National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5 Part: II
Context:
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the average number of children per woman, has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level between National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4 and 5.
Relevance:
GS-II: Social Justice and Governance (Issues related to Health, Government Policies and Interventions)
Dimensions of the Article:
- About National Family Health Survey
- How often is the NFHS conducted?
- Comparison between NFHS-5 and NFHS-4
- Areas of concern
- Highlights of the NFHS 5 Part-II
About National Family Health Survey:
- It is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India and provides information on population, health, and nutrition for each state/union territory (UT).
- The International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) Mumbai, is the nodal agency for providing coordination and technical guidance for the survey.
- The survey provides state and national information for India on:
- Fertility
- Infant and child mortality
- The practice of family planning
- Maternal and child health
- Reproductive health
- Nutrition
- Anemia
- Utilization and quality of health and family planning services
- It provides essential data on health and family welfare needed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other agencies.
- It provides information on important emerging health and family welfare issues.
How often is the NFHS conducted?
The below information gives details on the round and the year it was conducted.
- First Round of NFHS conducted in 1992-93
- Second Round of NFHS conducted in 1998-99
- Third Round of NFHS conducted in 2005-06
- Fourth Round of NFHS conducted in 2015-16
- Fifth Round of NFHS conducted in 2018-19
Comparison between NFHS-5 and NFHS-4
- NFHS-5 includes some new topics, such as preschool education, disability, access to a toilet facility, death registration, bathing practices during menstruation, and methods and reasons for abortion.
- For the first time since the NFHS 1992-93 survey, the sex ratio is slightly higher among the adult population.
- It is also for the first time in 15 years that the sex ratio at birth has reached 929 (it was 919 for 1,000 males in 2015-16).
- The total fertility rate has also dropped from 2.2 per cent to a replacement rate of 2 per cent.
- It appears that states which were already experiencing a decline in fertility rates have continued to do so, without much change in the trends in the higher fertility states.
- There has been an appreciable improvement in general literacy levels and in the percentage of women and men who have completed 10 years or more of schooling, which has reached 41 per cent and 50.2 per cent respectively.
- There has also been a consistent drop in neonatal, infant and child mortality rates — a decrease of around 1 per cent per year for neonatal and infant mortality and a 1.6 per cent decrease per year for under five mortality rate.
- Between NFHS 4 and NFHS 5, the percentage of children below five years who are moderately underweight has reduced from 35.8 per cent to 32.1 per cent.
- Moderately stunted children have fallen from 38.4 per cent to 35.5 per cent, Moderately wasted from 21 per cent to 19.3 per cent.
- Severely wasted have increased slightly from 7.5 per cent to 7.7 per cent.
Areas of concern
- India has become a country with more anemic people since NFHS-4 (2015-16), with anemia rates rising significantly across age groups, ranging from children below six years, adolescent girls and boys, pregnant women, and women between 15 to 49 years.
- Adverse effects of anemia affect all age groups —
- Lower physical and cognitive growth and alertness among children and adolescents.
- Lesser capacity to learn and play, directly impacting their future potential as productive citizens.
- Lower capacity to work and quick fatigue for adolescents and adults, translates into lower work output and lesser earnings.
- Anemia among adolescent girls (59.1 per cent) advances to maternal anaemia and is a major cause of maternal and infant mortality and general morbidity and ill health in a community.
Highlights of the NFHS 5 Part-II
(a) Fertility Rate
- Only five states — Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26), and Manipur (2.17) — have fertility rates above the replacement threshold of 2.1.
(b) Institutional Births
- Institutional births grew from 79 percent to 89 percent in India, with 87 percent of births in rural regions and 94 percent in urban areas being delivered in institutions.
- According to the NFHS-5, more than three-quarters (77%) of children aged 12 to 23 months were fully immunised, compared to 62% in the NFHS-4.
- Stunting among children under the age of five has decreased slightly throughout the country over the last four years, from 38 percent to 36 percent.
- In 2019-21, stunting is higher among children in rural regions (37 percent) than urban areas (30 percent).
c) Making decisions
- Married women’s participation in three home decisions (regarding her own health care, important household purchases, and visits to her family or relatives) is high, ranging from 80 percent in Ladakh to 99 percent in Nagaland and Mizoram.
- The disparities between rural (77%) and urban (81%) areas are determined to be minor.
- In the last four years, the percentage of women with a bank or savings account has risen from 53% to 79 percent.
d) Obesity
- In most States/UTs, the prevalence of overweight or obesity has grown in NFHS-5 compared to NFHS-4. It grew from 21% to 24% among women and 19% to 23% among men at the national level.
- Over a third of women in Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Manipur, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Lakshadweep (34-46%) are overweight or obese.
Purchasing Managers Index
Context:
According to the S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), new orders and output in India’s manufacturing sector increased slightly in April 2022, rising to 54.7 from 54 in March 2022.
Relevance:
GS-III: Indian Economy (Growth and Development of Indian Economy, Mobilization of Resources)
Dimensions of the Article:
- What is Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)?
- Understanding PMI
Key Highlights of the Index
- New export orders rebounded in April after contracting for the first time in nine months in March.
- In economics, contraction refers to a period in the business cycle when the economy is contracting.
- Inflationary pressures grew, owing to increased commodity prices, the Russia-Ukraine war, and higher transportation costs, as the business cycle peaks but before it troughs.
- Input costs rose at their quickest rate in five months, while output charge inflation soared to a 12-month high. Energy price volatility, global input shortages, and the conflict in Ukraine all contributed to an increase in inflationary pressures, according to the latest statistics.
- In April 2022, there was just a minor growth in employment.
What is Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)?
- The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is an index of the prevailing direction of economic trends in the manufacturing and service sectors.
- It consists of a diffusion index that summarizes whether market conditions, as viewed by purchasing managers, are expanding, staying the same, or contracting.
- The purpose of the PMI is to provide information about current and future business conditions to company decision makers, analysts, and investors.
- In simple words, Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) is a measure of the prevailing direction of economic trends in manufacturing.
- PMI is a survey-based measure that asks the respondents about changes in their perception about key business variables as compared with the previous month.
- The purpose of the PMI is to provide information about current and future business conditions to company decision makers, analysts, and investors.
- It is calculated separately for the manufacturing and services sectors and then a composite index is also constructed.
- PMI is compiled by IHS Markit for more than 40 economies worldwide – IHS Markit is a global leader in information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide.
Understanding PMI
- The PMI is a number from 0 to 100.
- A print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.
- A reading at 50 indicates no change.
- If PMI of the previous month is higher than the PMI of the current month, it represents that the economy is contracting.
- It is usually released at the start of every month. It is, therefore, considered a good leading indicator of economic activity.
- It is different from the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which also gauges the level of activity in the economy.
- IIP covers the broader industrial sector compared to PMI.
- However, PMI is more dynamic compared to a standard industrial production index.
Direct Seeding of Rice
Context:
The Punjab government recently announced Rs 1,500 incentive per acre for farmers opting for Direct Seeding of Rice (DSR), which is known for saving water.
Relevance:
GS III- Agriculture
Dimensions of the Article:
- What is DSR?
- How much water can DSR help save?
- Advantages of DSR tech
- Disadvantages of DSR tech
What is DSR?
Direct Seeding of Rice (DRS):
- In DSR, a tractor-powered machine drills the pre-germinated seeds straight into the field.
- This procedure does not require nursery preparation or transplantation.
- Farmers only need to level their soil and apply pre-sowing irrigation once.
Normal Paddy Transplanting:
- Farmers create nurseries where paddy seeds are first sowed and nurtured into young plants before transplanting paddy.
- The nursery seed bed takes up 5-10% of the transplanted area.
- These seedlings are then pulled and transplanted on the puddled land 25-35 days later.
How much water can DSR help save?
- According to an analysis by the Punjab Agriculture University, DSR technique can help save 15% to 20% water. In some cases, water saving can reach 22% to 23%.
- With DSR,15-18 irrigation rounds are required against 25 to 27 irrigation rounds in traditional method.
- Since area under rice in Punjab is almost stagnant around 3 million hectares for the last three to four years, DSR can save 810 to 1,080 billion litres water every year if entire rice crop is brought under the technique.
Advantages of DSR tech:
- Solve labour shortage problem: Like the traditional method it does not require a paddy nursery and transplantion of 30 days old paddy nursery into the main puddled field. With DSR, paddy seeds are sown directly with machine.
- Offers avenues for ground water recharge: It prevent the development of hard crust just beneath the plough layer due to puddled transplanting and it matures 7-10 days earlier than puddle transplanted crop, therefore giving more time for management of paddy straw.
- Higher yield: A PAU study said that results from research trials and farmers’ field survey have also indicated that yield, after DSR, are one to two quintals per acre higher than puddled transplanted rice.
Disadvantages of DSR tech:
- Suitability: This is the most significant element since farmers must not seed it in light textured soils because this approach is only suitable for medium to heavy textured soils such as sandy loam, loam, clay loam, and silt loam, which make up around 80% of the state’s land.
- Avoid using this approach in fields that were previously planted with crops other than rice (such as cotton, maize, or sugarcane), as DSR on these soils is more likely to suffer from iron deficiency and weed problems.
- Compulsory Laser and Leveling: The field should be levelled with a laser.
- Herbicide Spraying: Herbicide spraying must be done at the same time as sowing and the initial irrigation.
ISRO’s Goal For Venus Mission
Context:
India’s Venus mission has been conceived. The project report for ‘Shukrayaan-I’ – the name given to ISRO’s Venus mission, is ready and the budget has also been identified for it.
Relevance:
GS-III: Science and Technology (Space Technology and advancements in Space Technology)
Dimensions of the Article:
- About Venus
- Observations and explorations of Venus
- About Shukrayaan- I
About Venus
- Venus is the second planet from the Sun and as the brightest natural object in Earth’s night sky after the Moon, Venus can cast shadows and can be, on rare occasions, visible to the naked eye in broad daylight.
- In Venus, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, because it rotates in the opposite direction (East to West/Clockwise) to all but Uranus.
- It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide. Because of this, the greenhouse effect on Venus is so strong that even though Mercury is closer to the Sun, Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the Solar System.
- The atmospheric pressure at the planet’s surface is about 92 times the sea level pressure of Earth.
- Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light.
- The water has probably photo dissociated, and the free hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field.
- As one of the brightest objects in the sky, Venus has been a major fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed.
Observations and explorations of Venus
- Due to its proximity to Earth, Venus has been a prime target for early interplanetary exploration.
- It was the first planet beyond Earth visited by a spacecraft (Mariner 2 in 1962), and the first to be successfully landed on (by Venera 7 in 1970).
- Venus’s thick clouds render observation of its surface impossible in visible light, and the first detailed maps did not emerge until the arrival of the Magellan orbiter in 1991.
- Plans have been proposed for rovers or more complex missions, but they are hindered by Venus’s hostile surface conditions.
- Observations of the planet Venus include those in antiquity, telescopic observations, and from visiting spacecraft. Spacecraft have performed various flybys, orbits, and landings on Venus, including balloon probes that floated in the atmosphere of Venus.
- After the Moon, Venus was the second object in the Solar System to be explored by radar from the Earth.
- Ten Soviet probes have achieved a soft landing on the surface, with up to 110 minutes of communication from the surface, all without return.
- U.S.’s missions to Venus: Mariner series 1962-1974, Pioneer Venus 1 and Pioneer Venus 2 in 1978, Magellan in 1989.
- Russia’s mission to Venus: Venera series of space crafts 1967-1983, Vegas 1 and 2 in 1985.
- Japan’s Akatsuki was launched in 2010, however, the orbital insertion maneuver failed and the spacecraft was left in heliocentric orbit.
- Venus Express was a mission by the European Space Agency to study the atmosphere and surface characteristics of Venus from orbit.
Significance of Exploring Venus
- It will help to learn how Earth-like planets evolve and what conditions exist on Earth-sized exoplanets (planets that orbit a star other than our sun).
- It will help in modelling Earth’s climate, and serves as a cautionary tale on how dramatically a planet’s climate can change.
What does the Shukrayaan-I Mission entail?
- After dispatching similar missions to the Moon and Mars, Shukrayaan will be India’s first orbiter mission to Venus.
- The mission’s goal is to investigate the surface of our solar system’s hottest planet and decipher the mysteries hidden beneath the Sulphuric Acid clouds that surround it.
- The orbiter is the third mission to Venus, following NASA’s announcement of two probes and the European Space Agency’s announcement of a spacecraft.
- The probes will travel the globe in search of clues to the destructive past of Earth’s strange twin, which scientists believe previously had massive water reserves similar to our own.
- The ISRO plans to launch in December 2024, with orbital manoeuvres scheduled for the following year.
- When the earth and Venus are perfectly aligned, the spaceship can be placed in the orbit of the neighbouring planet with the least quantity of propellant.
Objectives
- Investigation of the surface processes and shallow sub-surface stratigraphy, including active volcanic hotspots and lava flows
- Studying the structure, composition, and dynamics of the atmosphere
- Investigation of solar wind interaction with the Venusian Ionosphere
