PUNJAB
Punjab lags in maternal healthcare: Economic Survey
ven as the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Punjab government has been stressing on improving health facilities, the state has been found lagging behind in maternal healthcare, a key indicator of healthcare facilities of any state.
Though Punjab is performing at par with the national average but is behind other states in maternal mortality rate (MMR), according to the latest Punjab Economic Survey report.
As per the data, MMR in Punjab stands at 122 per lakh live births, which is at par with the national average. On the other hand, Kerala has a mortality rate of 42 per lakh live birth, lowest in the country. It is followed by Maharashtra with MMR of 55 per lakh live birth, 63 in Tamil Nadu, 74 in Andhra Pradesh, 87 in Gujarat and 98 in Haryana.
In Punjab, 30.7% of all expecting mothers received all types of recommended antenatal care against the national average of 20.9%. In Kerala, as high as 61.2% of expecting mother received antenatal care, 45% in Tamil Nadu, 43.9% in Andhra Pradesh and 32.4% in Maharashtra.
To strengthening maternal healthcare, the state government in the budget allocated Rs 65 crore for the construction of eight new maternal and child health wings at sub-divisional hospitals of Talwandi Sabo, Nabha, Patti and Derabassi and district hospitals of Muktsar and Gurdaspur, and community health centres of Bhawanigarh and Raikot. Besides, Rs 57 crore has been given for the completion of the construction work of the nine maternal and child health wings proposed in the budget for the year 2020-21.
The state fares much better than the national average and other states in terms of expenditure incurred on delivery in public health facilities. The average out of pocket expenditure per delivery in Punjab stands at Rs 1,890 against the national average of Rs 3,197. Whereas in Kerala the expenditure stands at Rs 6,901 per delivery, Rs 3,578 in Maharashtra, Rs 2,322 in Andhra Pradesh and Rs 2,136 in Gujarat.
INTERNATIONAL
Highlights of Food Waste Index Report
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the “Food Waste Index Report 2021”. According to the UNEP report, an estimated 931 million tons of food was wasted worldwide in 2019. The agency also emphasized that this amount of wasted food may cause the earth to orbit the earth 7 times. Highlights:
The index report is published by UNEP in cooperation with partner organization WRAP. Of the total waste generation, households accounted for 61% of waste, food services accounted for 26% of foo waste, and retail accounted for 13%.
The report also emphasized that 17% of total global food production was wasted. According to the agency, the weight is approximately equal to 23 million full-loaded 40-ton trucks, enough to make the earth circle seven times.
The annual per capita possession is 91,646,213 tons. According to the report, every country that measures food waste basically has nothing to do with income levels.
Food waste in India: The average household waste in India is 50 kilograms per person per year, which is equivalent to 68,760,163 tons per year. On the other hand, household food waste in the United States is 59 kilograms per capita per year, which is equivalent to 19,359,951 tons per year. The report emphasizes that in China, household waste is 64 kilograms per person per year and 91,646,213 tons per year
NATIONAL
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu & Uttar Pradesh top states in employability: Skills report
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh remained the top three states with the highest employable talent, according to the India Skills Report 2021. Karnataka takes the fourth spot followed by Andhra Pradesh. Bangalore is among the most preferred cities to work for aspiring professionals, the report said.
Rajasthan and West Bengal come in the top 10 states with employable talent, yet remain below Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Telangana and Gujarat respectively. Haryana could not make it to this list again, despite the massive push from numerous skill development measures.
The report, prepared by Wheebox in partnership with Taggd, CII, AICTE, AIU and UNDP, showed that 46% of the youth were considered highly employable resources. This is far less than the previous years, indicating a skill gap in education, it said, adding that this is still an encouraging statistic considering that the average age of India is 26.8 years old.
More women were found employable than men. In fact, the number of women enrolled in colleges and degree programs have increased over the past, the report said. The report is based on the assessment of 65,000 candidates.
Earliest cotton in Arabia came from India: Study
For about 600 years, Mleiha was the political centre of southeast Arabia before it was abandoned in the 3rd century CE. And for decades, the emergence of the tropical cotton plant in the arid Arabian peninsula has been a question archaeologists have tried to answer. Oman, they had concluded, was the source of the ancient Arab cotton trade. But now, scientists from the Museum of Natural History in Paris have found evidence in Mleiha that the earliest cotton in the Arab region came from northwest India.
The irony, however, is that a fire which ravaged one of its most important buildings of Mleiha is also what preserved it for posterity. Within this Unesco World Heritage Site in the United Arab Emirates lies a tableaux frozen in fire. It’s a mud brick building with 15 rooms around a central courtyard with signs of a life hastily abandoned in forgotten objects and prized possessions carelessly thrown around, and, the evidence of an ancient Indian trade route, cotton — specifically, 31 whole seeds, 79 fragments and 7 raw fibre clusters.
Municipal Performance Index by Union Ministry
Municipal Performance Index 2020 has been released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Highlights:
The 2020 Municipal Performance Index (MPI): MPI reviewed the sectoral performance of 111 cities in five verticals (Delhi was evaluated by NDMC and three municipal companies).
These verticals consist of 20 industries and a total of 100 indicators. The five vertical areas under MPI are service, finance, policy, technology and governance.
City ranking:
According to the assessment framework of MPI 2020, cities are classified according to their populations of “million+” (cities with a population of more than one million) and “population of less than one million”.
In the “Millionaire” category: Indore has become the highest-ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal. In the “less than a million” category: The New Delhi Municipal Council has become the leader, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.
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