Category: General Knowledge

54th Jnanpith Award has been conferred on Amitav Ghosh, one of the most prominent English contemporary Indian writers, known for a series of novels such as “Shadow Lines”, “The Glass Palace”, “The Hungry Tide”, and Ibis Trilogy: “Sea of Poppies”, “River of Smoke”, and “Flood of Fire”; as per the decision taken in a meeting of the Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by eminent novelist, scholar and Jnanpith laureate Pratibha Ray and announced Bharatiya Jnanpith  on Friday 14 December 2018.

Jnanpith Award, instituted in 1961 is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the 8^th Schedule of the Indian Constitution and English and presented annually by Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for “outstanding contribution towards literature”. The award consisted of a citation plaque, a cash prize of ₹1 lakh till 1981, revised to ₹11 lakh in 2015; and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu Goddess of knowledge and wisdom.

• Sankara Kurup, Malayalam writer, was the first recipient of the award in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal(The Bamboo Flute), published in 1950.
• Ashapoorna Devi, Bengali novelist, became the first woman to win the award in 1976 and was honoured for her novel Pratham Pratisruti (The First Promise), the first in a trilogy, published in 1965.
• Award has been conferred upon 58 writers including seven women authors.
• Prominent recipients include literary icons Krishna Sobti, Kedarnath Singh, Shrilal Shukla, Nirmal Verma, Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi, Amrita Pritam and U R Ananthamurthy.
• Award has been presented for works in 16 languages, out of 23 eligible languages:

Amitav Ghosh, born in 1956 in Kolkata to a Bengali Hindu family, who spent his formative years in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria, currently lives in New York with his wife Deborah Baker.

• Amitav Ghosh is also the recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Awards.
• “The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable”, a work of non-fiction, was released in 2016, is his most recent book.
• “The Hungry Tide” that explores the forgotten Marichjhhapi massacre was published in 2004.
• “The Shadow Lines”, his much-loved novel that won him the Sahitya Akademi Award, in which he explored the treachery of borders and maps, was published in 1988.
• “The Ibis trilogy”, which comprises “Sea of Poppies”, “River of Smoke”, and “Flood of Fire”; published in 2008, 2011 and 2015 respectively, is a work of historical fiction by Amitav Ghosh. The story is set in the first half of the 19^th It deals with the trade of Opium between India and China run by the East India Company and the trafficking of coolies to Mauritius. The trilogy gets its names from the ship Ibis, on board which most of the main characters meet for the first time. The novels depict a range of characters from different cultures, including Bihari peasants, Bengali Zamindars, Parsi businessmen, Cantonese boat people, British traders and officials, a Cornish botanist, and a mulato sailor.

Ghosh tweeted that he was “honoured and humbled”; and that, “This is an amazing day for me. I never thought I would find myself on this list, with some of the writers I most admire.”

Pranab Mukherjee, former President tweeted, “Congratulations to @GhoshAmitav on winning the #JnanpithAward 2018. I have fond memories of your stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan as a part of the ‘In Residen

Although there has barely been any shred of evidence to show that any election held recently was subject to electoral fraud through a manipulation of EVMs, Election Commission of India(ECI) has to give repeated assurances by of the robustness of the administrative and technical safeguards in place to prevent EVM tampering.

Universal implementation of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) that allows for a layer of verification to the electoral process is an improvement to EVM.

Non-Tamperability of EVMshas been reaffirmed by the Election Commission of Indiain a Press Note dated 22 January 2019 in the wake of the motivated controversy attempted to be created by one so called ‘cyber expert’ Syed Shuja, who organiseda press conference in London on Monday 21 January 2019claiming to demonstrate EVMs used by ECI can be hacked, and the 2014 LokSabha elections were rigged.

Delhi Police has also registered a case, “Based on a complaint received from the Election Commission, an FIR has been registered under Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code (intent to cause fear or public mischief) at Parliament Street police station. Action will be taken as per the law,” a senior police officersaid on Wednesday 23 January 2019. In its complaint, the poll panel had asked police to investigate the matter “promptly” for violation of certain IPC sections dealing with spreading rumour to “create fear” in the minds of people.

Election Commission of India firmly standsby fool proof nature of ECI EVMsand hadreiterated vide its Press Note of 21 January that these EVMs are manufactured in Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) under very strict supervisory and security conditions and there are rigorous Standard Operating Procedures meticulously observed at all stages under the supervision of a Committee of eminent technical experts constituted way back in 2010.

Technical Experts Committee (TEC) members – Prof D T Shahani, Prof Emeritus IIT Delhi and Prof RajatMoona, Director IIT Bhilai and Prof D K Sharma, Prof Emeritus IIT Bombay (Mumbai), have reconfirmed to the ECI today that:

• ECI-EVMs are stand-alone machines designed to connect only amongst ECI-EVM units (Ballot Unit, Control Unit and VVPAT) through cables that remain in full public view. There is no mechanism in ECI-EVMs to communicate with any device through wireless communication on any Radio Frequency. All versions of ECI-EVMs are regularly and rigorously tested against low to high wireless frequencies. These tests include and go beyond the standard tests specified for electronic equipment.
• ECI-EVMs are regularly tested for proper functioning under all kind of operating conditions.
• ECI-EVMs are also regularly tested for code authentication and verification.

TEC clarified that VVPATs use thermal printers which can print only on one side of thermal paper. The print is fully visible through the viewing window. The paper rolls used in VVPATs have only one-sided thermal coating and hence can be printed only on one side. The VVPAT paper print lasts at least for five years.

CMDs of Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, who are the sole manufacturers of EVMs and now also VVPATs, also reaffirmed that all the TEC prescribed Standard Operating Procedures are scrupulously adhered to and observed.

It is however reiterated that while ECI-EVMs might malfunction sometimes like any other machine due to component failures and stop working, but even such a malfunctioning ECI-EVM would not record any vote incorrectly. It is reaffirmed that ECI-EVMs cannot be tampered.

World Malaria Report 2018 has shown that progress against the disease has stalled amid a scaling-down of significant investments. The data reveals worrying trends in the fight against malaria as the cases of malaria in 2017 increased globally to 219 million from 217 million in 2016 and 11 countries carry 70% of the global burden. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, and India will now be targeted by a World Health Organisation (WHO) campaign.

The World malaria report, based on information received from national malaria control programmes and other partners in endemic countries, released on 19 November 2018 by WHO, tracks investments in malaria programmes and research as well as progress across all intervention areas: prevention, diagnosis, treatment and surveillance; and includes dedicated chapters on malaria elimination and on key threats in the fight against malaria. The report published annually provides a comprehensive update on global and regional malaria data and trends.

• According to the 2018 report there were an estimated 435000 deaths from malaria globally in 2017 as compared to 451000 estimated deaths in 2016 and 607000 in 2010.
• Children aged less than 5 years are the most vulnerable group affected by malaria. In 2017, they accounted for 61% (266000) of all malaria deaths worldwide.
• An estimated US$ 3.1 billion was invested in malaria control and elimination efforts globally by governments of malaria endemic countries and international partners in 2017, i.e., an amount slighter higher than the figure reported for 2016.
• The funding for malaria has remained relatively stable since 2010, the level of investment in 2017 is far from what is required to reach the first 2 milestones of the WHO Global Technical Strategy (GTS) for Malaria 2016-2030adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2015; that is, a reduction of at least 40% in malaria case incidence and mortality rates globally by 2020, compared with 2015 levels.
• To reach the GTS 2030 targets, it is estimated that annual malaria funding will need to increase to at least US$ 6.6 billion per year by 2020.

However, the World Malaria Report 2018 highlights a sharp drop in the number of cases in Odisha – one of the most endemic states of India, and further notes that:

• India’s record offers great promise in the quest to cut the number of new cases and deaths globally by at least 40% by 2020, and to end the epidemic by 2030.
• India has suffered from a major burden of malaria for decades with high levels of morbidity and death.
• India’s declining trend of the scourge shows that sustained public health action can achieve good results.
• Malaria cases in Odisha (formerly Orissa) have been coming down steadily since 2003, with a marked reduction since 2008.
• There was a reduction in malaria cases by half in 2017 as compared to the same study period in 2016.
• In Odisha investments made in recruiting accredited social health workers and large-scale distribution of insecticide-treated bed-nets, together with strategies to encourage health-seeking behaviour have paid off.
• Odisha experience with using public health education as a tool and reaching out to remote populations with advice needs to be replicated in eliminating malaria in other states, which have a higher burden of the disease, such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Sahitya Akademi Awards 2018, the most prestigious literary honours bestowed on writers for their works across genres and languages, were announced by Sahitya Akademi in 24 languages on 6 December 2018, to be presented to the authors at a special function in January 2019 at Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi. The winners cover extensive range of works representing diversity in contemporary Indian literature, comprising seven collections of poetry, six novels, six short story collections, three works of literary criticism and two collections of essays.

• Sahitya Akademi Awards, instituted in 1954, recognise and promote excellence in Indian writing and also acknowledge new trends.
• Award comprises a Casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a Shawl and a Cheque of ₹100000.
• The plaque now awarded by the Sahitya Akademi was designed by the Indian film-maker Satyjit Ray
• Sahitya Akademi annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in 24 languages, including 22 listed in the 8^th Schedule of Indian Constitution, along with English and Rajasthani.

Anees Salim is named as one of the winner of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award (English) for his novel “The Blind Lady’s Descendants“, a long suicide note of a 26-year-old. Salim’s “Vanity Bagh” had won The Hindu Prize for Best Fiction in 2013.

Anees Salim Kerala-born author said that the initial rejections he faced from mainstream publishers were shattering; but they also went a long way in strengthening and streamlining his writing. His latest novel “The Small-Town Sea” garnered critical acclaim after its release in 2017 contended that his literary journey has been a tough one.

12. Ramesan Nair Tamil Nadu-born writer is another winner of Sahitya Akademi Award for Malayalam work, for his poetry collection Guru Pournami, capturing the essence of Narayana Guru’s philosophy. His first poem was published when he was 12. Nair has translated Silappatikaram and Tirukkural into English. He is a famous lyricist who has penned songs for 170 films and 3000 devotional songs, rendered by famous singers like K.J. Yesudas. Nair worked for the All India Radio for 20 years but his drama Sathaabhishekam, parodying Congress leader Karunakaran and his son, led to his transfer.

Nair, a writer well-versed in both Malayalam and Tamil was roped in when Malayalam magazine Kalakamudhi decided to bring out a special cover on DMK leader and former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi after his death. He said, “Besides writing a couple of poems, I also produced two chapters of Kalaignar’s (Karunanidhi’s) Nenjukku Needhi, translated by me, and the issue was received well”.

Nair is currently translating Kamba Ramayanam into Malayalam and has already completed 20% of translation work on Balakanda, who said, “When it comes to poetic beauty, Ramayanam in other languages cannot match Kamban’s work”.

Nair is the third writer of Tamil Nadu origin but settled in Kerala to win the Sahitya Akademi Award. The other two are Neela Padmanabhan and A. Madhavan, who won the award for Tamil literature. Both Padmanabhan and Nair are from Kanniyakumari district.

Winners of Sahitya Akademi Awards 2018 also include Rama Kant Shukla in Sanskrit, Rajesh Kumar Vyas in Rajasthani, Rahman Abbas in Urdu, Lok Nath Upadhyay in Nepali, Chitra Mughal in Hindi and S. Ramakrishnan in Tamil.

Sahitya Akademi Secretary K. Sreenivasarao said at a press conference announcing the winners that the books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in each language and then approved by the Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi under the Chairmanship of Akademi President Chandrashekhar Kambar.

Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, gravitationally-challenged landmark, has slowly started defying its name, losing 4 centimetres of its tilt over the past 17 years and is leaning less after years of ambitious engineering work.

Leaning Tower of Pisa or simply the Tower of Pisa is freestanding medieval bell tower, of the Cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa, situated behind the Pisa Cathedral   and is the third oldest structure in the city’s Cathedral Square, after the cathedral and the Pisa Baptistry. It is a symbol of the power of the maritime republic of Pisa in the middle ages.

• Height of the tower is 183.27 feet from the ground on the low side and 185.93 feet on the high side.
• Width of the walls at the base is 8 feet 0.06 inches.
• Its weight is estimated at 14500 metric tons.
• Tower has leaned to one side ever since building started in 1173, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure’s weight.
• Tilt increased in the decades before the structure was completed in the 14^th
• It gradually increased until the structure was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
• In 1990 the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees, as its tilt reached 15 feet (4.5 meters) from the vertical, threatening to turn it into a pile of rubble.
• Tower was closed to the public in January 1990 for 11 years over safety fears.
• Remedial work was undertaken between 1993 and 2001and the tilt was reduced to 3.97 degrees, reducing the overhang by 41cm at a cost of £200m.
• It lost a further 4 cm of tilt in the two decades to 2018.

Michele Jamiolkowski, an engineer of Polish origin who adopted Italian nationality, coordinated an international committee to rescue the landmark between 1993 and 2001.

Roberto Cela, Technical Director at Opera della Primaziale Pisana, the organisation responsible for maintenance of the square where the tower is located, said his team “positioned a series of pipes with drills which took away soil from the opposite side of the leaning side of the tower”, and added, “With the missing soil under its base, the tower has reacted by straightening up, recovering the tilt and thus rejuvenating after all the years that caused it to lean and to reach a critical position”.

Engineering lecturer Nunziante Squeglia of Pisa University, who works with the Surveillance Group set up after the rescue work, has been studying and measuring the tower for 25 years, said, “The tower was much more mysterious when I arrived, it wasn’t clear why it was leaning, and increasingly leaning,” and added “It is a building that has been extensively studied for over 100 years but there are still so many things to know,” including the remains of what looks like a domed roof inside the tower that is still unexplained.

According to Squeglia, “The tower tends to deform and reduce its lean in the summer, when it’s hot, because the tower leans to the south, so its southern side is warmed, and the stone expands. And by expanding, the tower straightens”.

Squeglia explains that there are three pendulums, one dating back to 1935, when systematic measurements began, although annual measurements began as far back as 1911.

No-detention policy that prohibits schools from detaining students till they complete elementary education will be scrapped as Lok Sabha has passed on Wednesday July 18, 2018 an amendment to the Right to Education Act; the states can now choose to hold a regular examination either at the end of Classes V and VIII, or both. Students who fail this test will get additional instruction and opportunity to appear for a re-examination within two months of the declaration of the result. If the students still do not pass the exam, the state government may decide to detain them.

Right to Education Act (RTE) or Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act enacted on 4 August 2009, described the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 to 14 years under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. Section 16 of RTE Act, 2009 stipulated that ‘No child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education’. The policy covered elementary stage of schooling covering classes 1 to 8:

• No-detention policy was implemented together with continuous assessment, which would help identify learning deficiencies and correct them.
• No-detention policy is successful in a sense, that universalisation of enrolment of children at the elementary level has nearly been achieved, in nine years since the launch of the RTE.
• However, education system has failed to provide continuous assessment and so the government is falling back on examinations and detention, which can lead to students becoming discouraged and higher dropout rates.

A Sub-Committee was constituted for assessment of implementation of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) in the context of No-Detention provision in the RTE Act, 2009, in pursuance of a resolution adopted in the 59th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) held on 6th June, 2012. The Sub-Committee submitted its report in August, 2014. The report of the Sub-Committee was placed before CABE in its meeting held on 19.8.2015, wherein it was decided to request all States/UTs to share their views on the No-Detention policy. 28 States have shared their views on the No Detention policy out of which 23 States have suggested modification to the No Detention policy.

Another Sub-Committee under the Chairpersonship of Prof. Vasudev Devnani, Minister of Education, Government of Rajasthan was constituted on 26.10.2015 inter-alia, to review the feedback received from States/UTs on the ‘No-Detention’ policy, in pursuance of the decision taken in the CABE Committee meeting held on 19.8.2016,.The recommendations of the Committee were as under:

• There should be an examination at Class 5. It should be left to the States and UTs to decide whether this exam will be at the school, block, District or State Level.
• If a child fails then allow the child an opportunity to improve.
• There should be additional instruction provided to children and the child should be given an opportunity to sit for another exam. If the child is unable to pass the exam in the second chance, then detain the child.
• At Classes 6 and 7, there should be a school based exam for students.
• At Class 8, there should be an external exam. In case the child fails, the child should be given additional instruction and then appear for an improvement exam.
• If fails again then detain.

Some educationists are of the opinion that, if the aim is to improve learning outcomes in children there are other specific provisions such as, maintaining a good pupil-teacher ratio, proper infrastructure like all-weather buildings, barrier-free access in schools, separate toilets for boys and girls that are pertinent measures to improve qualitative standards should be enshrined in the RTE, along with the policy changes,

Bharat Vatwani, a psychiatrist who works for mentally ill street people in Mumbai – India, recognized for “his tremendous courage and healing compassion in embracing India’s mentally-afflicted destitute, and his steadfast and magnanimous dedication to the work of restoring and affirming the human dignity of even the most ostracized in our midst”, is one of the six winners of Magsaysay Award 2018. The other five winners are Sonam Wangchuk Ladakhi engineer and innovator also from India, Youk Chhang from Cambodia, Maria de Lourdes Martins Cruz from East Timor, Howard Dee from the Philippines and Vo Thi Hoang Yen from Vietnam. Each of the 6 awardees will receive a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the late President, and a cash prize. Asia’s highest honour – Magsaysay Award that, “celebrates greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia” – in the 60th year of an annual tradition by the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF), announced on Thursday July 26, 2018 – Magsaysay Award 2018, which will be formally conferred during formal Presentation Ceremonies to be held on Friday August 31, 2018 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

• Bharat Vatwani aged 60 years – Saviour for mentally ill, helped reunite 7,000 mentally ill wanderers with their families since 1997, across the country, and even in Nepal.
• Vatwani started with his wife Smitha – also a psychiatrist, an informal operation of bringing in mentally-ill street persons to their private clinic for treatment.
• Vatwani founded Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in the year 1988 with the following objectives:
  • To rescue maximum number of mentally ill roadside Destitute’
  • To provide free shelter, food and psychiatric treatment to the rescued Destitute.
  • To trace out addresses of the Destitute & reunite them with their lost families in any part of India.
  • To promote massive mental health awareness among rural villages, families, police personnel, railway officials & general public.
  • To network with other NGO’s and Govt Mental Hospitals in other to generate collective efforts’.
• The facility was earlier in a small bungalow in Mumbai’s Dahisar area, and by 2006, the foundation moved to Karjat, on a 6.5-acre plot that Dr. Vatwani bought with donations.
• The Foundation had received support from a flurry of NGOs, police and individual social workers.
• Vatwani raises funds and contributes ₹ 2 lakh every month for the upkeep of the 120 destitute staying at the Karjat home.

“These are the unfortunate men & women whom you often see wandering on the roads, lost in their own world, laughing and talking to themselves, with dirty long matted hair, half naked and skin & bones appearance. They may be just barely surviving on garbage, gutter water and whatever leftovers of food are thrown at them by passer-bys. They are in much worse shape than the poorest of the poor because they have no one, we repeat, absolutely no one to look after them. They are on the roads for weeks/months/years without food, clothing or shelter. No one may give them a second glance and often no one cares whether they live or die. They are stripped of all human dignity, but we believe that they are humans nevertheless.”

Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation was founded in the year 1988, to deal with the above tragedy of the mentally ill destitute wandering aimlessly on the streets of India.

Gangadhar Vinode now a 46-year-old builder from Pune recalling, how he was affected with schizophrenia as a 17-year-old student of Class XI, said, “I was in Kolhapur and was travelling back to Pune. Instead I landed in Thane and for three days was lying unconscious at the roadside. I don’t know what would have happened if Dr Bharat Vatwani, a psychiatrist, had not treated me”, was among the first to congratulate Dr Bharat Vatwani’s for Asia’s highest honour, the Ramon Magsaysay award, as the man who helped bring dignity to his life.

Dr Vatwani said, “Our work had begun prior to setting up the home. The turning point in my life was in the early 90s when my wife Smita, who is also a psychiatrist, and I noticed a horribly skinny boy drinking gutter water from a coconut shell… After appropriate care and treatment, the boy told us he was a BSc graduate…Mental illness can affect anyone and reduce a person to pathetically inhuman conditions”. “We don’t pick up beggars or homeless who know their way around. The mentally ill are out there on the roads because they can’t find their way back. They get lost because of being delusional”.

The second turning point came when I met Baba Amte at Anandwan. He inspired me to expand my work. That was a trigger for me to move Shraddha Foundation to Karjat.

Dr Vatwani’s meeting with Baba Amte at Anandwan was a turning point when Dr Vatwani came across a schizophrenic destitute who was in chains. Recalling how Baba Amte was anguished at the sight, “His sensitivity drew me to him. It was bonding at its emotional best. While appreciating my work, he encouraged me to do more and that’s when we set up the rehabilitation home.”

“In all my depressing moments if there is one person who continues to inspire me is Baba Amte,” said Dr Vatwani, who lost his father at a young age and was prone to bouts of suicidal depression. “I used to subconsciously end up hunting for a father figure in all the elders that I would meet and my search ended with Baba. He guided me and now this award has recognized the cause of the mentally ill roadside destitute persons.”