No reason to cheer
What is maternal mortality rate (MMR)?
First what is maternal death : Maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.
MMR is defined as number of maternal deaths per 100000 live births.
MMR of India in 1990: 569
MMR of India in 2013: 190
MDG GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH
Target 5A: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
Target 5B: Achieve universal access to reproductive health
Worrying facts for India:
- In 2013, India had 17 per cent (50,000) of the global maternal deaths.
- India is yet to achieve the expected average annual maternal mortality rate decline of 5.5 per cent or more during the period 1990-2013 to reach the Millennium Development Goal 5 target.
- Country falls under the “making progress” category and would fail to meet the MMR target of 109 before 2015
The only silver lining is that India has been making steady progress in reducing the MMR since 1990. But for a country where an estimated 26 million deliveries take place annually, the absolute number of maternal deaths continues to be high.
Besides the medical reasons like severe bleeding and infections after childbirth and high blood pressure levels during pregnancy, one of the factors that is playing a big role in maternal mortality is the lack of skilled care “before, during and after childbirth.”
One way of tackling this is by having more institutional deliveries.
India launched a programme in 2005 to facilitate such deliveries on a larger scale than was prevalent, but the results were not encouraging: there was no corresponding decline in the number of deaths. The reason for that is not difficult to find. In 2008, more than 50 per cent of women in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and 41 per cent in Rajasthan, continued to deliver at home, according to a United Nations Population Fund-India report. Therefore, a greater focus on increasing the number of well-trained birth attendants should go hand in hand with promoting institutional deliveries.
5.5 million babies — nearly three million neonates and about 2.6 million stillbirths — die every year.
With 7,79,000 deaths, India accounts for the highest number of newborn mortality in the world.
Great strides have been taken in halving the number of deaths in children aged under-five, the progress in reducing the number of newborn deaths has been “slower.” In the case of stillbirths, the progress has been even worse — it is “substantially slower” than even that of reducing newborn mortality. Stillbirths are not counted in the Millennium Development Goals.
Why invisible?
In most countries stillbirths do not get birth or death certificates, which contributes to their invisibility; hence, most of the world’s newborn deaths and almost all stillbirths enter and leave the world without a piece of paper to record their existence
The lack of registration, The Lancet notes, is a key reason for slower progress in recent decades for prevention of newborn deaths compared with maternal and child mortality reduction.
But about three million deaths — 54 per cent of maternal deaths, 33 per cent of stillbirths, and 71 per cent of newborn deaths — can be easily prevented if “achievable interventions are scaled up to nearly universal coverage” at all stages — before conception, as well as before, during and after pregnancy.
News: Decision to invite regional leaders for Narendra Modi’s swearing-in
One view point : “The rules of the game should be settled before any major diplomatic initiatives,” said Ajai Sahni at the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. “This kind of gesture seems to be a little impulsive.”
Another view point: Meeting is to allay regional fears that his rise to power would herald a new hawkishness in Indian foreign policy. The BJP leader had ruffled feathers in Bangladesh, threatening to expel migrants from the northeast, while Sri Lanka was concerned over the influence ethnic nationalists in Tamil Nadu might have over Mr. Modi’s foreign policy.
“Part of the idea,” a senior national security official present at the meeting said, “is to test whether Pakistan’s Prime Minister will be able to buck military pressures by visiting New Delhi. It will be a sign whether he is his own boss or not.”
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Wednesday, allowed star trading houses (STH) and premier trading houses (PTH) to import gold under the 20:80 scheme.
According to the guidelines of the scheme, importers can buy gold provided a fifth of the imported quantum is exported as finished products like jewellery.
The RBI has also permitted banks to provide gold metal loans (GML) to domestic jewellery manufacturers out of the eligible domestic import quota to the extent of GML outstanding on their books as on March 31, 2013.
The RBI had banned import of gold through star trading houses in August 2013 but this led to a rise in the parallel market, resulting in high premiums.
Gyaan
EXPORT AND TRADING HOUSES STATUSIf you have export turn over of Rs. 20 crores or above you may apply for Export House ( EH ), Star Export House ( SEH ), Trading House ( TH ), Star Trading House ( STH ) and Premier Trading House (PTH) based on the Export Performance FOB / FOR Value of the unit and get additional Import – Export Privileges and Incentives as notified by The Government of India from time to time.
Status Category
Status recognition depends upon export performance. An applicant shall be categorized as status holder upon achieving export performance indicated in table below. The export performance will be counted on the basis of FOB value of export proceeds realized during current plus previous three years (taken together).For Export House (EH) Status, export performance is necessary in at least two out of four years.
Status Category
|
Export Performance FOB / FOR Value (Rupees in Crores)
|
Export House
|
20
|
Star Export House
|
100
|
Trading House
|
500
|
Star Trading House
|
2500
|
Premier Trading House
|
7500
|
Some Privileges of Export and Trading Houses Status Holders
(a) Authorization and Customs Clearances for both imports and exports on self-declaration basis;
(b) Fixation of Input-Output norms on priority within 60 days;
(c) Exemption from compulsory negotiation of documents through banks. Remittance / Receipts, however, would be received through banking channels;
FOB stands for Free On Board price
A trade term requiring the seller to deliver goods on board a vessel designated by the buyer. The seller fulfills its obligations to deliver when the goods have passed over the ship's rail.
When used in trade terms, the word "free" means the seller has an obligation to deliver goods to a named place for transfer to a carrier.
Reserve Bank allows banks to provide long-term credit to exporters
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to offer long-term advances to exporters to enable them enter into long-term supply contacts with importers.
The government will be spending about Rs.3,000 crore in the next three years to double the number of drug regulators, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
Joint Secretary in the Commerce Ministry Sudhanshu Pandey told the media that the government was following a “zero tolerance” policy for ensuring that India not only maintained but further strengthened its ranking in the world pharmaceuticals market.
He said these measures on quality assurance were even more important when a big opportunity would be unfolding in the off-patent generics in the next few years.
New House cannot have Opposition leader
The post of Leader of the Opposition can go only to the leader of a political party and not to the leader of an alliance, whether formed before the election or after. Hence, neither the Congress, as the head of the pre-poll United Progressive Alliance (UPA), nor a post-poll grouping of regional parties in the new Lok Sabha can stake claim to the post, according to Subhash C. Kashyap, former Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha.
A party needs 10 per cent of the strength of the House (55 in the Lok Sabha) to stake claim, and the largest Opposition, the Congress, with 44 seats is way short of that number. Although the UPA has 60 members, this is of no relevance in appointing Leader of the Opposition.
** the Leader of the Opposition enjoys the rank of a Cabinet Minister with all attendant perks and benefits.
**This is not the first time that the Lok Sabha would be without a Leader of the Opposition. Until 1969, no party qualified for the post. Between 1980 and 1989 too, no party had the requisite numbers.
**As for the post of Deputy Speaker, it is given to the Opposition by convention.
A Finland model for Ukraine?
First we need to understand what is Finlandization :
Finlandization is a negative term that came out of 1960s and 1970s West German politics (Finnlandisierung in German). It refers to a country's decision to remain neutral, that is to not challenge powerful or potentially threatening countries nearby. The term comes from a reference to Finland's policy towards the Soviet Union.
Finland had allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1940 for Germany's protection from the USSR. When it became clear that Germany was losing World War II, Finland realized that no other neighboring countries were strong enough to offer protection and switched to a policy of "I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone" regarding the Soviet Union. Of course, other Western countries were upset at what they perceived as Finland becoming too tolerant of Communism. West Germany debated this issue in particular, as they worried that "Finlandization" would spread throughout Europe as the USA scaled back their presence in the region.
Now the Article:
After months of war fever over Ukraine, perhaps the biggest surprise is that citizens there will be voting to choose a new government in elections that observers predict will be free and fair in most areas.
This electoral pathway for Ukraine seemed unlikely a few weeks ago, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his covert campaign to destabilise the Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine. There were dire warnings of a new Cold War, and even of a ground war in Ukraine. The country seemed at risk of being torn apart.
Putin appears, at this writing, to have decided that Russia’s interests are better served by waiting — for the nonaligned government he expects will emerge from Sunday’s elections — than from an invasion or some radical destabilisation. The Russian leader may be ready to accept a neutral country, between East and West, where Russia’s historical interests are recognised. During the Cold War, such an outcome was known as “Finlandization.”
The case for “Finlandization” emerges in a monograph prepared recently by the State Department’s Office of the Historian. It argues that “Finnish foreign policy during the Cold War successfully preserved Finland’s territorial and economic sovereignty, through adherence to a careful policy of neutrality in foreign affairs.” Ukraine’s new government may pursue a similar nonalignment, judging from the leading candidate, billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko, who has pro-Western ties but also served in the Moscow-leaning government of deposed president Viktor Yanukovych.
The State Department study also noted that nonalignment allowed Finland “to serve as a bridge between the Soviet bloc and the West.” Helsinki became a meeting ground for arms-control and human-rights talks that eventually transformed Eastern Europe. A similar bridging role for Ukraine would be welcome, as it would draw Russia west, away from an atavistic strategy of creating a Eurasian trade bloc to re-establish Soviet-style economic hegemony.
No comments:
Post a Comment