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Editorial
Despite talk of equity, inclusivity and respect for all humans, the role of women in the workplace continues to be just a conversation starter, quickly forgotten after a panel discussion.
This has been proven once again by the latest edition of Deloitte’s Women@Work report, where working women, who were just about reclaiming their space after the pandemic, seem to be sliding back as they fight old biases and constructs.
Considering that women were tracked across urban India, from junior to senior management — the so-called privileged layer — the results are particularly troubling and belie any claim of being a progressive society.
Just 15 per cent of working women split daily tasks equally with their partner, which means an overwhelming 85 per cent are shouldering the major part of household responsibilities while simultaneously being breadwinners.
According to the report, 42 per cent of women take on the sole responsibility of household tasks along with their job. This seems dramatic because, during the pandemic years, many urban men proudly took up chores, which was seen as influencing participatory male behaviour.
A detergent company ran a “share the load” advertisement campaign with celebrity couples but within a year, men in cities seem to have slipped back to their culturally conditioned patterns of behaviour.
Ideas Page
For safety’s sake (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Disaster Management)
The G20 under India’s Presidency has endorsed a new working group on disaster risk reduction. This makes it well-positioned to prioritise disaster risk financing to achieve the targets set by Sendai framework for 2030.
Recent years have seen an increase in both natural and human-made catastrophes across the globe. The 2021-22 Human Development Report shows that disasters do not merely exacerbate poverty and thwart development, but also generate social polarisation across nations and communities.
The lack of competent financial risk management and insurance has provided a fertile breeding ground for these risks to proliferate and intensify, wreaking havoc on various aspects of society and the economy.
Annual disaster losses account for a significant share of GDP in many low-income economies. To manage these risks, financial strategies must be developed.
The G20 has a crucial role to play in supporting countries to strengthen their financial risk management capabilities. States need to enhance their capacity to understand risks and integrate them into government planning and budget processes.
The insurance industry needs better regulation, legislation, and supervision. Partnerships with the private sector need to be enabled to transfer sovereign risk to the capital markets, and the financing for response, recovery, and reconstruction needs to be improved by shifting from ex-post to ex-ante mechanisms.
There is also a scarcity of investment in a development-oriented approach that unites all parties into a transparent framework of action at the national level. Solutions to these challenges exist, but there is a worrying dearth of investment in all these areas.
Explained
The new Alzheimer’s drugs (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Within a year, a second drug has been found effective in checking cognitive decline in people with early Alzheimer’s. Developed by the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, Donanemab was found to slow down cognitive decline by 35% when compared with a placebo in a phase III trial.
The two recent drugs don’t stop or reverse Alzheimer’s. Their results have still excited neurologists, because over the years, despite heavy investments, trial after trial for Alzheimer’s medications has failed.
Over an 18-month period, the trial met the primary endpoint of slowing cognitive decline in those with early Alzheimer’s. Along with a 35% slower cognitive decline in those who received the drug, it noted a 40% less decline in people’s ability to do day-to-day tasks.
This result was based on data from 1,182 patients with intermediate levels of tau protein, which is associated with the severity of Alzheimer’s.
Interestingly, the drug slowed meaningful cognitive decline even when the data of 552 patients with high levels of tau – representing those in the later stage of the disease – was added to the results. When results from both the populations were combined, cognitive decline slowed down by 22% in 18 months.
Economy
India, EFTA trade pact to boost commerce, investment, job creation (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A free trade agreement between India and four-nation bloc EFTA will help enhance two-way commerce, investment flows, job creation and economic growth.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, who is in Brussels, has discussed modalities of engagement for working towards a comprehensive Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) with representatives of European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
On April 26 here, both sides discussed ways to resume negotiations for the agreement. India and the EFTA states…discussed the modalities of engagement for working towards a comprehensive TEPA.
It said the delegations agreed to ramp up their efforts and continue discussions at a steady pace, with several more meetings planned over the coming months, to arrive at a common understanding on critical issues pertaining to TEPA.