EDITORIALS & ARTICLES

17th Nov 2021

100 YEARS OF INSULIN Recently, a research report found that there have been a surge in Type 2 diabetes among children. Finding of Report:
  • Children with sub-optimal growth in the womb carry high levels of risk for diabetes.
  • India has an estimated 7 per cent diabetic population in the age group 20-70.
  • Almost 1 in 10 children are pre-diabetic.
  • 6 % of those below 30were either overweight or obese.
Diabetes:
  • Diabetes is a chronic disease.
  • It occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces.
  • Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar.
Types:
  • Type I diabetes:
    • Also known as juvenile diabetes,
    • This type occurs when the body fails to produce insulin.
    • The body attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas
    • People with type I diabetes are insulin-dependent, which means they must take artificial insulin daily to stay alive.
  • Type 2 diabetes:
    • The body’s cells don't allow insulin to work.
    • The body's cells have become resistant to insulin.
  • Gestational diabetes:
    • This type occurs in women during pregnancy when the body can become less sensitive to insulin.
    • Gestational diabetes does not occur in all women and usually resolves after giving birth.
Risk Factors for prediabetes:
  • Being overweight
  • family history of diabetes
  • Having a high-density cholesterol level
  • A history of high blood pressure
  • A history of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
Causes:
  • Rapid urbanisation,
  • Sedentary lifestyle,
  • Unhealthy diet,
  • Tobacco use,
  • Increasing life expectancy.
Symptoms of diabetes:
  • Increased thirst.
  • Fatigue
  • Blurred vision.
  • Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet.
  • Slow-healing sores or cuts.
  • weight loss.
  • Frequent urination.
  • Dry mouth.
    UNHCR MID-YEAR TRENDS 2021 Recently, Mid-Year Trends report was released by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mid Year Trends 2021
  • Published by: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
  • Aim: To monitor the humanitarian plight of the displaced refugees.
Highlights:
  • Trend of rising forced displacement continued into 2021, with global numbers exceeding 84 million, an increase from 82.4 million at the end of 2020.
  • In the first half of 2021, 126,700 refugees returned to 23 countries of origin from 41 countries of asylum.
  • More than 3 million new displacements were reported by 18 countries.
  • In the first half of 2021, millions more people were forced to flee their homes due to armed conflicts, generalized violence or human rights violations.
  • Much of the new internal displacement was in Africa:
    • Africa accounted for 80 percent of the most neglected displacement crises across the globe.
  • The Democratic Republic of the Congo (1.3 million), Ethiopia (1.2 million), Central African Republic (202,500), South Sudan (170,400), Nigeria (164,600), Mozambique and Burkina Faso.
  • Internal and cross-border mobility in the East and Horn of Africa contributed to around 6.5 million internally displaced persons (IDP) and 3.5 million refugees and asylum seekers in 2020 alone.
  • By mid-2021, due to conflict and violence, the number of internally displaced persons had risen to nearly 9 million.
  • Intensifying violence led to significant new displacements in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Myanmar, South Sudan and countries in the Sahel region, among other locations.
    US INFLATION AND ITS IMPACT ON INDIA At 6.2%, retail inflation in the US has made the highest year-on-year jump in 3 decades. This could have direct impact on India.
  • India’s National Statistical Office (NSO) data showed that retail inflation rose to 4.5 per cent for the same month.
Inflation Rate:
  • It is the rate at which prices increase over a given period.
    • India, where the inflation rate is calculated on a year-on-year basis, has adopted an inflation target of 4% (+/-2).
Why is US inflation a matter of concern?
  • The Federal Reserve (or Fed), the US central bank, targets an inflation rate of just 2 per cent.
    • Hence, the rise of inflation to 6.2%, is a matter of concern.
Causes of inflation in US:
  • The rapid rollout of Covid-19 vaccine created unexpectedly fast recovery in all-round demand from consumers.
  • This recovery was further fueled by money pumped by the US government to provide relief to consumers and those who lost their jobs and to stimulate demand.
  • The pace of economic recovery has been much faster than the supply chain recovery, and this has worsened the mismatch between demand and supply, thus triggering a sustained price rise.
Effect on India:
  • High inflation in the advanced economies, will likely force their central banks, to abandon their loose monetary policy.
    • A tight money policy would imply higher interest rates.
  • That will affect the Indian economy in three broad ways.
    • One, Indian firms trying to raise money outside India will find it costlier to do so.
    • Two, the Reserve Bank India (RBI) will have to align its monetary policy at home by raising interest rates domestically.
    • Three, reduction in carry trade.
      • It basically means that one borrows in a country that has low interest rate and invests in a country with higher rates and the spread is the profit subject to currency fluctuations.
      • Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) use this strategy to bring money from their country to invest in Indian stocks.
      • If the US’ central bank raises rates to counter high inflation—and other central banks follow suit—the spread would shrink and could impact the foreign flows coming to India.
Inflation Trend in India:
  • Retail inflation had frequently been above the comfort zone of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) — between 2 per cent and 6 per cent — for an extended period since late 2019.
  • The pandemic made matters worse because of supply constraints even when in India demand has not yet recovered to pre-Covid levels.
  • The RBI has not lowered its benchmark interest rates since May 2020.
    • That’s because India’s retail inflation has stayed worrying above or near the RBI’s upper limit for the better part of the last two years.
  • After the recommendation of Urjit Patel Committee, Consumer Price Index (combined) is used as nominal anchor for RBI’s monetary policies, instead of Wholesale Price Index (WPI).
  • CPI (combined) gives weightage to food that is consumed by masses; hence it gives ground reality of the inflation.
    CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT TO HIT 1.4% OF GDP BY MARCH: BARCLAYS According to a report by British brokerage Barclays, India’s trade deficit has been jumping continuously since July, 2021. Highlights:  
  • India's widening current account deficit (CAD) is driven by the massive spike in commodity prices led by crude oil.
  • Another force driving down the foreign exchange is gold imports.
Causes and Effects of Current Account Deficit: Balance of Payments:
  • Balance Of Payment (BOP)is a statement which records all the monetary transactions made between residents of a country and the rest of the world during any given period.
  • This statement includes all the transactions made by/to individuals, corporates and the government and helps in monitoring the flow of funds to develop the economy.
  • A BOP statement of a country indicates whether the country has a surplus or a deficit of funds.
    • When a country’s export is more than its import, its BOP is said to be in surplus.
    • On the other hand, the BOP deficit indicates that a country’s imports are more than its exports.
    Significance:
  • The BOP of a country reveals its financial and economic status.
  • A BOP statement can be used as an indicator to determine whether the country’s currency value is appreciating or depreciating.
  • The BOP statement helps the Government to decide on fiscal and trade policies.
  • It provides important information to analyze and understand the economic dealings of a country with other countries.
Current Account:
  • The current account is used to monitor the inflow and outflow of goods and services between countries.
  • This account covers all the receipts and payments made with respect to raw materials, manufactured goods and services.
  • When all the goods and services are combined, together they make up to a country’s Balance of Trade (BOT).
  • There are various categories of trade and transfers which happen across countries.
    • It could be visible or invisible trading, unilateral transfers or other payments/receipts.
    • Trading in goods between countries are referred to as visible items and import/export of services (banking, information technology etc.) are referred to as invisible items.
    • Unilateral transfers refer to money sent as gifts or donations to residents of foreign countries.
Capital Account:
  • All capital transactions between the countries are monitored through the capital account.
  • Capital transactions include the purchase and sale of assets(non-financial) like land and properties.
  • The capital account also includes the flow of taxes, purchase and sale of fixed assets by migrants moving out/into a different country.
  • The deficit or surplus in the current account is managed through the finance from the capital account and vice versa.
  • There are 3 major elements of a capital account:
    • Loans and borrowings– It include all types of loans from both the private and public sectors located in foreign countries.
    • Investments – These are funds invested in the corporate stocks by non-residents.
    • Foreign exchange reserves– Foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank of a country to monitor and control the exchange rate does impact the capital account.
Financial Account
  • The flow of funds from and to foreign countries through various investments in real estates, business ventures, foreign direct investments etc. is monitored through the financial account.
  • This account measures the changes in the foreign ownership of domestic assets and domestic ownership of foreign assets.
  • On analyzing these changes, it can be understood if the country is selling or acquiring more assets (like gold, stocks, equity etc.).
    GOVERNMENTS ADOPT GLASGOW CLIMATE PACT, OPERATIONALIZE PARIS AGREEMENT Recently, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted Glasgow Climate Pact. Glasgow Meeting:
  • The Glasgow meeting was the 26thsession of the Conference of Parties (CoP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP 26.
  • It is conducted every year to construct a global response to climate change.
  • These meetings earlier delivered two international agreements, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015
    • The Paris Agreement is now the active instrument to fight climate change.
Glasgow Climate Pact At CoP26, countries agreed on pact known as Glasgow Climate Pact.
  • Aim of the pact: Avert dangerous climate change.
  • The pact has:
    • Focused over the failure of the developed countries to deliver on their $100 billion promise.
    • Initiated discussions on setting the new target for climate finance, beyond $100 billion for the post-2025 period.
    • Asked the developed countries to provide transparent information about the money they plan to provide.
Loss and Damage:
  • The frequency of climate disasters has been rising rapidly, and many of these causes’ largescale devastation.
  • The worst affected are the poor and small countries, and the island states.
  • There is no institutional mechanism to compensate these nations for the losses, or provide them help in the form of relief and rehabilitation.
Carbon Markets:
  • Carbon markets are effective instrument to reduce overall emissions.
  • They facilitate the trading of emission reductions.
  • It allows countries, or industries, to earn carbon credits for the emission reductions they make in excess of their targets.
  • These carbon credits can be traded to the highest bidder in exchange of money.
  • The Glasgow Pact has allowed these carbon credits to be used in meeting countries’ first nationally-determined contributions (NDC) targets.
What was achieved? Mitigation: The agreement has emphasized stronger action towards achieving the 1.5-degree target. Accordingly, it has:
  • Asked countries to strengthen their 2030 climate action plans, or NDCs by 2022.
  • Established a work programme to urgently scale-up mitigation ambition and implementation.
  • To convene an annual meeting of ministers to raise ambition of 2030 climate actions.
  • To convene a meeting of world leaders in 2023 to scale-up ambition of climate action.
  • Asked countries to make efforts to reduce usage of coal as a source of fuel, and abolish “inefficient” subsidies on fossil fuels.
  • It called on all parties to accelerate phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies.
Adaption: Countries, especially the smaller and poorer ones, and the small island states, consider adaptation to be the most important component of climate action.
  • These countries, due to their lower capacities, are facing the worst impacts of climate change and require immediate technology and capacity building for their adaptation activities.
The Glasgow Climate Pact has:
  • Asked the developed countries to double the money being provided for adaptation by 2025 from the 2019 levels.
    • In 2019, about $15 billion was made available for adaptation that was less than 20 per cent of the total climate finance flows.
  • Created a two-year work programme to define a global goal on adaptation.
    • The Paris Agreement has a global goal on mitigation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep the temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial times.
    • A similar global goal on adaptation has been missing, primarily because of the difficulty in defining such a target.
Finance: Every climate action has financial implications.
  • Developed countries will provide finance and technology to the developing nations to help them deal with climate change.
  • In 2009, developed countries had promised to mobilize at least $100 billionevery year from 2020.
  • It was reaffirmed during the Paris Agreement, which asked the developed countries to scale up this amount from 2025.
  • However, the 2020 deadline passed but the $100 billion promise has not fulfilled yet.
Outcomes of the Summit:
  • India announced a Panchamrit (a mixture of five elements) of climate actions.
  • It raised the targets for two of its existing climate targets, and promised to turn net-zero by the year 2070.
  • These targets are:
    • By 2030, to increase non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW.
    • By 2070, India will achieve net-zero emissions.
    • It will fulfil 50 per cent of its energy requirement through renewable energy by 2030.
    • To bring economy's carbon intensity down to 45% by 2030.
    • To reduce 1 billion tonnes of carbon emissions from the total projected emissions by 2030.
  • Brazil, would advance its net-zero target year from 2060 to 2050.
    • China come out with a roadmap for its commitment to let emissions peak in 2030, and for its 2060 net-zero target.
    • Israel announced a net zero target for 2050.
  • Over 100 countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by at least 30 per cent from present levels by 2030.
    • If achieved, it is estimated to avoid about 0.2-degree Celsius temperature rise by the middle of the century.
  • Some countries promised to arrest and reverse deforestation by 2030.
  • Over 30 countries signed a declaration to work towards a transition to 100 per cent zero-emission cars by the year 2040.
    'PAKKE DECLARATION' - ARUNACHAL PRADESH ADOPTS RESOLUTION FOCUSING ON 75 NEW STRATEGIES TO TACKLE CLIMATE CRISIS Recently, the Arunachal Pradesh cabinets adopted a declaration on climate change, approved the new state butterfly, and launched the e-Cabinet portal. Kaiser-e-Hind butterfly
  • It is a rare species of swallowtail butterfly found from Nepal and north India east to north Vietnam.
  • Its name means "emperor of India".
  • It is a local and rare butterfly that is protected by Indian and Nepalese law.
  • It would be a keystone species for conservation of high-altitude forest.
Pakke Tiger Reserve
  • It is also known as Pakhui Tiger Reserve.
  • It is a Project Tiger reserve in the Pakke Kessang district of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India.
  • Established: 1966
  • Location: It lies in the undulating and hilly foothills of the Eastern Himalayas in Arunachal Pradesh's Pakke Kessang
    • It is bounded by Bhareli or Kameng River in the west and north, and by Pakke River in the east.
  • Area: Total Area of the tiger reserve is 862 km2.
  • Flora:
    • It contains lowland semi-evergreen, evergreen forests and Eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests.
    • A total of 343 woodyspecies of flowering plants (angiosperms) have been recorded from the lowland areas of the park.
    • It has a high representation of species from the families Euphorbiaceae and Lauraceae.
    • A total of 1500 species of vascular plants are found.
  • Vascular plants are defined as land plants with lignified tissues for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant.
  • Fauna
    • ​​​​​​​Large cats: The Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, and clouded leopard.
    • Canids: Wild dogs and Asiatic jackal.
    • Monkeys: The Rhesus macaque, Assamese macaque, and the capped langur.
    • At least 296 bird species have been recorded in the Tiger reserve.
    HABIBGANJ TO RANI KAMLAPATI: HOW A RAILWAY STATION’S NAME IS CHANGED Recently, the name of Bhopal’s Habibganj railway station has been changed to Rani Kamlapati station. Rani Kamlapati:
  • She was the Gond queen of the region in the 18th century.
  • She was one of Nizam Shah's seven wives and daughter of Chaudhari Kirpa-Ramchandra.
    • Gond king Nizam Shah's reign was from 1600 to the year 1715, the Ginnaurgarh fort was under the Gond kings, and Bhopal too was ruled by him.
  • She was the last Hindu queen of Bhopal, who did great work in the area of water management and set up parks and temples.
  • She built the seven-story 'Kamlapati Palace', which presently serves as a protected monument.
  • Rani Kamlapati Palace is a secular architecture of the 18th century built of Lakhauri bricks, cusped arches over crumpled pillars.
Gond tribe:
  • They are a Dravidian ethnolinguistic
  • They are one of the largest groups in India.
  • They are spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha.
  • The Gond tribe has painted and carved art on the walls of caves which all belong to the Mesolithic Period.
    • The Gonds believe that viewing good images brought in good luck. Thus, traditionally, they painted motifs, tattoos, and images on the floors and walls of their houses.
  • The name of the native Gond religion is Koyapunem, which was founded by Pari Kupar Lingo.
  • Gond diet has two staple millets as kodo and kutki.
  • Keslapur Jathra is the important festival of the Gonds.
 






POSTED ON 17-11-2021 BY ADMIN
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