National
Report on India's Gig and Platform Economy
⇒ NITI Aayog launched a report titled ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’ on 27 June 2022.
- The report is a first-of-its-kind study that presents comprehensive perspectives and recommendations on the gig–platform economy in India.
- The report provides a scientific methodological approach to estimate the current size and job-generation potential of the sector.
- It highlights the opportunities and challenges of this emerging sector and presents global best practices on initiatives for social security and delineates strategies for skill development and job creation for different categories of workers in the sector.
Key findings and recommendations of the report:
- The report estimates that in 2020–21, 77 lakh (7.7 million) workers were engaged in the gig economy. They constituted 2.6% of the non-agricultural workforce or 1.5% of the total workforce in India.
- The gig workforce is expected to expand to 2.35 crore (23.5 million) workers by 2029–30.
- Gig workers are expected to form 6.7% of the non-agricultural workforce or 4.1% of the total livelihood in India by 2029–30.
- At present, about 47% of the gig work is in medium skilled jobs, about 22% in high skilled, and about 31% in low skilled jobs.
- Trend shows the concentration of workers in medium skills is gradually declining and that of the low skilled and high skilled is increasing.
Recommendations:
- To harness the potential of the gig-platform sector, the report recommends accelerating access to finance through products specifically designed for platform workers, linking self-employed individuals engaged in the business of selling regional and rural cuisine, street food, etc., with platforms to enable them to sell their produce to wider markets in towns and cities.
- The report puts forth suggestions for platform-led transformational and outcome-based skilling, enhancing social inclusion through gender sensitization and accessibility awareness programmmes for workers and their families and extending social security measures in partnership mode as envisaged in the Code on Social Security 2020.
- Other recommendations include undertaking a separate enumeration exercise to estimate the size of the gig and platform workforce and collecting information during official enumerations ( Periodic Labour Force Survey) to identify gig workers.
NSIL launched GSAT-24 Satellite
⇒ NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) launched GSAT-24 satellite in its first “demand-driven” communication satellite mission post space sector reforms.
- The satellite was successfully placed into geostationary orbit by the Ariane 5 rocket, operated by French company Arianespace, from Kourou in French Guiana (South America) on 23 June 2022.
» The entire satellite capacity on-board GSAT-24 will be leased to its committed customer Tata Play, the Direct-to-Home (DTH) business of Tata Group, for meeting their DTH application needs.
About GSAT-24:
- GSAT-24 is built by Indian Space Research Organisation for NSIL.
- GSAT-24 is a 24-Ku band communication satellite weighing 4180 kg with pan-India coverage for meeting DTH application needs.
- GSAT-24 is configured on ISRO’s proven I-3k Bus with a mission life of 15 years.
About NSIL:
- NSIL, incorporated in March 2019, is a Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE), under Department of Space and is the commercial arm of ISRO.
Space Reforms:
» As part of “space reforms” announced by the Government in June 2020:
- NSIL was mandated to undertake operational satellite missions on a “demand driven” model, wherein it has the responsibility to build, launch, own & operate satellites and provide services to its committed customer.
- ‘Demand-driven’ mode basically means when satellite is launched, one will know who the end customers are going to be and what’s the kind of utilisation and commitment so that you have very effective utilisation of this satellite capacity once it goes into orbit.
International
Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations
⇒ IFS officer, Ruchira Kamboj has been appointed as the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations at New York.
Senior diplomat Ruchira Kamboj took charge as India’s new Permanent Representative at the United Nations on 02 August 2022. She replaced T S Tirumurti. With this, Ms Kamboj became the country’s first woman envoy at the world body’s headquarters in New York.
About Ms. Kamboj:
- Ms. Kamboj is a 1987-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer. Prior to her appointment, Ms Kamboj served as Ambassador to Bhutan, beginning in 2019.
- During her career, she has been Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO in Paris, Indian High Commissioner in South Africa, and Chief of Protocol in New Delhi, etc.
President of Colombia
⇒ Leftist Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla movement, was elected the first ever left-wing president of Colombia on 19 June 2022.
Petro beat construction magnate Rodolfo Hernandez with an unexpectedly wide margin of more than 700,000 votes in the 2022 presidential election. He won with 50.4 percent compared to Hernandez’s 47.3 percent.
- Mr Petro was sworn-in as the 34th President of Colombia on 7 August 2022.
Sports
Neeraj Chopra won gold at the Kuortane Games
⇒ Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra won the javelin throw gold with his opening effort of 86.69m at the Kuortane Games in Kuortane, Finland, on 18 June 2022.
- Neeraj Chopra clinched his first top podium finish of the season after beating reigning world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada.
Trinidad and Tobago’s 2012 Olympics champion Keshorn Walcott was second with a first-round throw of 86.64m. Peters was third with a best throw of 84.75m, which also came in the opening round.
» Neeraj Chopra had won the Tokyo Olympics gold with a throw of 87.58m on August 7, 2021.
President of the Federation of International Cricketers' Association
⇒ Legendary Australian cricketer Lisa Sthalekar has become the first woman president of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA).
- The 42-year-old former Australia captain was confirmed in the role at the FICA Executive Committee meeting held in Nyon, Switzerland.
About Sthalekar:
- Sthalekar represented Australia in 187 international matches across the three formats and was part of the Australian teams that won the ODI World Cups in 2005 and 2013 and T20 World Cups in 2010 and 2012.
- She retired from the game after Australia’s 2013 ODI World Cup triumph in Mumbai after making her debut as a hard-hitting batter in 2003.
- She was the first woman to score 1000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODI cricket.
- In 2021, she became only the fourth woman to be inducted into the Australian cricket Hall of Fame.
