India pledges to contribute $5 million in 2020 to UN Palestine refugee agency
United Nations: India has pledged to contribute USD 5 million in 2020 to the UN Palestine refugee agency, even as it voiced concern over the agency's "dire" financial situation due to the funding gaps that risk its core services to the refugees in the fields of education and health.
India's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador K Nagaraj Naidu said as a mark of solidarity with the Palestine refugees, the Indian government has increased its annual financial contribution fourfold to the core budget of the UN Relief and Works Agency(UNRWA), from USD 1.25 million in 2016 to USD 5 million in 2018.
We have contributed USD 5 million in 2019 and pledge to contribute USD 5 million in 2020 also, he said while speaking at the General Assembly Fourth Committee meeting on the UNRWA for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
India's support and solidarity with the 5.5 million Palestine refugees remains strong and abiding, he added.
India also appealed to other traditional donors of UNRWA to consider enhancing their contributions and non-donor member states to consider contributing to UNRWA in solidarity with the Palestine refugees. Naidu, however, noted that UNRWA's resources come from voluntary contributions, with a limited donor base, saying that this arrangement is already fraught with uncertainties of sudden crisis and it is critical that the faith of donors in the agency is restored.
Voicing concern over the agency's dire financial situation, Naidu said the funding gap of USD 89 million in 2019 has put to risk the agency's core services to the Palestine refugees, notably in the fields of education, health, and assistance to the most vulnerable ones.
About 3.1 million Palestine refugees depend on health services provided by UNRWA while the agency's schools educate 526,000 students every year, of which half are female. Keeping these services operational throughout the year is important, Naidu said.
He added that the agency has been able to overcome similar funding gaps in the past through innovative global fund raising campaign and outreach and internal cost-saving measures.
Naidu, however, cautioned that while these efforts continue, they may still not be adequate in 2019.
Highlighting India's ongoing capacity-building assistance in Palestine, Naidu said 150 Palestinian professionals are trained every year under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme and 100 meritorious Palestinian students are offered fully funded scholarships under the General Scholarship Scheme of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations every year.
In addition, during the last five years, under an India-Palestine development partnership, 17 agreements have been signed in the fields of agriculture, health care, information technology, youth affairs, consular affairs, women's empowerment and media.
Under these agreements, around USD 72 million of financial support and project assistance has been offered for projects like post-2014 war reconstruction efforts in Gaza; the construction of five schools; the India-Palestine Centre of Excellence for Informational and Communication Technologies at the Al-Quds University, with a satellite centre in Ramallah; the India-Palestine Techno-park in Ramallah; a 100-bed super specialty hospital in Bethlehem and the construction of the Palestine Institute of Diplomacy in Ramallah.
The Indian diplomat also noted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' efforts to effectively tackle allegations of managerial misconduct in UNRWA.
The agency's Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl last week resigned, hours after the UN announced preliminary findings of an investigation into allegations of misconduct. Krahenbuhl was placed on leave earlier in the day as Guterres named Christian Saunders as acting officer-in-charge of the agency.
The findings excluded fraud or misappropriation of funds" on the part of Krahenbuhl, however, there are managerial issues that need to be addressed , the UN said in a statement.
Naidu thanked Guterres for keeping the member states informed of the ongoing investigation and also for confirming that the allegations under investigation do not relate to any fraud or misappropriation of operational funds provided by the donors.
Amidst the investigation of misconduct allegations, Saunders said UNRWA is working to address management issues and continues to provide vital services despite facing a funding crisis.
As the Fourth Committee began its consideration of the agency's work, Saunders said that under the present circumstances, with the unexpected departure of UNRWA's senior leadership, its priorities are ensuring the continuity of operations and providing strong leadership with a focus on essential reforms.
He added that the complex investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) began in 2018 and required the review of 1.2 million emails. It is now drawing to a close and member states have been briefed on the information available.
The agency has also been reviewing ways to be more effective and efficient, he said, noting that it already stretches donor funding as far as possible.
Outlining developments in the field, he said Palestine refugees displaced from Syria and living in Lebanon face extremely difficult conditions and are actively exploring ways to leave. Some are demanding deregistration from UNRWA in the belief that it would offer access to resettlement opportunities available to other refugees displaced from Syria, he added.
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Cabinet nod for Census 2027; Rs 11,718 cr sanctioned, 30 lakh enumerators to be involved
New Delhi (PTI): The Union Cabinet on Friday approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the Census of India, 2027, which would include the caste enumeration for the first time.
Addressing a briefing, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the proposal to conduct the Census which will be the first digital exercise.
Around 30 lakh enumerators would be involved in the entire exercise.
The 16th edition of the Census since Independence will also provide an option of self enumeration to the citizens.
The decadal exercise which was scheduled to take place in 2021 got postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic across the country.
The minister said the Census will be conducted in two phases -- house-listing and housing census from April to September, 2026; and population enumeration (PE) in February 2027.
For Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the PE exercise shall be conducted in September, 2026, the minister said.
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"This will become the first-ever digital census," Vaishnaw told reporters.
Around 30 lakh enumerators will visit each and every household and canvass a separate questionnaire for houselisting and housing census and population enumeration. It will generate 1.02 crore human days of employment, the minister said.
Vaishnaw said the entire digital census system has been created as a very robust system and all personal data protection laws will be applicable. The census will collect the micro-level data of every individual and household and present a macro-level data, he added.
"Data of the micro-level will be collected from each household and a macro picture will be present. Individual data will be kept confidential while the macro-level data of the Census will be published," the minister said.
"All the Census functionaries will be paid a suitable honorarium for the work of the Census as they will be doing this work in addition to their regular duties," a government statement said.
The Census 2027 will also capture caste data electronically in the PE phase, Vaishnaw said.
In the first-ever digital Census, data will be collected using mobile applications that will be available for both Android and iOS versions.
Use of a mobile app for data collection and the central portal for monitoring purposes will ensure better quality data, Vaishnaw said.
Data dissemination will be much better and in a user-friendly way so that all queries on required parameters for policy-making will be available with a click of a button, he said.
"A dedicated portal, namely Census Management & Monitoring System (CMMS), has been developed for managing and monitoring the entire Census process on a real-time basis," a government statement said.
Census-as-a-Service (CaaS) will deliver data to ministries in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format, he said.
The largest administrative and statistical exercise in the world will be done using a mobile app for data collection and the central portal for monitoring purposes will ensure better quality data.
"The current endeavour would be to make available the coming Census data at the shortest possible time across the country. Efforts will also be made to disseminate Census results with more customised visualisation tools. Data sharing to all, up to the lowest administrative unit i.e. village/ ward level," the statement said.
Houselisting block (HLB) creator web map application will be another innovation for Census 2027 which will be used by the charge officers.
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The statement said around 18,600 technical manpower will be engaged for about 550 days at the local levels which would imply that around 1.02 crore man-days employment would be generated.
"Further, the provision of technical manpower at the charge/ district/ state-level will also result in capacity-building as the nature of the job will be related to digital data handling, monitoring and coordination. This will also help in the future employment prospects of these persons," it said.
The provision of technical manpower at various levels will also result in capacity-building as the nature of the job will be related to digital data handling, monitoring and coordination.
"This will also help in the future employment prospects of these persons," the statement said.
The mammoth exercise is the biggest source of primary data at the village, town and ward-level providing micro-level data on various parameters including housing condition, amenities and assets, demography, religion, SC and ST, language, literacy and education, economic activity, migration and fertility.
The last comprehensive caste-based count was done by the Britishers between 1881 and 1931. Caste was excluded from all Census operations conducted since Independence.
The decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming Census was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 30.
In 2010, then prime minister Manmohan Singh had assured the Lok Sabha that the matter of caste census would be considered in the cabinet.
However, the previous Congress-led government opted for a survey instead of a caste census, known as the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC).
The population of the country according to the Census 2011 was 1,210.19 million of which 623.72 million (51.54 per cent) were males and 586.46 million (48.46 per cent) were females.
