Passage 1
India has slipped two places on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap index. Within South Asia, India was ranked fifth after Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, while Pakistan was ranked last.
India figured among the economies with the lowest levels of economic parity, alongside Bangladesh, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, and Morocco. All of them registered less than 30% gender parity in estimated earned income.
However, India showed the best gender parity in terms of enrolment in secondary education, while it scored well on political empowerment of women at 65th rank globally. With regard to parity in the number of years with female/male heads of state for the last 50 years, India was ranked 10th.
Source – https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/india-ranks-129-on-global-g
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Passage 2
Three of the states where the Centre has proposed eco-sensitive areas (ESA) to protect the Western Ghats, have sought a reduction in the extent of these ESAs to allow development works. The states flagged the need for rationalisation of these ESAs, spread over 56,825 sq km in the Ghats in their discussions with an expert panel appointed by the Centre to finalise a draft notification. The current draft is in the fifth iteration, with its first version issued in March 2014. And with a consensus elusive so far, the latest draft notification, published in July 2022, is set to expire, too. Sources said the expert committee will submit its report to the Environment Ministry by September despite a June-end deadline. While the panel will consider the states’ demands, it will stick to the principles of ecological protection and follow a uniform approach, they said.
Source- https://indianexpress.com/article/india/3-states-seek-shrinking-
