2 October 2024

• Governance: Swachh Bharat Mission turned ten years old. Over ten crore toilets have been built. Open defecation persists for 11 per cent of the population despite the ODF declaration.
• Health: NITI Aayog called for a new Public Health Emergency Management Act to replace the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897.
• Economy: India's diamond processing industry is in crisis: exports fell from 23 billion dollars in 2022 to 16 billion in 2023 and 50,000 jobs were lost in Surat.
• Space: ISRO's Venus Orbiter Mission was formally assigned a March 2028 launch window with a budget of 1,236 crore rupees.

GS area: Governance, Social Policy

The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2 October 2014, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It completes a decade today.

• Scale of construction: Over ten crore household toilets were built under the mission. India was declared Open Defecation Free in 2019.
• Health dividend: The World Health Organisation estimated that roughly three lakh deaths from diarrhoeal diseases were prevented between 2014 and 2019 as a result of improved sanitation.
• Persistent gap: Survey data shows that approximately 11 per cent of the population continues to practise open defecation despite the official ODF status. The gap is highest in rural areas.
• Urban versus rural access: Urban toilet access is reported at 95.6 per cent. Rural access stands at 76 per cent. The urban-rural divide remains significant.
• SBM phases: SBM-Gramin Phase 1 (2014-19) focused on toilet construction. Phase 2 (2020-25) shifted emphasis to ODF sustainability, solid waste management, and wastewater treatment.

Static linkage: Sanitation schemes, health and governance (Governance).

GS area: Governance, Health

NITI Aayog released a report recommending a new Public Health Emergency Management Act to replace the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897. The 1897 law was a colonial-era statute enacted to deal with plague outbreaks.

• Proposed structure: An Empowered Group of Secretaries headed by the Cabinet Secretary to coordinate responses to declared public health emergencies.
• Core pillars of the new law: Disease surveillance, an early warning system, a national vaccine bank, and a One Health approach that links human, animal, and environmental health.
• Centres of Excellence: The report proposes building centres capable of rapid diagnostics and vaccine development for priority pathogens identified by the World Health Organisation.
• Why the 1897 Act falls short: It was written for a single disease in a single colonial city. It grants wide powers to provincial governments with no federal coordination mechanism, no data-sharing framework, and no clear accountability for action timelines.

Static linkage: Public health law, cooperative federalism (Governance, Polity).

GS area: Economy (Trade)

India processes approximately 90 per cent of the world's rough diamonds before they reach the global market. The industry employs around five million people and is concentrated in Surat, Gujarat.

• Export decline: Polished diamond exports fell from 23 billion dollars in 2022 to 16 billion dollars in 2023. That is a 30 per cent contraction in value in one year.
• Job losses: About 50,000 workers lost employment in Surat's cutting and polishing units.
• Causes: The Russia-Ukraine war disrupted rough diamond supply from Russia, which is the world's largest producer. The Gaza conflict dampened consumer sentiment in key Western markets. Lab-grown diamonds have gained rapid market share at far lower price points.
• Price drop: Prices of polished diamonds fell between 5 and 27 per cent depending on the grade.
• India's global share: Before the crisis, India's diamond exports accounted for about 19 per cent of global polished diamond exports.

Static linkage: Export-led growth, gem and jewellery sector (Economy).

GS area: Science and Technology (Space)

The Indian Space Research Organisation formally assigned a March 2028 launch window to the Venus Orbiter Mission, known as VOM or Shukrayaan-1.

• Timeline: The spacecraft will depart Earth on 29 March 2028. After a 112-day transit it will arrive at Venus on 19 July 2028.
• Budget: 1,236 crore rupees.
• Payloads: 19 scientific instruments in total: 16 built in India, two developed jointly with international partners, and one fully international.
• Mission duration: Five years of scientific operation after orbit insertion.
• Scientific objectives: Venus has a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere with sulphuric acid clouds, surface temperatures around 465 degrees Celsius, and atmospheric pressure 92 times that of Earth. Understanding why Venus evolved so differently from Earth is the central science question.

Static linkage: Indian space programme, planetary science (Science and Technology).

GS area: Science and Technology (Artificial Intelligence)

IIT Bombay announced the Bharat-Gen Initiative under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems. It claims to be the world's first government-funded multimodal large language model.

• What it does: Supports multiple Indian languages and can process text and other data modalities. It is built on India-centric training data.
• Key feature: Open-source architecture. It prioritises data-efficient learning so that smaller datasets in Indian languages can be used without the massive compute requirements of general-purpose models.
• Policy goal: Digital sovereignty through domestic AI capability and reducing dependence on foreign large language models that are trained primarily on English-language data.

Static linkage: Digital India, artificial intelligence policy (Science and Technology).

GS area: Economy (Ports, Shipping)

The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways launched the Cruise Bharat Mission with a target of one million cruise passengers by 2029.

• Infrastructure targets: International cruise terminals to expand from 2 to 10. River cruise terminals to expand from 50 to 100.
• Employment target: 400,000 jobs to be created in the cruise ecosystem.
• River cruise growth: Passenger numbers to grow from 500,000 to 1.5 million.
• Nodal ministry: Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.

Static linkage: Maritime economy, port infrastructure (Economy).

• Isostatic rebound and Mount Everest: Research found Mount Everest is growing 2 millimetres per year through isostatic rebound. The Arun River is eroding the base of the mountain, removing load, and the crust is rising in response. The estimated total gain over 89,000 years is 15 to 50 metres.
• Women Entrepreneurship Platform: NITI Aayog launched its first state chapter of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform in Telangana. Over 30,000 women entrepreneurs and 400 mentors are registered on the national platform.