Current Affairs 13th November 2017

Current Affairs 13th November 2017 - Important Points

• WCD Ministry to host ‘Hausala 2017’ to celebrate Child Rights Week
• India becoming world's top emitter of Sulphur Dioxide reported on - 9th November 2017
• Youth Affairs Minister releases India Youth Development Index and Report 2017 on - 13th November 2017

Current Affairs 13th November 2017 - Details

WCD Ministry to host ‘Hausala 2017’ to celebrate Child Rights Week

The Ministry of Women and Child Development would be organizing the Child Rights Week by starting ‘Hausala 2017’ festival from 16-20th November 2017.
The festival will be organized by the Ministry as an Inter CCI Festival for the children who live in Child Care Institutions. The week was chosen as the country celebrates the Children’s Day on 14th November and the International Child Rights Day is observed annually on 20th November.
The weekly festival will provide an occasion to show the talents of children from various child care institutions across the Nation and helping them with a space to express their dreams and desires.
The children will be taking part in various events Bal Sansad, speech writing, athletics, football, chess competition and painting competition.

More about Bal Sandad

• The youth parliament will be held on 16th November 2017. It will have participation from a total of 36 children between the 14- 18 years of age group.
• The children would be expressing their ideas on issues that affect them.
• Details of discussions and ideas given by children may to be handover to relevant Ministries and Departments of the union government later on.
• An orientation workshop would also be held on 15th November with children on their needs and rights.
• At workshop, the children will be developed to identify the issues related to their rights that hampers them and also give their ideas.
• Child Reporters from street children’s news ‘Balaknama’ would be taking care of the entire event and printing it in their magazine after the content checked from the Ministry.
• The festival will end with a closing ceremony on 20th November 2017. The program will have release of compilation of talks and guidelines of UNNATI scheme and giving of Best State Team
• Award based on performance during ‘Hausla 2017’ as well as cultural program shown by children of CCIs.

India becoming world's top emitter of Sulphur Dioxide reported on - 9th November 2017

As per a study issued in journal Nature on 9th November 2017, India is surpassing China as the World’s largest emitter of Anthropogenic Sulphur Dioxide. The study, done by researchers at University of Maryland in the US, discloses that India's emissions of the air pollutant sulphur dioxide have increased by 50 since 2007, while China's fell by 75%.
The drastic decrease of sulphur dioxide emissions in China far behind the assumptions and projections. This can be credited to the emission control measures undertaken by China. While, India is yet to impose emission control measures.

Key Highlights-

• Sulphur dioxide is an air pollutant that causes haze, acid rain and many health-related issues. It is mainly produced by burning of coal to generate electricity.
• China and India are the world's leading consumers of coal, which contains up to three% sulphur.
• The emissions of sulphur dioxide are the coal-fired power stations and coal-burning factories products.
• Beijing suffers dangerous haze problems due to coal-burning factories and power stations.
• However, in the early 2000s, China began imposing policies such as lowering emissions limits, setting emission reduction goals and fining polluters. These efforts are doing well.
• Sulphur dioxide quantity in China decreased significantly, though the coal usage raised by approximately 50% and electricity generation grew by over 100%.
• By contrast, India's sulphur dioxide emissions grew up by 50% over the past decade as India initiated its largest coal-fired power station in 2012 and has yet to impose emission controls.
• India's elevated sulphur dioxide emissions are not causing as health or haze problems as in China because the largest emission enterprises are not in the most deep populated area of India.
• However, with the increasing demand for electricity in India, the effect may worsen.

Youth Affairs Minister releases India Youth Development Index and Report 2017 on - 13th November 2017

Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Rajyavardhan Rathore launched the India Youth Development Index and Report 2017 in New Delhi on 13th November 2017.
The index has been prepared by the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development in Tamil Nadu. The main objective behind constructing the index is to locate the trends in Youth Development across the states.

Key Highlights

• The index will help recognize the high and low performing states, locate the weak domains and inform the policy creators about the priority areas of involvement for youth development in the states.
• The preparation of the index was done using the current definition of youth as used in National Youth Policy – 2014 (India) and World Youth Development indext of Commonwealth (15 – 29 years) as well as using the Commonwealth Indicators in order to make possible Global comparison.
• In the India Youth Development Index report 2017, the first 5 dimensions are retained same as that of Global YDI.
• The sign and weights have been modified according to the availability of data at state level and the importance of the indicators in describing Youth Development with the objective of capturing the multidimensional properties.

Significance of YDI

• The India-specific index is unlike from the global YDI as it adds a new area of social inclusion to assess the inclusiveness of society progress due to generality of structural inequalities in the Indian society.
• This construction helps to locate the gaps that require intensification of policy involvement.
  The report also helps comparisons between geographical areas and categories, as human development index has completed in comparing the development situation between regions, nations and localities.
• The index also measures the procurements made apart from serving as an advocacy tool for youth development and facilitates to locate priority areas for development of Policy and involvements.
• It will also facilitate the policy makers to locate the national and regional progress as well as the problems in youth development policies, planning, prime identification and implementation strategies.
• Apart from providing insights to suggest ideas and options, it also helps in judicious allotment of resources.