Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- Mission Vatsalya
- CBDC
- Human Rights council
- Facts for Prelims
1 . Mission Vatsalya
Context : The Union government plans to partner with the private sector and volunteer groups for its scheme for protection of vulnerable children such as those abandoned or missing. The Ministry of Women and Child Development on Wednesday sent its draft guidelines for Mission Vatsalya Scheme to States and Union Territories and sought suggestions by April 18, 2022.
About Mission Vatsalya
- Children have been recognized by policy makers as one of the supreme national assets. India is home to 472 million children upto the age of 18 years and comprise 39 percent of the country’s population.
- The objective of Mission Vatsalya is to secure a healthy and happy childhood for every child in India; foster a sensitive, supportive and synchronized ecosystem for development of children; assist States/UTs in delivering the mandate of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015; achieve the SDG goals.
- Components under Mission Vatsalya will include statutory bodies; service delivery structures; institutional care/services; non-institutional community based care; emergency outreach services; training and capacity building.
- Mission Vatsalyais essentially renaming of a pre-existing scheme called Child Protection Services, and also includes child welfare services.
Details of the Draft
- According to the draft to encourage public participation, develop synergy in efforts and utilise the resources available for success of the mission, the civil society, people’s groups and various volunteering organisations can be encouraged to participate under Mission Vatsalya in a systematic and planned manner. These could include organisations under government initiatives such as Bharat Scout and Guide, NSS Volunteers, and Nehru Yuva Kendras.
- The Ministry has also proposed a Vatsalya portal that will allow volunteers to register so that State and District Authorities can engage them for executing various schemes.
- Child protection includes services for children in need of care and protection such as those abandoned, orphaned or missing; children in conflict with law or juvenile offenders and other vulnerable children. The programme components include institutional services through child care institutions (CCI) and family-based non-institutional care through sponsorship, foster care and adoption.
- It also supports after-care programme for children at CCIs once they turn 18, and emergency outreach service through Childline or the national helpline 1098 for children.
- According to the draft guidelines, the government also plans to “integrate” the massively successful Childline with Ministry of Home Affairs’ helpline 112 which provides emergency services for medical emergency, women’s safety and fire — a move that has child rights activists very worried.
2 . Central Bank Digital Currency
Context : Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar said a nuanced and calibrated approach was essential for the introduction of India’s maiden digital currency as it would have various implications for the economy as well as monetary policy.
Background
- “Government has received a proposal from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in October, 2021 for amendment to the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 to enhance the scope of the definition of ‘bank note’ to include currency in digital form.
- RBI has been examining use cases and working out a phased implementation strategy for introduction of CBDC with little or no disruption,” Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in reply to a query in Lok Sabha.
About Central Bank Digital Currency
- The CBDC is a digital form of fiat currency which can be transacted using wallets backed by blockchain and is regulated by the central bank.
- It is issued and regulated by the nation’s monetary authority or central bank and they are backed by the full faith and credit of the issuing government.
- Though the concept of CBDCs was directly inspired by bitcoin, it is different from decentralised virtual currencies and crypto assets, which are not issued by the state and lack the ‘legal tender’ status.
- CBDCs enable the user to conduct both domestic and cross border transactions which do not require a third party or a bank.
- CBDCs are in various stages of development around the world. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is working on a plan to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC), given its benefits.
Features and Benefits
- It has potential to offer significant benefits, including reduced dependence on cash, higher seigniorage (government profit from issuing currency) due to lower transaction costs and reduced settlement risk.
- Introduction of CBDC would also possibly lead to a more robust, efficient, trusted, regulated and legal tender-based payments option.
- A digital version of the fiat currency, CBDC has some advantages of cryptocurrency but is regulated by the central bank and, hence, less prone to volatility.
- For CBDC transactions between two parties, there is no need for settlement or approval by a financial intermediary, which enables fund transfers to take place on a real-time basis. “CBDC also does not require the kind of investment needed in physical infrastructure for minting fiat money and is very cost-effective.
- Financial literacy of the users and a robust IT system to withstand potential cyberattacks are two imperatives for a CBDC.
3 . Human Right’s Council
Context : Russia’s membership to the Human Rights Council (HRC), to which it was elected in 2020, was suspended after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted, 93 to 24, with 58 abstentions, including India, to adopt a resolution suspending Moscow from the UN body.
About the news
- The resolution, ‘Suspension of the rights of membership of the Russian Federation in the Human Rights Council’, was proposed by a group of countries that included Ukraine, the U.S., the EU, several Latin American countries and required a two-thirds majority of those present and voting for adoption.
- Abstentions do not count in the tally of those ‘present and voting’.
- India abstained for reasons of “substance and process”
About UNHRC
- The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 States responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe.
- The Human Rights Council is a forum empowered to prevent abuses, inequity and discrimination, protect the most vulnerable, and expose perpetrators.
- The Human Rights Council is a separate entity from Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
- The Human Rights Council replaced the Commission on Human Rights
4 . Facts for Prelims
2 + 2
- The ‘2+2’ dialogue is a meeting between the India Ministers for External Affairs and Defence with the US Secretaries of State and Defense
- “2+2” dialogue was meant to replace the Strategic and Commercial Dialogue between the foreign and commerce ministers of the two countries that was held during the previous Obama administration.
- First 2+2 Dialogue happened in India in September 2018