Short News Article

Environment: Biodiversity

Jwala: A cheetah’s cub

The latest fatality took the toll of cheetahs in Kuno National Park to four in the last two months, including three felines translocated from African countries.

Key highlights:

One more cheetahs, this time a cub, has died at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh.
The two-month-old cub was one of four born to the cheetah, Jwala, who was among the set of eight animals imported from Namibia.
The likely cause of death was from weakness.
Survival Rate of Cheetah: Literature and experience from Africa suggests that cheetah cubs, in the wild, have a survival rate of 10%, and roughly the same fraction make it to adulthood, the government’s press release noted.
This is the fourth cheetah to have died in India since 20 of the animals were relocated from Namibia and South Africa respectively to KNP, in an experiment at establishing a community of cheetahs, the only large cat to have gone extinct from India.

Environment: Pollution

Recycled Plastic

Recently, Greenpeace has warned that recycling plastic might make it more harmful and should not be considered a solution to the pollution challenge ahead of the latest round of international plastics treaty discussions.

Key highlights of the Greenpeace Report:

The global environmental network has warned that recycled plastics are more toxic than virgin constituents and that breaking down plastics for recycling scatters microplastic pollution into the environment.
Representatives from 173 countries have agreed to develop a legally binding treaty covering the "full lifecycle" of plastics from production to disposal.
Greenpeace USA's global plastics campaign suggests that the only solution to ending plastic pollution is to reduce plastic production.
Greenpeace's report shows that only a tiny proportion (9%) of plastics are recycled, and those that are contain higher concentrations of toxic chemicals.\
Waste plastics earmarked for recycling are typically exported from high-income countries to poorer parts of the world.
Dr Therese Karlsson, a science adviser with the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), warns that plastic recycling is a toxic endeavour with threats to health and the environment.
Plastic production is forecast to triple by 2060, and any global plastics treaty must achieve significant reductions in production.

Economy: Health Insurance

Bima Sugam

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) is pushing to implement two high tech projects - Health Claims Exchange and Bima Sugam, to deepen insurance penetration and simplify the claim procedures.

Key highlights:

IRDAI is setting up the Health Exchange platform, which will digitize and simplify the process of filing health insurance claims.
It will reduce the cost per claim to the insurer and enable automatic fund transfer of the claim amount.
The proposed exchange will help insurers to have a unified platform for claims and policyholders’ medical history, reducing the number of insurance frauds.
NHA has invited contributors and developers from the open community to test, contribute and become a participant in the Health Claims Exchange ecosystem.
Bima Sugam is a revolutionary step with ambitions of becoming the largest online market for insurance products and services.
The overall budget for Bima Sugam has been hiked to Rs 200 crore.