Also launches ‘Eat Right Jacket’ and ‘Eat Right Jhola’ on World Food Day 2019 Posted On: 16 OCT 2019 5:19PM by PIB Delhi “By motivating key players in the system who can reach out to people at large, we can reach out to each and every individual. We have to include every section of the society so that Eat Right India becomes a country wide movement.” Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare said at the function to commemorate World Food Day 2019, here today. The theme for this day was ‘Healthy Diets for a Zero Hunger World’. To mark the occasion, Dr Harsh Vardhan also launched the ‘Food Safety Mitra (FSM)’ scheme, along with the ‘Eat Right Jacket’, and ‘Eat Right Jhola’ to strengthen food safety administration and scale up the ‘Eat Right India’ movement.
Dr Harsh Vardhan emphasized that the Eat Right India movement is a crucial trigger for the much needed social and behavioural change. This campaign along with the ‘Fit India' Movement' can achieve huge success if the right strategy is adopted and efforts are made to reach out to every section of the society. Dr. Harsh Vardhan further stated that people should adopt Gandhiji’s messages of eating less, eating safe and healthy food, and also reduce wastage of food while developing the habit of sharing surplus food. Citing the example of polio to highlight multi-sectoral approach, Dr Harsh Vardhan stated “All of us have to take up this responsibility in our own capacities. I believe that together we will be able to develop new approaches to combat challenges to health and society,” he added.
Highlighting the critical importance of a Jan Andolan on issues around food safety, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that small positive actions can be performed by individuals or organisations to strengthen the cause of food safety and food wastage.
The ‘Food Safety Mitra (FSM)’ scheme will support small and medium scale food businesses to comply with the food safety laws and facilitate licensing and registration, hygiene ratings and training. Apart from strengthening food safety, this scheme would also create new employment opportunities for youth, particularly with food and nutrition background. The FSMs would undergo training and certification by FSSAI to do their work and get paid by food businesses for their services. The first batch of 15 FSMs were awarded certificates today (Details of the scheme are available at https://fssai.gov.in/mitra/).
The ‘Eat Right Jacket’ launched today will be used by the field staff. This jacket has a smart design to hold tech devices like tablets/smart phone, a QR code and RFID tag for identification and tracking. Apart from providing safety to field staff on duty, this would bring in efficiency, professionalism and transparency in food safety administration and bring in a sense of ownership & visibility of FSOs. The ‘Eat Right Jhola’, a reusable cloth bag shall replace plastic bags for grocery shopping in various retail chains. Since on repeated use, bags are often contaminated with microorganisms and bacteria, proper and regular washing of cloth bags is essential to ensure safety and hygiene. These cloth bags are being provided on rental basis through a private textile rental service company.
FSSAI has partnered with the Domestic Workers Sector Skill Council (DWSSC) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to launch a training course for domestic workers and homemakers across the country. In the first phase, one lakh domestic workers and homemakers will be trained through training partners of DWSSC in association with RWAs. This would be scaled up in due course.
For scaling up the Eat Right India movement across the country, FSSAI has got endorsement of several celebrities. Two short films, on repurposing of used cooking oil into biodiesel and, nutrition in the first 1000 days of life featuring Shri Virat Kohli and Ms. Juhi Chawla respectively, were released on the occasion.
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Shri Ram Vilas Paswan distributes Hindi Pakhwada Awards 2019; Says every country in the world has its own language & Hindi is the only language that can replace English in India Posted On: 16 OCT 2019 5:33PM by PIB Delhi
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan distributed the Hindi Pakhwada Awards, 2019 to the officials and employees of the Department of Consumer Affairs in Krishi Bhawan today.
Shri Paswan congratulated all the winners and the participants and distributed certificates and prizes. Addressing the gathering after distribution of awards, Shri Paswan said that every country in the world has its own language.
He mentioned that great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose though themselves not from Hindi speaking regions, favoured the adoption of Hindi as a National Language. They felt that Hindi has the potential to replace English in India as it is most widely used and is easily understood.
Shri Arjun Munda, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs launched the “Van Dhan Internship Programme” organised by TRIFED under Ministry of Tribal Affairs here today. Shri Pravin Krishna, MD, TRIFED was present on the occasion.
Addressing the interns, Shri Arjun Munda said that these interns will help the tribal population in becoming self reliant and entrepreneurs. He said that all interns are now part of “National Building Team”. Emphasizing on the need of entrepreneurship, the Minister opined that it encourages a person to take the initiative for development.
18 interns (to be called Minister’s interns) from some of the reputed Institutes of Rural Management/ Management Institutions/ Institutes of Social Work/ Social Services of the country are participating in the “Van Dhan Internship Programme”. These interns have been selected to go and work on Van Dhan programme in the field. These interns have an inclination towards involving in matters related to tribal livelihood.
An advertisement was released in Economic Times (All India Edition) on 13th September, 2019 for these interns. After their selection through the walk- in- interview, these interns are undergoing a one week training programme. The period of internship is 6 months (extendable developing upon the need of the organisation and mutual sustainability.
These interns will work with the team of TRIFED in various states and districts in tribal areas in development of tribal welfare and inclusive growth (a dissertation has to be submitted on conclusion of the internship). They will support the TRIFED activities on livelihood promotion, value addition of NTFTs, marketing and credit linkages. They will develop tools and techniques on institutional development including mechanism for determination of a just price or producer price of Minor Forset Products.
Shri Arjun Munda, Union Minister of Tribal Affair announced the second phase of GOAL (Going Online as Leaders), a Facebook program aimed at inspiring, guiding and encouraging tribal girls from across India to become village-level digital young leaders for their communities. Launched earlier this year in March, GOAL connects underprivileged young tribal women with senior expert mentors in the areas of business, fashion and arts to learn digital and life skills. In the second phase of the program, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Facebook together will digitally mentor 5000 young women in India’s tribal dominated districts.
Speaking at an event to commence the next expanded phase of the program, Shri Arjun Munda said, “Through this partnership the GOAL program will provide economically and socially marginalized young women with the tools and guidance they need to succeed, using technology they may otherwise have not had access to. It is my pleasure to be here to launch the second stage of this initiative with Facebook in Delhi today”. The Minister was joined by Ms. Anna Roy -Senior Advisor Data Management & Analysis and Chairperson, Women Entrepreneurship Platform NITI Aayog, and Facebook India leadership team including Mr. Ajit Mohan- Vice President & Managing Director and Ms. Ankhi Das, Director of Public Policy. Participants from the states of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, who are enrolled in the current program were also present at the event.
The program will include weekly one-to-one mentoring sessions, focused on a range of skills such as digital literacy, entrepreneurship and online safety. In total, more than 200,000 hours of guidance will be provided using Facebook family of apps including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Following the program, the participants will graduate to the GOAL alumni and will continue to receive support and guidance from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Facebook.
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs will also work with district administration and other government agencies to help secure qualified participants with a fellowship, so they can put their newly learned skills to work.
More than 125 young women have enrolled in the program. Most of them are now using the internet to highlight issues their communities face and have expressed a desire to set up their own business.
“Facebook is committed to closing the digital gender gap by enabling more women to get online and access digital services. This program is important because it actively supports these young women to build leadership qualities and encourages them to be champions and help share their learnings with others.” added Ms. Ankhi Das, Director of Public Policy, Facebook India.
The GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale, with 0 being the best score (no hunger) and 100 being the worst. Values less than 10 reflect low hunger, values from 20 to 34.9 indicate serious hunger; values from 35 to 49.9 are alarming; and values of 50 or more are extremely alarming.
What is Global Hunger Index? The report is a peer-reviewed publication released annually by Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide. The GHI scores are based on a formula that captures three dimensions of hunger—insufficient caloric intake, child undernutrition, and child mortality—using four component indicators:
UNDERNOURISHMENT: the share of the population that is under-nourished, reflecting insufficient caloric intake CHILD WASTING: the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (low weight-for-height), reflecting acute undernutrition.
CHILD STUNTING: the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (low height-for-age), reflecting chronic undernutrition. CHILD MORTALITY: the mortality rate of children under the age of five.
Key findings: Global scenario: The report is topped by Central African Republic. It is becoming difficult to feed the world due to climate change. While there has been progress in reducing hunger, but the gains are now being threatened and severe hunger persists in many regions across the world.
Multiple countries have higher hunger levels now than in 2010, and approximately 45 countries are set to fail to achieve low levels of hunger by 2030. Among the 117 countries, 43 have “serious” levels of hunger. The Central African Republic is in the “extremely alarming” level in the hunger index.
The Global Hunger Index recommends various steps the countries could take to tackle this serious problem: Prioritizing resilience among the most vulnerable groups, better response to disasters, addressing inequalities, action to mitigate climate change are among measures suggested in the report.
India and it’s neighbours: India ranked 102 on the index among 117 qualifying countries with a score of 30.3. Even North Korea, Niger, Cameroon fared better than India. Neighboring countries too bagged better spots — Sri Lanka (66), Nepal (73), Pakistan (94) and Bangladesh (88).
India bagged the top spot in child wasting rate in the world with an increase of 4.3 percentage points in nine years. Around 90 per cent of children aged between 6 and 23 months in the country don’t even get minimum required food.
When it comes to stunting in children under five, the country saw a dip, but it’s still high — 37.9 per cent in 2019 from 42 per cent in 2010. Despite the Swachh Bharat campaign, open defecation is still practiced in India. It jeopardises the population’s health and severely impacts children’s growth and their ability to absorb nutrients.
Concerns for India: These findings point at a serious food crisis since wasting is “a strong predictor of mortality among children under five and is usually the result of acute significant food shortage and/or disease.
India’s hunger indicators have a huge impact on the total indicators of the region owing to its large population.
The data shows that India’s poor scores were pulling down South Asia to a point where it does worse than even sub-Saharan Africa.
What needs to be done? In India, to combat the malnutrition levels both immediate and long term interventions are needed. Around 85 to 90% of wasting can be managed at the community level. Now, the nutritional rehabilitation centres are coming up across the country. It can help in taking care of the institutional needs of the children who are already malnourished.
But to prevent it from happening, mothers need to be educated about nutrition at anganwadis, access to clean drinking water and sanitation has to be ensured, and livelihood security is needed.
However, for immediate intervention, nutritional formulation needs to be made available at community level.
The government can utilise the existing network of public distribution system, have the self-help groups prepare packaged, portioned nutritional formulations to help the moderately malnourished before wasting happens.
What is a randomised controlled trial? It is an experiment that is designed to isolate the influence that a certain intervention or variable has on an outcome or event.
Why is randomised controlled trial so popular? At any point in time, there are multiple factors that work in tandem to influence various social events.
RCTs allow economists and other social science researchers to isolate the individual impact that a certain factor alone has on the overall event. For instance, to measure the impact that hiring more teachers can have on children’s learning, researchers must control for the effect that other factors such as intelligence, nutrition, climate, economic and social status etc., which may also influence learning outcomes to various degrees, have on the final event.
Randomised controlled trials promise to overcome this problem through the use of randomly picked samples.
Significance: Many development economists believe that RCTs can help governments to find, in a thoroughly scientific way, the most potent policy measures that could help end poverty rapidly.
Criticisms of randomised controlled trials: As per economist Angus Deaton, who won the economics Nobel Prize in 2015, “Understanding and misunderstanding randomised control trials” that simply choosing samples for an RCT experiment in a random manner does not really make these samples identical in their many characteristics. While two randomly chosen samples might turn out to be similar in some cases, he argued, there are greater chances that most samples are not really similar to each other.
Other economists argue that social science research, including research in the field of development economics, may be inherently unsuited for such controlled research since it may be humanly impossible to control for multiple factors that may influence social events.
Who are Kurds? At an estimated 25 million to 35 million population, they are the world’s largest stateless ethnic group. The majority among the Kurdish people today are Sunni Muslim, but there are adherents of other faiths too, including Sufism and other mystical practices.
They live in the highlands of southern and eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, the northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and parts of south Armenia, and are a minority in each of these countries. Small communities live in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, and eastern Iran as well.
Kurds have long had a reputation for being fearless fighters, and they have served as mercenaries in many armies over the centuries. The mediaeval warrior Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty that replaced the Fatimids in Egypt and ruled over large parts of the Middle East in the 12th and 13th centuries, was of Kurdish ethnicity.
What’s happening now? Recently, the Trump administration ordered US troops to step aside from the border in northern Syria, effectively paving the way for Turkey to launch an offensive against US-backed Kurdish forces who they regard as enemies.
What are their demands? The Kurds have never achieved nation-state status, except in Iraq, where they have a regional government called Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdistan is made up of five different regions: southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southwestern Armenia.
In the early 20th century, the Kurds began working toward the creation of homeland known as Kurdistan. In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres — one of a series of treaties that the Central Powers signed after their defeat in World War I — outlined the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and called for an autonomous Kurdistan.
Three years later, after the end of the war, Western allies dropped demands for an independent Kurdish state and the Kurdish region was divided among several countries.
Why is Turkey attacking them? Turkey has two main goals in northeast Syria: to drive the Kurdish YPG militia which it deems a security threat away from its border, and to create a space inside Syria where 2 million Syrian refugees currently hosted in Turkey can be settled.
Latest developments: Kurdish forces who had until recently been America’s allies against both the Islamic State and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, announced an agreement with the Damascus regime, which is backed by Moscow and Tehran, the United States’ two great rivals in the region. Turkey has also launched a military operation against Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria.
What could this mean for Islamic state? Chaos could present Islamic State with an opportunity to stage a revival and the SDF has been conducting operations against IS sleeper cells since capturing its final territorial foothold earlier this year.
Way ahead: The operation could reshape the map of the Syrian conflict once again, dealing a blow to Kurdish-led forces that have battled Islamic State while widening Turkey’s territorial control at the border.
India- specific observations: India retains its rank as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, tying with China.
It has a projected growth rate of 6.1 per cent for the current fiscal year, despite an almost one per cent cut in the forecast. However, India’s economy is projected to pick up and grow by 7 per cent in the 2020 fiscal year.
Reasons for the cut in growth projection for India: India’s economy decelerated further in the second quarter, held back by sector-specific weaknesses in the automobile sector and real estate as well as lingering uncertainty about the health of non-bank financial companies.
“Corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty” are other factors that weighed on demand. The reduction in India’s growth projection for this year “reflects a weaker-than-expected outlook for domestic demand”.
Measures needed for India to revive its growth: Use monetary policy and broad-based structural reforms to address cyclical weakness and strengthen confidence. A credible fiscal consolidation path is needed to bring down India’s elevated public debt over the medium term.
This should be supported by subsidy-spending rationalisation and tax-base enhancing measures. Reduce the public sector’s role in the financial system, reform the hiring and dismissal regulations.
Global scenario: The world economy is projected to grow only 3 per cent this year and 3.4 per cent next year amid a “synchronised slowdown“. China’s economic growth will slow down to 5.8 per cent next year. In the Euro area, growth is projected to be only 1.2 percent this year and 1.4 next year, with the German economy expected to grow by a dismal 0.5 per cent this year.
United States is expected to slightly better with a 2.1 per cent growth projected for this year and 2.4 per cent for the next. Reasons for slowdown: rising trade barriers, uncertainty surrounding trade and geopolitics, and structural factors, such as low productivity growth and an aging population in developed countries.
Using these cells, a plant has taken the botanical world’s first selfie.
What are microbial fuel cells? A device that converts chemical energy to electrical energy by the action of microorganisms.
How it works? Under sunlight, plants produce sugars and oxygen from water and CO2 (photosynthesis). These sugars do not remain in the leaves, but are transported throughout the plant to the stem and roots. Some of these sugars are excreted by the roots as a waste product from the plant.
Soil micro-organisms break this down further, releasing energy. This energy is captured using an anode (minus) and a cathode (plus) and charge a super capacitor. When the super capacitor is full, the power is discharged and a photo is taken.
Significance: Unlike solar panels, plants can survive in the shade, naturally moving into position to maximise the potential of absorbing sunlight.
The government has already announced that FASTags will be mandatory for all vehicles at all National Highways from December 1.
Features of the scheme- One Nation One FASTag: The scheme will be implemented from December 1, 2019, and can be availed upon activation by new cars having Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags on national and state highways throughout the country. The plan aims to integrate the collection of toll digitally and ensure seamless mobility of vehicles across India.
The payment method is a part of the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) collects the payments.
What is ‘FASTag’? How they operate? Stickers affixed to the windscreen of vehicles. Use RFID technology to enable digital, contactless payment of tolls without having to stop at toll gates.
The tags are linked to bank accounts and other payment methods. Sensors are placed on toll barriers, and the barriers open for vehicles having valid FASTags. A FASTag is valid for five years and needs to be recharged only as per requirement.
Why do we need this scheme? According to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), these devices will make passing through tolls considerably smoother since drivers will no longer have to carry cash or stop to make a transaction.
Cameras at toll booths will take photos of passengers in a vehicle, which will be useful for the Ministry of Home Affairs as there will be a record of a vehicle’s movement.
Context: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo have jointly won this year’s Booker prize.
Please note that this year’s award was an exception as the rules do not allow for the award to be either split or withheld.
However, this year the jury was unanimous after several rounds that this year’s award must be shared.
What is the Booker prize? Awarded every year to the best novel that was “written in English and published in the UK or Ireland”. Launched in 1969. Sponsored by Man Group. It carries an award of £50,000. Is this the first time the Booker has been shared?
No, the prize has been shared in the past. The first time this happened was in 1974 when Nadine Gordimer and Stanley Middleton won its together. The second time was in 1992 when Michael Ondaatje and Barry Unsworth won it together. However, since then the rules were tweaked to ensure there are no joint winners.
Released recently, the survey looks at district-wise prevalence of blindness and visual impairment. The prevalence of blindness is highest among those who are at least 80 years old (11.6%).
Cause of blindness: Untreated cataract is the main cause of blindness, at 66.2%. and also, the foremost cause of severe visual impairment, at 80.7% of all cases. Corneal opacity, cataract surgical complications and some posterior segment disorders are some of the other causes of blindness.
Celebrated on October 16 every year to raise awareness on the issues of poverty and hunger.
Established by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in November 1979.
The theme of World Food Day 2019 is “Our Actions Are Our Future. Healthy Diets for A #ZeroHunger World”.
Sixteen projects from five countries – Australia, Bhutan, China, India and New Zealand – have been recognized by the international Jury of conservation experts in this year’s Awards.
Significance: The UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation programme recognizes the efforts of private individuals and organizations that have successfully restored and conserved structures and buildings of heritage value in the region.
Award of Distinction: Vikram Sarabhai Library, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.
Award of Merit: Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai, India. Our Lady of Glory Church, Mumbai, India.
Honourable Mention: Flora Fountain, Mumbai, India.
MSDC is an apex advisory body for the development of the Maritime sector and aims to ensure integrated development of Major and non-Major Ports.
The MSDC was constituted in May, 1997 to assess in consultation with State Governments, the future development of existing and new Minor Ports by the respective Maritime States either directly or through captive users and private participation