Tuesday, May 12, 2015

High percentage of malnourished children causing concern

17 p.c. of newborns in Kalaburagi are underweight

A high percentage of malnourished children and the high number of children born underweight continues to be a major health problem in Kalaburagi, according to the Kalaburagi District Human Development Report-2014.

Common problem

The report, compiled by economist Chaya Degaonkar of Gulbarga University, provides a disturbing picture of the prevalent malnutrition and anaemia, which is common among children and women. In Chittapur taluk, 57.5 per cent of the children were reported as malnourished.

The situation was the same in all taluks with Jewargi reporting 49.74 per cent, Chincholi with 45.62 per cent, Aland taluk with 42.3 per cent, Afzalpur taluk with 37.14 per cent, Sedam taluk with 34.19 per cent and Kalaburagi with 28.88 per cent.

The report also said that nearly 17 per cent of newborns in the district were underweight.

The figures varied from 7.34 per cent in Sedam to 10.16 per cent in Kalaburagi taluks. Chincholi reported 9.51 per cent of newborn as underweight, followed by Aland with 9.10 per cent, Afzalpur with 7.67 per cent, Sedam with 7.34 per cent, Jewargi with 5.60 per cent and Chittapur with 5.14 per cent.

Poverty, gender discrimination, early marriage, high fertility rates, low female literacy rate and a lack of awareness about nutrition were some reasons for the high rate of malnutrition among children in the district, according to the findings.

The low coverage of children under the Integrated Child Development Scheme in the district was also cited as a reason for the low levels of nourishment.

The percentage of children covered under the scheme in the Anganwadi centres was 62.33 per cent.

The coverage was 48.67 per cent in Kalaburagi taluk, 55.75 per cent in Jewargi and 83 per cent in Sedam.

Little India in China, Less China in India

Reshma Patil

The two nations need a push to encourage more people to live across the border

When Narendra Modi addresses Indians this week in Shanghai, there will be many newcomers in the crowd. India's diaspora in mainland China is its largest in a major East Asian economy , roughly equivalent to the Indian community in a place the size of Hong Kong. The two nations send record numbers of immigrants to the US, West Asia, Britain, Australia and Africa, but hardly across the SinoIndian border.A gradual increase in crossborder residents is changing this trend. During the economic downturn of 2008-09, Indians began to leave Beijing and Shanghai as multinational firms downsized or relocated. I would be the solitary Indian dining in an Indian restaurant in Beijing's business district as bilateral visa problems grounded executives. But they didn't stay away for long.
Milind Pant, president and COO of Yum! China in Shanghai, says he observes more young Indians on threeto six-month contracts in the elevators of the building housing his office. The largest increase in expats comprises students, traders and techies, says Mehernosh Pastakia, who has, since 1990, observed the diaspora spread beyond Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou into smaller cities.
A Pew Research Centre survey last year found only 30% Chinese and 31% Indians held favourable views about the other country .Even a modest increase in direct contact between Indians and Chinese can help improve mutual trust. Of an annual 8 lakh trips between India and China, 6 lakh are by Indians travelling to China.NRIs in China, India's largest trading partner, have increased from 25,000 a few years ago to 45,00048,000, including 13,000 students.There are now 20,000 Chinese expats in India, including 2,000 students. Their numbers dropped in 2008-10 during the financial crisis and border problems that led to India rescinding Chinese visas.
The Chinese diaspora follows the building boom financed by Beijing's state-owned enterprises and banks. A million Chinese live in Africa where Chinese FDI hit $20 billion in 2012. The 12,000-strong Chinese presence in Pakistan will increase as Beijing builds a $46-billion China-Pakistan economic corridor.
Modi's new Chinese micro-blog and day out in Shanghai are big steps to project emerging India favourably . But decades-old perceptions won't change without sustained efforts on both sides.
Many Indian professionals in China leave before they can forge lasting `guanxi' (connections).They land on short-term contracts as Indian IT companies find it challenging to hire and afford experienced, English-speaking Chinese managers and techies.In Beijing, the number of 500-600 long-term Indian residents is nearly constant.
With a few exceptions, the two nations' top universities have not built solid academic bridges.India's student strength in China is up from 8,000 in 2012 and 9,200 in 2013 to 13,000. A majority of them pursue China's low-cost medical degrees. Earlier this year, the Communication University of China in Beijing wrote to some Indian professors urging them to popularise Chinese government scholarships. It received many applications from Pakistan. It was waiting for mail from India.
Shanghai, China's financial capital, hosts diamond traders from Surat, techies, bankers and exporters who learn to substitute basmati with short and sticky Chinese rice. The professionals among them generally leave in two-three years. In towns near Shanghai, the Indian presence is limited to a handful engineers each.
China's 2010 census recorded a 6 lakh population of foreigners, with Koreans, Americans and Japanese comprising the largest categories.Indians are a niche group even in friendlier East Asian nations: 10,500 in South Korea, 23,211 in Japan. Life in China requires more compromises. The Internet is restricted. There are over 60 Indian restaurants, but vegetarian meals are rarely available. Those who can't grasp Mandarin feel lost.
India and China are $70 billion trade partners. But the number of 100 Chinese companies in India and 150-odd Indian companies in China have remained constant.But the two proposed industrial parks for Chinese manufacturing in Maharashtra and Gujarat can lead to meaningful engagement.
Further growth in interactions between Indian and Chinese professionals depends on long-term improvements in FDI, visa procedures and the business climate on both sides. Encouraging tourist travel with e-visas may seem simpler. Modi may win over NRIs, but China's 100 million outbound tourists are not easily convinced that India is clean and safe for women.

The Weakest Link is Jan Dhan Account

Needed, ubiquitous correspondents for mobile banking

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced the start of three schemes, two insurance products and one pension scheme, for poor and unorganised workers. These might repackage ongoing schemes introduced by the previous UPA government, but there is no denying the present administration's ability to give them scale, commitment and visibility the schemes needed. Insurance pools resources to meet contingent expenses. Give that nearly two-thirds of Indians are below 35 years of age, the probability of death in the entire population is small and the premium amount can be kept low to mobilise the resources needed to meet insurance payouts. When coverage is expanded to include the entire population, the odds work in favour of lowering costs.This does not mean that no state subsidy would ever be needed. But the subsidy requirement is not likely to be huge, with some mandatory contribution from the beneficiaries as well. The earlier a worker starts saving for re tirement, the lower the burden on the government to ensure him a minim um pension in old age. These schemes can work well only when the benefici aries understand the schemes in ques tion and diligently make their contri butions. The weakness in the system is not the inability of the poor to pony up the small amounts required as their contribution to these funded programmes, but the bank accounts to which these are linked. While large numbers of bank accounts have been opened, these accounts in physical branches at a distance from where the account holders live remain as hard to operate as ever.
The way to make banks accessible is through mobile phone-linked accounts that can be operated through ubiquitous banking correspondents for depositing or taking out cash. For this, the RBI would need to liberalise its terms for banking correspondents and allow telecom joint ventures with banking licences to make use of their telecom retail network to service banking needs as well.Once that is done, India will move ever closer to the goal of financial inclusion.

Vedanta - Heart-Felt Prayer

AJIT SINGH

John Sullivan, the English collector of Coimbatore, was camping at Dimhatty , a jerkwater hamlet near Kotagiri, in 1819.As the evening drew on, his worst fears came true when he heard a distant rumble in the skies. In no time, peals of thunder rent the air and jagged flashes of lightening criss-crossed the skies. He could see sheets of rainwater advancing rapidly towards the village.“Oh God, the whole village is going to be washed away ,“ he moaned. He fell to his knees and prayed, a lump in his throat, eyes brimming. In a while, the water storm receded into the distance.
In 1978, Baba Muktanand, the sage of Ganeshpuri, was camping in Delhi for the inauguration of a chapter of his ashram. As the sky was clear, food had been prepared alfresco for a couple of thousand devotees.
The weather suddenly turned inclement and as there were no arrangements on standby , they panicked. Baba withdrew to his room to meditate. After 20 minutes, when he emerged from his room, there was not a trace of rain clouds over the area, though rain could be seen falling on the other side of the fence.
These two events separated by a time span of 159 years and a distance of about 2,800 km, are remarkably similar in their construct. Sceptics are likely to dub these incidents mere coincidence and brand the believers, superstitious.
Gandhiji spells out his deepset conviction unequivocally , “The sky may be overcast today with clouds, but a fervent prayer to God is enough to dispel them.... Properly understood and applied, prayer is the most potent instrument of action.“

May 12 2015 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Govt to Set up Startup Network to Support Young Entrepreneurs

Vikas Dhoot

New Delhi:

HIGH-IMPACT SCHEME Ecosystem will encourage social enterprises and help commercialise grass-root level innovations

The Modi government is creating an ecosystem for supporting young entrepreneurs through a formal network of incubators, accelerators and mentors that would help set up, grow and stabilise new businesses, with an emphasis on social enterprises and commercial adaptation of grass-root level innovations.The network that would include institutions like the IIMs, IITs, Indian Institute of Science, research parks and industry bodies, is being steered by the Ministry of Skill De velopment and Entrepreneurship as a `high-impact scheme' to spur job creation.
“We will have a workforce of billion persons by 2030 with a million persons entering the job market every month. While skill development is critical, it won't translate into enough employment unless existing firms grow and many new enterprises come up,“ a senior government official told ET.
The Indian economy is currently creating only 5.5 million organised sector jobs a year, resulting in a burgeoning demand for jobs that are non-existent, he pointed out.
The ministry is exploring tie-ups with Ahmedabad-based Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII) and US-based non-profit, Wadhwani Foundation, both of which have ex tensive expertise on the subject.
The National Skills Develop ment Corpora tion and indus try chambers like CII and FIC CI are also likely to partner the startup network.
The new startup network would also bring on board existing entrepreneurship promotion initiatives such as the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (set up in 1982 under the Ministry of Science and Technology) and the National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development under the aegis of the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises.
While social enterprises (read forprofit, but socially responsible businesses) would also be encouraged by the proposed startup network, a partnership is also being put in place for commercialising grass-root level innovations.
“We will work with the National Innovation Foundation to support and scale-up grass-root innovations and idea. New technologydriven startups will get a platform of incubation, mentoring and assistance,“ the official said, adding that they are consulting state governments on these plans to boost entrepreneurship.
According to the ministry, the Wadhwani Foundation trains and backs over 100,000 aspiring student entrepreneurs at 500 colleges in India and has over 7,300 mentors and trainers. The EDII, which is an autonomous not-for-profit institute, has developed over 20,000 entrepreneurs and has 3,000 trainers in its institutional network.

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

VIDWAN: EXPERT DATABASE

VIDWAN is the premier database of profiles of scientists / researchers and other faculty members working at leading R & D Organisation and other Academic Institutions involved in teaching and research in India. It provides important information about expert's background, contact address, skills and accomplishments.

The database is being developed by INFLIBNET Centre, Infocity, Gandhinagar. The database offers expertise of various subject from Nation's leading institutions. Attempt has been made to provide access to relevant and accurate information collected from various sources. Web enabled interface has been incorporated to facilitate the search and update names listed in the database. On Expert Database, you are not limited to publishing a static Profile(s). Our members can take advantage of many “value – added” offerings such as having Books and Articles published on the personal website and linked to their Profile(s).

Further, every expert whose profile is available in the database, has been provided login ID and password with the persistent URL for future updating of their profiles. The databases can be searched on parameters such as name, designation, institution, specialization, state, etc. Expert database is committed to excellence and value. We will continue to improve on our offerings to better serve your interests.

Who can Join?

The Expert should have a post-graduate / Doctorate degree in their respective subject with 15 years of professional experience

Associate Professor / Professor / Senior Scientist or equivalent position in teaching, research

National/international awardees and citation laureates

http://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/index.php