KARNATAKA
An all-new midday meal menu for students in Karnataka
Children across the State can look forward to a new menu for their midday meal. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has revised the fare to include more vegetables and greens, with the aim of ensuring that the food served is more nutritious. It will be introduced on November 1 to all students in government schools.
The revamp of the menu comes in the backdrop of criticism from various quarters, including nutritionists and the State Food Commission. Non-governmental organisations, who are part of the midday meal programme, will also have to adhere to the same menu.
According to the norms by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the midday meal should have at least 450 calories and 12 grams protein for students from classes 1 to 5, while students from classes 6 to 10 should have 700 calories and 20 gm of protein.
The quality of food served to children is a matter of concern as malnutrition is prevalent in the State. According to the National Family Health Survey 4 (NFHS) data for Karnataka (2015-16), 36.2% of the children below the age of five are stunted, while 26.1% are wasted. The same survey also reveals that 10.5% of the children were severely wasted, while 35.2% are underweight.
INTERNATIONAL
● Indians will No Longer Require Visas To Visit Brazil
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the South American nation will drop its requirement that visiting Chinese and Indian tourists or businesspeople obtain visas.
Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, came to power at the beginning of the year and has made it a policy to reduce visa requirements from several developed countries.
The announcement, made during an official visit to China, is the first he has made expanding that policy to the developing world.
The Brazilian government ended visa requirements for tourists and business people from the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Those countries, however, have not, in return, dropped their visa requirements for Brazilian citizens.
● BASIC countries urge developed nations to adhere to commitments under the Paris Agreement to fight climate change
BASIC countries have urged developed nations to adhere to the commitments made under the Paris Agreement and provide finance and technology to the developing world.
In a joint statement, the BASIC, a bloc of four large countries, Brazil, South Africa, India and China, emphasized that the global climate action should promote climate justice by recognizing the fundamental equality of all people in accessing economic growth and sustainable development.
NATIONAL
● Gandhi Mandela Award 2019 an initiative to commemorate All Time World Pioneers
The Gandhi Mandela Foundation, a New Delhi based non-profit organization, under the aegis of Interactive Forum on Indian Economy (a govt of India recognized 80G, 12A complaint) committed to the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela constituted India’s first International Award. The award on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi exemplary work and achievements of the Heads of State and Government and other distinguished persons/organizations around the world.
● Govt to take Aadhaar help for new farmers’ database
The Union government will use Aadhaar-based data generated from key farm-sector programmes such as PM-KISAN and soil health cards to build a new farmers’ database, which will give unprecedented insights into the rural economy and aid precise targeting of subsidies.
The proposed database has been made possible by the mandatory use of a beneficiary’s Aadhaar — the 12-digit biometric identity — for all rural schemes, according to the first official. It will be a “unified and integrated IT-based” repository, containing multiple information about a farm household, from financial details to landholdings data.
Farm subsidies worth thousands of crores — including cheap insurance, fertilisers and credit-to-cash transfers — still suffer from leakages because very little information about individual farmers is centrally available at the federal level.
An Aadhaar-enabled database that maps actual farm sizes, cropping patterns and agro-climatic zones can create district-level estimates of per capita fertilizer need.The same goes for cheap credit and farm insurance.
● Centre plans to run Ladakh completely on renewable energy
The Union government plans to make Ladakh the first Indian union territory (UT) to run entirely on renewable energy. The newly carved out union territory has already about 30 megawatts (MW) of small hydro projects, and the government wants to install solar generation units to meet all its power demand from renewable energy sources. Ladakh was made an independent union territory after the government recently revoked Article 370.
The Daily solar power generation potential in most The part of the country is in the range of 3-5 units per square meter, the same in Leh-Ladakh can be 6-8 units, thanks to high ‘irradiance’ factor.
The government is targetting to achieve 4,50,000 MW of renewable energy capacity, as announced recently by the Prime Minister, the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This target is expected to be achieved by 2030. Before that, the government is currently working to meet the deadline for installing 175 GW of renewable energy is December 31, 2022. The installed renewable capacity now stands at 82.6 GW.
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