Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- SDG Index
- Nipah & Remdesivir
- Provisions regarding vacation of seats for simultaneously elected candidates
- Facts for Prelims : Global Economic Prospect, Parthenogenesis
1 . SDG Gender Index
Context : India ranked 95th out of a total 129 countries in the first-ever SDG Gender Index, which measures strides made in achieving gender commitments against internationally set targets.
About SDG Index
- The index has been developed by Equal Measures 2030, which is a partnership among global and regional organisations from the civil society and the development and private sectors. It includes The African Women’s Development and Communication Network, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Women’s Health Coalition and Plan International.
- The SDG Gender Index includes 51 indicators across 14 of the 17 official Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
- The indicators include those that are gender specific, as well as those that are not but have an effect on girls and women.
- The overall index scores are based on a scale of 0–100. A score of 100 indicates the achievement of gender equality in relation to the underlying indicators. A score of 50 would indicate that a country is about halfway to meeting its goal.
Details of the Index
- India’s score of 56.2 means that it is among 43 countries that fall in the ‘very poor’ category.
- India scores the highest in health (79.9), followed by hunger (76.2) and energy ( 71.8). Among the SDGs, on which the country performs poorly are patnerships (18.3), industry, infrastructure and innovation (38.1) and climate (43.4).
- The index finds that no country has fully achieved the promise of gender equality and that the global average score of 65.7 out of 100 is “poor”.
- Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany, Canada, Ireland, and Australia rank as the top 10 countries in the index, while the bottom 10 comprise Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Yemen, Congo, DR Congo and Chad.
2 . Nipah
Context : Kerala youth tests Nipah positive, over 300 placed under quarantine
About Nipah
- Nipah virus is a zoonotic virus (it is transmitted from animals to humans) and can also be transmitted through contaminated food or directly between people.
- In infected people, it causes a range of illnesses from asymptomatic (subclinical) infection to acute respiratory illness and fatal encephalitis.
- The virus can also cause severe disease in animals such as pigs, resulting in significant economic losses for farmers.
Transmission
- Although Nipah virus has caused only a few known outbreaks in Asia, it infects a wide range of animals and causes severe disease and death in people, making it a public health concern.
- The natural host of the virus are fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family and Pteropous genus, widely found in South and South East Asia.
- During the first recognized outbreak in Malaysia, which also affected Singapore, most human infections resulted from direct contact with sick pigs or their contaminated tissues. Transmission is thought to have occurred via unprotected exposure to secretions from the pigs, or unprotected contact with the tissue of a sick animal.
- In subsequent outbreaks in Bangladesh and India, consumption of fruits or fruit products (such as raw date palm juice) contaminated with urine or saliva from infected fruit bats was the most likely source of infection.
- Human-to-human transmission of Nipah virus has also been reported among family and care givers of infected patients.
Remdesivir
- An experimental drug has protected monkeys against infection with Nipah virus, a lethal disease and emerging pandemic threat for which there is no approved vaccine or cure, scientists reported
- The antiviral drug, Remdesivir, is also being tested against the Ebola virus in the outbreak now under way in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The only current treatment for Nipah virus infection is a monoclonal antibody that is still experimental; it was tested during an outbreak in India last year.
3 . Provisions regarding vacation of seats for Simultaneously elected candidates
Background
- Under the Constitution, an individual cannot simultaneously be a member of both Houses of Parliament (or a state legislature), or both Parliament and a state legislature, or represent more than one seat in a House.
Elected to Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
- If a person is elected simultaneously to both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, and if he has not yet taken his seat in either House, he can choose, within 10 days from the later of the dates on which he is chosen to those Houses, the House of which he would like to be a member. [Article 101(1) of the Constitution read with Section 68(1) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951]
- The member must intimate his choice in writing to the Secretary to the Election Commission of India (ECI) within the 10-day window, failing which his seat in Rajya Sabha will fall vacant at the end of this period. [Sec 68(2), RPA 1951]. The choice, once intimated, is final. [Sec 68(3), RPA, 1951]
- No such option is, however, available to a person who is already a member of one House and has contested the election for membership of the other House.
- So, if a sitting Rajya Sabha member contests and wins a Lok Sabha election, his seat in the Upper House becomes automatically vacant on the date he is declared elected to Lok Sabha. The same applies to a Lok Sabha member who contests an election to Rajya Sabha.
Elected on two Lok Sabha seats
- Under Sec 33(7) of RPA, 1951, an individual can contest from two parliamentary constituencies but, if elected from both, he has to resign one seat within 14 days of the declaration of the result, failing which both his seats shall fall vacant.
Elected to State Assembly and Lok Sabha
- Under Article 101(2) of the Constitution (read with Rule 2 of the Prohibition of Simultaneous Membership Rules, 1950, made by the President under this Article) members of state legislatures who have been elected to Lok Sabha must resign their seats within 14 days “from the date of publication in the Gazette of India or in the Official Gazette of the State, whichever is later, of the declaration that he has been so chosen”, failing which their seats in Lok Sabha shall automatically fall vacant.
Date of publication
- Sec 67 of the RPA, 1951, says that “the returning officer shall report the (election) result to the appropriate authority and the Election Commission,… and the appropriate authority shall cause to be published in the Official Gazette the declarations containing the names of the elected candidates”.
- However, Sec 73 of the Act provides that the ECI shall publish in the gazette the names of all elected members in a notification, called ‘Due Constitution’ notification, whereafter Lok Sabha shall be deemed to be duly constituted.
- The ECI issued the ‘Due Constitution’ notification on May 25; therefore, members of state legislatures who have been elected to Lok Sabha must resign their seats within 14 days of that date.
4 . Facts for Prelims
Global Economic Prospect
- The Global Economic Prospects (GEP) is the World Bank’s semi-annual flagship publication on the state of the world economy.
Parthenogenesis
- Parthenogenesis is a reproductive strategy that involves development of a female (rarely a male) gamete (sex cell) without fertililisation.
- It occurs commonly among lower plants and invertebrate animals (particularly rotifers, aphids, ants, wasps and bees) and rarely among higher vertebrates”. A gamete is the egg in females and the sperm in males. In animals, parthenogenesis means development of an embryo from an unfertilised egg cell.
- Many species that reproduce through parthenogenesis do not reproduce sexually. Others switch between the two modes taking cues from the environment.
- The term parthenogenesis is a amalgam of the Greek words parthenos meaning virgin and genesis meaning origin. About 2,000 species are known to reproduce through parthenogenesis, which is one of the known means of asexual reproduction. Grafting (of plants) is also a type of asexual reproduction.
- Babies born through parthenogenesis are clones of the mother. Parthenogenetic offspring tend to be clones of the parent because there has been no exchange and rearrangement of genetic information with another individual as happens in case of a sexual reproductive process
- Recently through Parthenogenesis Anna, a green female anaconda , gave birth to a few babies without a male anaconda