The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 9th September 2022

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

• India and China on Thursday announced that their Armies have begun to disengage from Patrolling Point-15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area of eastern Ladakh, marking a step forward towards ending the stand-off ongoing since May 2020.

• India ranks 132 out of 191 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) 2021, after registering a decline in its score over two consecutive years for the first time in three decades.
• The Index is part of the Human Development Report 2021-2022 released by the United Nations Development Programme on Thursday.
• The HDI measures average achievement of a country in three basic dimensions of human development — a long and healthy life, education and a decent standard of living.
• It is calculated using four indicators — life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita.
• Like global trends, in India’s case, the drop in HDI from 0.645 in 2018 to 0.633 in 2021 can be attributed to falling life expectancy at birth — 70.7 years to 67.2 years.
• India’s expected years of schooling stand at 11.9 years, and the mean years of schooling are at 6.7 years.
• The GNI per capita level is $6,590.

• COVID-19 would count as being among some of the most severe pandemics the world has seen in the last 100 years.
• Widespread health inequity
• Health-care systems have been stretched beyond their capacity and gross health inequity has been observed in the distribution of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics across the world.
• As of March 2022, only 3% of people in low-income countries had been vaccinated with at least one dose, compared to 60.18% in high-income countries.
• And, it is in this backdrop that the creation of a Global Pandemic Treaty was proposed at the Special Session of the World Health Assembly (WHASS). The underlying logic was that as global governance had failed during the pandemic, we needed political commitment to mitigate future challenges.
• India’s lead role
• India’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and reinstating global equity by leveraging its own potential has set an example to legislators worldwide.
• As of 2021, India shipped 594.35 lakh doses of ‘Made-in-India’ COVID-19 vaccines to 72 countries — a classic example of global cooperation.
• Lessons learnt, path ahead
• In the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a multitude of initiatives to address the pandemic and to do better in the future such as the Vaccine Alliance.

• While educationists have emphasised the importance of learning in the mother tongue to enhance a child’s learning and overcome glaring inequities, there has been an equally steady demand for English-medium schools in several States.
• The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 says the home language, mother tongue, local language, or regional language wherever possible should be the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8.
• A child can be taught any number of languages, particularly later in life, but the medium of learning should be the mother tongue.

• The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the government three months to take the lead and devise a policy framework to open up avenues of employment for transgender persons, particularly in the civil aviation industry.
• A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli observed that the government has to comply with the enabling provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019 in “letter and spirit”.
• The court detailed specific provisions of the Act which mandated that no person or establishment, whether government or private, should discriminate against a transgender person in matters of employment, including recruitment or promotion or in any other related areas.
• The court ordered the Department of Personnel and Training and the Social Justice Ministry to collaborate with the National Council for Transgender Persons, a body constituted under the Act, to consult stakeholders and prepare a “considered” policy for the community’s welfare and rights in the next three months.

• India maintained a studied silence a day after the U.S. announced a $450-million package to refit Pakistan’s large F-16 fighter fleet with the latest technological advances.
• Pakistan first received the F-16 aircraft package from the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s despite heavy objection from the Government of India, which cautioned that the aircraft would be used against Indian targets.
• In 1990, the U.S. cancelled delivery of nearly 30 F-16 aircraft to Pakistan after the Pressler Amendment came into effect. Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 further confirmed Indian concerns about the danger posed by nuclear-armed aircraft of Pakistan’s Air Force.

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