National Diabetes and Diabetic Retinopathy Survey
Context: National Diabetes and Diabetic Retinopathy Survey report for 2015-19 has been released.
The survey – conducted during 2015-2019 by Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) and released by the health ministry.
Key findings:
- Prevalence of diabetes in India has been recorded at 11.8% in the last four years with almost same percentage of men and women suffering from the disease.
- The prevalence of diabetes among males was 12%, whereas among females it was 11.7%. Highest prevalence of diabetes (13.2%) was observed in the 70-79 years’ age group.
- The prevalence of any form of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in diabetic population aged up to 50 years was found to be 16.9%.
- Prevalence of blindness among diabetics was 2.1% and visual impairment was 13.7%.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO):
- There are estimated 72.96 million cases of diabetes in adult population of India.
- The prevalence in urban areas ranges between 10.9%-14.2% and prevalence in rural India is at 3.0-7.8% among population aged 20 years and above with a much higher prevalence among individuals aged over 50 years.
Background:
Diabetes and diabetic retinopathy have been emerging as a significant non-communicable disease leading to ocular morbidity (blindness). It is estimated that diabetic retinopathy was responsible for 1.06% of blindness and 1.16% of visual impairment globally in 2015.
SURAKSHIT MATRITVA AASHWASAN (SUMAN)
In News
- Union Minister for Health along with several State Health Ministers launched SUMAN initiative for Zero Preventable Maternal and Newborn Deaths.
- The initiative aims at assuring dignified, respectful and quality health care at no cost and zero tolerance for denial of services for every woman and newborn visiting the public health facility in order to end all preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
- Under it, pregnant women, mothers up to 6 months after delivery, and all sick newborns will be able to avail free healthcare benefits.
- The government will also provide free transport from home to health institutions.
- The pregnant women will have a zero expense delivery and C-section facility in case of complications at public health facilities.
‘Green wall’ of India
Context: The Centre is mulling an ambitious plan to create a green wall on North- Western part of India.
About the proposed wall:
- It will be a 1,400km long and 5km wide green belt from Gujarat to the Delhi-Haryana border, on the lines of the “Great Green Wall” running through the width of Africa, from Dakar (Senegal) to Djibouti, to combat climate change and desertification.
If approved, this may turn out to be a legacy programme in India’s efforts to deal with land degradation and the eastward march of the Thar desert. - India seeks replicate the idea as a national priority under its goal to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.
- The green belt may not be contiguous, but would roughly cover the entire degraded Aravali range through a massive afforestation exercise.
The need for and significance of the wall:
- A legacy programme like converting such a huge tract of land as a green belt in high-intensive land-degraded states will be great boost towards meeting India’s target.
- The idea of forming a green belt from Porbandar to Panipat will not only help in restoring degraded land through afforestation along the Aravali hill range that spans across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi, but also act as a barrier for dust coming from the deserts in western India and Pakistan.
- The Aravalli range, which separates western India’s Thar desert from the relatively green plains to its east, has lost so much green cover that it is losing its ability to act as a natural barrier against the heat and dust that blows in from the west. The greener it remains, say ecologists, the less likely that the desert will expand into the rest of the Indian landmass.
Background:
India has, at present, 96.4 mha of degraded land which is 29.3% of the country’s total geographical area (328.7 mha).
Invasive weeds threatening tiger habitats in Adilabad, Telangana
In News
- Invasive weeds affect population of herbivores which are prey to the big cats
- As a result, there is increase in influx of tigers from forests across the border in Maharashtra.
- It was way back in 1992 at the Rio de Janeiro Convention on Biodiversity that biological invasion of alien species of plants was recognised as the second worst threat to the environment after habitat destruction.
About Invasive Species
- Those species whose introduction into an ecosystem successfully out-compete native organisms and harms ecosystems. Common characteristics are:
- Rapid reproduction and growth,
- High dispersal ability,
- Phenotypic plasticity (ability to adapt physiologically to new condition).
NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
- Austria’s Peter Handke won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature, and the postponed 2018 award went to Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.
- Austria’s Peter Handke won the 2019 prize for “for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience”.
- Polish author Olga Tokarczuk won the 2018 prize – delayed by one year after a sexual assault scandal rocked the award-giving Academy – for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.”
- Olga Tokarczuk, the 15th woman to win the Nobel Literature Prize, also won the International Booker Prize in 2018.
- The Nobel Prize in Literature is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901.
- It is awarded to an author from any country who has produced “in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”.