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.