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 Source : www.indianexpress.com Date : 2018-10-19

NUTRITION ON MY PLATE
Relevant for: Health, Education & Human Resources | Topic: Poverty & Hunger and related issues

Gifting Recommendations: A Realme for every Indian during Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale

India’s flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children, adolescents, pregnant
women and lactating mothers, the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) or the Poshan Abhiyan,
reflects an amalgamation of scientific principles, political fortitude and technical ingenuity. The

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Abhiyan highlights a strong focus on convergent actions from the national to the village level.
The key nutrition interventions and strategies, which form the core of NNM, contribute to the
targets of the World Health Assembly for nutrition and the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), dedicating Goal 2 to the challenge of meeting “zero hunger”.

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Good nutrition is critical to avert the irreversible cumulative growth and development deficits. It
contributes towards improving maternal and child health, learning outcomes, adult productivity
and strengthening gender equality. Nutrition security is inextricably linked to food and
agriculture, yet, the agriculture sector does not clearly fall within the scope of the Abhiyan.
However, there are areas where the sector could support the Abhiyan and help to achieve its
objectives. In line with the Zero Hunger vision, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of
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the United Nations can support ongoing NNM efforts related to dietary diversity through
agricultural diversification and sustainable intensification, thus making the agriculture and food
system more nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient and socio-economically viable simultaneously.
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For long, the agriculture sector focused on increasing food production — particularly staples,
which led to lower production and consumption of indigenous traditional crops/grains, fruits and
other vegetables, impacting food and nutrition security in the process. Today, globally, 821
million people suffer chronic undernourishment of which 196 million reside in India, according to
‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018’ report. The twin burden of
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malnutrition — that is, undernutrition, along with overweight and obesity, coexists in many
countries and its cost to the global economy is equivalent to $3.5 trillion a year.
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The momentum towards a reverse trend, however, is slowly gaining ground, which is reflected in
the production record of not only horticulture crops and fruits, but milk too. In 2017-18, milk
production in India rose to 165 million tonnes from about 35 million tonnes in 1980, also making
it one of the largest employers of rural people, especially women. India ranks second in fruits
and vegetables production in the world, after China. As per the National Horticulture Database
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(2015-16), India produced 90.2 million metric tonnes of fruits and 169.1 million metric tonnes of
vegetables. The area under cultivation of fruits stood at 6.3 million hectares while vegetables
were cultivated at 10.1 million hectares.

The time is opportune for agricultural interventions such as increasing the production of targeted
nutrition-rich crops (nutri-cereals), homestead gardens, and diversification of the agricultural
production system towards fruits, vegetables and aquaculture, to address the adverse effects of
malnutrition.

Further, with the Poshan Abhiyan advocating the “Triple A” approach, that is building the
capacity of ASHA, Anganwadi Worker (AWW) and Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) workers, there
is an opportunity to leverage the agriculture extension services in the country. The extension
workers have a direct and ongoing contact with smallholder farmers. They can be the agents of
change for nutritional intervention by leveraging modern technologies to impart nutrition-linked
messages for bringing about sustainable behaviour change towards food and nutrition. UN
agencies such as FAO can provide support to develop and plan targeted activities for capacity
building of the agriculture extension agents, so they can promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
The support can help to foster research on areas such as bio-fortification of crops, enhancing
production diversity including the coarse grains/millets and food safety.

The Poshan Abhiyan presents an opportunity for inter-sectoral collaboration that can amplify
collective actions to improve nutrition indicators and achieve the goal of “zero hunger” in the
country. Agriculture is not merely an activity to make “food” available to the people but an
indispensable ingredient in this recipe of achieving “sampoorna poshan” for the citizens of this
country.

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 Source : www.thehindu.com Date : 2018-10-19

FACEBOOK’S ELECTION WAR ROOM TAKES AIM AT

FAKE NEWS
Relevant for: Security Related Issues | Topic: Role of Media and Social Networking Sites in internal security
challenges

A man works at his desk in the war room, where Facebook monitors election related content on
the platform, in Menlo Park, California on October 17, 2018. | Photo Credit: AP

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In an otherwise innocuous part of Facebook’s expansive Silicon Valley campus, a locked door
bears a taped-on sign that reads “War Room”. Behind the door lies a nerve centre the social
network has set up to combat fake accounts and bogus news stories ahead of upcoming
elections.

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Inside the room are dozens of employees staring intently at their monitors while data streams
across giant dashboards. On the walls are posters of the sort Facebook frequently uses to
caution or exhort its employees. One reads, “Nothing at Facebook is somebody else’s problem.”

That motto might strike some as ironic, given that the war room was created to counter threats
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that almost no one at the company, least of all CEO Mark Zuckerberg, took seriously just two
years ago and which the company’s critics now believe pose a threat to democracy.

Days after President Donald Trump’s surprise victory, Mr. Zuckerberg brushed off assertions
that the outcome had been influenced by fictional news stories on Facebook, calling the idea
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“pretty crazy”.

But Facebook’s blase attitude shifted as criticism of the company mounted in U.S. Congress and
elsewhere. Later that year, it acknowledged having run thousands of ads promoting false
information placed by Russian agents. Zuckerberg eventually made fixing Facebook his
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personal challenge for 2018.

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The war room is a major part of Facebook’s ongoing repairs. Its technology draws upon the
artificial intelligence system Facebook has been using to help identify “inauthentic” posts and
user behaviour. Facebook provided a tightly controlled glimpse at its war room to The
Associated Press and other media ahead of the second round of presidential elections in Brazil
on October 28 and the U.S. midterm elections on November 6.
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“There is no substitute for physical, real-world interaction,” said Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook’s
director of elections and civic engagement. “The primary thing we have learned is just how
effective it is to have people in the same room all together.”

More than 20 different teams now coordinate the efforts of more than 20,000 people mostly
contractors devoted to blocking fake accounts and fictional news and stopping other abuses on
Facebook and its other services. As part of the crackdown, Facebook also has hired fact
checkers, including The Associated Press, to vet new stories posted on its social network.

Facebook credits its war room and other stepped-up patrolling efforts for booting 1.3 billion fake
accounts over the past year and jettisoning hundreds of pages set up by foreign governments
and other agents looking to create mischief.

But it remains unclear whether Facebook is doing enough, said Angelo Carusone, president of
Media Matters For America, a liberal group that monitors misinformation. He noted that the
sensational themes distributed in fictional news stories can be highly effective at keeping people
“engaged” on Facebook which in turn makes it possible to sell more of the ads that generate
most of Facebook’s revenue.

“What they are doing so far seems to be more about trying to prevent another public relations
disaster and less so about putting in meaningful solutions to the problem,” Mr. Carusone said.
“On balance, I would say they that are still way off.”

The election war room and its inner workings remain too opaque to determine whether it’s
helping Facebook do a better job of keeping garbage off its service or if it’s just a “temporary

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conference room with a bunch of computer monitors in it,” said Molly McKew, a self-described
“information warfare” researcher for New Media Frontier, which studies the flow of content on
social media.

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Ms. McKew believes Facebook is conflicted about blocking some content it already knows is
suspect “because they keep people on their platform by sparking an emotional response, so
they like they like the controversial stuff. There will always be this toeing of the line about pulling
down radical, crazy content because that’s what people engage on, and that’s what they want.”

Facebook defends its war room as an effective weapon against misinformation, although its
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efforts are still a work in progress. Mr. Chakrabarti, for instance, acknowledged that some “bugs”
prevented Facebook from taking some unspecified actions to prevent manipulation efforts in the
first round of Brazil’s presidential election earlier this month. He declined to elaborate.
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The war room is currently focused on Brazil’s next round of elections and upcoming U.S.
midterms. Large U.S. and Brazilian flags hang on opposing walls and clocks show the time in
both countries.

Facebook declined to let the media scrutinise the computer screens in front of the employees,
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and required reporters to refrain from mentioning some of the equipment inside the war room,
calling it “proprietary information.” While on duty, war room workers are only allowed to leave the
room for short bathroom breaks or to grab food to eat at their desks.
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Although no final decisions have been made, the war room is likely to become a permanent
fixture at Facebook, said Katie Harbath, Facebook’s director of global politics and government
outreach.
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“It is a constant arms race,” she said. “This is our new normal.”

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 Source : www.livemint.com Date : 2018-10-19

OPINION
Relevant for: Indian Economy | Topic: Issues relating to Growth & Development - Banking, NPAs and RBI

Fraud is a real operational risk for banks. As the latest Financial Stability Report of the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) shows, the Indian banking system reported about 6,500 instances of fraud
involving over 30,000 crore in the last fiscal. Banking frauds attracted national attention when
the Punjab National Bank reported earlier this year that it had been defrauded by companies
related to jeweller Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The state-run lender took a hit of about 12,000

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crore. Several other cases of large banking frauds were reported subsequently, which raised
questions about the ability of banks, especially in the public sector, to contain them. It is in this
context that the analysis of the top 100 banking frauds by the Central Vigilance Commission
(CVC), released this week, is important.

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The CVC needs to be commended for this as it will help improve the general understanding of
banking frauds. It analyzed frauds in different sectors and has also suggested measures that will
help avoid such unscrupulous activities in the future. Some of the cases are worth highlighting
here.

For instance, companies in the jewellery business inflated the value of imported diamonds to
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avail of a higher amount of loans. They took credit on the pretext that their export bills remained
unpaid because of the financial difficulties faced by overseas buyers. They found innovative
ways to take credit from one bank before shipping products to overseas buyers and from
another after shipping. Companies also manipulated the paperwork to dupe the lenders.
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In another case, a company in the manufacturing sector showed an audited balance sheet with
a net profit of 23.74 crore in a particular year and got credit facilities from a consortium of banks.
However, without informing the lenders, it later revised its balance sheet and the profit shrank to
0.34 crore. It maintained current accounts with banks that were not part of the consortium.
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Interestingly, the company reported a significant loss in the next year on the same volume of
turnover as the previous year. The books were manipulated with a clear intention of defrauding
banks.
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However, perhaps the most audacious among the cases mentioned was that of the fixed deposit
(FD) fraud. The fraudster presented himself as a bank representative to companies and
government organizations. For banks, he became a financial advisor of those organizations and
managed to mobilize large bulk deposits. He gave fake term deposit receipts (TDRs) to
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depositors. The miscreant later opened loan accounts in the name of the depositors by giving
fictitious documents and original TDRs and took the money away.

Most frauds show that banks did not do proper due diligence, both before and after disbursing
loans. The FD fraud, for example, shows the poor level of checks and balances in the banking
system. Therefore, in order to check frauds, banks will need to improve their due diligence
capabilities. This will lead to better credit appraisal and also help contain non-performing assets
(NPAs). As the financial system evolves, expands and gets more sophisticated, banks will need
to be better prepared to avoid frauds. As noted earlier in these columns, banks can also setup
fraud monitoring agencies.

It is also important that banks leverage technology to detect frauds and improve the sharing of
information. Further, like the PNB fraud, it is likely that in some cases bankers may have been
complicit in frauds. However, law enforcement agencies should tread with care so that they don’t
end up creating an environment of fear, affecting the flow of credit to productive sectors.
Aside from improving capabilities in the banking system, accountability of third-party service
providers such as auditors and lawyers should also be fixed. India needs a system where
auditors and other professionals vetting fake documents are not able to escape. This is
necessary as large frauds can increase reluctance in the banking system to lend, affecting the
flow of credit. In this context, the CVC has rightly noted: “Bank must immediately delist such
third valuers, Chartered Accountants/ Chartered engineers, Advocates etc. who have
questionable credentials/ have been negligent in their professional duties or have caused
financial loss to the bank by their willful acts of omission/ commission/dishonesty.”

Some of the recent frauds and the accumulation of NPAs in the system show that Indian banks
need significant improvements in operation and governance standards. Both the government

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and the regulator would do well to work with banks to improve the overall structure.

What should banks do to check frauds? Tell us at views@livemint.com

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 Source : www.hindustantimes.com Date : 2018-10-19

INDIA’S NEIGHBOURHOOD FIRST POLICY NEEDS A

STRONG PUSH
Relevant for: International Relations | Topic: India's Foreign Policy evolution and changes

The controversy over a purported bid to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena blew over
after the Sri Lankan leader telephoned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and rejected reports about
alleged Indian involvement in the plot. Ideally, such a controversy should never have arisen,
given the long-standing ties between the two countries. The reports about the alleged plot hint at

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some sort of lack of communication between the leadership of the two countries, especially at a
time when India’s relations with some of its key neighbours appear to have been affected by
various irritants and developments in the region.

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China has already established a considerable foothold in Sri Lanka, having taken over the
strategic Hambantota port and 15,000 acres of land around it after the island nation was unable
to repay Chinese loans. China now has a presence in territory located just hundreds of
kilometres from India and overlooking important commercial and military sea lanes.

In Nepal, despite the scrapping of several big ticket infrastructure projects involving Chinese
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firms, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has indicated he expects both China and India to play a
role in development projects. India is now in a race to match China’s efforts to develop
infrastructure, including a railway line that will link Tibet with Kathmandu.

In the Maldives, former president Abdulla Yameen was able to defy pressure from India and
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other countries opposed to his autocratic ways largely because he believed the Chinese had his
back. In Bangladesh, there is growing disquiet among the political leadership over threats by
Indian politicians to push back people excluded from the National Register of Citizens to the
neighbouring country as well as India’s perceived silence on the issue of Myanmar taking back
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hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees now living in Bangladesh.

One cannot help but get the feeling that while India has been able to take the lead on major
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global issues such as climate change, trade and building a multipolar order and defy pressure
from powers such as the US on strategic matters such as the acquisition of the S-400 air
defence system from Russia, somehow the country’s immediate neighbourhood has slipped
from the radar of policy planners and decision makers. This is all the more surprising in view of
the government’s stated “neighbourhood first” policy. At a time when India’s relations with its
largest neighbour, Pakistan, are completely in a deep freeze and there has been an uptick in the
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violence in war-torn Afghanistan, New Delhi can ill afford the fraying of ties with any of the other
countries in the region.

First Published: Oct 18, 2018 17:58 IST

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