PIB Analysis : 4th July

PIB Analysis for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. RISAT 2 B
2. Vector Borne Diseases
3. National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT)
4. Promotion of Sanskrit Language
5. Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups
6. Centrally Sponsored Schemes Umbrella Schemes

Note : Economic Survey and Budget will be covered Separately

1 . RISAT 2 B

About RISAT 2 B

• RISAT-2B is an indigenously developed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Imaging Satellite operating in the X-band. 
• Satellite is capable of operating in different modes including Very High Resolution RADAR imaging modes. 
• In order to increase the number of imaging opportunities, the satellite is placed in an inclined orbit.
• It can be operated effectively during day / night / all weather conditions.

Uses

• The Satellite will be used for high resolution spot imaging of locations of interest. 
• RISAT-2B will also be utilized for agriculture applications and disaster management support.
• Agriculture Application : Applications of X-Band SAR imagery include Hydrology, Crops, Forestry, Geosciences and Cryosphere.
• During the time of exigencies, very high resolution, day/night/all-weather imaging capabilities of RISAT-2B could be utilized for Disaster Management Support.

2 . Vector Borne Disease

Context : Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare held a high level meeting to review the preparednessfor prevention and control of vector borne diseases (malaria,dengue, and chikungunya) in Delhi, here today.

About Vector Borne Disease

• Vectors are living organisms that can transmit infectious diseases between humans or from animals to humans.
• Many of these vectors are bloodsucking insects, which ingest disease-producing microorganisms during a blood meal from an infected host (human or animal) and later inject it into a new host during their subsequent blood meal.
• Vector-borne diseases are human illnesses caused by parasites, viruses and bacteria that are transmitted by mosquitoes, sandflies, triatomine bugs, blackflies, ticks, tsetse flies, mites, snails and lice.
• Many of these diseases are preventable through informed protective measures.

Diseases Transferred by Vectors

• Mosquitoes
  • Aedes – Chikungunya, Dengue fever, Lymphatic filariasis, Rift Valley fever, Yellow fever, Zika
  • Anopheles – Malaria, Lymphatic filariasis
  • Culex – Japanese encephalitis, Lymphatic filariasis, West Nile fever
• Sandflies
  • Leishmaniasis
  • Sandfly fever (phelebotomus fever)
• Ticks
  • Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
  • Lyme disease
  • Relapsing fever (borreliosis)
  • Rickettsial diseases (spotted fever and Q fever)
  • Tick-borne encephalitis
  • Tularaemia
• Triatomine bugs – Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis)
• Tsetse flies – Sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis)
• Fleas – Plague (transmitted by fleas from rats to humans), Rickettsiosis
• Black flies – Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
• Aquatic snails – Schistosomiasis (bilharziasis)
• Lice- Typhus and louse-borne relapsing fever

3 . National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology’ (NMEICT)

Context : Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development is administering a programme ‘National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology’ (NMEICT) to leverage the potential of ICT to make the best quality content accessible to all learners in the country, free of cost.

Various initiatives under this programme

• SWAYAM: The ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’ (SWAYAM) is an integrated platform for offering online courses and covering school (9^th to 12^th) to Post Graduate Level.
• SWAYAM Prabha: SWAYAM Prabha is an initiative to provide 32 High Quality Educational Channels through DTH (Direct to Home) across the length and breadth of the country on 24X7 basis. It has curriculum-based course content covering diverse disciplines. This is primarily aimed at making quality learning resources accessible to remote areas where internet availability is still a challenge.
• National Digital Library (NDL): The National Digital Library of India (NDL) is a project to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility.
• Spoken Tutorial: They are 10-minute long, audio-video tutorial, on open source software, to improve employment potential of students. It is created for self learning, audio dubbed into all 22 languages and with the availability of online version. The languages are C, C++, Java, PHP, Python, PERL, Scilab, OpenFOAM, OpenModelica,DWSIM, LibreO and many more.  The Spoken Tutorial courses are effectively designed to train a novice user, without the support of a physical teacher.
• Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE):  FOSSEE is a project promoting the use of open source software in educational institutions
• Virtual Lab: The Virtual Labs Project is to develop a fully interactive simulation environment to perform experiments, collect data, and answer questions to assess the understanding of the knowledge acquired.
• E-Yantra: e-Yantra is a project for enabling effective education across engineering colleges in India on embedded systems and Robotics.
• Digital learning Initiatives by CBSE : SARANSH brings schools, teachers and parents closer, so that they can monitor the progress of students and help them improve their performance. It is currently available for Standards IX – XII and provides a comprehensive overview of Standard X performance since 2007 and Standard XII performance since 2009, till the current academic session.
• Classroom Centric digital intervention: A scheme Operation Digital Board (ODB) for establishing Smart Classrooms in classes IX to XII of Government and Government aided schools is under consideration.

4 . Promotion of Sanskrit Language

Steps for promotion of Sanskrit language

• Providing financial assistance to Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalayas / Shodha Sansthans.
• Award of merit scholarships to student of Sanskrit Pathasala to College level.
• Financial assistance to NGOs / Higher Educational Institutions of Sanskrit for various Research Projects / Programmes.
• Retired eminent Sanskrit scholars are engaged under the Shastra Chudamani scheme for teaching. 
• Sanskrit is also taught through Non-formal Sanskrit Education (NFSE) programme, by setting up Non-Formal Sanskrit learning centres, in reputed institutions like Indian Institutes Technology, Ayurveda institutions, Modern Colleges and Universities.
• Presidential awards for Sanskrit Language are awarded annually to 16 senior scholars and to 5 young scholars.
• Financial Assistance for Publication, Reprint of rare Sanskrit books.
• Ashtaadashi containing eighteen Projects for sustaining the growth of Sanskrit has been implemented.

5 .  Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG)

Background

• PVTGs are more vulnerable amongst the tribal groups, hence in 1975, the Government of India initiated to identify the most vulnerable tribal groups as a separate category called PVTGs and declared 52 such groups, while in 1993 an additional 23 groups were added to the category, making it a total of 75 PVTGs out of 705 Scheduled Tribes, spread over 17 states and one Union Territory (UT), in the country (2011 census).
• Currently there are 75 tribal groups have been categorized by the Ministry of Home Affairs as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG)s.
• PVTGs reside in 18 States and UT of A&N Islands. 

How they are identified

• The criteria for identifying Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are: –
  • Pre-agricultural level of technology
  • Low level of literacy
  • Economic backwardness
  • A declining or stagnant population
• According to the procedure, the state governments or UT governments submit proposals to the Central Ministry of Tribal Welfare for identification of PVTGs. After ensuring the criteria is fulfilled, the Central Ministry selects those groups as PVTGs.

Characteristics

• In 1973, the Dhebar Commission created Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) as a separate category, who are less developed among the tribal groups.
• In 2006, the Government of India renamed the PTGs as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs).
• PVTGs have some basic characteristics -they are mostly homogenous, with a small population, relatively physically isolated, social institutes cast in a simple mould, absence of written language, relatively simple technology and a slower rate of change etc

Schemes

• The Scheme seeks to adopt a holistic approach to the socio-economic development of PVTGs and gives state governments flexibility in planning initiatives that are geared towards the specific socio-cultural imperatives of the specific groups at hand.
• Activities supported under the scheme include housing, land distribution, land development, agricultural development, cattle development, construction of link roads, installation of non conventional sources of energy, social security, etc.
• Each state and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ administration, is required to prepare a long term Conservation-cum-Development (CCD) plan, valid for a period of five years for each PVTG within its territory, outlining the initiatives it will undertake, financial planning for the same and the agencies charged with the responsibility of undertaking the same.
• The CCD Plan is approved by an Expert Committee, appointed by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. The Scheme is then funded entirely by the Central government.

6 . Centrally Sponsored Umbrella schemes – Umbrella ICDS and Mission for Empowerment and Protection for Women across the country

Umbrella Integrated Child Development Scheme

• Anganwadi Services Scheme is a unique programme for early childhood care and development. It offers a package of six services, viz. Supplementary Nutrition, Pre-School Non-Formal Education, Nutrition and Health Education, Immunization, Health Check-Up and Referral Services. The beneficiaries under the Scheme are children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
• PoshanAbhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) targets to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight babies by reducing mal-nutrition/under nutrition, anemia among young children as also, focus on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
• Pradhan MantriMatruVandanaYojana (PMMVY) scheme provides cash incentive amounting to Rs.5,000/- in three installments directly to the Bank/Post Office Account of Pregnant Women and Lactating Mother(PW&LM) in DBT Mode during pregnancy and lactation in response to individual fulfilling specific conditions.
• Scheme for Adolescent Girls aims at out of school girls in the age group 11-14, to empower and improve their social status through nutrition, life skills and home skills. The scheme has nutritional and non nutritional components which include nutrition; iron and folic acid supplementation; health check up and referral service; nutrition and health education; mainstreaming out of school girls to join formal schooling bridge course/ skill training; life skill education, home management etc; counselling/ guidance on accessing public services.
• National Creche Scheme provides day care facilities to children of age group of 6 months to 6 years of working women. Children are provided with supplementary nutrition, early childcare education, and health and sleeping facilities. 
• Child Protection Services Scheme : The Scheme aims to spread awareness regarding the ways and means to prevent all children from child abuse of any kind including child sexual abuse.

Mission for Empowerment and Protection for Women

• Mahila Shakti Kendra scheme empowers rural women through community participation by involvement of Student Volunteers. The scheme is envisaged to work at various levels and at the national and state level technical support to the respective government on issues related to women is provided.
• Swadhar Greh scheme targets the women victims of unfortunate circumstances who are in need of institutional support for rehabilitation so that they could lead their life with dignity.
• Ujjawala is a comprehensive scheme to combat trafficking with the objective to prevent trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, to facilitate rescue victims and placing them in safe custody, to provide rehabilitation services by providing basic amenities/needs, to facilitate reintegration of victims into the family and society, to facilitate repatriation of cross border victims.
• Working Women Hostel aims at providing safe and affordable accommodation to working women. These hostels have Day care facility for the children of inmates too. The Ministry provides financial support for establishing such hostels by NGOs or State Governments.
• BetiBachaoBetiPadhao (BBBP) scheme is a tri-ministerial initiative of Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health & Family Welfare and Human Resource Development with a focus on awareness and advocacy campaign for changing mindsets, multi-sectoral action in select districts, enabling girls’ education and effective enforcement of Pre-Conception & Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act. The specific objectives of the scheme is to address declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) by preventing gender biased sex selective elimination; ensuring survival and protection of the girl child and ensuring education and participation of the girl child.
• One Stop Centre (OSC) facilitates access to an integrated range of services including police, medical, legal, psychological support and temporary shelter to women affected by violence. The Scheme is funded through Nirbhaya Fund.
• Women Helpline – The Scheme is being implemented to provide 24 hours emergency and non-emergency response to women affected by violence through referral and information about women related government schemes/programmes across the country through a single uniform number (181).
• Mahila Police Volunteers (MPVs) Scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs. It envisages engagement of Mahila Police Volunteers in States/UTs who act as a link between police and community and facilitates women in distress.