Daily Current Capsules - 29^th JUNE 2019

International Organisations
G20 Summit 2019

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the G-20 summit and its outcomes) + Mains ( GS II international organisations)
What's the NEWS

• PM Modi will attend important plurilateral meetings during G20 Summit. It is the first time for Japan to take on the G20 presidency.
• The G20 Osaka Summit will be held on June 28-29, as well as relevant ministerial meetings in eight cities in 2019.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of the two-day G20 Summit that will take place in Osaka on June 28. This is the first such meeting between these leaders since the start of Japan's Reiwa era.
• He will also hold a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit with Russian and Chinese Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, respectively.

Know! more about the summit and Indian agenda in it

• PM Modi's in his departure statement said that issues such as women empowerment, artificial intelligence and common efforts to address challenges like terrorism will be high on his agenda.
• He said the two-day Osaka summit will also be an important stepping stone for India towards hosting the G20 summit in 2022.
• The host country of the G20 summit leads the group over the course of one year from December through the following November as the G20 presidency. The G20 presidency also organizes relevant ministerial and working group meetings.

G20 Summit 2019 Themes

• There are eight main themes for G20 Summit 2019 that includes Global Economy, Trade and Investment, Innovation, Environment and Energy, Employment, Development and Health.
• While the G20 was originally established in response to the global financial crisis, its core mission today is to establish economic fundamentals for realizing sustainable and inclusive growth of the global economy.

G20 Summit Participants

• The participants are leaders from 19 countries and the Europian Union (EU). The 19 countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America.
• In addition, leaders of invited guest countries and representatives of invited guest international organizations participate in the summit along with leaders from the G20 members.

Know! all about G20 Summit

• The G20 Summit is formally known as the "Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy". G20 stands for the "Group of Twenty".
• As the "premier forum for international economic cooperation" (agreed by leaders at the Pittsburgh Summit in September 2009), representing more than 80% of the global GDP, the G20 has made continuous efforts toward achieving robust global economic growth.
• As globalization progresses and various issues become more intricately intertwined, the recent G20 summits have focused not only on macro-economy and trade.
• But also on a wide range of global issues which have an immense impact on the global economy, such as development, climate change and energy, health, counter-terrorism, as well as migration and refugees.
• The G20 has sought to realize an inclusive and sustainable world through its contributions towards resolving these global issues.

Information Technology
National mission on natural language translation soon

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about natural language translation mission ) + Mains ( GS II issues relates to development and management of social services like human resource + GS III awareness in the field of information & technology)
What's the NEWS

• Ministry of Electronics and IT will soon place before the Union Cabinet a Rs.450 crore proposal for Natural Language Translation - one of the key missions identified by the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC).
• The proposal is part of the 100-day action plan charted out by MeitY, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's instructions.

Know! more about it

• The national mission on natural language translation aims to make science and technology accessible to all by facilitating access to teaching and researching material bilingually - in English and in one's native Indian language.
• To achieve this, the government plans to leverage a combination of machine translation and human translation.
• The government is looking at speech-to-speech machine translation as well as text-to-text machine translation for this. Additionally, human translation will be used
• The official said that to overcome the language barrier, the government planned to set up an ecosystem which involved the Central and State agencies and start-ups.
• "Start-ups can help expedite the work to build implementable solutions to help make research
• The IT ministry is the lead agency for implantation of the mission along with Ministry of Human Resource Development and Department of Science and Technology.
• The PM- STIAC is an overarching body that identifies challenges in certain areas of science and technology.

Niti Aayog
Kerala tops health rankings; UP, Bihar worst performers: NITI Aayog report

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the health index and its outcomes ) + Mains ( GS II Government policies and interventions for the development of various sectors + issues related to health sector)
Highlights

• The report said Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are the top three ranking states in terms of annual incremental performance
• Among smaller states, Mizoram ranks first followed by Manipur on overall performance

What's the NEWS

• Kerala took the top spot among larger states for overall performance on health indicators in a NITI Aayog report, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, while Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha languish at the bottom.
• The Kerala government takes health concerns very seriously, according to the second edition of the Healthy States, Progressive India report released by NITI Aayog.

Know! more about the report

• The report focuses on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement over a two-year period (2016-17 and 2017-18) in the states and the Union territories (UTs), which are categorised as larger states, smaller states and UTs, to ensure comparison among similar entities.
• Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand showed the maximum improvement of health outcomes from base to reference year in indicators such as neonatal mortality rate (NMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR), proportion of low birth weight among newborns, proportion of community health centres and public health centres with quality accreditation certificates, full immunization coverage, institutional deliveries, and proportion of specialist positions vacant at district hospitals.
• The report highlighted a decline in the overall health index score of the five empowered action group (EAG) states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha because of deterioration in various parameters.
• Among the smaller states, Mizoram ranked first in overall performance, while Tripura and Manipur were the top two states in terms of incremental performance. Sikkim and Arunchal Pradesh had the biggest decrease in overall health index scores. Among the UTs, Chandigarh ranked first in overall performance, while Dadra and Nagar Haveli improved the most.

NITI Aayog suggestions

• The country will need to spend at least 2.5% of its gross domestic product on health.
• The state governments should also scale up their health spends from an average of 4.7% to 8% of their budget. Currently, India's health spending is only 1.15-1.5% of GDP.
• More investment in developing healthcare infrastructure along with skilled human resources and with better health governance would pay dividends in the coming years

Know! more about the health index of NITI Aayog

• The health index has been developed by NITI Aayog, with technical assistance from the World Bank, in consultation with the ministry of health and family welfare.
• The report has been prepared in collaboration with Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare along with technical assistance from World Bank.
• The current edition of health index accounts for period 2015-16 (base year) to 2017-18 (reference year).
• The ranking was done under 3 categories so as to ensure comparison among similar entities. 1. Larger states- Kerala has emerged as top ranking state while Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra emerged as 2nd and 3rd best states in terms of overall health performance respectively.
• States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have already reached 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target for neonatal mortality rate (NMR), which is 12 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births.

Know! bout the first edition

• The 1st edition of Health Index was released in February 2018. It measured annual and incremental performances of states and UTs for period 2014-15 (base year) to 2015-16 (reference year).
• Health Index is a weighted composite Index based on indicators in 3 domains - (1) Health Outcomes; (2) Governance and Information; (3)
• NITI Aayog is committed towards establishing Health Index as an annual systematic tool so as to propel states towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions to bring better health outcomes.

Infrastructure Development
MoA signed to set up Centre for Inland & Coastal Maritime Technology at IIT Kharagpur
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the MoA and about CICMT ) + Mains ( GS III infrastructure development - ports)
What's the NEWS

• A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed between the Ministry of Shipping and IIT, Kharagpur for setting up the Centre for Inland and Coastal Maritime Technology.

Know! more about the MoA and CICMT

• The Centre will focus on indigenisation of ship designing, building and testing.
• The MoA will further the dream of Make in India and reduce the recurring cost incurred in the import of technology.
• Presently, only Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Belgium have model testing facilities for ships.
• It is a state-of-the-art centre which will be set up under the agship Sagarmala Programme, a government initiative to enhance the performance of India's logistics sector.
• IIT Kharagpur will provide technological support, testing, research and experimentation facility to agencies involved in inland water transport, shipbuilding, ports etc.
• CICMT will focus on ship design for coastal as well as inland waterways, shipbuilding technology & structural design, cryogenic cargo handling, transport systems & logistics, renewable
  
  

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