Relevance IN - Prelims(about Airborne Rescue Pod for Isolated Transportation (ARPIT).
What's the NEWS

• The Indian Air Force has designed, developed and inducted an Airborne Rescue Pod for Isolated Transportation (ARPIT).

• This pod will be utilised for evacuation of critical patients with infectious diseases including COVID-19 from high altitude area, isolated and remote places.
• This indigenously designed system has been developed as a lightweight isolation system made from aviation certified material.
• It has a transparent and durable cast Perspex for enhanced patient visibility which is larger, higher and wider than the existing models.
• The ARPIT utilises High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) H-13 class filters and supports invasive ventilation using Transport Ventilator.
• Design requirements have been evolved and are based on the guidelines issued by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) and Centre for Disease Control (CDC), USA. The IAF is inducting a total of 7 ARPITS as of now.

Relevance IN - Prelims(about Operation Samudra Setu )
Know! the update

• Indian Navy had launched Operation Samudra Setu to repatriate Indian citizens commencing 08 May 2020.
• Indian Naval ships Jalashwa and Magar have already evacuated 2874 personnel from Maldives and Sri Lanka to ports of Kochi and Tuticorin.
• In the next phase of Samudra Setu, Indian Naval Ship Shardul will evacuate Indian citizens on 08 June 2020 from the port of Bandar Abbas, Islamic Republic of Iran, to Porbandar, Gujarat.

Social Issues
WCD Ministry constitutes task force to examine issues related to lowering Maternal Mortality Rate
Relevance IN - Prelims(about the role of task force + about MMR and IMR) + Mains (GS II Social issues )
What's the NEWS

• Government has constituted a task force to examine issues related to age of motherhood, lowering Maternal Mortality Rate and improvement of nutritional levels.
• Union Finance Minister, during her Budget Speech for 2020-21 in the Parliament stated that "Women's age of marriage was increased from fifteen years to eighteen years in 1978, by amending erstwhile Sharda Act of 1929.

Know! the objective of task force

• The task force will be headed by Jaya Jaitly and it will submit its report by 31st July of next month.
• The task force set up by the Women and Child Development Ministry will suggest suitable legislations and amendments in existing laws and also chalk out a detailed roll-out plan with timelines to implement these recommendations.
• The task Force will examine the issues related to Infant Mortality Rate, Maternal Mortality Rate, Total Fertility Rate, Sex Ratio at Birth, Child Sex Ratio (CSR) and any other issues pertaining to health and nutrition.
• It will also suggest measures for promoting higher education among women.

• India has registered a 26.9 per cent reduction in Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) since 2013
• The decline in MMR has been from 77 to 72 per 100,000 live births among southern states and in the other states, from 93 to 90, it stated.
• The maternal mortality ratio has declined from 130 in 2014-2016 to 122 in 2015-17
• Maternal mortality ratio, measured as the number of maternal deaths per lakh live births,
• The WHO last year lauded India's progress in reducing the MMR saying the progress puts the country on track towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of an MMR below 70 by 2030.

Infant mortality rate (IMR)

• India's infant mortality rate (IMR) has improved very marginally from 33 per 1,000 live births in 2017 to 32 in 2018
• The IMR has declined significantly over the years; in 1971, it was 129.
• Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births.

Government Schemes
Govt changes public procurement rules, more preference to local suppliers
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the changes in procurement rules) + Mains ( GS II Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
What's the NEWS

• The government has modified public procurement norms to give maximum preference to companies whose goods and services have 50 per cent or more local content
• It aimed at promoting 'Make in India' and making the country self-reliant.
• The revised Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India), Order 2017, has introduced a concept of Class-I, II and non-local suppliers, based on which they will get preference in government purchases of goods and services.

Know! the concept of different class

• Class-I local suppliers will get the most preference in all government purchases because their domestic value addition is 50 per cent or more.
• It means a supplier or service provider, whose goods, services or works offered for procurement, has local content equal to or more than 50 per cent
• It will be followed by Class-II suppliers, whose value addition range is more than 20 per cent but less than 50 per cent.
• Companies with less than 20 per cent of domestic content in their goods or services will not able to participate in most of the government tenders and they are categorised as "non-local suppliers".
• Purchases of goods/services with an estimated value of less than Rs 200 core, global tender enquiry will not be issued except with the approval of the competent authority as designated by the Department of Expenditure.
• The earlier order had defined a local supplier as one whose goods/services offered for government procurement had a minimum local content of 50 per cent. There was no categorisation of local suppliers.

Know! about local content

• Local content means the amount of value added in India, which shall be the total value of the item procured (excluding net domestic indirect taxes) minus the value of imported content in the item (including all customs duty) as a proportion of the total value, in per cent.

Environment
Environment performance index
Relevance IN - Prelims(about Environment Performance Index -highlights) + Mains (GS III Environment conservation)
What's the NEWS

• India secured 168 rank in the 12th edition of the biennial Environment Performance Index (EPI Index 2020) - that measured the environmental performance of 180 countries - and was released by the Yale University.

EPI Index 2020 -Report Highlights

• India's rank was 177 (with a score of 30.57 out of 100) in 2018.
• The country scored 27.6 out of 100 in the 2020 index.
• The 11 countries lagging behind India were - Burundi, Haiti, Chad, Soloman Islands, Madagascar, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoir, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Liberia.
• All South Asian countries, except Afghanistan, were ahead of India in the ranking.
• India's rank on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among the South Asian countries was low
• India scored below the regional average score on all five key parameters on environmental health, including air quality, sanitation and drinking water, heavy metals and waste management.
• It has also scored below the regional average on parameters related to biodiversity and ecosystem services too.
• The performance on climate change was assessed based on eight indicators - adjusted emission growth rates; composed of growth rates of four greenhouse gases and one pollutant; growth rate in carbon dioxide emissions from land cover; greenhouse gas intensity growth rate; and greenhouse gas emissions per capita.

Prelims Factoids
Spandan Campaign
Relevance IN - Prelims(about Spandan Campaign
What's the NEWS

• The Chhattisgarh government launched the Spandan Campaign to contain incidents of suicide and fratricide involving police personnel, and instructions were issued to senior officers to strictly adhere to guidelines in this regard.

Know! more about the campaign

• The order made it mandatory for superintendents of police to facilitate counselling and medical treatment for depressed officers and staff by psychiatrists or psychologists in their district headquarters.
• A total of 50 police personnel, including personnel of paramilitary forces, committed suicide in Chhattisgarh over the past two years.
• Eighteen of these cases were reported from seven districts of Maoist-affected Bastar division.

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