Abu Dhabi Karnataka Sangha says no to Sulibele to uphold unity of Kannadigas

India ranked 77th on a sustainability index that takes into account per capita carbon emissions and ability of children in a nation to live healthy lives and secures 131st spot on a flourishing ranking that measures the best chance at survival and well-being for children, according to a UN-backed report.

The report was released on Wednesday by a commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world. It was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and The Lancet medical journal.

In the report assessing the capacity of 180 countries to ensure that their youngsters can survive and thrive, India ranks 77th on the Sustainability Index and 131 on the Flourishing Index, it said.

Flourishing is the geometric mean of Surviving and Thriving. For Surviving, the authors selected maternal survival, survival in children younger than 5 years old, suicide, access to maternal and child health services, basic hygiene and sanitation, and lack of extreme poverty.

For Thriving, the domains were educational achievement, growth and nutrition, reproductive freedom, and protection from violence.

Under the Sustainability Index, the authors noted that promoting today's national conditions for children to survive and thrive must not come at the cost of eroding future global conditions for children's ability to flourish.

The Sustainability Index ranks countries on excess carbon emissions compared with the 2030 target. This provides a convenient and available proxy for a country's contribution to sustainability in future.

The report noted that under realistic assumptions about possible trajectories towards sustainable greenhouse gas emissions, models predict that global carbon emissions need to be reduced from 39·7 giga­ tonnes to 22·8 gigatonnes per year by 2030 to maintain even a 66 per cent chance of keeping global warming below 1·5°C.

It said that the world's survival depended on children being able to flourish, but no country is doing enough to give them a sustainable future.

"No country in the world is currently providing the conditions we need to support every child to grow up and have a healthy future," said Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health and Sustainability at University College London, one of the lead authors of the report.

"Especially, they're under immediate threat from climate change and from commercial marketing, which has grown hugely in the last decade," said Costello – former WHO Director of Mother, Child and Adolescent health.

Norway leads the table for survival, health, education and nutrition rates - followed by South Korea and the Netherlands. Central African Republic, Chad and Somalia come at the bottom.

However, when taking into account per capita CO2 emissions, these top countries trail behind, with Norway 156th, the Republic of Korea 166th and the Netherlands 160th.

Each of the three emits 210 per cent more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target, the data shows, while the US, Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the 10 worst emitters. The lowest emitters are Burundi, Chad and Somalia.

According to the report, the only countries on track to beat CO2 emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly – within the top 70 – on child flourishing measures are: Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Vietnam.

"More than 2 billion people live in countries where development is hampered by humanitarian crises, conflicts, and natural disasters, problems increasingly linked with climate change," said Minister Awa Coll-Seck from Senegal, Co-Chair of the commission.

The report also highlights the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing.

Evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250 per cent in the US over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.

Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the US – among many others – have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children.

Children's exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity, it said.

The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 – an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs, the report said.

To protect children, the authors call for a new global movement driven by and for children.

Specific recommendations include stopping CO2 emissions with the utmost urgency, to ensure children have a future on this planet; placing children and adolescents at the centre of global efforts to achieve sustainable development, the report said.

New policies and investment in all sectors to work towards child health and rights; incorporating children's voices into policy decisions and tightening national regulation of harmful commercial marketing, supported by a new Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it said.

Mysuru, Mar 8: The 'Shuka Vana' (Parrots Museum), in the sprawling Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Ashrama here, will remain closed for 15 days from March 9 as a precautionary measure following COVID-19, Ashram authorities said here on Sunday.

Ashram authorities told UNI that the Museum will be closed due to threat of spread of Coronavirus. This is for the first time that the Museum has been closed for such a long time earlier it had closed for one or two days due to bird flu. The decision has been taken following the tourists and devotees including foreigners are arriving to Ashram in large numbers.

The ashram authorities have also closed famous The Kishkinda Moolika Bonsai garden on-premises for same reason.

Bengaluru, May 28: As many as 115 new coronavirus cases were reported in Karnataka on Thursday taking the infection count to 2,533, Karnataka Minister S Suresh said.

The total coronavirus cases include 834 discharges, 1,650 active cases, 47 deaths so far due to the disease and two deaths due non-COVID causes, Suresh Kumar, who is minister for primary and secondary education, said during the daily COVID-19 briefing.

According to him, 29 cases were reported in Udupi on Thursday, followed by 24 in Dakshina Kannada district, 13 in Hassan, 12 in Bidar, nine in Bengaluru Urban, seven in Yadagiri, six in Chitradurga, five in Kalaburagi, four in Haveri, three in Chikkamagaluru, two in Vijayapura and one in Raichur.

The minister said among the new cases, 95 are inter-state passengers and two international passengers.

According to the health department, 84 infected people have returned from Maharashtra and eight from Tamil Nadu.

Among those discharged today, 13 are in Davangere, 12 in Dakshina Kannada, nine each in Yadagiri and Vijayapura, five in Gadag, three in Belagavi, one each in Mysuru and Bagalkote.

Two are severe acute respiratory infection cases.

There were, however, no coronavirus related deaths in the state today, the minister said.

Kumar said the government has issued another circular making changes in the quarantine rules.

"A person who has completed seven days of institutional quarantine and is asymptomatic can be permitted for home quarantine without a COVID test, subject to undergoing medical check-up," the minister said.

According to the circular, all elderly people of above 60 years of age and those with comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, heart ailment and renal diseases, are required to be clinically evaluated diligently prior to shifting them to home quarantine.

Such people will be under mandatory home quarantine for seven days, the circular read.