07 Sep 2020: PIB Summary & Analysis

September 7th, 2020 PIB:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Hypersonic Test Demonstration Vehicle
2. World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS)
3. Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA)
4. Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (Global MPI)

1. Hypersonic Test Demonstration Vehicle

Context:

DRDO successfully flight-tested the indigenously-developed hypersonic technology demonstration vehicle (HSTDV).

Details:

• With this test, India joins a select group of countries (like China, Russia, USA) having the capability to develop the next-generation hypersonic cruise missiles.
• The HSTDV, based on hypersonic propulsion technologies and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), will help India develop futuristic space assets like long-range missile systems and aerial platforms.
• The HSTDV is capable of powering missiles to attain a speed of around Mach 6 or six times the speed of sound.
• The successful test implies that the DRDO will have the capacity to develop a hypersonic missile with a scramjet engine in the next five years, which will have the capacity to travel at more than two kilometres per second.
• The HSTDV operates on a scramjet engine, as against the ramjet engine which is used on most missiles.
  • The ramjet engines operate at supersonic speeds of up to Mach 3.
• The DRDO conducted the test at the APJ Abdul Kalam testing range (Wheeler Island) in Balasore, Odisha.
• The HSTDV performed on all parameters, including combustion chamber pressure, air intake and control guidance.
• The HSTDV is an unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft for hypersonic speed flight. Besides its utility for long-range cruise missiles of the future, the technology has multiple civilian applications also. It can be used for launching satellites at a low cost too.

2. World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS)

Context:

World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) is being organised by the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

About the WSTS:

• The virtual summit will focus on accelerating affordable and sustainable clean green energy by showcasing and deliberating on the innovative state of the art next-generation technologies in solar power.
• More than 26000 participants from 149 nations are expected to attend the summit.
• Many ISA countries’ ministers will join high-level dignitaries, representatives of diplomatic missions, ISA Partners, business and industry leaders, solar project developers, solar manufacturers, R&D institutions, academia and think tanks, civil society, international organizations and donors, representatives of non-governmental and community-based organizations, research and training institutes, international media, multilateral and bilateral agencies.
• The summit will include many deliberations on low cost, innovative and affordable solar technologies.
• ISA would also be launching the ISA Journal on Solar Energy that would help authors from across the globe to publish their articles on solar energy, during the event.
• The keynote of the summit will be delivered by Nobel laureate, Dr M Stanley Whittingham. He had won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with two others for the discovery of the lithium-ion batteries. Read more on how lithium-ion batteries work in CNA dated Oct 10, 2019.

3. Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA)

Context:

The 19^th meeting of the Supreme Court-mandated Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA) was held (virtually) in September 2020.

Background:

• As per directions of the Supreme Court, states are mandated to set up their respective three-member Committees on Content Regulation of Government Advertisements.
• As per the SC’s directions in 2015, the Government of India had set up a three-member committee in 2016 to look into content regulation of government-funded advertisements in all media platforms.
• States that have already constituted these committees: Karnataka, Goa, Mizoram and Nagaland.
  • The State Government of Chhattisgarh has given its consent to the Central Committee to monitor the content of its government advertisements.

Details:

• The CCRGA meeting took a serious note of the fact that other states have yet to constitute their respective state-level Committees.
• It was of the view that the delay in the part of the state governments to set up the committees may be construed as contempt of the SC’s order.

Supreme Court’s Guidelines about government advertisements:

• The content of government advertisements should be relevant to the government’s constitutional and legal obligations as well as the citizen’s rights and entitlements.
• The advertisement materials should be designed to meet the objectives of the campaign and to ensure maximum reach in a cost-effective way, and should also be presented in an objective, fair and accessible manner.
• It should be accurate and not showcase pre-existing policies and products as new. The advertisement content should also not promote the political interests of the ruling party.
• Advertisement campaigns should be justified and undertaken in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
• Government advertising must comply with legal requirements and financial regulations and procedures.

4. Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (Global MPI)

Context:

NITI Aayog, as the nodal agency, has been assigned the responsibility of leveraging the monitoring mechanism of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to drive reforms.

Details:

• The NITI Aayog will leverage the monitoring mechanism of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to push forward reforms in the country and for this, it has also set up a coordination committee, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index Coordination Committee (MPICC).
  • The NITI Aayog is the nodal agency for Global MPI.
  • The MPICC has members from relevant line Ministries and Departments, namely Ministry/Department of Power, WCD, Telecommunication, Statistics and Programme Implementation, Rural Development, Petroleum & Natural Gas, Food & Public Distribution, Drinking Water & Sanitation, Education, Housing & Urban Affairs, Health & Family Welfare, and Financial Services.
  • These Ministries/ Departments have been mapped to the ten parameters of the index (mentioned below).
  • Preparation of an MPI Parameter Dashboard to rank States and UTs, and a State Reform Action Plan (SRAP) are at an advanced stage of development.
• The MPI is one of the 29 global indices that the government has selected to monitor India’s performance in.
  • This exercise called the Global Indices to Drive Reforms and Growth (GIRG), has the objective of enabling the utilisation of these indices as tools for self-improvement, bring about reforms in policies, while also improving last-mile implementation of government schemes.

About Global MPI:

• Global MPI is an international measure of multidimensional poverty covering 107 developing countries.
• It was first developed in 2010 by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for UNDP’s Human Development Reports.
• The index is released at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development of the United Nations in July every year.
• How is the index calculated?
  • It is calculated by assigning scores for each surveyed household on 10 parameters.
  • These are based on nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, and household assets.
  • The index complements traditional monetary poverty measures by capturing the acute deprivations in health, education, and living standards that a person faces simultaneously.
• In Global MPI 2020, India was 62^nd among 107 countries with an MPI score of 0.123 and 27.91% headcount ratio, based on the NFHS-4 (2015-16) data.

Read previous PIB here.

September 7th, 2020, PIB:- Download PDF Here