Urbanisation

Question 1

discuss the features of the city innovation index

Answer 1

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has launched a City Innovation Exchange (CiX).

1. The CiX will connect cities to innovators across the national ecosystem to design innovative solutions for their pressing challenges.
2. The platform will ease the discovery, design & validation of solutions through a robust, transparent and user-centric process that will reduce barriers for innovators and cities to discover fitting solutions.
3. Built on the concept of ‘open innovation’, the platform will help in the flow of ideas ‘outside in and inside out, enhancing the skills and capacity required to deliver smart urban governance.

Question 2

what is the significance of the city innovation index

Answer 2

The platform brings together Citizens-Organisations -Academic Businesses-Government to co-create solutions for the future of Urban India.
● The platform will help cities in adopting solutions that will enhance the quality of life for their residents. Moreover, it will significantly improve the Ease of Doing Business.
● It will also be a significant addition to the growing innovation ecosystem of India as it focuses on fostering innovative practices in cities.

Question 3

what is the ease of living index

Answer 3

The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry
evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various initiatives for urban development.
● It provides a comprehensive understanding of participating cities across India based on quality of life, economic-ability of a city, and its sustainability and resilience.

Question 4

what are the findings of the ease of living index 2020

Answer 4

The analysis categorises them into:
1. Million+ populated cities (those with a
population of more than a million).
2. Less than Million populated cites (those with a population of less than a million) along with all
the cities under the Smart Cities Program

1. Million+ category: Bengaluru emerged as the top
   performer followed by Pune, Ahmedabad,
   Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore, and Greater Mumbai.
2. In the Less than Million category: Shimla was ranked the highest in ease of living, followed by Bhubaneshwar, Silvassa, Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Davangere, and Tiruchirappalli.

Question 5

who made the municipal performance index 2020

Answer 5

Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry

Question 6

what does the municipal performance index do

Answer 6

It seeks to simplify and evaluate the complexities in local governance practice and promote the ethos of transparency and accountability.

Question 7

how does the municipal performance index judge performance

Answer 7

The five verticals under MPI are Services, Finance, Policy, Technology and Governance.

Question 8

discuss the findings of the municipal performance index 2020

Answer 8

1. In the Million+ category: Indore has emerged as the highest ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal.
2. In the Less than Million category: New Delhi Municipal Council has emerged as the leader, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.

Question 9

Discuss the outcome of the Smart city awards 2020

Answer 9

Performance of various States and cities:

1. Uttar Pradesh emerged on the top among all states, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
2. Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Surat (Gujarat) won the award jointly for their overall development.
3. Ahmedabad bagged the ‘Smart Cities Leadership Award’ and Chandigarh, the award for union
   territories, while Indore won the “Innovative Idea Award”.

Question 10

Who releases the world happiness report

Answer 10

released by the

UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Question 11

What was the theme of the world happiness report 2021

Answer 11

• Theme of 2021 report focusses on the effects of COVID- 19 on happiness and how countries have differed in their success in maintaining connected and healthy societies.

This year, the report provided two rankings:

1. The usual one based on average of three years of
   surveys taken in 2018-2020 by Gallup (American analytics and advisory company).
2. Another focused on 2020 alone to help understand the outbreak’s effect on subjective well-being and how factors contributing to well-being affected pandemic outcomes.
3. Respondents are asked to rate their own current lives on 0 to 10 scale, (10: best possible & 0: worst possible).

Question 12

Discuss the key findings of the world happiness report 2021

Answer 12

• Top 5 countries were – Finland (topped the list for fourth straight year), Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Sweden.
• India ranked 139th out of the 149 countries in the list, a slight improvement since last year(ranked 140th).
• India’s neighbours: Pakistan (105th), Bangladesh (101st) and China (84th).
• Afghanistan was ranked the least happy country.