INTERNATIONAL
Iran
fully withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal
Iran has announced its total
withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which
is commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. The exit of Iran comes after the U.S.
targeted strike that killed Iran’s Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in
Iraq on 3 January 2020.
Iran announced that it will
no longer commit to any limits on the level of uranium enrichment, a stockpile
of nuclear fuel and also nuclear research and development.
Iran agreed to a long-term
deal on its nuclear programme with the P5+1 group of world powers in 2015. The
P5+1 countries are the US, UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany. Under the
deal, Iran acceded to a 10-year restriction on nuclear production. As of May
2018, there was a broad consensus that Iran has abided by the agreement.
The United States President
Donald Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the deal on 8 May
2018. Even after the US’s withdrawal, the European Union, Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, Russia, and China attempted to maintain the nuclear deal.
NATIONAL
India’s GDP growth rate for 2019-20 estimated at
5%, says NSO
The Indian economy is estimated to grow at 5 per
cent in 2019-20 as against 6.8 per cent in the previous fiscal.
According to the
first advance estimates of national income released by the National Statistical
Office (NSO), the decline has been mainly on account of deceleration in
manufacturing sector growth, which is expected to come down to 2 per cent in
2019-20 from 6.2 per cent in the year-ago fiscal.
The deceleration
was also witnessed in sectors like agriculture, construction and electricity,
gas and water supply.
Whereas, some
sectors, including mining, public administration, and defence, showed minor
improvement.
Over 36 lakh women farmers have
benefited from govt scheme
Over 36
lakh women farmers have benefited from the government’s flagship
scheme to empower women engaged in agricultural activities with the Centre
allocating Rs 847 crore for 84 projects to benefit female tillers across 24
states and Union Territories.
Under MKSP, 36.06
lakh mahila kisans have been benefited through 84 projects in 24 states/UTs in
the country, out of which 1.81 lakh women have been benefited in Maharashtra.
A total central allocation of Rs 847.5 crore has been made towards
implementation of the approved projects.
According to the MSKP
website, women farmers from MP have been the biggest beneficiaries with 6.46
lakh availing of the central scheme. Government data showed that Maharashtra
had the second highest beneficiaries (5.18 lakh) followed
by Odisha (4.61 lakh).
MSKP is a
sub-component of the National Rural Livelihood Mission, which aims to
improve the status of women in agriculture. In most cases, farmers have
benefited by forming self-help groups to avail of government help and go for
systematic farming.
Nearly 90% of Nirbhaya Fund lying
unused: Govt data
An analysis of data
shared by the government on Nirbhaya Fund for projects for women safety
shows that of the Rs 2,264 crore (63% of the corpus of Rs 3,600 crore)
allocated to states and UTs, around 89% of the sanctioned funds was not used.
No state has reported
utilisation of over 50% of the fund, and Uttarakhand & Mizoram
top the list with 50% utilisation, followed by Chhattisgarh (43%), Nagaland
(39%) and Haryana (32%). Further, out of the 36 states and UTs for which data
is available, utilisation in 18 states and UTs is less than 15%. NCT of Delhi
has a poor 5% utilisation, as per the analysis that looked at data of all
ministries that allocated funds.
Almost three-fourths
(74%) of the Nirbhaya Fund have been allocated for projects under the ministry
of home affairs, followed by the ministry of women & child development
(17%).
The Nirbhaya Fund was created to be utilised for projects specifically designed
to improve the safety and security of women in public places. Over the past six
years, the corpus has increased to Rs 3,600 crore. Though the fund was
instituted in 2013, its disbursement gathered pace only from 2015.
The key schemes under
which the states have been allocated money include emergency response support
system, central victim compensation fund, cybercrime prevention
against women and children, one-stop centre scheme, mahila police volunteers
and universalisation of women helpline scheme.