Daily News Analysis 15th November 2018

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Daily News Analysis (Prelims + Mains) – 15th November 2018

General Study – II

Topic:

Issues relating to poverty and hunger.

Setting a proper diet

  • Despite being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, India has been ranked at 103 out of 119 countries, with hunger levels categorised as “serious”, in the Global Hunger Index 2018.
  • India’s child malnourishment level is not only the highest in the world but varies considerably across States.
  • As per the National Family Health Survey-2016, the proportion of stunted (low height for age) children under five is significantly higher (38.4%) than global (22.9%) averages.
  • The underweight (low weight for age) children rate (35.7%) is a lot higher than the global average (13.5%) India is home to over 53.3 million stunted, 49.6 million underweight and 29.2 million wasted (low weight for height) children under five

Major challenges

  • Growing prosperity has hardly made any significant dent in chronic malnutrition of children.
  • Faster economic growth has enormous benefits, but it is by no means sufficient and sustainable if millions of children remain undernourished, as it not only impacts early childhood health and imposes disease burden but also affects education, wages and productivity when they grow up, which will impact India’s growth
  • The low income and Empowered-Action-Group (EAG) States face major challenges to improve malnutrition, but, two EAG States, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, have performed better on this front compared to Gujarat and Maharashtra where per capita income is almost double.
  • The development path prevalent in Gujarat is more about growth, development, investment, which, however, has not been able to translate as better nutritional status in the State.
  • Odisha, which is a low income State, has a better network of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), public health facility/workforce per lakh population and educational attainment among women, which have translated into a better nutritional status when compared with Gujarat.

Agriculture v. hunger

  • Another prominent idea is the need to link agriculture and nutrition, as agriculture provides answers to most nutrition problems.
  • Our estimates, however, show malnutrition continues to be high in agricultural surplus States like Haryana (34% stunting and 29.5% underweight).
  • Madhya Pradesh has registered double-digit growth in food grain production making it one of the wheat granaries of India, but acute malnutrition is still critical in most of its districts with a high proportion of underweight (42.8%) and stunted children (41.9%).
  • With the increase in diversity in food intake, measured through Food Intake Index using 19 food items in all 640 districts, malnutrition (stunted/underweight) status declines.
  • Only 12% of children are likely to be stunted and underweight in areas where diversity in food intake is high, while around 50% children are stunted if they consume less than three food items
  • A majority of children across districts in Tamil Nadu consume a reasonably highly diversified food, leading to lower percentage of stunted/underweight children across districts.
  • Children in a majority of districts in West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala and Karnataka consume mediocre level of food items and malnutrition is relatively lower than in Rajasthan, U.P., Jharkhand, M.P., Gujarat, Bihar and Haryana (children in many of their districts consume less diversified food)
  • The diversified food intake is very low in a majority of Indian districts; just 28% of children consumed over five items of the total 19 food items.

The way forward

  • An inclusive and holistic approach, including controlling/regulating food price, strengthening the public distribution system (PDS) and income support policies for making food cheaper are important steps
  • The ICDS was a high impact nutrition intervention, but its universal availability and quality are questionable due to poor functioning.
  • The government must broaden the ICDS programme by ensuring diversity in food items in worst-hit districts.
  • The launch of the National Nutrition Mission as a strategy to fight maternal and child malnutrition is a welcome step towards achieving the targets of underweight and stunted children under five years from 35.7% to 20.7% and from 38.4% to 25% respectively by 2022.

National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges

The third meeting of National Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges as part of Poshan Abhiyan, was held. The Meeting was Chaired by Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog.

It was attended by Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and other dignatories.

The Meeting Discussed Action Taken Report on the recommendations of the last National Council Meeting and the brief on POSHAN MAAH outcomes, Specifications of smart phones and growth monitoring devises.

And also discussed on third Party outcome-based evaluation of PoshanAbhiayan, roll out of e-ILA (e-incremental learning approach- Technology developed to support the field functionaries to improve their knowledge and skills in an ongoing incremental manner) and many other issues concerning effective implementation of PoshanAbhiyan.

National Nutrition Mission

  • The National Nutrition Mission (NNM) has been set up with a three year budget of Rs.9046.17 crore commencing from 2017-18.
  • The NNM is a comprehensive approach towards raising nutrition level in the country on a war footing.
  • The goals of NNM are to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children from 0-6 years, Adolescent Girls, Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers in a time bound manner during the next three years beginning 2017-18.
  • The salient features of the Mission are
    • Ensuring convergence – NNM will ensure convergence with various programmes;
    • Incentivizing States/ UTs for achieving goals;
    • IT enabled Real Time Monitoring (ICT-RTM);
    • Evaluation; weighing efficiency and making nutrition visible;
    • Community mobilisation awareness advocacy;
    • IEC, Jan Andolan – to educate the people on nutritional aspects, on-line Course on Nutrition for Children, Nutrition message from folk songs and songs on WASH, sending messages on nutrition and also creating ring-tones, Yoga for children at AWCs;
    • Strengthening human resource;
    • Measuring  height and length of children below 6 years of age;
    • Roll out of NNM in 315 districts in 2017-18, 235 districts in 2018-19 and remaining districts in 2019-20.  A total of about 10 crore beneficiaries are covered under the Mission.
  • The programme through the targets will strive to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight babies.
    • NNM targets to reduce stunting, under- nutrition, anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and reduce low birth weight by 2%, 2%, 3% and 2% per annum respectively.
    • Although the target to reduce Stunting is atleast 2% p.a., Mission would strive to achieve reduction in Stunting from 38.4% (NFHS-4) to 25% by 2022 (Mission 25 by 2022).
  • Under mission there is provision for setting up of a National Council on India’s Nutritional Challenges under the Chairmanship of Vice-Chairman NITI Aayog. The Mission is to submit report to the Prime Minister every six months.

General Study – III

Topic:

Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology

GSAT-29

  • GSAT-29 is communication satellite was successfully launched by the second developmental flight of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV MkIII-D2) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
  • It is a multiband, multi-beam communication satellite, intended to serve as test bed for several new and critical technologies.
  • Its Ku-band and Ka-band payloads are configured to cater to the communication requirements of users including those from remote areas especially from Jammu & Kashmir and North-Eastern regions of India.
  • It will provide communication and internet services to the remotest corners of our country.
  • GSLV Mk III is a three-stage heavy lift launch vehicle developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
  • The success of GSLV MkIII-D2 marks an important milestone in Indian space programme towards achieving self-reliance in launching heavier satellites. The success of this flight also signifies the completion of the experimental phase of GSLV Mark III.

General Study – III

Topic:

Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment

Yuva Sahakar-Cooperative Enterprise Support and Innovation Scheme

  • Union Agriculture Minister launches NCDC’s new scheme to promote young entrepreneurs in cooperatives.
  • It is National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) youth-friendly scheme for attracting them to cooperative business ventures.
  • NCDC has created a dedicated fund with liberal features enabling youth to avail the scheme.
  • The scheme will be linked to Rs 1000 crore ‘Cooperative Start-up and Innovation Fund (CSIF)’ created by the NCDC.
  • Scheme has more incentives for cooperatives of North Eastern region, Aspirational Districts and cooperatives with women or SC or ST or PwD members.
  • Funding for the project will be up to 80% of the project cost for these special categories as against 70% for others.
  • The scheme envisages 2% less than the applicable rate of interest on term loan for the project cost up to Rs 3 crore including 2 years moratorium on payment of principal.
  • All types of cooperatives in operation for at least one year are eligible.

National Cooperative Development Corporation

  • NCDC was established by NCDC Act in 1963 as a statutory Corporation under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
  • The objectives of NCDC are planning and promoting programmes for production, processing, marketing, storage, export and import of agricultural produce, foodstuffs, industrial goods, livestock and certain other notified commodities and services on cooperative principles and for matters concerned therewith or incidental thereto.
  • NCDC Act has been further amended which will broad base the area of operation of the Corporation to assist different types of cooperatives and to expand its financial base. NCDC will now be able to finance projects in the rural industrial cooperative sectors and for certain notified services in rural areas like water conservation, irrigation and micro irrigation, agri-insurance, agro-credit, rural sanitation, animal health, etc.
  • NCDC promotes and provides financial assistance to cooperatives for following activities such as
    • Marketing & Inputs
    • Agro-processing viz. Sugar, Spinning Mills, Ginning & Pressing, Fruit & Vegetables, other small/ medium sized processing units.
    • Storage and Cold Storage
    • Weaker Sections Viz. Tribal, Fisheries, Dairy, Poultry, Sericulture, Handloom, Coir and Jute
    • Power loom
    • Equipment Finance
    • Computerisation
  • The Management of NCDC vests in the General Council of 51 members and Board of Management of 12 members. The term of General Council and Board is for 3 years and the same is reconstituted by Central Government every three years.
  • The Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare is the President of the General Council and the Secretary (Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare ) Government of India is the Chairman of the Board of Management.
  • The main responsibility of General Council is to lay down policy frame work, approve Programme of Activities and Annual Report of NCDC.
  • The main responsibility of Board of Management is to implement the policies and guidelines of General Council. The Managing Director is the Chief Executive of the Corporation for implementation of programmes assisted by officers in various disciplines.
  • NCDC has its Head Office in New Delhi, it also functions through 18 Regional/State Directorates.

Topic for Prelims

India International Trade Fair 2018

  • The 38th of India International Trade Fair (IITF) 2018 begins in New Delhi.
  • This edition of IITF assumes special significance as it marks the beginning of the150th birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi.
  • The theme pavilion of the Fair has been setup by the Ministry of Rural Development.
  • The fair also showcases various initiatives of the Government of India like Make in India, Startup India, Digital India, Skill India and Swachh Bharat.
  • This edition partner country is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the focus country is the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. The focus state is Jharkhand.

Young Champions Awards

  • UNICEF India and NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) have come together this Children’s Day, to provide an open platform to young children of India, to contribute towards sustainable development.
  • Awards were presented to the top six most innovative solutions from across the country, which were shortlisted through the Atal Tinkering Marathon.
  • Children’s Day Week celebrated from November 14 to the World Children’s Day on 20 November. On this ocassion AIM and UNICEF seek to drive extensive forward and backward linkages within the stakeholders in India, to create a paradigm shift in the student mindset and prepare them to become young innovators and entrepreneurs.
  • AIM and UNICEF have also launched a 72 hour Tinkering Hackathon from 14 to 17 November so that children can come up with innovative solutions for challenges faced by them in school, especially pertaining to quality of education and safety in schools. The winners of the Hackathon will be announced on 20 November, World Children’s Day.
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