NITI Aayog
NITI Aayog Releases Report on ‘Health Insurance for India's Missing Middle'

What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog released a comprehensive report titled Health Insurance for India's Missing Middle, which brings out the gaps in the health insurance coverage across the Indian population and offers solutions to address the situation.

• This report is an effort to re-invigorate the dialogue on increasing financial protection for health and the broader goal of Universal Health Coverage.
• It outlines the current landscape, existing gaps and articulates broad recommendations and pathways to increase health insurance coverage."
• The Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana-a flagship scheme towards Universal Health Coverage, and State Government extension schemes-provides comprehensive hospitalization cover to the bottom 50% of the population.
• Around 20% of the population is covered through social health insurance, and private voluntary health insurance primarily designed for high-income groups.
• The remaining 30% of the population, devoid of health insurance, is termed as the "missing middle".
• The missing middle contains multiple groups across all expenditure quintiles and is spread across both urban and rural areas.
• The report highlights the need for designing a low-cost comprehensive health insurance product for the missing middle.
• It primarily recognizes the policy issue of low financial protection for health for the missing middle segment and highlights health insurance as a potential pathway in addressing that.
• The report offers a starting point for broader discussions on solutions, and specific products, to improve insurance coverage for the missing middle.
• The report proposes wider industry and government stakeholder consultations, and discussion with consumer groups to delve deeper into the specifics of the problem, and potential solutions.

• Union Minister of Earth Sciences launched India's First Manned Ocean Mission Samudrayan at Chennai.
• With the launch of this Unique Ocean Mission, India joins the elite club of nations such as USA, Russia, Japan, France and China to have such underwater vehicles for carrying out subsea activities.

• This niche technology shall facilitate Ministry of Earth Sciences, MoES in carrying out deep ocean exploration of the non-living resources such as polymetallic manganese nodules, gas hydrates, hydro-thermal sulphides and cobalt crusts, located at a depth between 1000 and 5500 meters.
• The preliminary design of the manned submersible MATSYA 6000 is completed and realization of vehicle is started with various organization including ISRO, IITM and DRDO roped-in to support the development.
• Sea trials of 500 metre rated shallow water version of the manned submersible are expected to take place in the last quarter of 2022 and the MATSYA 6000, the deep water manned submersible will be ready for trials by the second quarter of 2024.
• The underwater vehicles are essential for carrying out subsea activities such as high resolution bathymetry, biodiversity assessment, geo-scientific observation, search activities, salvage operation and engineering support.

• Based on the experience gained over two decades in the development of unmanned robotic vehicles and systems for 6000 m operational capability, MoES-NIOT is indigenously developing a manned submersible with a depth capability of 6000 meters under the aegis of Deep Ocean Mission.
• The manned submersible is designed to carry three persons in 2.1 meter diameter Titanium Alloy Personnel Sphere with an operational endurance of 12h and systems to support emergency endurance up to 96h.
• Some of the critical subsystems of the manned submersibles are development of Ti Alloy Personnel Sphere, Human support and safety system in enclosed space, low density buoyancy modules, Ballast and Trim System.
• Pressure compensated batteries and propulsion system, control and communication systems and Launching and Recovery System.
• System design, concept of operation, subcomponents functionality and integrity, emergency rescue, failure mode analysis are reviewed and certified as per the rules of International Association of Classification and Certification Society for man-rated usage of manned submersible at a depth of 6000 meters.

• With the advancing subsea technologies, the recent Fendouzhe manned submersible developed by China in 2020 has touched ~11000m water depths

What's the NEWS

• Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs inaugurated the 14th edition of Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference 2021

• The main theme of this year's conference is "Mobility for All" which focuses on providing equitable access and promote inclusive urban transportation which aims to provide affordable, clean, safe, informative, efficient and accessible transport systems, with special attention to the diverse needs from all factions of the society, especially the specially-abled, elderly, women and children.
• The focus of this conference is to bring ease of living with suitable urban mobility policies.
• This would be achieved by concentrating on innovation and technology in the sector.
• Urban transportation means urban transformation, with emphasis on affordable, sustainable and green urban transport.
• During the Covid-19, three different challenges were introduced in the country- Cycle4change, Strret4people, and Transport for all.

• The urban population in 2020 accounted for 56% of the total global population, up from 30% in 1950, and is expected to increase to 60% by 2030.
• Of this, almost 90% is anticipated to be in Asia and Africa.
• This accelerated urbanization is the driving force behind the need for increased transportation of people and goods which is responsible for more than 30% of the world's energy consumption.
• Sustainable mobility and universal access is crucial for achieving the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

• The National Urban Transport Policy of 2006 highlights "Moving people rather than vehicles", following which most vision documents and policy statements related to urban transportation are formulated.
• Technology has enabled real-time analysis of transport and traffic, and public sector agencies have now begun to encourage the use of public transportation through new mobility business models such as on-demand and multimodal trip-planning applications.
• "Moving people" has translated to "Moving people from all sections of the society" while maintaining that private vehicles on the street should be restricted
• In order to achieve "mobility for all", promotion of seamlessly integrated urban transport, and universal accessibility, the Ministry had disseminated the Metro Rail Policy, 2017.

• Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs also presented awards to the state / city winners for "Excellence in Urban Transport" in different categories and distributed certificates under the Executive Programme in Sustainable Transport and trophies for SMART-MOVE (Innovative Urban Mobility Challenge 2021)

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Air Force (IAF) team jointly flight tested indigenously developed Long-Range Bomb (LRB) successfully from an aerial platform on October 29, 2021.
• The LR Bomb, after release from the IAF fighter aircraft, guided to a land-based target at a long range with accuracy within specified limits.
• All the mission objectives were successfully met.
• The flight of the bomb and the performance was monitored by a number of range sensors including Electro Optical Tracking System (EOTS), Telemetry and radar deployed by the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur in Odisha.
• The LR Bomb has been designed and developed by Research Centre Imarat (RCI), a DRDO laboratory located at Hyderabad in coordination with other DRDO laboratories.

What's the NEWS

• The 7^th Indian Navy Frigate of P1135.6 class was launched on 28 Oct 2021 at Yantar Shipyard, Kaliningrad, Russia
• During the ceremony, the ship was formally named as ‘Tushil'
• Tushil is a Sanskrit word meaning Protector Shield.

• Based on an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) between the Government of Republic of India and Government of Russian Federation for construction of two ships of Project 1135.6 ships in Russia and two ships in India at M/s Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL), the contract for construction of two ships was signed between India and Russia in Oct 18.
• The construction of these ships is based on Indian Navy's specific requirements to meet the entire spectrum of naval warfare in all three dimensions of Air, Surface and Sub-surface.
• The ships with a potent combination of state-of-art Indian and Russian Weapons and Sensors are equipped to operate in Littoral and Blue waters, both as a single unit and as consort in a naval task force.
• They feature "stealth technology" in terms of low radar and under water noise signatures.
• These ships are being equipped with major Indian supplied equipment such as Surface to Surface Missiles, Sonar system, Surface Surveillance Radar, Communication Suite and ASW system along with Russian Surface to Air Missiles and gun mounts.

What's the NEWS

• The Ministry of Food Processing Industries, in association with the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), launched the first ‘One District, One Product' ‘Dilli Bakes' in the bakery products category of the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PMFME) Scheme

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