Civil Services Day
Context :
Civil Services Day is observed on 21 April in India. The day celebrates the civil servants in order to rededicate themselves to the cause of citizens. On this day, the civil servants renew their commitments to public service and excellence in work.
Aim :
The Civil Services Day celebrates all the civil servants who dedicated their lives to the cause of citizens. It also aims to renew their commitments to public service and excellence in work.
Events :
On this day, the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration will be awarded to the Districts and Implementing Units for implementation of Priority program and innovation categories. These awards are presented every year. The day connects the civil servants with each other and learns the good practices being implemented across the nation in the field of public grievance.
History :
Civil Services Day is celebrated to commemorate the day when the first Home Minister of Independent India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel addressed the probationers of Administrative Services Officers in 1947 at Metcalf House, Delhi. In his address, he referred to civil servants as the ‘steel frame of India’. The day was first celebrated on 21 April 2006 in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
COVID India Seva
Context :
Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Dr. Harsh Vardhan launched the COVID India Seva on 21 April. The interactive platform aims to establish a direct channel of communication with millions of Indians amid the pandemic.
Highlights :
- The initiative is aimed at enabling transparent e-governance delivery in real-time and answering citizen queries swiftly, at scale, especially in crisis situations like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
- Through this platform, people can pose queries @CovidIndiaSeva and get them responded to in almost real-time.
- @CovidIndiaSeva works off a dashboard at the backend that helps process large volumes of tweets, converts them into resolvable tickets, and assigns them to the relevant authority for real-time resolution.
- Everyone can benefit from the responses received around common queries because of its transparency. It is important to note that the Ministry will respond to broader queries and public health information. This does not require the public to share personal contact details or health record details.
“Saiyam App” to tracks Home Quarantined Citizens
Context :
Pune Municipal Corporation under Smart Cities Mission (SCM) has launched a mobile application named “Saiyam”. The app aims to effectively track home-quarantines citizens and ensure they are actually staying in the home.
Saiyam app :
- The app has been developed to monitor home quarantined citizens.
- The city administration has appointed dedicated teams for five zones to conduct a follow-up with people under home quarantine on a daily basis.
- The teams will check on people who have recently returned from international trips and those discharged after treatment for COVID-19.
- The teams will seek updates from quarantined people on their health status and details of persons in contact with them.
- For persons sporting the home quarantine stamp, the teams will check if separate food, bed, utensils, clothes, and washrooms are provided to them.
- They will check if those under home quarantine have downloaded the Saiyam Mobile Application. The Mobile Application has GPS tracking so that whenever quarantined citizens leave their homes, City Administration gets alerted and the local ward or the local police station gets informed, who then visit the family.
- Movements of the citizens can be monitored centrally in real-time from the monitoring cell and are marked as Red, Amber or Green. Red signifies that the person has ventured out for longer duration; Yellow signifies that the person has limited movements and Green signifies that the person is confined to house limits.
Annual Meeting of Board of Governors of New Development Bank
Context :
The Union Minister of Finance attended the 5th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of New Development Bank (NDB) through video-conference in New Delhi.
Key Highlights of the Meeting :
- India appreciated NDB’s efforts in establishing itself as a credible Global Financial Institution, delivering its mandate successfully by taking a more sustainable and inclusive approach.
- NDB fast-tracked financial assistance of about $5 billion to BRICS countries including Emergency Assistance of $1 billion to India to combat Covid-19 pandemic.
- The assistance under this facility was suggested to be enhanced to $10 billion.
- Brazil thanked India for sending critical drugs for timely management of novel coronavirus in Brazil.
- NDB was encouraged to take appropriate actions to join the G-20 forum along with other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), etc.
- India urged NDB to follow novel practices in supporting the BRICS nations for achieving their Sustainable Development Goals.
- Measures taken by India to respond to the health crisis and to mitigate its impact were highlighted. Few of them are:
- India Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package: Allocation of $2 Billion (₹15,000 crore) by the Government of India for strengthening the healthcare system.
- Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana: Announcement of a scheme of social support measures amounting to $23 Billion (₹1.70 lakh crore) to alleviate the hardship of the poor and the vulnerable.
- Insurance cover of $67,000 (₹50 lakh) per person to over 2.2 million frontline health workers and others provision of relief to firms in statutory and regulatory compliance matters
- Easing of monetary policy by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and three-month moratorium on loan instalments.
- Creation of a Covid-19 Emergency Fund for SAARC countries.
- India’s efforts in supplying critical medicine to the countries in need (e.g. Operation Sanjeevani), to tackle the Covid-19.
New Development Bank :
- It is a multilateral development bank jointly founded by the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) at the 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil in 2014.
- It was formed to support infrastructure and sustainable development efforts in BRICS and other underserved, emerging economies for faster development through innovation and cutting-edge technology.
- It is headquartered at Shanghai, China.
- In 2018, the NDB received observer status in the United Nations General Assembly, establishing a firm basis for active and fruitful cooperation with the UN.
Blood Shortage Due to Lockdown
Context :
Due to Covid-19 lockdown hospitals across India are facing acute shortage of blood and have started contacting individual blood donors to meet the demand.
Key Points :
- Hospitals are calling listed donors and those with rare blood groups to come in and donate.
- The Indian Red Cross Society Blood Bank has also noted that there is a drop in blood collection. The crisis is such that there is a shortage of the most commonly seen B-positive blood group.
- According to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation, blood requirement of 1% of a country’s population be used as an estimate of its blood needs.
- By this measure, India was short of 1.9 million units of blood as per data presented to the Lok Sabha in 2018.
- Worst Hit Due to Blood Shortage:
- Patients requiring dialysis, having blood disorders, and pregnant women are the worst hit due to blood shortage.
- Patients from small cities and villages are also the worst hit.
- Thalassemics Fearful
- Thalassemia patients need repeated blood transfusions to survive. Many thalassemics take blood for their transfusions from the Indian Red Cross Society Blood Bank, whose camps are being cancelled.
- According to the National Blood Transfusion Council, there are 2,023 blood banks in India, which receive 78% of their blood supply from voluntary donors.
Issues Involved
- Due to lockdown blood banks collection camps are cancelled.
- Donors are hesitant to travel to hospitals to donate blood amid strict lockdown.
- Also, donor passes had not been made by some hospitals, which is adding to the problem.
- Transportation almost closed due to lockdown.