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- October 2019
Index
Toppers Talk
Art & Culture
Polity
- Right to access internet is fundamental right declares Kerala High Court
- Legal rights of Deities in India, Difference in Natural and Juristic Person
- Bru refugees refuse to return to Mizoram
- No animal sacrifice in Tripura temple-Orders High Court
- EC’s Order on Reducing Sikkim CM’s Disqualification Period
- Law Ministry issues corrigendum to Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act
- Appointment of the Judges in India.
- New Chief Justice of India- How is CJI appointed?
- Indian Penal Code 1860, HM Amit Shah wants to Overhaul IPC
- National Population Register (NPR) 2020
- Whistle Blowers Allegations on Infosys
Governance & Social Justice
- 60% girls in Delhi colleges anaemic
- Niti aayog’s School education quality index
- Multipurpose National Identity Card
- Population pyramid : India Vs China, Demographic dividend Phase of India
- UN Population Report, India will become the most populous country by 2027
- Supreme Court upholds SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendments Act
- Comparing Population Pyramids of India and China
- Waqf boards-Their governance and purpose
- Harvard Admissions Case
- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana- Ist Anniversary, Problems and solutions
- Significance of sexual and Reproductive Health-Status of reproductive services in India
- Pregnancy in Old Age, What is In Vitro Fertilisation-Risks and legal shortcomings
- Supreme Court Judgement on NGOs and RTI
- Social Stock Exchange
- Rajasthan Govt changes EWS norms, Sets Rs 8 lakh family income as only criteria
- Global hunger index 2019
- No Government job for those with more than two kids
- Ranitidine CANCER risk
- IIT Council Introduces Tenure track system
International Relations
- Bangladesh growing faster than India ?
- Cyprus dispute explained
- Donald Trump impeachment
- India wins Hyderabad Nizam case against Pakistan
- India’s reply to Pakistan at UNGA
- Prime Minister of Malaysia calls India and invader in Kashmir
- Should India recognise the armenian genocide ?
- Why are CARICOM countries important for India ?
- Why are countries leaving OPEC ?
- Attacks on Saudi Oil facilities
- Organization of Islamic Cooperation issues statement on Jammu and Kashmir
- Sri Lanka’s relations with India & China
- US troops start pullout in Syria as Turkey prepares for operation
- What are Vanilla Islands?
- India-USA trade deal
- UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award-2019
- Modi – Xi Informal meet at Mamallapuram – Historic Chinese links
- India China informal summit in Tamil nadu
- Pakistan save from FATF blacklist till 2020
- USA blacklists China organisations over Uighur Muslim abuse
- Why is Chile burning ?
- Why is the Philippines important for India
- Xi jinping Nepal visit 2019 and impact on India
- India Pakistan Cross LOC Trade suspended, Should India revoke suspension?
- Protests in Lebanon
- Chennai to Vladivostok Sea Route
- End of baghdadi
- Indian government’s security advisory
- Indians no longer require Visa to visit Brazil
- Non Aligned Movement 2019 summit
- US backed Ceasefire between Turkey and Kurds
- Pakistan stops postal exchange with India
- China’s GDP growth slows to 6% slowest in 27 years
- Common Goods for Health project by WHO
- Turkey attack Kurds in Syria
Geography
Economy
- Behavioural Aspect of Farmer Suicide
- Is rural India really open defecation free ?
- Global Growth Slow Down
- Nobel Prize in Economics 2019
- Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
- SBI wrote off bad loans worth 76,000 crores
- Surge in Onion Price
- Agriculture Credit by RBI’s Internal Working Group
- What is Debt to GDP Ratio?
- Yes Bank Crisis
- Nobel prize in Literature – Controversy
- Boosting Indian Exports
- Sopore Fruit Mandi deserted
- What is Pink Collarisation?
- Mizoram to have Broad Gauge railway line by 2021
- Demand downturn in Indian Economy
- Payment facilitation fund
- Participatory Guarantee Scheme
- RBI’s 4th Bi-monthly Monetary Policy 2019-20
- Tourism restrictions lifted in Kashmir
- Link between Jobs, Farming, and Climate
- Draft Social Security Code 2019
- State Tax Revenues, SGST and Central Tax Devolution are likely to fall short
- Competitiveness Index 2019 by World Economic Forum
- NITI Aayog’s Water Resources Strategy
- BSNL and MTNL financial issues-DoT prepares Rs 74000 crore revival plan
- 20th Livestock Census
- India falls 10 ranks in World economic forum’s Global competitiveness index
- RBI stops Printing Rs 2000 Notes
- What is the Unified Approach proposal of OECD?
- FCI granaries overflowing
- India’s Economic Growth 2019
- Financial Sector Scams in India
- Labour Market of India
- New Strategic Disinvestment Process
- Payment Delays to Sugarcane Farmers
- Why India’s IMF Quota is not increased
- What is monetary policy Transmission? Why banks are not reducing interest
- Mahatma Gandhi’s theory of Economics
- India moves up 14 spots to 63 on world Bank ease of doing business index
- New amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act
- Power Sector Scenario in India
- Telecos to Pay Rs 96,642 crore to the Government
- Camel population declines in Rajasthan
- Merger of BSNL and MTNL
- World bank on Indian economy
Defence & Security
- Nagas Kukis Conflict, What is the cause of the latest tensions?
- Case against 50 Celebrities controversy
- Can Indian Government intercept WhatsApp?
- UP Government fires 25000 home guards, Is Yogi Government’s decision justified?
- NCRB’s Crime in India 2017 report
- Aadhaar Social Media mandatory linking case
- What is TechSagar? National repository of India’s cyber tech capabilities.
Disaster Management
Science & Technology
- ISRO’S Project NETRA
- Facebook’s LIBRA Currency in trouble
- WHO launches first World report on Vision
- 2019 Nobel prize in physics
- 2019 Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine
- Elon musk’s starlink project
- NASA’s ICON mission
- New King of the Moons in the Solar system is Saturn
- What Is Spectroscopy ?
- Quantum supremacy
Environment
- Climate Vulnerable Mapping Of India
- C40 Cities
- Gujarat Unveils emission trading scheme
- Forest Plus 2.0
- Himalayan States seeks Green Bonus
- India to Phase Out Single Use Plastic (SUP) by 2022
- Role of Volcanoes in Global Warming
- NH 766 ban controversy, Protests in Kerala against night traffic ban on the forest stretch
- Climate Change needs Global Solution
- Aarey Forest -2185 trees to be cut for Mumbai metro
- Government to build 1400 km long Green wall
- Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi
- Aerosol formation brightening clouds
- Anthrax outbreak in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, Two affected buffaloes died
- Species in News from June to October 2019
- Climate Action Summit 2019
Prelims bits

Tag: GS 3 || Science & Technology||Health & Medicine || Diseases
Why In News?
- The first-ever World Vision Report was recently released by WHO.
Highlights of the report
- More than a quarter of the world’s population — some 2 billion people — suffer from vision impairment.
- The report warned that population ageing would lead to a dramatic increase in the number of people with vision impairment and
- Presbyopia, a condition in which it is difficult to see nearby objects, affects 8 billion people. This condition occurs with advancing age.
- The common refractive error — myopia (a condition in which it is difficult to see objects at a distance) affects 6 billion, with 312 million being under the age of 19 years.
- Cataract (65.2 million), age-related macular degeneration (10.4 million), glaucoma (6.9 million), corneal opacities (4.2 million), diabetic retinopathy (3 million), trachoma (2 million), and other causes (37.1 million) are other common vision impairments listed in the report.
- Trachoma is caused due to bacterial infection in the eye. Many countries have eliminated it, including India.
India praised
- There was praise for India in the report for its National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).
- According to the report, in 2016-17, the NPCB provided cataract surgery to a total 5 million people in India, achieving a cataract surgical rate of over 6,000 per million population.
- During this period, school screening was provided to nearly 32 million children and approximately 750,000 spectacles were distributed, the report said about the NPCB.
Regional and gender distribution
- The prevalence of vision impairment in low and middle-income regions was estimated by the report to be four times higher than in high-income regions
- Three Asian regions alone (representing 51% of the world’s population) account for 62 per cent of the estimated 6 million vision-impaired people in the world.
- South Asia (61.2 million); East Asia (52.9 million); and South-East Asia (20.8 million).
- Myopia is the highest in high-income countries of the Asia-Pacific region (4 per cent), closely followed by East Asia (51.6 per cent).
- Adolescents in urban areas of China and South Korea have reported rates as high as 67 per cent and 97 per cent, respectively.
Why vision matters?
- The WHO report said studies had consistently established that vision impairment severely impacted quality of life (QoL) among adult populations.
- Besides, vision impairment also caused productivity loss and economic burden.
- The economic burden of uncorrected myopia in the regions of East Asia, South Asia and South-East Asia were reported to be more than twice that of other regions and equivalent to more than one per cent of gross domestic product.
Prevention is possible
- Out of one billion cases of vision impairment that could have been prevented, 9 million suffered from glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and trachoma that could have been prevented.
- The estimated costs of preventing the vision impairment in these 9 million would have been $5.8 billion.
- This represented a significant missed opportunity in preventing the substantial personal and societal burden associated with vision impairment and blindness.
Various factors
- Regarding gender gap, the WHO said no strong association existed between gender and many eye conditions, including glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy.
- However, rates of cataract and trachomatous trichiasis are higher among women, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” it clarified.
- Incidence of a rural-urban divide does exist.
- Rural populations also face greater barriers to accessing eye care due to them having to travel greater distances and poor road quality, among other factors.
- Lifestyle differences ensured that unlike cataract, higher rates of childhood myopia were found in urban populations of China and Australia since children living in rural areas spent more time outdoors.
Barriers to eye care
- Accessibility to eye care services and high costs particularly for rural populations are the major drivers of vision impairment.
- Therefore, the WHO emphasised expanding Universal Healthcare Coverage and making eye care an integral part of it around the world.
- Direct costs are key barrier to accessing eye care in high-income countries, particularly for people living in rural areas or those with low socio-economic status.
- Affordability to buy lenses or spectacles was a major stumbling block.
- The WHO report, as with many other studies, highlighted that there was a gender disparity in accessibility to eye care services, with women standing a lesser chance of availing them.
- Lack of trained human resources was another factor pushing these ailments further.
Way Forward
- According to the World Report on Vision, integrated people-centered eye care has the potential to accelerate action and overcome the challenges.
- Make eye care an integral part of universal health coverage.
- Promote high-quality implementation and health systems research, complementing existing evidence for effective eye care interventions.
- Monitor trends and evaluate progress towards implementing integrated people-centered eye care.
- Raise awareness and engage and empower people and communities about eye care needs.
Additional Info
Mains Question
What are the economic implications of the eye impairment?