Daily News Notes: 22nd July, 2012

· Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh revealed that the Central Government has decided to provide skill-development training to one member of each family, which has completed 100 man days under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, MGNREGA. Further, he said that the Assam has become the first state to start job oriented curriculum under National Vocational Education Qualification Framework. Initially vocational skills centres will be set up at 10 schools. The courses will be introduced for class 9th standard student from next month in retail and computer hardware and IT.
· As per Annual Health Survey (AHS), done by the census authorities, the incidents of child marriage declined considerably over the past few years. The survey was held in all 284 districts of the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states that include Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam. About half of the country’s population lives in these states.The project was started to gauge the impact of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in all 284 districts. Until now, only National Family Health Survey was the means of getting reliable data, which has now been discontinued by the Health Ministry. Major findings of the survey are: [1.] 1/5th of marriages in Bihar b/w 2007-09 involved women under 18. Rajasthan, with 22 % cases of child marriage, has the highest proportion of women under 18 getting married. In Jharkhand, the proportion of child marriage declined from 60% to 18% earlier; [2.] Use of Contraceptive is still low despite improvements in several regions. Among the 9 major states, Bihar has the lowest contraceptive use with just over 1/3rd of women aged 15-49 using any method of contraception. Sitapur in UP is the district with the least contraceptive with only 20 % of women using any method of contraception; [3.] Less than 5% of women in UP had a full ante natal check-up. Chhattisgarh, with 20 % full ante-natal check-up, came up as the best-performing of these states; [4.] Less than 50% pregnant women in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have safe deliveries. UP, Bihar and Uttarakhand registered only 40 % of safe deliveries.
· To celebrate the 137th birth anniversary of legendary conservationist Jim Corbett, Amar Chitra Katha will release a his graphic biography in bookstores across the country on July 25, 2012. He was a famous British hunter who later became conservationist, author and naturalist. He held the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army and was often called upon by the government of the United Provinces, (now Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand), to kill man-eating tigers and leopards that were troubling people in the nearby villages of the Garhwal and Kumaon region. His hunting prowess earned him a high respect and fame amongst the people living in the villages of Kumaon. Corbett put forward the need to save India's wildlife from extinction and played a remarkable role in establishing a national reserve for the endangered Bengal tiger by using his influence to convince the provincial government to create it. The national park was renamed Jim Corbett National Park in his honor after his death in 1957.
· In a major reform initiative, Delhi's power regulator DERC has decided to introduce a new system on a pilot basis under which tariff will be charged according to electricity consumption in peak and off peak hours, and thus encourage consumers to limit their power consumption in peak hours. The system, known as Time of Day (TOD) metering, is also expected to discourage commercial users from consuming more power during peak hours and result in minimising load shedding in residential areas when the demand goes up substantially. If implemented, Delhi will be the first state in the country to have such a metering system, which experts said, would benefit everybody including the consumers.
· Keeping in view the massive deforestation in Punjab in the last many years, the state government has launched ‘Greening Punjab Campaign’ to plant 40 crore saplings across the state in the next eight years. The forest cover in Punjab has gone down to just 7 per cent against the required cover of more than 33 per cent as per the Government of India norms. With this campaign, the state is expecting to enhance the cover to a minimum of 15 per cent in the coming years. Expectations are high that the “Greening Punjab Campaign” would also help in making the state of five rivers clean, green and pollution free.
· Festival of Teej is being celebrated today with joy in Rajasthan. Teej is a major festival of Rajasthan celebrated mainly by women. It’s celebrates the arrival of rain.
· A deteriorating Chinese economy, affected by a further slowdown, has become a cause of concern for the United States officials and the two presidential campaigns, as Chinese companies is showing grater dependence on exporting to the American market. The increased export from china has resulted into rise in American trade deficit and that too in an election year. The bilateral deficit expanded 10.2% in the first five months of this year (2012). The deficit is expected to swell further. Further, increase in Chinese products selling in America will compete with US products and create pressure on them. The president administration is already under constant pressure from labor unions to take a more opposing stance toward China on trade. China is currently facing a slump in its growth. As per China’s official statement the country is growing at the rate of 7.6% which is much lower compared to the same period previous year when it was 9.5%.
· The heaviest rainfall to hit China's capital Beijing in 60 years, has left 10 people dead and stranded thousands at the main airport. Beijing city government has warned there could be further large-scale storms or extreme weather.
· As per the latest UNAIDS Report, there is a steady decline in the newly contracted HIV infections among children. About 330000 children were newly infected in 2011, which implied a drop of 24 % in the new HIV case among children since 2009. About 34.2 million people across the world were living with the AIDS virus at the end of 2011. UNAIDS, is the Joint United Nations Programme to curb HIV/AIDS. It was proposed in 1994 by a resolution of the UN Economic and Social Council and unveiled in January 1996.The programme calls for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The motto of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an expanded response to HIV and AIDS that includes prohibiting transmission of HIV, providing care and support to those already living with the virus, reducing the susceptibility of individuals and communities to HIV and mitigating the impact of the epidemic. The headquarter of UNAIDS is in Geneva, Switzerland. Michel Sidibe is the Executive Chairman of UNAIDS.