP), MP, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, where farm loans have either been waived or where farmers are agitating for it? In MP, for marginal farmers, moneylenders are the chief source of loans, so they will benefit the least from a loan waiver by banks. Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have a lot of lending by cooperative societies, so waiving those dues is also important. In UP, it is the biggest farmers who gain the most from a bank loan waiver.

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Forgiving farm loans, as practically everybody has said, is no solution. The data shows there’s a far more fundamental problem—most agricultural households are unable to keep body and soul together. We could buy time by subsidizing their inputs and raising the prices of their produce, measures necessary in the short run to alleviate distress. But every census shows the number of marginal farmers going up, and a further sub-division of minuscule plots will only make the situation worse. In short, it’s absolutely essential to get these people off the land and into far more productive industrial employment. The alternative is mounting social unrest

What lies behind India’s falling infant mortality rate?

What lies behind India’s falling infant mortality rate?

Greater investments in public health has brought down India’s infant mortality rate faster over the past decade

The infant mortality rate saw a marked improvement over the past decade, declining from 57 per 1,000 live births in 2005-06 to 41 per 1,000 live births in 2015-16.

India’s inability to improve health outcomes significantly despite rapid growth has been one of the country’s major failings. But evidence from the latest round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) suggests that this may be changing. The infant mortality rate (IMR), an important summary measure of a country’s health, saw a marked improvement over the past decade, declining from 57 per 1,000 live births in 2005-06 to 41 per 1,000 live births in 2015-16.

The improvement over the past decade has been much faster than in the rest of the post-liberalization era. The IMR declined at a nearly constant pace of 2.5% per annum between 1992-93 and 2005-06. But the pace of decline accelerated over the past 10 years, with the IMR registering an annual decline of 3.24% per annum.

The faster decline in IMR over the past decade cannot be attributed merely to faster growth over the latter period. Over the past decade, the effectiveness of growth in lowering IMR increased, thanks to greater public investments in health, our research suggests.

Between 1992-93 and 1998-99, and between 1998-99 and 2005-06, every percentage point of economic growth led to about 0.38 percentage point of decline in IMR. Between 2005-06 and 2015-16, every percentage point of economic growth led to 0.43 percentage point decline in the IMR.

This is a significant improvement in terms of absolute numbers of lives saved. If the effectiveness of economic growth to translate into improvements in IMR had remained the same as over the 1990s, then the all-India IMR in 2015-16 would have been 42.55 instead of 41. That would have meant 1.55 more infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, and would have translated to a total of about 40,643 more infant deaths in 2015.

This improvement in IMR has coincided with an improvement in public health spending, and the rollout of a National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) focusing on the healthcare needs of under-served rural areas in 2005. Despite leakages, the mission helped set up rural health infrastructure in areas where it was non-existent earlier, and helped raise a cadre of community health workers (ASHA workers) who worked as the frontline staff of the mission in improving health outcomes, especially of women and newborns.

All of this was enabled by increased funding. Between 2004 and 2014, public health expenditure increased from 1% to 1.4% of the GDP, a 40% increase over a decade.

In recent research published in the Journal of Development Studies, my colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Andrew Barenberg and Ceren Soylu, and I have examined data for 31 states and Union territories in India over the period 1983-84 to 2011-12 to estimate the causal impact of public health expenditure on the IMR. We control for possible confounding factors such as state level GDP, female literacy rate, urbanization, and use exogenous variation in the fiscal capacity of states—measured by the tax revenue and non-tax revenue of states—to find the effect of public health expenditure on the IMR. Our research suggests that an increase in public health expenditure by 1% of state-level GDP leads to a decline in the IMR by about 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, even after controlling for all other factors.

These findings suggest that the decline in IMR over the past decade was caused, at least in part, by growing public expenditure on health.

The draft National Health Policy announced by the Union Cabinet earlier this year intends to take health spending to 2.5% of the GDP in a time-bound manner. Our research suggests that this should help India improve health outcomes more rapidly.

GOOD NEWS FOR UTTARAKHAND NSSO SURVEY SEX RATIO OF UK :1015

GOOD NEWS FOR UTTARAKHAND
NSSO SURVEY
SEX RATIO OF UK :1015

India ratifies UN convention that will help it transport its goods through a global network

The TIR will boost India’s trade interests in the region at a time when China is developing its One Belt One Road project.

The TIR will boost India’s trade interests in the region at a time when China is developing its One Belt One Road project.

India on Monday said it had ratified United Nations Transports Internationaux Routiers Convention, a universal transit system for goods, in an attempt to improve its trade prospects in the region, reported Business Standard. India has thus become the 71st country to ratify the United Nations TIR Convention, as it is more commonly known.

TIR is the global standard for the transit of goods, and is managed and developed by the International Road Transport Union. By ratifying the convention, India will be able to better integrate its economy with global and regional production networks.

The IRU said in a statement that India’s accession to the convention “puts it at the centre of efforts to increase trade and regional integration across South Asia and other regions”. In March, the Union Cabinet had given its approval for India to join the pact.

TIR will also help India implement the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, which it signed in 2016. Since the convention allows only approved transporters and vehicles are allowed to operate, it will help Indian traders use a fast, easy and reliable international system to move their goods. TIR will allow India to integrate its trade with Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as to move goods along the International North-South Transport Corridor via the Chabahar port in Iran, and to access Afghanistan.

The TIR Convention will come into force in India in six months, and the IRU will work with India for training and development. The ratification of TIR can be seen as India’s effort to counter China’s One Belt One Road initiative. China, however, had ratified the convention in 2016 itself.

TIR Convention

The Convention on International Transport of Goods Under Cover of TIR Carnets (TIR Convention) is a multilateral treaty that was concluded at Geneva on 14 November 1975 to simplify and harmonise the administrative formalities of international road transport. (TIR stands for "Transports Internationaux Routiers" or "International Road Transports".) The 1975 convention replaced the TIR Convention of 1959, which itself replaced the 1949 TIR Agreement between a number of European countries.^[2] The conventions were adopted under the auspices of the (UNECE). As of January 2017, there are 70 parties to the Convention, including 69 states and the European Union.

The TIR Convention establishes an international customs transit system with maximum facility to move goods:

• in sealed vehicles or containers;
• from a customs office of departure in one country to a customs office of destination in another country;
• without requiring extensive and time-consuming border checks at intermediate borders;
• while, at the same time, providing customs authorities with the required security and guarantees.

The TIR system not only covers customs transit by road but a combination is possible with other modes of transport (e.g., rail, inland waterway, and even maritime transport), as long as at least one part of the total transport is made by road.

To date, more than 33,000 international transport operators had been authorised (by their respective competent national authorities) to access the TIR system, using around 1.5 million TIR carnets per year.

In light of the expected increase in world trade, further enlargement of its geographical scope and the forthcoming introduction of an electronic TIR system (so-called "eTIR-system"), it is expected that the TIR system will continue to remain the only truly global customs transit system.

Due to the large blue-and-white TIR plates carried by vehicles using the TIR convention, the word "TIR" entered many languages, such as Turkish,^[3] Polish^[4] and Portuguese^[5] as a neologism, becoming the default generic name of a large truck.

SOLUTION OF SET A ,GS PAPER UPSC 2017 BY SAMVEG IAS

SOLUTION OF SET A ,GS PAPER UPSC 2017 BY SAMVEG IAS

solution of series A (GS)

IT WAS ONE OF THE DIFFICULT PAPER.MERIT WILL BE IN RANGE OF 105 +/- 4.

PAPER WAS DOMINATED BY INDIAN POLITY (21 QS),SOCIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES (26 QS),ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY(15 QS)

Q1 –D

Although transjender bill was passed only by rajyasabha ,not by parliament

Q2-C (1,3),ancient history by RS SHARMA

Q3 ---D

Q4 –C,NAGARHOLE IS PART OF SILENT VALLEY

Q5-A,ABSENCE OF PRIVILEGES

Q6- B,TRAFFIC.ORG

Q7----B,PARTICIPATION OF WORKER IN MANAGEMENT

Q8 –C,RIGHTS ARE CLAIM OF CITIZENS AGAINST STATE

Q9- A,WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

Q10—B,NEW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY TO SOLVE PROBLEM OF COUNTRY

Q11-A

Q12---A MANIPURI SANKIRTAN

Q13—C ALEXANDER AND MUNRO

Q14—D

Q15- D

Q16-B

17-C

18-C, EU

19-A

20-B

21-C BUTTERFLIES

22-B

23-A The key objectives of these programmes are as under:

• To create awareness relating to malnutrition amongst pregnant women, lactating mothers, promote healthy lactating practices and importance of balanced nutrition;

• To improve maternal and child under-nutrition in 200 high burdened districts and to prevent and reduce the under-nutrition prevalent among children below 3 years;

• To reduce incidence of anaemia among young children, adolescent girls and women.

24-B N M LOKHANDE ,WAGES AND TRADE UNIONS

25-D

26-D BUTLER COMMISSION

27-A,DOMESTIC CONTENT REQUIREMENT

28-D NUCLEAR SUMMITS AND IPFM

29-C,NPS

30-B, TEESTA AND RANGEET

31-C ZIKA VIRUS

32-A BIS FOR TYRES

33-C,NAM

34-C NATIONAL IPR POLICY

35-D GHARIYALS,WILD ASS ,BUFFALO

36-B FUNDAMENTAL DUTIES

37-B,RADHA KANT DEB,S N BANEERJI

38-B,PREAMBLE OF INDIA,ECO LIBERTY

39-C,QCI

40-A,SMALL FINANCE BANK

41-* D

42-A,DEMOCRACY VIRTUE

43-A,UPI IMPACT

44-A,STANDARD MODEL

45-D,GENOME SEQUENCING

46-C,PARLIAMENTARY FORM OF GOVT

47-A,RIGHTS AND DUTIES

48-A,MIND OF CONSTITUTION MAKERS

49-B,KOHIMA AND KOTTAYAM

50—D,PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL OVER EXECUTIVE

51-B,MOTUPALLI

52-A,GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE ALLIANCE

53-B,RELIGIOUS HISTORY,JAINISM

54-C,LEBNAN,SYRIA

55-D,NIIF,

56-B,GLOBAL INFRA FACILITY

57-C,ELECTION OF LS

58-D,WESTERN GHAT,PULICUT LAKE,HIMALAYA STATE

59-C,BOD

60-B,UN HABITAT

61-B,NSQF

62-D,DYARCHY

63-A,NATIONAL CAREER SERVICE

64-B,S4A

65-C,CCAC

66-B,IOD

67-B,GHARIALS IN NATURAL SITE

68-B,IONS

69-A,BODHISATTVA PADMANI,AJANTA

70-A,SINDHIS

71-D,WATER CONSERVATION IN AGRICULTURE

72-B,SOIL HEALTH CARD SCHEME

73-D,SOFT DRINKS,FAST FOOD

74-C,OLED

75-A,SUN TEMPLES

76-D,LOK SABHA

77-B,EFFECT OF LIBERALIZATION

78-C,SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER TECH

79-C,NPCI

80-B,M STRIPES

81-A,GST

82-A,BTIA

83-A,TFA,

84-CCHABAHAR PORT

85-A CYBER SECURITY

86-D,R TO VOTE

87-B,ELISA

88-A,VIDYANJALI

89-B,UBA

90-D,ECI

91- A,TORTOISE AS TIGER

92-A JUDICIAL REVIEW

93-C,RTC,QIM,RIN

94-A,TAX TO GDP

95-B,KUNO PALPUR WILDLIFE

96-B,PRESIDENT RULE

97-C,RIGHT TO EXPLOITATION

98-A SUMATRA

99-C ,CABINET FORM OF GOVT

100-D INDIAN FEDERALISM

UKPCS-2016 MAINSTEST SERIES BY SAMVEG IAS DEHRADUN