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Society

Delhi Police Gets India’s First All-Women SWAT Team
Syllabus: Role Of Women And Women’s Organization

In News

•        Delhi Police is the first police force in the country to have an all-women Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team. 
•        Trained by specialists from India and abroad, 36 women constables from northeastern states have been inducted into the squad after a rigorous 15-month training. It is the brainchild of police commissioner Amulya Patnaik.
•        They are trained in the Israeli Krav Maga, an unarmed combat style and equipped with MP5 submachine guns and Glock 21 pistols.
•        They are experts at unarmed combat, ambush and counter ambush, jungle operation, urban operation which includes building interventions, vehicle/bus intervention and VVIP security. They have also been imparted basic knowledge of explosives and IEDs apart from being trained to use a wide array of weapons.
•        India's police force is overwhelmingly male with official data showing just over 7 % of all officers as women, well below a government target of 33 per cent. These women broke the traditional male stronghold to enter the SWAT team. 
•        These commandos will be stationed at strategic locations in central and south Delhi. Many of them would be posted in anti-terror vans called Parakram.
•        The formation of this team is being considered a big achievement as most western countries do not have all-women SWAT teams due to the kind of training required to become one.

Permanent Commission For Women In Armed Forces
Syllabus: Role Of Women And Women’s Organization

In News

•        In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister announced that women officers of Short Service Commission in the Indian Armed Forces would now be eligible for permanent commission.
•        So far, women officers are recruited mostly on short service commission (SSC) for 14 years, which means they are not eligible to get pension.
•        While women are given SSC in all arms and services other than infantry, mechanized infantry, armored and Artillery, permanent commission is currently limited to education, legal branches apart from medical and dental services.  
•        Back in 2010, the Delhi High court had ordered to give women officers the right to opt for the permanent commission in the Indian Army.

Comment

The move would empower women in armed forces. However, there was no clarification on the extent to which women will be allowed in the Army, Navy and the Air Force i.e. whether permanent commissioning of women will pave the way for their entry into the combat positions in the Army. Unlike the Army, the IAF and Navy have opened up select combat roles for women.  

Ease of Living Index
Syllabus: Urbanization, Their Problems, and Their Remedies

In News

•        The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has released the Ease of Living Index. It was conceived in 2017 and is based on information from the 2011 Census.
•        The index covers 111 cities that are smart city contenders, capital cities, and cities with population of 1 million plus. 
•        It is a government initiative to assess cities' 'liveability’ with regards to global and national benchmarks and encourage them to move towards an outcome based approach in urban planning and management.
•        The assessment standards are closely linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, which will provide a strong impetus to India's effort for systematic tracking progress of SDGs in the urban areas.
•        The index captures the quality of life based on the data collected from the urban local bodies on four parameters, which were further broken down into 15 categories. The four parameters include governance, social (identity, education, health, security), economic (economy, employment) and physical factors (waste water and solid waste management, pollution, housing/ inclusiveness, mixed land use, power and water supply, transport, public open spaces).
•        The weight assigned to different parameters are Governance 25%, Social Aspects 25%, Economic Aspects 5%, and Physical Infra 45%, .
•        The list was led by the Maharashtrian cities of Pune, Navi Mumbai, and Greater Mumbai while the cities of Patna and Rampur were at the bottom. 
•        The low scores of a lot of cities, especially ones that attained a zero in certain categories, doesn’t mean that those services are absent from those cities. In certain cases, there was no data to pass on because cities themselves are starved of data. For instance, public authorities don’t always have the data from private hospitals. 
•        Top 10 cities include: 1. Pune 2. Navi Mumbai 3. Greater Mumbai 4. Tirupati 5. Chandigarh 6. Thane 7. Raipur 8. Indore 9. Vijayawada 10. Bhopal
•        Bottom 10 cities include: 102. Silvassa 103. Saharanpur 104. Kavaratti 105. Pasighat 106. Itanagar 107. Bhagalpur 108. Bihar Sharif 109. Patna 110. Kohima 111. Rampur

Why We Need Such Ranking

•        Such rankings would promote a sense of healthy competition among cities and towns.
•        They will be forced to focus their attention on improving governance and infrastructure availability.
•        More than providing funds to State and City Governments, there is urgent need to accord priority for incentivizing implementation of reforms that have a far-reaching impact on governance and service delivery.
•        Also, cities can’t be run and managed from state capitals and secretariats. They should be made to stand on their own for improving performance, responsibility and accountability”.
•        In this context, this exercise is a forward step in the right direction.
 Global Liveability Index
Syllabus: Urbanization, Their Problems, and Their Remedies

In News

•        The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is part of the magazine ‘The Economist’, has released the Global Liveability Index.
•        The index quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual's lifestyle in 140 cities worldwide, and assesses which locations provide the best living conditions.
•        It assigns scores on five broad parameters — stability, healthcare, culture/environment, education, and infrastructure using 30 indicators. 

Ranking

•        Austria’s capital Vienna is ranked as the best city to live in, displacing Australian city of Melbourne. It is for the first time that a European city has topped the list.
•        Top 10 liveable cities are – 1. Vienna (Austria) 2. Melbourne (Australia) 3. Osaka (Japan) 4. Calgary (Canada) 5. Sydney (Australia) 6. Vancouver (Canada) 7. Tokyo (Japan) 8. Toronto (Canada) 9. Copenhagen (Denmark) 10. Adelaide (Australia) 
•        South Asian countries including India have fared poorly in the ranking of the world's most liveable cities.
•        Top 10 least liveable cities in the world are - Senegal's Dakar at 131, Algeria's Algiers at 132, Cameroon's Douala at 133, Libya's Tripoli at 134, Zimbabwe's Harare at 135, Papua New Guinea's Port Moresby at 136, Karachi at 137, Nigeria's Lagos at 138, Dhaka at 139, Damascus at 140.
•        Crime, civil unrest, terrorism or war played a "strong role" in the ten lowest-scoring cities.
•        From India, only New Delhi (112) and Mumbai (117) could make it to the list.
•        While private health and education are acceptable in both Mumbai and Delhi, the level and quality of public provision is well below the global average.
•        High levels of corruption and socio-religious restrictions also reduce liveability markedly in both cities.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group and the world leader in global business intelligence.
                Created in 1946, it helps businesses, financial firms and governments to understand how the world is changing and how that creates opportunities to be seized and risks to be managed.