Cooperation
- Cooperation has failed, but cooperation must succeed,’
- Government control has only increased, violating a core cooperative principle of political neutrality.
- This reflects a collective failure of the political class.
- Globally, seven of the top 10 cooperatives by asset size are from the financial sector.
- The Indian financial sector is nowhere in the picture going by asset size.
- A few make it in the top 300 by turnover/GDP per capita, aided by a low denominator.
- When a cooperative bank scales up, maintaining its cooperativeness is a challenge.
- Cooperatives have also become avenues for regulatory arbitrage, circumventing lending and anti-money laundering regulations.
- The committees which examined cooperative banking suffered from the top down quality
- The rural-urban dichotomy in the regulatory treatment of cooperatives is specious and outdated.
- It perpetuates age-old divisions based on the nature of operations and population size.
- The regulation and the supervision of cooperative banks should move to a new body from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for urban banks and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for rural banks.
- It will ensure a fresh look at the regulation of these institutions.
- In India, adopting a multi-agency approach, especially after bank nationalization, has affected the efficiency of both commercial and cooperative banks.
- Commercial bank-cooperative sector linkages at various levels could alternatively provide better synergies.
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Anganwadi
- Being closed since the April 2020-lockdown, anganwadi are slowly reopening.
- As part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), anganwadi play a crucial role in supporting households, particularly from low-income families, by providing childcare, health and nutrition, education, supplementary nutrition, immunization, health check-up and referral services.
- The largest in the world, ICDS covers about 88 million children aged 0-6 years in India.
- Anganwadi workers were a primary source of nutrition information for families
- As platforms for early childhood education and nutrition support, anganwadi can play an important role for children to achieve their potential.
- The National Education Policy, 2020, places anganwadi at the center of the push to universalize access to early childhood care and education (ECCE).
- NITI Aayog found that only 59% of anganwadi had adequate seating for children and workers, and more than half were unhygienic.
- Many States will have to improve career incentives and remuneration for anganwadi workers.
- One way to ensure they have more time is to hire additional workers at anganwadi.
- As the world’s largest provider of early childhood services, anganwadi perform a crucial role in contributing to life outcomes of children across India.
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How cyclones are named?
- Pronounced as ‘Jowad’ in Arabic, the storm was christened by Saudi Arabia.
- Jawad pronounced as ‘Jowad’ means generous and merciful. It is an Arabic name that was given by Saudi Arabia.
- The responsibility of naming cyclones is handled by the World Meteorological Organization and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UN ESCAP) led panel on tropical cyclones.
- This panel is a global body that constitutes regional specialized meteorological centres (RSMC) and tropical cyclone warning centres.
- The IMD is among the six RMCs across the globe, which needs to mandatorily issue advisories and name tropical cyclones over the north Indian Ocean area.
Which countries can name the cyclones?
- The panel on tropical cyclones consists of as many as 13 countries such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Maldives, Thailand, Iran, Qatar, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, and India.
- In 2020, the countries released a new list of names, containing a total of 169 names of cyclones.
- A total of 13 lists were released with each list having names of cyclones as suggested by all the 13 nations. At the moment, the first list is being followed by the panel.
- What will the next cyclone over the north Indian Ocean regions be called?
- The next name of the cyclone will be ‘Asani’ given by Sri Lanka, while the one following that will be called ‘Sitrang’, a name suggested by Thailand.
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Is it possible to predict volcanoes?
- Year after its most recent eruption, the Mt Semeru volcano in Indonesia has again shot out a dark mass of smoke and ash thousands of feet up in the air.
CAN AN ERUPTION BE PREDICTED?
- Forecasting an eruption is not so much an exact science as a function of assessing all the variables involved to arrive at an understanding as to when a volcano is likely to act up.
- “Most volcanoes provide warnings before an eruption”, the US Geological Survey (USGS) says, noting at the same time that such precursors “can continue for weeks, months, or even years before eruptive activity begins, or they can subside at any time and not be followed by an eruption
WHAT KIND OF EQUIPMENT HELPS IN PREDICTING ERUPTIONS?
- A key indicator to watch out for, experts say, is seismic activity in the vicinity of a volcano. The underground movement of magma triggers tremors, the number and size of which generally increase before an eruption.
- Thus, using seismographs, experts can study the length and strength of each tremor to gauge if an eruption is around the corner.
- Another tell-tale sign is borne by the slope of a volcano itself, which magma and gas trapped under the surface can cause to tilt upwards. But such surface deformation in most cases can only be detected by tiltmeters, or instruments that measure the angle of the slope.
- Then there are gaseous emissions from a volcano, which may make its way to the surface before the magma does. Scientists can measure gas emissions at the mouth or from fissures to carry out calculations that enable them to assess whether an eruption was on its way.
- Satellites, too, can play a part in helping with the prediction of volcanic eruptions since some of the gases that a volcano may give out can be tracked through satellite technology.
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