Important Facts for Mains 1

The articles below are just a copy and paste for various persons and the credit goes to the person who wrote the answers. I have just compiled it.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

Agriculture in india has been the primary sector of employment of rural section, among all the beneficiaries women role in agriculture is undoubetedly important, but acc, to the recent report of harvard university, 11% decline in women participation rate due to changing agri dynamics is the matter of concern.

Time and again, surveys by reputed national and international bodies such as FAO has highlighted that the overall labour put by women is more than that of men in developing countries.

Also, if preparing the land, selecting the seeds, transplanting the seedlings, applying pesticides may have more percentage of women, which is debatable, certain activities are predominantly women centric, such as weeding and harvesting.

Also, in India itself, in the north east states for example, agriculture is heavily dominated by women.

Tending to animals is nearly exclusively done by women, and mixed farming continues to be the backbone of small and marginal farmers in India. Often selling a  cattle helps them pay for the debt.

Also, its a well known fact that women get paid less for the same work as done by men. And maintaining the complex household, with a constant watch on her activities imposed by conservative social norms, with no recognition for this job in the national income, only shows a huge indifference to their share in the whole rural setup.

Recently, schemes such as Biotech-KISAN and Cattle Genomics of the Dept of Biotechnology were launched acknowledging that " women is also the prime caretaker of livestock and she is eager to combine traditional wisdom in handling the livestock with current best practices ".

there are 29 lakhs Self Help Groups (SHGs) with nearly 3.5 crore women participation. These SHGs have shown great capacity in sustaining village life and if they are provided proper branding and marketing strategies, they can completely overhaul the village life.

These steps were much needed. But steps such as banning trade in cattle meant for slaughter, banning cattle slaughter altogether, with an ever increasing list of animals under cattle as done recently, are regressive and will prove contrary to the aim of increasing farmer's income by double by 2022.

So may leather workers, tanneries, hide workers are out of work already. There is a need for a country wide debate on these issues and no such decision should be taken if farmers themselves do not demand them.

THE FEASIBILITY OF TESLA FOUNDER ELON MUSK’S SPECIFIC PLANS FOR THE COLONIZATION OF MARS

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has recently unveiled his detailed plan for a Mars transport system that can thwart human extinction or any future Doomsday Event .In his blueprint, titled "Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species," he shared his vision of a sustainable Mars colony--something that he believes we can achieve in our lifetimes.

The project can be divided in four spheres-


Reaching Mars:
The colonization of Mars should as of yet is still a one on how to reach it.
Musk has designed a raptor engine that consists of reusable rockets and boosters. This ship would ferry people back and forth the red planet and earth. SpaceX has made a prototype of this vehicle and an unmanned ship to Mars is being planned in the following few years.
Affordability:
This is a major hurdle in Musk's plan. he wants to make the mission affordable to $200000 a trip, which is very difficult to achieve in the present scenario.
Capital:
Musk has been able to garner a lot of funds for this project. He holds respect in the financial society with the latest Tesla stint and with SpaceX sending top secret satellites for US government.
Colonizing Mars:
This portion of the mission needs to be worked from scratch. Musk has still not planned to how even maintain the temperature livable for a few hours of stay in a space craft on tour to Mars. Colony would need big repository synonymous to Earth's atmosphere, we would need energy to maintain temperature produce materials, we would need to find water sources on the planet. There are other scientific risks of changes in gravity, that would have adverse impacts on bone structures of humans and extremely harmful for pregnant mothers. Plants have shown to behave abnormally in zero gravity and less gravity environment by NASA.
Thus, the plan to colonize Mars in still not scientifically feasible as of yet, but we hope that with the growth in science like the advent of Quantum Entanglement as used by Chinese recently with MIcius satellite can make thing simpler for the project along with a public private funding structure to garner huge capital.

THE CHANGING ROLE OF INDIAN PHILANTHROPISTS IN DEVELOPMENT

Philanthropy is a potent tool to address the developmental needs of nation, especially the place where we stand in terms of developmental needs and given resource crunch faced by our governments. In the recent years, philanthropy has seen considerable changes which are as follows:
1.Contribution: There has been a six-fold increase in the contribution received from philanthropists in the last five years.

2.Sectors: The sectors to which the contribution has gone has primarily been restricted to a few.
The design and impact of philanthropy can be improved in the following ways:
1.Broaden the sectors: Indian philanthropists should focus on various sectors like sports in addition to conventional one.

2.Chart out the spending: The philanthropists should be chart out the where ,how and when funds should be used.They should be assured requisite freedom in this domain.

3.Feedback: The philanthropist should be given a proper feedback assuring him that his money is wells-spent. This shall help us shed the image of the development sector as inefficient , corrupt and full of unreasonable bureaucratic hurdles.

4. Indirect means: Philanthropy when invested in indirect interventions like ( settting up training institutes for teachers ) rather than direct ones (setting up schools) are known to create long terms and stronger impact. Focus should be directed accordingly.

Philanthropy is leveraged properly can have deep and long term effect in meeting our socio-economic goals ( Ex. Sustainable Developmental Goals)