27 Jun 2022: PIB Summary for UPSC

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Commercial coal mining
2. Holy Relics of Lord Buddha
3. India - Malaysia
4. UN Ocean Conference
5. Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D)
6. Report on India's Gig and Platform Economy

1. Commercial coal mining

Syllabus: GS-3, Economy- Infrastructure- Power

Mains: Commercial Coal mining in India- Significance

Context:

Coal Ministry receives 38 bids for the auction of coal mines for commercial mining.

Details:

• The Fifth Tranche, Second Attempt of Fourth Tranche and Second Attempt of Third Tranche of commercial coal mine auction were launched by the Nominated Authority, Ministry of Coal in March 2022.

Know more about commercial coal mining in PIB dated June 11, 2020.

2. Holy Relics of Lord Buddha

Syllabus: GS-1, Art & Culture, History

Prelims: Buddhism, Lord Buddha, Kapilavastu relics

Mains: Buddhism as India’s soft power

Context:

Union Minister receives the holy Kapilvastu relics of Lord Buddha brought back from Mongolia.

What’s in News?

• The four Holy Relics of Lord Buddha came back to India after being displayed for 12 days at the Batsagaan Temple within the premises of Gandan Monastery, Mongolia as part of celebrations of the Mongolian Buddh Purnima.

Holy Relics of Lord Buddha:

• The Holy Buddha Relics are known as the ‘Kapilvastu Relics’ since they are from a site in Bihar first discovered in 1898 which is believed to be the ancient city of Kapilvastu.
• The last time these relics were taken out of the country was in 2012 when their exposition was held in Sri Lanka and were on display at several locations across the island nation. 
• However, later guidelines were issued and the Holy Relics were placed under the ‘AA’ category of those Antiquities and Art Treasures which should not be ordinarily taken out of the country for exhibition, considering their delicate nature.

Know more about Buddhism in the linked article.

3. India – Malaysia

Syllabus: GS-2, International Relations-Bilateral agreements involving India.

Mains: Defence ties between India and Malaysia

Context:

India and Malaysia decide to enhance defence cooperation.

Details:

• India’s Defence Minister and the Senior Defence Minister of Malaysia held a video conference during which they discussed a range of issues concerning bilateral, regional and defence industrial cooperation between the two nations. 
• The two Ministers discussed the existing defence cooperation activities and framework, and ways to further enhance them under the existing Malaysia India Defence Cooperation Meeting (MIDCOM) framework. 
• The next MIDCOM is scheduled to be held in July 2022, and it was decided to use this platform for a deeper engagement in defence.

4. UN Ocean Conference

Syllabus: GS-2, International Relations- Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

Prelims: UN Ocean Conference- Venue; Associated SDG

Context:

The 5-day UN Ocean Conference takes off with the Governments of Kenya and Portugal being the co-hosts.

About the UN Ocean Conference:

• At this conference, leaders from over 130 countries will deliberate to find an international agreement on protecting the world’s oceans, seas and marine resources.
• The Indian delegation that is attending the conference also held bilateral discussions with other countries.
• Significance:
  • The Ocean Conference comes at a crucial juncture as the world is seeking to address many of the challenges requiring structural transformations and Innovative and Green solutions to achieve the SDG Goal 14, which calls for Conservation and Sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources.

5. Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D)

Syllabus: GS-2, Education- Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education, Human Resources.

Prelims: Performance grading index for districts- Mandate and organizing ministry

Mains- Initiatives to improve school education in India

Context:

Ministry of Education releases the first-ever report on the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for the year 2018-19 and 2019-20.

About Performance Grading Index for Districts:

• The index assesses the performance of the school education system at the District level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis.
• The Department of School Education & Literacy had previously devised the Performance Grading Index (PGI) for States and released reports for the reference years 2017-18 to 2019-20. 
• Based on the success of State PGI, 83-indicator-based PGI for District (PGI-D) has been designed to grade the performance of all districts in school education.
• Significance:
  • The PGI-D is expected to help the state education departments to identify gaps at the district level and improve their performance in a decentralized manner. 
  • The indicator-wise PGI score shows the areas where a district needs to improve. 
  • The PGI-D will reflect the relative performance of all the districts in a uniform scale which encourages them to perform better.
• PGI-D structure:
  • It comprises of total weightage of 600 points across 83 indicators, which are grouped under 6 categories:
    • Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements, School Safety & Child Protection, Digital Learning and Governance Process. 
    • These categories are further divided into 12  domains, viz.,  Learning Outcomes and Quality (LO), Access Outcomes (AO), Teacher Availability and Professional Development Outcomes (TAPDO), Learning Management (LM), Learning Enrichment Activities (LEA), Infrastructure, Facilities, Student Entitlements (IF&SE), School Safety and Child Protection (SS&CP), Digital Learning (DL), Funds convergence and utilization (FCV), Enhancing CRCs Performance (CRCP), Attendance Monitoring Systems (AMS) and School Leadership Development (SLD).
  • PGI-D grades the districts into ten grades:
    • Daksh – highest achievable grade – for Districts scoring more than 90% of the total points in that category or overall. 
    • Akanshi-3 – lowest grade – for scores up to10% of the total points.

6. Report on India’s Gig and Platform Economy

Syllabus: GS3- Economy – Indian Economy and issues relating to Planning, Mobilization of Resources, Growth, Development and Employment.

Mains: Significance and concerns associated with platformalization of work; Important recommendations of the NITI Aayog

Context:

NITI Aayog Launches Report on India’s Gig and Platform Economy.

Details:

• The report presents comprehensive perspectives and recommendations on the gig–platform economy in India. 
• The report provides a scientific methodological approach to estimate the current size and job-generation potential of the sector. 
• It highlights the opportunities and challenges of this emerging sector and presents global best practices on initiatives for social security and delineates strategies for skill development and job creation for different categories of workers in the sector.

Recommendations of the report in brief:

• Accelerating access to finance through products specifically designed for platform workers.
• Linking self-employed individuals engaged in the business of selling regional and rural cuisine, street food, etc., with platforms to enable them to sell their produce to wider markets in towns and cities. 
• Engaging in platform-led transformational and outcome-based skilling.
• Enhancing social inclusion through gender sensitization and accessibility awareness programmes for workers and their families and extending social security measures in partnership mode as envisaged in the Code on Social Security 2020.
• Undertaking a separate enumeration exercise to estimate the size of the gig and platform workforce and collecting information during official enumerations (Periodic Labour Force Survey) to identify gig workers. 

Read more on platform and gig workers in the link.

Read previous PIB here.

June 27th, 2022, PIB:- Download PDF Here