DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS 18 JUNE
West Bengal doctors withdraw strike
Topic Important for: General Studies- 2 I Governance, Issues relating to development and management of Services relating to Health.
Context:
The Junior doctors in West Bengal finally called off their week-long strike.
About:
- The state government has assured doctors to provide adequate security.
- The doctors were on seven-day long strike against the State government over lack of security at the workplace.
- The truce was achieved following meeting with Chief Minister.
- The representatives from medical colleges held a meeting with state government and other concerned authority.
- The Chief Minister has asked the police to appoint nodal officers for security of doctors at all government hospitals.
- The representatives of the joint forum of junior doctors also sought exemplary punishment for those involved in the assault on doctors at the NRS Medical College and Hospital.
- Union Health Minister also said that the Centre has decided to study the possibility of a new law on doctors’ security.
- The doctors across India observed a one-day strike in solidarity with their West Bengal colleagues, withdrawing non-essential medical services, including outpatient department services.
Source Link:
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/west-bengal-doctors-withdraw-strike/article28024706.ece
India to host UN meet on land degradation in September
Topic Important for: General Studies- 2 I Biodiversity, Environment.
Context
India for the first time will host the 14th session of the Conference of Parties (COP-14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in September.
About
- The session will be attended by almost 5,000 delegates from nearly 197 countries.
- The Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change launched a flagship project as a part of a larger international initiative called the Bonn Challenge, to enhance India’s capacity for forest landscape restoration (FLR).
More about the project
- The project will be implemented during a pilot phase of three-and-a-half years in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland and Karnataka.
- The project will aim to develop and adapt the best practices and monitoring protocols for the country and build capacity.
- The government is also planning to expand the program across the country.
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The Bonn Challenge
The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land under restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030. |
The United Nations has three major Conventions:
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
- The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
NOTE: The UNCCD was established in 1994 is the only legally binding international agreement linking environment and development issues to the land agenda.
India Status
- India faces a severe problem of land degradation, or soil becoming unfit for cultivation.
- According to a report by Indian Space Research Organisation in 2016 it found that about 29% of India’s land (in 2011-13) was degraded, this being a 0.57% increase from 2003-05.
- During previous edition of the COP, India had committed to restore 13 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by the year 2020.
Source Link:
Bitcoin use causing huge CO2 emissions: Study
Context:
The recent study revealed that the use of cryptocurrency Bitcoin emits carbon dioxide.
About:
- The study found that the use of cryptocurrency Bitcoin emits 22 megatonnes of carbon dioxide annually, comparable to the emissions of cities such as Las Vegas and Vienna
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What is Bitcoin
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- Researchers in Germany carried out the most detailed calculation of the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin system to date.
- For a Bitcoin transfer to be executed and validated, a mathematical puzzle must be solved by an arbitrary computer in the global Bitcoin network.
- The computing capacity used in this process known as Bitcoin mining has increased rapidly in recent years.
- Statistics show that it quadrupled in 2018 alone.
- The Bitcoin boom raises the question of whether the cryptocurrency is imposing an additional burden on the climate.
Source Link:
Modi likely to meet bank chiefs to discuss roadmap for PSBs
Context
The central government has scheduled a meeting with the chief executives of Indian banks on June 21 to chalk out a blueprint for the banking sector.
About
- The main rationale behind the meeting is the slowing of GDP growth of the country.
- For past some time there has been slow in the economy and a crisis in the banking sector.
- The meeting assumes significance as the country’s GDP growth slowed to 5.8% in the January-March 2019 quarter.
- Credit flow to productive sectors of the economy has been impacted in recent times.
- The Finance Ministry has been holding discussions with bank chiefs on improving lending to micro, small and medium enterprises, agriculture and other productive sectors of the economy, and on ease of doing business.
Concern:
- Ongoing crisis in non-banking financial sectors as
- NBFCs are facing liquidity crunch following the debt default by IL&FS.
- Merger and acquisition of the bank
- Road map for public sector banks (PSBs) for the next five years in terms of growth and consolidation.
Source Link:
https://www.thehindu.com/business/modi-likely-to-meet-bank-chiefs-to-discuss-roadmap-for-psbs/article28022526.ece1.png)
