Week 1 April Affairs 2021 Weekly
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CURRENT WEEK 1 APRIL AFFAIRS 2021 WEEKLY MAINS PRELIMS HISTORY & CULTURE MaliMal and UNESCO to GS- I GlobalG Gender Gap receiverece a ‘Symbolic Euro’ IndexIn for Timbuktu Heritage Destruction ShigmoShig Festival AnangpalAAna II Tomar Dynasty UniformU Civil INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS TheThT e Joint Comprehensive GS- II PlanPlan of Action (JCPOA) CodeC and debate ECONOMY IndiaIndi ranked 40th on surrounding it InternationalInte Intellectual Property Index ChenabChC e Arch Bridge ENVIRONMENT AreaAAre in Maharashtra’s SindhudurgSind named as a ElectoralEl Bonds ‘biodiversity heritage site’ TwoTwT o species of seaweed discovereddisc along India’s coastline GS- III DeepD Fakes SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY GreenGre Propulsion for India’s HumanHum Space Mission ‘Gaganyaan’ HiddenHidd ‘Goldilocks’ black holehole exposed by early GS- IV RRelevance of universe explosion MMahatma Gandhi’s NASA’sNAS InSight lander principles dealing pandemic www.iasscore.in Disclaimer The current aff airs articles are segregated from prelims and mains perspective, such separation is maintained in terms of structure of articles. Mains articles have more focus on analysis and prelims articles have more focus on facts. However, this doesn’t mean that Mains articles don’t cover facts and PT articles can’t have analysis. You are suggested to read all of them for all stages of examination. CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYST WEEK- 1 (APRIL, 2021) CONTENTS Section - A: MAINS CURRENT AFFAIRS Area of GS Topics in News Page No. GS-I SOCIETY Global Gender Gap Index 02 POLITY & Uniform Civil Code and debate surrounding it 04 GS-II GOVERNANCE Electoral Bonds 06 SCIENCE & GS-III Deep Fakes 08 TECHNOLOGY Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi’s principles GS-IV ETHICS 10 dealing pandemic Section - B: PRELIMS CURRENT AFFAIRS Area of GS Topics in News Page No. Mali and UNESCO to receive a ‘Symbolic Euro’ 13 for Timbuktu Heritage Destruction GS-I ART & CULTURE Shigmo Festival 13 Anangpal II Tomar Dynasty 15 INTERNATIONAL The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action GS-II 16 RELATIONS (JCPOA) India ranked 40th on International Intellectual 17 ECONOMY Property Index Chenab Arch Bridge 17 Area in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg named as a 18 ‘biodiversity heritage site’ ENVIRONMENT Two species of seaweed discovered along India’s GS-III 19 coastline Green Propulsion for India’s Human Space 20 Mission ‘Gaganyaan’ SCIENCE & Hidden ‘Goldilocks’ black hole exposed by early TECHNOLOGY 20 universe explosion NASA’s InSight lander 22 SECTION: A (MAINS) CURRENT AFFAIRS CURRENT AFFAIRS WEEK - 1 (APRIL, 2021) WEEKLY GLOBAL GENDER GAP INDEX CONTEXT Recently the Global Gender Gap Index was released by the World Economic Forum. India has been one of the worst performers in South Asia and has fallen 28 places in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021. BACKGROUND been further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. The Global Gender Gap Index is released by the ! At the current rate of progress, the World World Economic Forum. It was fi rst introduced Economic Forum estimates that it will take in 2006 to benchmark progress towards gender more than 145.5 years to attain gender parity parity. in politics. It was the 15th edition of the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 which comes out a little late over Gender gap in Economic Participation and one year after COVID-19 was offi cially declared a Opportunity pandemic. ! It is the second-largest of the four key gaps It is an index that is designed to measure gender tracked by the index. A marginal improvement equality. was seen in the gap since the 2020 edition of The released report examines four overall areas of the report and as a result, we estimate that it inequality between men and women- will take another 267.6 years to close the gap. ! Economic participation and opportunity Gender gaps in Educational Attainment: ! Educational attainment ! In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender ! Political empowerment gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already at parity. ! Health and survival ! The index estimates that on this current It tracks the progress for the closing of the gender trajectory, it will take another 14.2 years to gaps over time. completely close this gap in terms of gender. ANALYSIS Gender gaps in Health and Survival ! Globally, the average distance completed to Key global fi ndings of the reports parity is at 68%, a step back compared to 2020 Iceland is declared as the most gender-equal (-0.6 percentage points). country in the world for the 12th time, which is ! On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 followed by Norway, Finland, and Sweden. years to close the gender gap worldwide The fi ve most-improved nations in the overall index are Lithuania, Serbia, Timor-Leste, Togo, What are the observations made for India? and United Arab Emirates. These countries had India has ranked 140 out of 156 countries. It has narrowed down their gender gaps by at least 4.4 slipped to 28 places from the last year. percentage points or more. Political Empowerment: India has declined on Western Europe had remained the most progressed the political empowerment index as well in the region with the gender parity at 77.6%. number of women ministers. The Middle East and North Africa region again ! It has performed relatively well in women’s remain the area with the largest gap of 60.9%. participation in politics and ranked 51. The Three new countries have been assessed for the upward movement in rank was observed due fi rst time: Afghanistan with 44.4% of the gender to several females to the male head of state gap, rank- 156th), Guyana (72.8%, rank- 53rd), and ratio. However, India did not perform well Niger (62.9%, rank-138th). in the women representation in parliament In the report, global gender gap analysis is based and ministerial positions. This shows that the on the following patterns: opportunities were not given to women for proper representation in Parliament. Gender gap in Political Empowerment Health and survival: India secured rank 155 on ! The gap under this category remains the this front. Its performance on Sex ratio at birth largest of the four gaps tracked. The gap has and healthy life expectancy has remained dismal. 2 www.iasscore.in CURRENT AFFAIRS WEEKLY WEEK - 1 (APRIL, 2021) Despite several women-centric health programs, Educational initiatives: Sarva Shiksha the rank in this front shows the lack of access or Abhiyan, Right to Education, Kasturba Gandhi leakages in the system. Balika Vidyalayas are some of the educational Economic Participation and Opportunity: India initiatives. got rank 151 on this end. This shows a poor labor Reservation in Parliament: The Women’s force participation rate, inequality in wages for Reservation Bill (108th amendment) was similar work, reduction in income, less participation introduced in the parliament to reserve 33% of as legislators, senior offi cials, and managers. The Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha seats for women equal pay for equal work notion has not done well but the bill has yet to be passed by Lok Sabha. for women. And Still, a large gap exists in terms of position and payment for women. Suggestions to reduce the gap Education attainment: In the index of education Social integration: A more social integration is attainment India has ranked at 114. India has required to bring parity among the gender. The shown improvement in the literacy rate. On the removal of prejudices and awareness generation enrolment front for primary, secondary, and through sensitization programs can be eff ective. tertiary levels of education, India has performed very well. The Right to education has been one Employment opportunities: Women’s of the major reasons for the improvement of this employment should be increased in the formal parameter. sector. A more healthy working environment for women, equal salary, promotion for higher What are the reasons behind the gap? positions, removal of prejudices, and skill training Gender-based sex-selective practices: High programs should be adopted. incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices Reservation of seats in Parliament: Seats should is behind the wide gaps in sex ratio at birth. be reserved for women in parliament, so they can Violence: Besides, more than one in four women have good participation in the governance and have faced intimate violence in their lifetime. sensitize the population. Low rate of literacy: Gender gaps persist in terms Education: More female-centric schemes, of literacy. scholarships, hostels should be improved. Economic diffi culties: Women continue to face Spreading awareness against child abuse economic and workplace diffi culties and declining and violence: Stopping sex identifi cation and political participation, despite the progress in abortions, sensitization of female issues should be education and health. encouraged. Promoting NGOs to eradicate Gender Steps taken by the Government to reduce the Inequality can be taken. gender gap Health sector initiatives: ICDS (Integrated WAY FORWARD child development services, Matritva Sahyog Yojana for Pregnant and lactating women, Matru The slippage by a huge rank on the gender gap Vandanayojna, and Janani Suraksha Yojna are index is a major concern for India, which indicates some of the health sector initiatives for women. the reduced level of women equality. The situation Gender gap reduction: STEP scheme, needs to be handled with vigor otherwise the other MGNREGA are some of the initiatives for gender important half of the population will be left out of the gap reduction. path of growth. ********** www.iasscore.in 3 CURRENT AFFAIRS WEEK - 1 (APRIL, 2021) WEEKLY UNIFORM CIVIL CODE AND DEBATE SURROUNDING IT CONTEXT The Chief Justice of India (CJI) recently applauded Goa’s Uniform Civil Code. He also encouraged “intellectuals” who are involved in ‘academic talk’ to visit the state to learn about it.