World Health Organisation (WHO) has appreciated India’s Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Scheme saying that the availability of clean household energy affects us all and our families and is a key to sustainable development. 

In the last two years 37 million women living below the poverty line were provided free LPG connections to support them to switch to clean household energy use. The country targets to reach 80 million households by 2020.

The WHO has called upon Member countries in its South-East Asia Region to aggressively address the double burden of household and ambient air pollution. The Region accounts for 34% or 2.4 million of the 7 million premature deaths caused by household and ambient air pollution together globally every year.
 
Of the 3.8 million deaths caused by household air pollution globally, the Region accounts for 1.5 million or 40% deaths, and of the 4.2 million global deaths due to ambient (outdoor) air pollution, 1.3 million or 30% are reported from the Region, as per the latest WHO report. 

The All countries in the Region are making efforts to expand availability of clean fuels and technologies, however, over 60% population do not have clean fuel.

The combined effects of household air pollution and ambient air pollution become increasingly hard to address if not tackled early.  The majority of countries in the Region are at early stages of accelerated urbanization and rapid industrialization. Hence, air pollution needs to be brought under control with urgent and effective action at the earliest to stand the best chance to prevent the situation from worsening as development proceeds.

“Though there is progress in the Region as most countries have national action plans for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, which incorporate measures to address household air pollution, and more and more cities are now measuring air quality,  we need to do much more, and with an urgent and aggressive approach,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia.
 
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of deaths globally and in the Region, and air pollution contributes significantly to NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and lung cancer.  Cleaning up the air we breathe will help prevent NCDs, particularly among women and vulnerable groups such as children, those already ill and the elderly.

A range of solutions exist. Governments need to invest in effective urban planning with energy-efficient housing and power generation; build safe and affordable public transport systems; improve industry and municipal waste management; eliminate emissions from coal and biomass energy systems; properly manage agricultural waste, forest fires and agro-forestry activities such as charcoal production; and support the transition to exclusive use of clean household energy for cooking, heating and lighting.

Individuals should also contribute by valuing the environment and adopting behavioral changes such as using public transport or ‘soot-free’ vehicles; using clean, low-or no-emission stoves and fuels for cooking; using clean household energies and technologies; and reducing and disposing of household waste in an environmentally sound manner.

The Union Cabinet has approved the mutual recognition agreement (MRA) between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).

Approval of the Cabinet has been granted in respect of Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) between ICAI and SAICA to establish a mutual co-operation framework for the advancement of accounting knowledge, professional and intellectual development, advancing the interests of their respective members and positively contributing to the development of the accounting profession in South Africa and India. 

The ICAI is the second largest professional body of Chartered Accountants in the world, with a strong tradition of service to the Indian economy in public interest. 

The Agreement will facilitate recognition of Indian Accountancy Professionals with local Accountancy qualification in addition to existing ICAI qualification, which will increase their professional avenues in South African markets. Foster strong working relations between the two accounting institutes. Increase mobility of professionals at either end and would herald a new dimension for small and medium businesses in both countries.

MRAs pave the way for recognition of the professional bodies of one country by the other. Regulatory bodies of various professional services like engineering, accountancy and architecture are encouraged to enter into these pacts.

These agreements are part of free trade pacts that India has signed with several regions, including Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Asean.

Strategically it is very important for the ICAI to maintain a close relationship with SAICA will significantly help the Institute to further the interests of its members and strengthen the ICAI brand in the region. The relationship developed over the past few years is strategic in nature and of Mutual benefit. The MRA is likely to lead to greater employment opportunities for the Indian Chartered Accountants in the region and also lead to greater remittances from them to India.

ICAI is a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament of India, The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949′, to regulate the profession of Chartered Accountancy in India. SAICA is the foremost accountancy body in South Africa and one of the leading Institutes in the world. 

In general, a skilled professional from sectors, including medical and accountancy, can currently get a job in other country but signing of such agreements make it more easier to find employment.

National Capital Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Parliamentary constituency Varanasi are among the most polluted cities that figure in the list of 20 most polluted cities in the world.

The listing has been done in terms of PM2.5 levels in 2016, data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has shown. The WHO data also said that nine out of 10 people in the world breathe air containing high levels of pollutants. Other Indian cities that registered very high levels of PM2.5 pollutants were Kanpur, Faridabad, Gaya, Patna, Agra, Muzaffarpur, Srinagar, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Patiala and Jodhpur.

Other highly polluted cities include Ali Subah Al-Salem in Kuwait and some cities in China and Mongolia.

In terms of PM10 levels, 13 cities in India figured among the 20 most-polluted cities of the world in 2016. WHO has called upon member-countries in its Southeast Asia Region to aggressively address the double burden of household and ambient (outdoor) air pollution, saying the region, which comprises India, accounts for 34 pc or 2.4 million of the seven million premature deaths caused by household and ambient air pollution together globally every year.

Of the 3.8 million deaths caused by household air pollution globally, the region accounts for 1.5 million or 40% deaths, and of the 4.2 million global deaths due to ambient air pollution, 1.3 million or 30% are reported from the region, it said. The PM2.5 includes pollutants like sulfate, nitrate and black carbon, which pose the greatest risk to human health.

WHO’s global urban air pollution database measured the levels of fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) from more than 4,300 cities in 108 countries, according to which ambient air pollution alone caused some 4.2 million deaths in 2016, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused an estimated 3.8 million deaths in the same period.

Since 2016, over 1,000 additional cities have been added to WHO’s database, which shows more countries are measuring and taking action to reduce air pollution than ever before. “WHO estimates that around 7 million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system, causing diseases including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia,” the report said.

More than 90% of air pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (including India), mainly in Asia and Africa, followed by low- and middle-income countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region, Europe and the Americas, the report said.

“Around 3 billion people—more than 40% of the world’s population—still do not have access to clean cooking fuels and technologies in their homes, the main source of household air pollution,” it said.

It said the WHO recognises air pollution is a critical risk factor for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), causing an estimated 24% of all adult deaths from heart disease, 25% from stroke, 43% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 29% from lung cancer.

“Air pollution threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalised people bear the brunt of the burden. It is unacceptable that over 3 billion people—most of them women and children—are still breathing deadly smoke every day from using polluting stoves and fuels in their homes,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO.

Major sources of air pollution from particulate matter include inefficient use of energy by households, industry, agriculture and transport sectors, and coal-fired power plants. In some regions, sand and desert dust, waste burning and deforestation are additional sources of air pollution.

For a very long time now, the social sector has been ably represented and identified by this all-encompassing term – NGO. It represents not just an organisational form, but the sum of all the work, ideas, cultures, mindsets and even lifestyles of an entire sector and its people. The kurta pyjama (or jeans & dhoti), sandal wearing NGO professional with a jhola/bag on their arm is the first image that emerges in many people’s minds when they hear this word.

However, over the last five to eight years, the sector has evolved at a rapid pace. While NGOs still represent an overwhelming majority of the work and people in this space, the sector is now much more diverse in terms of opportunities and thereby more open to accepting and providing these opportunities to people from different backgrounds, with different hopes, aspirations, skillsets and visions of change. The simplistic answer to the question “How do I work in the Development Sector?” is no longer “Join an NGO”. This question deserves a little more thought and careful analysis to find your sweet spot in this sector.

Unlike any other sector where tech innovation and automation is replacing man with machines, Development sector demands for a huge manpower along with a large brigade of professional leaders and managers so as to tackle development challenges and prevailing issues in the society. Today social sector is offering immense opportunities for young minds and professionals to build a meaningful career. It is gradually emerging as an exciting career which nurtures creative thinking, courageous action, collaboration and personal satisfaction at a large extent. One should follow a particular line of thinking and these four smart tips while making the decision to work in the development sector.

1. How Much Time Do You Have?

Almost everyone wants to help improve people’s lives and contribute in some way or the other. The easiest way to do that is through charity – which is also the least involved decision. Using time as a parameter for analysis, one can move from a zero-time contribution model (pure charity) to a small time commitment (volunteering), to a higher time commitment (part-time) to the highest time commitment (full-time). Your passion for social change combined with the realities and compulsions of your life will decide which of these options you take up at any point in your life. Some always remain at the charity level while others spend their whole life working full time in this space. You may also shift in and out of these phases.

2. What Issue (s) Are You Concerned About?

The UN has designated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) which define the development agenda over the next 15 years for the world. Which goal(s) one chooses to work with will be determined by a combination of an emotional (what tugs at your heart? What bothers you the most?) and a cognitive (based on numbers, statistics, world realities, theory of change) decision-making process. Given the technical nature of each of these areas, it’s important to get an in depth understanding of some of them and combine that with an ability to view things systemically and design holistic change interventions.

3. What Kind Of Organization Works For You?

NGO: Even NGOs are not all homogenous, they can be categorised based on many different factors – geography (local, regional, national, international), theme (education, health, livelihood etc.), strategic orientation (rights-based, service delivery, advocacy etc). Each such category represents different kinds of work (working on the ground with communities versus coordinating with a group of implementing NGOs), requires different kinds of talent and has very different compensation levels.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Organisations: With India CSR budgets ranging from Rs. 15-20K Crore, they increasingly need people who understand field level realities and have the ability and the mindset to work in a corporate setting with the challenge of managing and internal stakeholders.

Social and Corporate Foundations: Typically, large organisations which either act as a source/funnel of funds or have their own funding and implementation teams, require the ability to identify and work with partner organisations to help deliver on the project mandate and budget.

Social Enterprises: Largely for-profit entities with a strong social mission. For example, microfinance, micro insurance, affordable schools etc. require people who have the ability to balance social and commercial goals.

Support Organisations: Includes a range of organisations like social consulting organisations, social investment bankers, social recruitment platforms/portals etc.

Think Tanks: Typically, these create and disseminate knowledge – conduct relevant research, publish papers etc.

4. What Kind Of Work Are You Really Good At?

Choosing the kind of work that one wants to do is one of the most important decisions to make. It should typically arise from what you really enjoy doing and where your actual skillsets lie. Some potential work areas are:

Research & Knowledge Creation: If you have an academic bent of mind and enjoy teaching and/or research (knowledge creation and dissemination), the sector now has lots of opportunities for your skillset. Like any other space, this sector continuously needs to refresh its knowledge base and develop and disseminate new theories and ways of working.

Social Work: If you are basically a technical person, enjoy delving into the meat of social issues to understand the reasons behind them, and love working at the grassroots level with communities to ideate and implement solutions, then training to become a Social Worker, with perhaps a deeper understanding of some of the sub-sectors (education, health, etc.), is a great idea for you.

Development Management: If you are excited about the idea of building world class social organisations, and you want to design, implement, evaluate and monitor large-scale social interventions and develop collaborative ecosystems which can together deliver sustainable social change at scale, then you should go down the path of Development Leadership and Management. This would include areas of work like Organization strategy, People Management, Communication and Engagement, Financial Management, Organization Design & Development, Program Design and Management, CSR Management, Fund Raising, Partnerships & Stakeholder Engagement etc.

Consulting/Investment Banking: If you like looking at the broader picture and not getting into actual operational roles (on the ground or the organization level), or if working on a variety of different problems gives you satisfaction (width versus depth), then social consulting roles could be for you. If a preference for number crunching, developing effective storyline presentations, and engaging with donors and investors sounds like your thing, then social investment banks might be a good fit for you.

However, focusing on some of these questions without getting stuck on them will potentially help you understand yourself, your aspirations, and your skillsets better – and thereby help in making a more informed choice about where you want to work.

While part of this thinking can be done individually, supplementing it with a lot of secondary research, this process should involve a lot of discussions and deliberations with people doing work in your area of interest and if possible, actual internship/volunteering stints in particular areas. This will introduce the realities and flavours of real life to your thinking and give it the depth required to make better and more appropriate decisions.

(The Author Gaurav Shah is Founder and Director, Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), Noida)

Indian Institute of Roorkee has developed a Mobile App that can remotely monitor patients at risk of heart failure and provide them with medical assistance. It can automatically send notification to both the doctor and the patient, in case of any drastic changes in patient’s data indicating a possibility of imminent heart failure.

The application has been developed by the Computational Biology group, led by Dr. Deepak Sharma, Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology. 

Named ‘Dhadkan’, this Mobile App will be of tremendous benefit to India which has about 10 million patients at risk of heart failure. The App is available for free and no charges are involved to avail the benefits of this App. About one-third of the admitted patients are likely to get re-admitted or die in the next 3-6 months. The mobile app has been designed to be ‘easy-to-use’ so that people in rural areas can also benefit, a statement issued by IIT Roorkee has said.

The Dhadkan Mobile App was developed in collaboration with Prof. Sandeep Seth and Mr. Gopichandran from All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

Commenting on the significance of this Project, Dr. Deepak Sharma said, Â“This Mobile App will help in saving the precious lives of heart failure patients. Dhadkan App will be of immense help to patients who live in distant areas and cannot come at regular intervals to tertiary care hospitals.”

Explaining how the App works, he said that it collects patient’s data (at any desired interval) on blood pressure, heart rate, and weight, and transmits it to the authorized caregiver (a doctor, nurse or paramedic) who is linked to the patient during the initial registration.

It also provides for two-way communication between doctors and patients. In addition, patients have the freedom to send ECG report(s) to the doctor (if needed). The App not only eliminates the need for manual monitoring of each patient by the doctor but also helps them in proactively recommending precautionary action during the treatment period.

The App will be used for conducting a randomized control trial on 100 heart failure patients at AIIMS to validate its utility and to suggest any new/useful feature(s) that can be incorporated. Mr. Somesh Chaturvedi (B.Tech Biotechnology 4th year student) and Ms. Shreya Srivastava (PhD Biotechnology 1st year student), in the Computational Biology Laboratory, have developed and designed the App in such a way that it can be easily used by rural people as well.

It will also help in the surveillance of incidence, prevalence and outcomes of heart failure in India. Dhadkan App is freely available on Google Play Store for the use of doctors and patients.

NEW DELHI : Telecom Commission has approved almost all the TRAI’s Recommendation on In-flight Connectivity in its meeting on 1st May 2018. With this, the airlines and the TSPs can offer voice and data services in India Airspace once an aircraft reaches an altitude of 3000 metres. It is expected that it will take 3 to 4 months to operationalise the service.

Suresh Prabhu, Minister for Civil Aviation has welcomed the Telecom Commission’s approval for offering in-flight connectivity within Indian airspace. He said that the decision would enable flyers to avail data and voice services during flights over Indian airspace and the government will now work towards creating the license framework for a special category of service providers called ‘In-flight connectivity provider.

He said that these developments mean that airlines are now equipped to bring dramatic, yet cost effective, enhancements to the passenger experience –with passengers ordering products from their phones and tablets and arranging to have them delivered to their homes, or the hotel on arrival at their destination. He said that connectivity to the ground means cabin crews can help passengers to change their onward transit plans to accommodate for changes to their flight, while they are still in the air.

In line with earlier decision of Committee of Secretaries, In-Flight voice and data services shall be provided through Indian Satellites or through satellites approved by Department of Space for communication purposes, with gateways in India.

A separate category of licensee called In-Flight Connectivity Provider shall be created with a token license fee of Re. 1. Such facility of voice and data connectivity shall also be extended to ships and other moving vehicles (Earth Stations in Motion).

Vaccines keep children alive and healthy by protecting them against disease. Yet in 2016, an estimated 1.4 million children under five died from vaccine-preventable diseases. Approximately one-fourth of deaths among children under 5 were from¬ pneumonia, diarrhoea and measles, and could have been mostly prevented by vaccines. Globally 1 in 7 children – over 19 million – missed out on routine vaccines, including 13 million who have never been vaccinated, putting them and their communities at risk of disease and death. Low immunization coverage compromises gains in all other areas of health for mothers and children. The poorest, most vulnerable children who need immunization the most continue to be the least likely to get it.

UNICEF and its partners are working to ensure that the lives of all children are protected. But, if vaccination is not prioritized, some of the most marginalized children will miss out on their right to benefit from immunization, which could mean the difference between life and death.

Despite these challenges, vaccines are protecting more children than ever before. Behind their phenomenal success lies the hard work of health workers who go from village-to-village to vaccinate children, even though they encounter fear and suspicion. 
 
“Last year, it is estimated that vaccines saved the lives of as many as 3 million children. That’s 3 million future doctors, teachers, artists, community leaders, mothers and fathers alive today thanks to millions of frontline health workers who walk for hundreds of miles to remote locations, through jungles and across seas to reach every child,” said Robin Nandy, UNICEF’s Chief of Immunization. “We continue to work with governments on the ground, including in places affected by conflict, in support of these unsung heroes who take on this extremely dangerous work to save lives.”

Twelve key facts on vaccines today

1. Two-thirds of unvaccinated children live in fragile countries or those affected by conflict. Between 2010 and 2016, Syria saw the sharpest decline in vaccinated children, with coverage* falling by 38 percentage points over this period. Second is Ukraine where coverage decreased by 33 percentage points. 

2. A number of countries have seen a significant increase in the number of vaccinated children since 2010, driving most of the gains in immunization coverage this decade, including India, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, Philippines, Mexico, United Republic of Tanzania, Vietnam, Turkey and Sudan. In India, the number of unvaccinated children** reduced by 45 per cent, from 5.3 million in 2010 to 2.9 million in 2016.

3. As of 2016, six countries accounted for half of the world’s unimmunized children*: Nigeria (18%); India (15%); Pakistan (7%); Indonesia (5%); Ethiopia (4%); and Democratic Republic of the Congo (3%). 

4. The top 10 countries where vaccination coverage*, in percentage points, has increased between 2010 and 2016 are Palau (29%), Malta (21%), Democratic Republic of the Congo (19%), Comoros (17%), Azerbaijan (16%), Ethiopia (16%), Timor-Leste (13%), Barbados (11%), Costa Rica (9%) and India (9%).

5. In 2017, Yemen witnessed one of the worst cholera epidemics on record with over a million suspected cases, almost 29 per cent of them among are children under five. Around 5.2 million people received two doses of the oral cholera vaccine in South Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Philippines, Nigeria, Chad, Haiti, Cameroon, Zambia and Bangladesh during cholera outbreaks or as part of preventive campaigns.

6. Diphtheria, a disease that is only rarely seen thanks to immunization, is making a come-back. In response to an outbreak among Rohingya refugees – in which three out of four people affected were children – UNICEF supported several large vaccination campaigns in southern Bangladesh, reaching close to half a million children.

7. In 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio a year. Since then, over 2.5 billion children have been vaccinated against the disease. Today, the world is closer than ever to eradicating polio, with only 22 cases in two countries last year. More than 400 million children will be vaccinated this year.

8. The lives of an estimated 20 million children have been saved through measles immunization between 2000 and 2016.

9. A billion people will be vaccinated against Yellow fever in Africa by 2026 – almost half of them children under 15 years of age. Since 2001, the 

production of the yellow fever vaccine has quadrupled from 20 million to 80 million doses annually, and is expected to increase in the coming years.

10. As of 2016, an estimated 86 per cent of children less than one year of age were fully vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, compared to 52 per cent some 30 years ago.

11. In 2017, UNICEF procured 2.4 billion vaccine doses worth $1.3 billion, reaching 45 per cent of the world’s children.

12. Thanks to vaccines, maternal and neonatal tetanus, which is extremely deadly amongst newborns, has been eliminated in all but 15 countries. Ethiopia, Haiti and Philippines eliminated the disease in 2017. 

The Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Daredevils will come up against each other for the first time in Match 30 of VIVO IPL 2018. 

Chennai Super Kings have been a dominating team in 2018 Indian Premier League. They have a chance to move to the top of the points table IPL 2018 on Monday with a win over Delhi Daredevils in Pune. CSK will host DD at the their new home ground and will look to return to winning ways after suffering a loss in the previous game against Mumbai Indians at the same ground. Ricky Ponting-coached Delhi, now at the bottom of the table with just two wins out of seven games, however need to continue their winning spree to keep themselves in the hunt for the play-offs. CSK, on the other hand, are still on top on the points table but their confidence suffered a blow last night against another struggling outfit in defending champions Mumbai Indians.. After initially lacking the fighting spirit, Delhi gave a strong performance under new captain Shreyas Iyer and beat Kolkata Knight Riders. Catch IPL 2018 Live Score CSK vs DD from Pune.

Delhi Daredevils have a new captain in Shreyas Iyer after Gautam Gambhir resigned midway due to the bad performance of the team. Delhi showed fire in them against Kolkata. But, CSK is a completely different team with MS Dhoni as the captain. 

CSK sit in the top half of the standings with five wins and two losses. In their most recent outing – on Saturday night, they lost a close one to the Mumbai Indians. Batting first, CSK posted 169-5, which MI chased down in the last over. The CSK innings did not have the momentum that one usually expects to see in a 20-over contest; the start was slow, and there were periods of quiet in the middle of the innings too. In his chat at the post-match presentation, the CSK captain MS Dhoni admitted that his team were about 15-20 runs short, and that cost them the match. CSK will take confidence from the fact that they could still compete, even after losing one of their frontline bowlers (Deepak Chahar). CSK will be mindful that if only they had executed the one percenters better, the outcome of the game could have been different. 

The Delhi Daredevils were the first team to hit the reset button midway through the season. After Gautam Gambhir decided to step down and Shreyas Iyer was given the commands of the team, the results showed instantly. In their previous match – Shreyas’ first as captain – DD posted the highest total of the season and then applied the squeeze on the visiting Kolkata Knight Riders to win by 55 runs. That win lifted the Daredevils from the bottom of the table, and they will be keen to build on that momentum and string together a series of wins. 

Teams:

Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (C), Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Faf Du Plessis, Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Deepak Chahar, K M Asif, Kanish Seth, Lungi Ngidi, Dhruv Shorey, Murali Vijay, Sam Billings, Mark Wood, Kshtiz Sharma, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Imran Tahir, Karn Sharma, Shardul Thakur, N Jagadeesan, David Willy.

Delhi Daredevils: Shreyas Iyer (C), Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Mohammed Shami, Amit Mishra, Prithvi Shaw, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Daniel Christian, Jayant Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Trent Boult, Manjot Kalra, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Lamichhane, Naman Ojha, Sayan Ghosh, Liam Plunkett, Junior Dala.

More than 61 per cent of the world’s employed population – two billion people – earn their livelihoods in the informal sector, the United Nations labour agency said on Monday, stressing that a transition to the formal economy is critical to ensure rights’ protection and decent working conditions.

“The high incidence of informality in all its forms has multiple adverse consequences for workers, enterprises and societies and is a major challenge for the realization of decent work for all,” said Rafael Diez de Medina, the Director of Department of Statistics at the UN International Labour Organization (ILO).

The findings are revealed in ILO’s latest report, Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture. The study also provides comparable estimates on the size of the informal economy and a statistical profile of the sector, using criteria from more than 100 countries.

“Having managed to measure this important dimension, now included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators framework, this can be seen as an excellent step towards acting on it, particularly thanks to more available comparable data from countries,” added Mr. Diez de Medina.

The geographic distribution of employment in the informal sector presents a striking picture.

In Africa, 85.8 per cent of employment is informal. The proportion is 68.2 per cent in Asia and the Pacific, 68.6 per cent in the Arab States, 40 per cent in the Americas, and just over 25 per cent in Europe and Central Asia.

In all, 93 per cent of the world’s informal employment is in emerging and developing countries.

The report also found that informal employment is a greater source of employment for men (63 per cent) than for women (58.1 per cent).

“Out of the two billion workers in informal employment worldwide, just over 740 million are women,” said ILO, noting that they are mostly in informal employment in most low- and lower-middle income countries and are more often found to be the most vulnerable.

Factors affecting level of informality

Education is a major factor affecting the level of informality, the study has shown, noting that as the level of education increases, the level of informality decreases.

“People who have completed secondary and tertiary education are less likely to be in informal employment compared to workers who have either no education or completed primary education,” said ILO.

In addition, people living in rural areas are almost twice as likely to be in informal employment as those in urban areas, it added.

According to Florence Bonnet, one of the authors of the report, data on these issues are crucial to design effective policies.

“For hundreds of millions of workers, informality means a lack of social protection, rights at work and decent working conditions, and for enterprises it means low productivity and lack of access to finance,” she said.

New Delhi : The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) in association with Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) has launched the Swachh Bharat Summer Internship – a novel and first of its kind initiative.

The internship period begins from tomorrow, May 1, 2018 and ends on July 31, 2018. The programme aims to engage millions of youngsters across the country, toencourage them to contribute to the Swachh Bharat Mission as a mass movement.

The Prime Minister in his address, Mann Ki Baat, had called upon the youth to avail the benefits of the Internship and take forward the cleanliness movement.

Students can sign up for the Swachh Bharat Summer Internship by logging on to the portal www.sbsi.mygov.in which has already gone live. Besides students from college and Universities, youth from NYKS can also register for the internship.  Nodal officers at college level will coordinate the implementation of the internship.

Under the internship, all interns who complete at least 100 hours of sanitation related work in villages would be given a Swachh Bharat certificate. Those who complete the internship with additional, specified outputs would also gain 2 curriculum credits specially allowed by UGC. Additionally, top performers would receive awards at the College and University / District (NYKS), State and National Level.

The HRD Ministry has already issued relevant instructions to college and University levels. States have been asked to facilitate the students as they fan out to villages to take up various Swachhata activities including shramdan and awareness campaigns during the internship. The period for taking up the internship has been kept as a minimum of 100 hours any time from May 1. 2018 to July 31, 2018. The last date for registration is May 15.