General Awareness

GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION - January 2019

Jan 2019

Jun 07, 2019

11-Year Old Tops Mensa

An 11-year-old Indianorigin girl in London whose parents hail from Mumbai has achieved the top possible score in a Mensa IQ test.
Jiya Vaducha sat the Mensa supervised test alongside adults at Birbeck, University of London, on 16 May and got 162, the top mark.
She now can join Mensa, the global high IQ society.
The Mensa test is split into two papers which test different types of IQ. Cattell III B includes verbal reasoning, while Culture Fair is diagrams and images. A score within the top two per cent on either is required for Mensa membership.
Jiya got a score of 162 in the Cattell III B Scale, putting her in the top one per cent in Britain, and in the Culture Fair Scale she came in the top three per cent with a score of 131.
162 on the Cattell III B test is the highest score a child can achieve -- it is 161 for adults. Jiya's score puts her in the top one per cent of the population.

DU Colleges Set to Hike Fees

Many Delhi University (DU) colleges are set to revise their fee structure for undergraduate courses from this year citing "insufficient funds".
While some colleges have already conducted their staff council meetings to discuss the issue, many have constituted committees for the revision.
According to the University Grants Commission (UGC) draft notification 2017, the central universities/colleges were asked to follow 70:30 funding formula, of which, 30% was the internal revenues of universities/colleges.

Minister-led IIT Body May Meet more Often

The human resource development (HRD) ministry is planning to suggest a tweak in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Act so that the IIT Council can meet more frequently to ensure greater coordination between the premier institutions and the government.
The IIT Council, which meets once a year, is headed by the Union HRD minister and includes the chairmen and directors of IITs as well as top officials of regulators such as the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
According to an HRD ministry official, it was suggested that the council should meet at least twice a year. This will provide for greater coordination, speedier resolution of pending issues, and also a better chance to share the best practices among these premier institutions which are at the forefront of research and innovation.
Apart from top government functionaries and IIT and regulatory officials, the IIT Act also provides for nomination of three members of Parliament to the IIT Council. According to the act, the council coordinates the activities of all the institutions.
The council is further mandated to advise on matters relating to the duration of the courses, degrees and other academic distinctions to be conferred by the 23 IITs, admission standards, and other academic matters.
It is also expected to lay down policy regarding cadres, methods of recruitment, and conditions of service of employees, institution of scholarships and free ships, levying of fees, matters of common interest, and to examine the development plans of each institute.

Jun 05, 2019

Nipah Resurfaces in Kerala

Nearly a year after a Nipah outbreak in Kozhikode and Malappuram, the deadly disease resurfaced in Kerala with the confirmation of the infection in a 23-year-old college student.
The test results have come from the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, and it is positive for Nipah.
The health authorities have made elaborate arrangements and medicines are in stock.

Jun 04, 2019

No Coercion on Choice of Languages for School Students

The new draft education policy (NEP) took an overarching view that states will have the necessary prerogative to decide on the choice of languages for school-going students and that there is no question of coercion or imposition, said former chairperson of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Kasturirangan, who headed the panel that formulated the draft NEP.
Kasturirangan said that a controversial clause that mandated compulsory Hindi teaching to middle school students in non Hindi-speaking states was a "little misstep" compared to the overall spirit of the language policy.
His comments came shortly after the Centre revised the provision to leave the choice of language unspecified.

IIT-Delhi Sets up Library in Pahari Village

The alumni association of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D), set up a modern library at the Government High School in Pahari village.
Members of the association said that the aim is to expand rural children's horizons of thinking and improve their knowledge base.
The library will remain open twenty-four hours a day and is equipped with five computers, free internet connection and books to help students prepare for competitive exams.
Books which have been included are generally used in the preparation for competitive exams of IITs, IIMs and civil services.

DU's First Start-up Hub

Delhi University's (DU) Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), which has for decades been the most sought after choice for commerce students in the country, is focusing on polishing their students' entrepreneurship skills in order to become the first ever start-up hub in the university.
The college bagged the seventh spot among 1,034 colleges that participated in the 2019 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the third consecutive year.
The college, in 2018 established the Shri Ram Incubation Center (SHRIC) to promote entrepreneurship culture among its students.

Gender Equality Gap

According to a global index launched at the world's biggest gender equality conference, World leaders are failing 1.4 billion girls and women on promises of a fairer future.
The research showed the world is way off track to meet a 2030 deadline for achieving gender equality, with not one country having reached the last mile.
In 2015, world leaders did just that when they placed girls and women at the heart of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), promising sweeping transformations by 2030.
The new index ranks 129 countries on dozens of SDG targets related to women, be it health, education, violence or work.

Regional Language is First Priority

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee came out in support of the political parties in Tamil Nadu against the imposition of the three-language policy as suggested in the draft of the National Education Policy.
She said that every State has a character and a language. Regional language should be the first priority and she fully supported regional languages.

Jun 01, 2019

First Woman to Fly Hawk Advanced Jet

Flight Lt. Mohana Singh has become the first woman fighter pilot to fly by day on a Hawk advanced jet aircraft.
The woman officer landed after a gruelling 4-aircraft combat sortie at Kalaikunda Air Force station in West Bengal, which was the last syllabus sortie of being fully operational on the Hawk jets.
She and two other women officers joined the fighter stream in June 2016.
Last week, Flight Lt. Bhawana Kanth became the first daytime woman fighter pilot to fly a MiG-21 Bison.

May 31, 2019

Infant Mortality in India Down

India's infant mortality rate (IMR) has fallen from 42 in 2012 to 33 in 2017. However, the pace of change appears to have slowed down when compared to the five years before 2012, when it fell from 55 to 42.
Given that India's IMR even today is worse than those of South Asian neighbours Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, the slowdown is worrying.
IMR or the number of babies below one year dying out of every 1,000 born alive — considered an important marker of a country's health system — has been falling steadily for most regions of the world.
The global average IMR is 29 and that for low and middle income countries, the category that India belongs to, is 34.
The IMR for the European region is 8, the same as Sri Lanka. In South Asia, India has also been overtaken by Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal with IMRs of 28, 29 and 30 respectively.
Data from the just-released sample registration system (SRS) shows that while the rural IMR reduced marginally from the previous year, urban IMR remained the same for India as a whole.
In Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Uttarakhand, there was in fact a marginal increase in IMR in urban areas from 2016, with the highest increase in urban Gujarat and Karnataka going from 19 to 22 in both states.
In the case of urban Gujarat, the IMR for females went up from 19 to 23, higher than the increase for males.
Madhya Pradesh and Assam had the worst IMR of 47 and 44 respectively, while Kerala and Tamil Nadu recorded the lowest IMR of 10 and 16 respectively, among the bigger states.
If smaller states and UTs are included, the lowest IMR was recorded in Nagaland and Goa — seven and nine respectively.
Among states with the highest IMR in 2012, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh showed the biggest improvement with IMR falling for both from 53 to 41 between 2012 and 2017.
However, among all states, J&K showed the biggest improvement with its IMR dropping from 39 to 23.
With IMR falling to 33, India is in the company of countries like Tajikistan (33), Botswana (34), Rwanda (32) and South Africa (32). China's IMR is 9.
In the neighbourhood, the only countries doing worse than India were Pakistan and Myanmar which had IMRs of 66 and 43 respectively.

Women get 10% Share in new Modi ministry

Women constitute over 10% of the Union council of ministers sworn in on 30th May 2019.
Of the six who were administered the ministerial oath, three are Cabinet ministers. The others are ministers of state.
In the outgoing council of ministers, there were six women ministers of Cabinet rank and two MoS.
The three conferred Cabinet rank — Nirmala Sitharaman, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Smriti Zubin Irani — had enjoyed the same status in the first Modi Cabinet. While Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha MP, was defence minister, Harsimrat, re-elected from Bathinda, looked after the ministry of food processing minister.
Irani — being hailed as a giant-slayer for defeating Congress president and three-time MP Rahul Gandhi in his family bastion of Amethi — was inducted in the earlier Modi Cabinet first as HRD minister. She was then shifted to the I&B ministry and finally to the textiles ministry.
Three women ministers from the outgoing Cabinet were left out this time — Sushma Swaraj (external affairs); eight-time MP Maneka Gandhi (women and child welfare) and Uma Bharati (drinking water and sanitation).

World's Tiniest Surviving Baby

A California hospital disclosed the birth of the world's smallest baby ever to survive, weighing a mere 245 grams (8.6 ounces), the same as a large apple, when she was born.
After nearly five months at the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, Saybie was discharged home earlier this month weighing a healthy five pounds (2.2 kilograms) and sporting a graduation cap.

SC stops EWS quota in Maha PG medical colleges

The Supreme Court stopped the Maharashtra government from reserving 10% seats in postgraduate medical colleges for the members of economically weaker section (EWS) in the general category.
The central government had in January made Constitutional amendment granting 10% quota in jobs and admission for EWS candidates across all classes.
A vacation bench led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi said the EWS quota cannot be applied to the PG medical courses for academic year 2019-20 as the admission process started long before resolution to have the reservation was enforced.
It felt that the quota cannot be granted at the cost of others unless seats are created by the MCI, the regulatory body for medical education.
The order came on a plea filed by student Rajendra Agrawal who challenged two circulars of the Maharashtra government by which the quota was introduced in PG medical courses.

Govt. Asks NTA to Identify Medical Colleges for EWS Seats

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has directed the National Testing Agency to identify institutions that will provide quota for economically weaker section (EWS) students in MBBS and hold counselling for them as a separate category.
In a letter to NTA's director-general Vineet Jain, the ministry has said that the 10% EWS quota will be provided against increased seats across institutions.
The candidates may indicate the EWS category while registering for counselling. However, they would have to be in the qualifying 50 percentile category to be eligible.

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