Current Issues-November

• India's Human Development Index Rank:UN ranked India at position 134 out of 187 countries in terms of Human Development Index.India ranked 119 out of 169 countries according to 2010 report by UNDP. The study observed that the life expectancy at birth in India has increased by 10.1 percent a year over last two decades.The Human Development Index value for 2011 was 0.547 where the country is positioned in the medium human development category.India's HDI reached 0.57 from 0.344 showing increment of about 59% and an average annual increase of  about 1.5 percent.The top 5 countries are:Norway,Australia,Netherlands,US,New Zealand. Neighbouring countries Pakistan ranked at 145 and Afghanistan at 146.

• Gender Inequality Index :Reported that in India,Parliamentary seats held for women are 10.7 percent where 26.6 percent of  women have reached a secondary or high level of education compared to 50.7 percent of  their male counterparts.For every 1 lakh births 230 women die from pregnancy related causes and adolescent fertility rate is 86.3 per 1000 births.

          Female participation in labour market is 32.8 % compared to 81.1 % of men.

• Top Maoist Leader Koteswararao alias Kishanji was encountered at Burishol village in W.Bengal.They were searched in jungles at Nalbani,Lalbani,Kushbani but were last found at Burishol and were killed.

• Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was slapped by a youth named Harvinder Singh after shouting slogans against corruption and inflation.The person assaulted the former Telecom minister SukhRam.Anna Hazare's  reaction to the attack "Was it only one slap?"angered the congress party questioning the Gandhian principle of  Hazare.

• Veteran Indian Cricketer Rahul Dravid became the second person in the Test Cricket History to complete 13000 runs besides completing 1000 runs this year with West Indies. Batting Icon Sachin Tendulkar was the first person to achieve 13000 runs and is now leading with more than 15000 runs.