Every third child in Gujarat is underweight, says CAG

October 5, 2013

Underweight_childrenGandhinagar, Oct 5: Though Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been waxing eloquent about the Gujarat model of development, the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India as well as the State government’s own admission speak of malnourished and underweight children in the State.

According to the government’s own figures, produced by Women and Child Development Minister Vasuben Trivedi in a written reply to the State Assembly, there are at least 6.13 lakh children in 14 districts who are malnourished or extremely malnourished as of August this year. Not to speak of the rest of the 12 districts, for which the numbers are not available.

What is more, the district of Ahmedabad, considered to be the commercial capital of the State, has the highest – 85,000-plus – children who are malnourished or extremely malnourished. The Minister told the State Assembly that “there are 54,975 malnourished children and 3,860 extremely malnourished children in Ahmedabad city” alone.

Meanwhile, the CAG in its latest report has found that despite the government’s claim of “providing supplementary nutrition to the targeted children between the year 2007 and 2012, the monthly progress report as on March 2012 states that every third child was underweight.”

The auditor pointed out that as opposed to 75,480 anganwadi centres needed in the State, only 52,137 had been sanctioned and only 50,225 were functional. It observed that 1.87 crore people had been deprived of the benefits of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).

Malnutrition

The Women and Child Development Minister’s reply pointed to the fact that malnutrition was not confined to any specific region in the State but was found through and length and breadth of Gujarat. The tribal districts of Banaskantha in the North and Dahod in central Gujarat on the Madhya Pradesh border are next to Ahmedabad district with 78,421 and 73,384 malnourished children respectively. Junagadh district in the western Saurashtra region has the least, 17,263, children who are malnourished.

The CAG report also lambasted the government for insufficient coastal security stating that despite Gujarat having the longest coastline in the country, the security along the border was quite inadequate. It pointed out there were very few marine police stations and lack of trained personnel, besides inadequate night patrolling.

The auditor pointed out that in spite of a 235 km coastal stretch of Kutch district bordering Pakistan, there was only one marine police station in Mundra but there was not a single between Dwarka and Harshad.

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August 8,2020

Kozhikode, Aug 8: A tailwind or crosswind could be the reason for the Air India Express flight mishap at Kozhikode international airport in Kerala, according to some aviation experts. 

Team of DGCA and AIE already reached the spot. With the death of the captain and co-pilot in the mishap, the investigation would be focusing mainly on the voice recorders and other technical aspects.

It is learnt that the ill-fated aircraft, IX 1344 with 190 onboard including crew, was initially planning to land on runway-28 of the airport. But later the pilot opted runway-10 which is toward the other direction. Pilots would be taking the decisions on the basis of inputs from ATC.

The questions now doing the rounds are what made the pilot opt runway-10 and whether the tabletop runway lacked adequate safety parameters.

An aviation expert, who didn't want to be quoted, said that Capt Deepak Sathe, who was commandeering the aircraft, was a well-experienced pilot and was also familiar with the terrains. Hence the chances of any error from his part was very unlikely. Hence a fair in-depth probe was required to find the exact cause.

Though the Kozhikode airport has an Instrument Landing System, it was of category-I for which pilot's visibility is very crucial toward a touchdown. Since it is a tabletop airport and rough weather prevailing in the region, the chances of tailwind was also high, said sources.

There had been safety concerns about the airport over quite some time. In 2011 aviation safety consultant captain Mohan Ranganathan reportedly gave a report citing the safety issues, especially the buffer zones at the end of the runway.

However, an AAI officer said that rectification steps were already done by last year by widening the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) from 90 metre to 240 metre. However, the length of the runway had to be reduced to 2,700 metre from 2,850. The AAI was also constantly pressing for increasing the runway length to 3,150 metres. But that was getting delayed due to land acquisition issues pending with the state government.

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Agencies
May 12,2020

New Delhi, May 13: Prime Minister Narendra on Tuesday announced Rs 20 lakh crore special economic package for the country to be 'self-reliant' and deal with COVID-19.

"I announce a special economic package today. This will play an important role in the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.' The announcements made by the government over COVID, decisions of RBI and today's package totals to Rs 20 lakh crore. This is 10 per cent of India's GDP," said Prime Minister Modi in his address to the nation. The Prime Minister said that humanity would not accept defeat from the coronavirus but the people have to stay safe and move forward.

"We had never seen or heard about such a crisis ever before. This is definitely unimaginable for mankind. It is unprecedented. But humanity will not accept defeat from this virus. We have to not only protect ourselves but also move forward," he said.

Talking about the gravity of the virus, Modi said: "It has been four months the world is fighting COVID-19. More than 42 lakh people from different countries have been infected by COVID-19. More than 2.75 lakh people have lost their lives due to the virus. In India too many families have lost their dear ones, I express my condolences to them."

"Today when the entire world is in crisis, we will have to further firm our resolve," he added.

The Prime Minister on Monday held a video conference meeting with Chief Ministers of all states to discuss the road ahead in India's fight against COVID-19 and noted that he was of the firm view that measures needed during the third phase of lockdown will not be needed in the fourth phase.

Prime Minister Modi had said the need was to reduce the transmission rate of the disease and to increase public activity gradually while adhering to all the guidelines and efforts to be made towards achieving both these objectives.

The phase three of the lockdown is coming to an end on May 17.

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Agencies
June 5,2020

Jodhpur, Jun 5: A video has gone viral on social media showing what could be called Jodhpur's George Floyd moment with a twist, showing cops throwing a person on the ground and pressing his neck with their knees for roaming around without a mask.

However, unlike the unfortunate incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the cops in Jodhpur reportedly acted after the person, said to be mentally challenged, turned violent after being confronted by the police.

Dumb TV media is playing the initial part of this video as 'India's George Flyod moment'. Doesn't matter to them that the same video shows the man beating the cops back badly pic.twitter.com/vGSaON6oii

— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) June 5, 2020

George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after being arrested by the police outside a shop in Minneapolis in the US on May 25. Footage showed a white officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd's neck for several minutes while he was pinned to the floor. He was pronounced dead later in the hospital, triggering widespread protests across the US.

However, in the Jodhpur incident, the man, identifed as Mukesh Kumar Prajapat, did not die but instead started fighting with the policemen.

Jodhpur police officers confirmed that the video was shot in the city on Thursday after the police wanted to issue a challan against the man for roaming on the streets without wearing a mask before he started manhandling the police.

The video shows a cop pressing his neck with his knee while two other cops held the young man's legs. A huge crowd gathered when the scuffle broke out.

Meanwhile, the SHO of Dev Nagar police station, Somkaran, said that the police were issuing a challan to Prajapat when he attacked them and tore their uniform. An FIR has been lodged against Prajapat on a complaint lodged by the Pratap Nagar police station. He will be produced in the court later in the day.

Prajapat is said to be mentally challenged and had damaged his father's eye earlier for which a case was registered against him, the poice said. Action is being initiated against Prajapat under the Epidemic Act, they added.

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