According to this BJP leader, eating flattened rice could mean you are Bangladeshi

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 28: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to remove the blocking of roads including state highway along the border of Karnataka in view of lock down to contain the spread of COVID-19.

In a letter sent to the Prime Minister on Friday evening, the Chief Minister said certain actions by the Karnataka Police have resulted in the blocking the Thalassery-Coorg State Highway-30. This road connects Kerala with Coorg in Karnataka via Veerajapettah. This route is a lifeline for flow of essential commodities to Kerala."

"If this is blocked, vehicles carrying essential commodities will have to travel a much longer route to reach our state. Given the situation of national lock down, this will add much more hardship to people," it said.

"You will naturally agree with me that no action impeding the movement of essential commodities should be initiated at this moment of crisis," he hoped.

Bewngaluru, Jun 23: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday said Covid-19 related fatalities in the state was far less compared to other major states, as he called on people and front line corona warriors infected by the virus not to lose courage.

The Chief Minister made the statement following the alleged suicide of a constable attached with the Karnataka State Reserve Police after he tested positive for Covid-19. "The total number of COVID related deaths in the state is very less compared to other major states.

There is no reason for any infected citizen or government employees to lose courage. The government is always with you," a tweet on the Chief Minister's official twitter handle said.

Of the total of 14,011 deaths reported so far, Maharashtra accounted for the highest with 6,283 fatalities, followed by Delhi with 2,233, Gujarat with 1,684 and Tamil Nadu with 794.

Acknowledging that police form the frontline of corona warriors and were working putting their lives at stake, he said a special Covid-19 testing center is being set up for them and all measures will be taken to provide the best treatment for those infected.

As of June 22 evening, cumulatively 9,399 Covid-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 142 deaths and 5,730 discharges.

The constable, aged about 50 years, was attached with the Karnataka State Reserve Police and was said to be depressed after getting tested positive for Covid-19, sources said.

Expressing condolence over his death, another tweet on the Chief Minister's handle said he has directed officials to to provide all necessary compensation and facilities to the family of the deceased at the earliest. Bengaluru has in the last few days has seen a spike in the number of police personnel getting infected by the virus. At least 74 of them have tested positive in the city and are undergoing treatment, while three have died so far, official sources said.

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.