Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfarelaunched an interactive first-of-its-kind game on COVID-19, The Corona Fighters (www.thecoronafighters.in), and two new videos urging adherence to key COVID Appropriate Behaviours, here today, in the presence of Sh. Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare.

Expressing his pleasure at the launch of theuniquely designed game, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that the game “presents a new and extremely creative way to teach people the right tools and behaviours to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.” He stated that the game was designed to “influence the players’ actions in the real world, reminding them to take the right precautions and escape infection.”He further added that this along with two promotional videos “is a simply designed and enjoyable medium to get a serious message across to the wider public.”

Dr Harsh Vardhan also recollected his experience with the Polio Abhiyaan which was transformed into a social movement through Jan Bhagidari (people’s participation) and support and contribution of many film industry professionals.He said, “The Pulse Polio programme,through its targeted and engaging IEC and outreach campaigns, encouraged the last mile mothers to get their children immunized. The same effort can contain COVID by publicizing COVID appropriate behaviour through caller tunes and other mediums throughout the lockdown and thereafter during the phases of unlocking.” Till we get a vaccine for fighting COVID-19, the COVID appropriate behaviours will serve as a potent social vaccine and keep us protected and safe, he stated.

Congratulating the makers of the game and promotional videos, Shri Ashwini K. Choubey said, “Communication is the key in today’s world. It has played a great part in the fight against COVID during the lockdown when the trajectory of the disease and its containment strategy could be effectively communicated to the last man.” The IEC videos and game launched today  will influence children, and through them the elders in the community, and spread the message and importance of COVID appropriate behaviour,” he added.

Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, Shri Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Parmeswaran Iyer, Secretary, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitationin, and senior officials of the Health Ministry were also present at the occasion.

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, who is himself a known Diabetologist and medical professional, released a book on Cancer edited by noted Oncologist and Padma Shree recipient, Dr Ashok K. Vaid DM (Oncology) in a special session organized exclusively for the ceremony during the 3 -day virtual conference on Oncology beginning here from today.

Referring to the changing spectrum of disease in India, Dr Jitendra Singh said, over the last two decades there had been a significant shift from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases with an upsurge in disorders like Diabetes Mellitus, hypertension, Coronary Heart Disease and Cancer. Meanwhile, he said, we were suddenly taken over by COVID pandemic which has also proved to be more virulent for susceptible individuals suffering from these comorbidities and diseases.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, the prevalence of Cancer has rapidly increased across the country and has begun to affect different organs. For example, while in Jammu & Kashmir, particularly in the Valley, Gastrointestinal and Lung Cancers are more prevalent, in the North Eastern Region Cancers of head and neck take the highest toll.

Hailing the National Digital Health Mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Independence Day, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this is going to provide a unique health identity to every Indian citizen in order to facilitate seamless flow of information and updated healthcare. This, he said, along with Ayushman Bharat and ban on e-cigarette, have been among the major health related initiatives of the Modi government.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has congratulated cities which have secured top positions in Swachh Survekshan-2020.

The Prime Minister said, “Congratulations to all those cities who have secured top positions in Swachh Survekshan-2020. May other cities also be inspired to further ramp up their efforts towards ensuring cleanliness. Such competitive spirit strengthens the Swachh Bharat Mission and benefits millions.”

Shri Deepak Khandekar, Secretary Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Shri N.N. Sinha,Secretary,Ministry of Rural Developmentsigned a Joint Communication on 18.08.2020 for leveraging each other’s strengths to propel the rural economy and jointly promote sustainable livelihood opportunities among tribal women Self  Help Groups (SHGs) under National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).  The occasion was graced by Shri Arjun Munda, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs (MoTA), Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Rural Development (MoRD), Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries (MoFPI),  Smt. Renuka Singh Saruta, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs (MoTA), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State for Rural Development (MoRD) and several senior officers.

The features of joint communication are as under:

The DeendayalAntyodayaYojana- National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development has built an extensive network of women-led Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in India, including 8.9 lakh ST SHGs. The programme provides institutionalsupports, livelihood services, access to credit and market through its SHGs. Similarly, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs provides grants to the States based on prefixed criteria through a number of initiatives such as Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub-Schemes (SCA to TSS), Grant-in-Aid under Proviso to Article 275 (1) of Constitution of Indiatothe States having notified STs, Development ofParticularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) to the States / UTshaving notified PVTGs etc.

Since the initiatives of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and objectives of DAY-NRLM deeply complement each other, the Ministries have decided to come together to improve the economic opportunities available to tribal women. To take this convergence initiativeforward, the series of activities will be carried out by both theMinistries to synergize the efforts to fetch tangibleresults.

Activities by Ministry of Rural Development will include: identification and mapping of tribal women SHG members and their individual livelihood assets; mapping of common tribal community assets; development of comprehensive proposal for the economic development of PVTGs through the strengthening of their traditional livelihood and  occupations; convergence of GPDPs and CCD plan of OVTG habitations; assistance of SHGs to identify tribal households for enrolment under Van Dhan Yojana; and capacity building and credit access support to tribal communities through SHGs

Activities by Ministry of Tribal Affairs will include: planning support to SRLM to finalize the State Annual Action Plan and inclusion of the plan in its Livelihood Annual Action Plan; promotion of livelihood opportunities among women identified by SRLM through avenues such as Mess Management,Outsourcing works of EMRS schools like housekeeping, cleaning and otheractivities in the EMRSs and Ashram Schools; augmenting the creation of individual as well as common livelihood assets as per beneficiaries identified by SRLM; implementing proposals for PVTG inco-ordination with the SRLM; inclusion of tribal SHGs / PG with majority of members from tribal households in Van Dhan Yojana and providing marketing support to produces fromSHGs and PGs through its marketing network.

Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal Ministry for the welfare of tribals.  At the same time, there are 37 other Ministries, who have to spend assigned percentage of their budget as per mechanism designed by NITI Aayog, under Tribal sub Plan or Schedule Tribe Component (STC) for welfare of tribals. NITI Aayog and Secretary Tribal Affairs have been monitoring STC component of such Ministries regularly as per the mandate given to the MoTA in 2017. The total Central budget under STC component during FY 2020-21 is Rs. 51,000crore and MoTA is monitoring such expenditure through a dedicated web portal(stcmis.gov.in), which captures expenditure data of respective Ministries from PFMS.  The performance of such Ministries in respect of utilization of STC funds can also be seen on Performance Dashboard (http://dashboard.tribal.gov.in), developed by MoTA, which was launched jointly by Sh. Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog and Sh Ramesh Kumar, Member NITI Aayog on 10^th August 2020.   Recently under the guidance of NITI Aayog, all such schemes numbering more than 300 were examined in consultation with respective Ministries, to deliberate how MoTA and sectoral ministries can collaborate and work together for tribal welfare.  

As per STC mechanism, MoRD isspending about Rs.  20000 cr on tribal welfare in 3 main schemes namely Pradhan Mantri AwasYojna (PMAY) which has STC component of Rs 4700 Cr , National Rural Livelihood Mission- Program, STC Component of 1284 cr and rest of expenditure is under MNREGA, which is a demand based scheme. Both MoTA and RD have developed robust IT system and has developed mechanism to share data amongst themselves.  On the basis of data of Anatodya Mission provided by RD, MoTA has done Infrastructural gap analysis of 1170000 villages (available on tritribal.gov.in) with population more than 50% and States have been asked to use this data for making plans in SCA to TSS and 275(1) schemes.   The present collaboration between RD and MoTA is part of such collaborative mechanism, which will go a long way in socio-economic development of STs across the country and strengthen STC mechanism. There is vast scope of expanding such mechanism with other Ministries like Agriculture, Health, Education, MSME and Food Processing to achieve real objective of STC mechanism. 

The environment ministry of Germany affirmed that it would have been impossible to meet the climate goal of 2020 if the corona virus pandemic had not entered the scene, because of its arrival the country was able to see a huge drop in greenhouse gas emissions.

They were hoping to cut emissions down to 40% to achieve below 1990 levels according to the newly implemented policy of 2019 as it is Europe’s largest greenhouse gas emitting country. But it was able to cut only 37.5% of the emissions till the arrival of pandemic. The ministry officials are not clear about the complete impact of pandemic on emissions but it is a calculated possibility that it might have lowered significantly.

COVID lock down rendered polluting industries shut down, the usage of energy and transportation saw a new low so it is expected that emissions level would definitely plunge. The next climate target by European Union is going to be set next month to lower the emission by cutting down to 50% or 55% against 1990 levels. Though some of its countries are against the idea in the view of economic cost. As in order to achieve such goals, many companies with high emission will have to stop functioning or decrease their emission rates which will highly affect their economic growth.