Table of Contents
• The trade of human beings for exploitative purposes.
Exploited economically, physically and also sexually
Bonded and forced labour
Commercial sexual exploitation
Illegal organ-trade
Forceful and illegal migration of the victims
Domestic help in households
Small-scale establishments in urban centres
Begging or selling knick-knacks
•It is one of the most rampant crimes in a labour-surplus and developing country like India
• Biggest issue: lack of knowledge about it.
• Victims of human trafficking in India live amidst us, in our day-to-day surroundings.
• Largest organized crime
1. Drugs
2. Arms
3. Human Trafficking
• Sexual exploitation: 80%
• Bonded labor: 20%
•India is considered as the hub of this crime in Asia.
• Every 8 minutes a child goes missing in our country.
• In 2011 about 35,000 children were reported missing and more than 11,000 out of these were from West Bengal.
• Further, it is assumed that only 30% of the total cases are reported, so the actual number is pretty high.
• Half of the world’s slaves live in India
• Conflict between the Kukis and Nagas tribe in Northeast region between 1992 and 1997 left many kids homeless.
•Human trafficking is one of the major problems in India
Nothing but lies: fake videos, rumour set off the lynch mobs
• A promotional video on child safety made by an advertising agency in Karachi triggered violence 900 km away in Maharashtra’s Dhule, and led to the lynching of five people from a nomadic community on July 1.
• The video, spliced and edited to trigger panic about “child lifters” on the prowl, spread on WhatsApp and other social media platforms like wildfire.
• Its victims were from the Gosavi nomadic community that derives sustenance by seeking
alms.
• “There are quite a few videos doing the rounds. One is from Pakistan, which is actually an edited video of a child being lifted from Karachi, and it is being attributed to India. Another one claims organs are being harvested from children. There is one from Bangalore where a
woman is seen wearing a burka and walking away with a child,” Mr.
Poddar said.
• Those arrested for indulging in such acts invariably had a minor crime
record, he added. “We arrested 16 people in Malegaon for trying to kill five people who were suspected to be child-lifters, and most of them had minor crime records previously. They take the excuse of a crowd for the violence,” he said.
• Videos of alleged child abduction spiralling on social media platforms like WhatsApp have led to the murder of more than 20 people across India in the past two months
• Dr. Gleb Tsipursky who served as a professor at Ohio State University
and the co-founder of Pro-Truth Pledge, an initiative to promote truthfulness, said, “lynchings in India are the most violent and deadly episodes of fake news-inspired violence.”
• WhatsApp and its owner Facebook could do many things to stop such
incidents, he said. “One example is looking for certain keywords in messages sent on WhatsApp and warning people that they might be getting misinformation.”
• In the past, it has asked the U.S. to bring pressure on social media giants to install servers in India, but the proposal was turned down.
• Dr. Tsipursky said if the servers are in the country where the government is located, It would help in that “more control can be imposed by a government on social media giants.”
• “At the heart of this problem is a lack of media literacy, with people believing rumours rather than credible media sources.
• The government needs to invest much more resources into education, of children and adults alike, in media literacy.
• Likewise, the government needs to push social media giants to work hard on fighting misinformation, and hold them accountable for taking meaningful steps.
• Finally, the government can get social media giants to trace the source of fake news stories, and hold their perpetrators accountable for the consequences,” Dr. Tsipursky said
Honoured due process of law: Jayant Sinha
• Mr. Sinha had garlanded the eight men, including local BJP leader
Nityanand Mahto, on Tuesday when they reached his residence at
Hazaribagh after getting bail from the Jharkhand High Court,
which set aside their sentences.
• The eight men have been convicted for killing meat trader
Alimuddin Ansari in the name of cow vigilantism in Ramgarh
district on June 30, 2017.
• All the eight men were arrested and convicted by a trial court in
March this year, which awarded them life sentences.
• However, the sentences were suspended by the Jharkhand HC last
JEE(Mains), NEET to be held twice a year
• The Joint Entrance Examination (Mains) [JEE-Mains] and the
National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) will now be
conducted twice a year instead of just once, Union Minister of
Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar said on Saturday.
• The former determines admission to the National Institutes of
Technology, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology,
etc., and also eligibility to appear for JEE (Advanced) for admission to
the Indian Institutes of Technology, while the latter decides
admissions to all medical colleges except AIIMS and JIPMER,
Puducherry.
• Candidates will be eligible for taking these examinations both times a
year and their better score will be considered for admission.
• Mr Javadekar also announced that the National Testing Agency (NTA) would take
over the conduct of these examinations, taking away a significant burden from the
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducts a host of examsnow.
• The NTA will start conducting the JEE (Mains), NEET, UGC NET, CMAT and GPAT
examinations from this year itself, with all examinations being computer-based,
though not online.
‘Girl students are game changers’
• President of India Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday said the tenacity and academic achievements of girl students across the country were a “game changer for our
society”.
• In a keynote speech at the 30th convocation of the Goa University at Taleigao, Mr. Kovind lauded the university for the high percentage of girls among the toppers
and hoped that Goa’s promotion of girls’ education would be a model for other States.
• As many as 60% of students here are girls and 63% of the toppers and medalists at today’s ceremony are girls.
• Stating that access to higher education was still a privilege in India, he paid tributes to citizens who sustain institutions like Goa University.
‘Hybrid rocket tech in future’
• Future Indian space missions, such as a distant human flight, and returnable and reusable launch vehicles, will draw heavily from aircraft technologies, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K.Sivan has said.
• Calling it a healthy marriage of complex rocket science and artful aircraft technologies, he said the space agency was looking at the prospect of winged space planes that mix rocket science with plane technology, perhaps after a decade.
• Such a hybrid scene has already opened in a small way with the May 2016 test flight of bringing back a small experimental winged space vehicle.
• While American launch agency SpaceX has retrieved the first stage of its rocket, Dr. Sivan said ISRO would like to go beyond this and attempt getting back the second stage also, in the true national spirit of thrift.
• Such a concept would need space planes. For this, ISRO would tap the expertise of aeronautical engineers and the Indian Air Force.
• Dr. Sivan later said the agency is routinely updating a 2004 proposal for an aspirational human spaceflight programme (HSP). He, however, played it down to say that right now “[an HSP] is still our dream proposal which, I think, has to happen. India should not be
left behind.”
Farm policies off target: study
• According to researchers at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — an intergovernment a body of 36 developed countries — and the Indian think tank
ICRIER, who analysed policies that affected the agricultural sector over the two-year period, government interventions were more consumer-centric than producer-centric.
• Despite the general perception that Indian farmers are beneficiaries of major subsidies, a new report says the overall effect of policy interventions between 2014 and 2016 is, in fact, a 6% annual reduction of gross farm revenues. Consumers, on the other hand, pay
an average 25% less for commodities as a result of policy interventions.
• Indian farmers face regulations and restrictions — both in the domestic market and also when they attempt to export their produce — which often lead to producer prices that are lower than comparable international levels.
• While consumers have benefited from the government’s efforts to keep prices low, a poorly targeted, inefficient and wasteful public distribution system means that malnutrition and food insecurity continue to persist, says the report.
• The report has several suggestions for policymakers, including reform of market regulations, strengthening initiatives such as eNAM and allowing private players to play a larger role in the sector.
‘Teesta water no longer a hurdle in ties’
• Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, her political adviser, Hossain Toufique Imam
• The statement indicates a major shift in position for the Hasina government, which has been appealing to New Delhi to resolve the issue ahead of the general elections in December.
• “PM Hasina often says we are a lower riparian state, and rivers flow downwards. You cannot stop Teesta flowing into Bangladesh, and today or tomorrow a formal agreement will take place. But it is not a problem between the neighbours anymore,” he added, indicating that
his government may be resigned to the fact that the agreement will not be signed soon.
• The agreement has been pending since it was nearly signed in 2011, but was blocked at the last minute by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Answers-
1. India has developed a new model to forecast the reach of which natural disaster?
A) Tsunami
B) Earthquake
C) Cyclone
D) Drought
2. Which state has emerged as best in the country in prevention of parent-to-child transmission of HIV?
A) Kerala
B) Tamil Nadu
C) Odisha
D) West Bengal
Questions-
1. Which Indian beach became the Asia’s first beach to get the Blue Flag certification?
A) Auroville beach
B) Chandrabhaga beach
C) Palolem beach
D) Varkala Beach
2. Which ministry will set up a finance company to fund food processing sector?
A) Ministry of Food Processing
B) Ministry of Commerce
C) Ministry of Finance
D) Ministry of Home Affairs
3. Maternal Mortality Ratio has reduced by 22 per cent in which nation?
A) India
B) Nigeria
C) China
D) Malaysia
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