Food and Nutrition Security in the light of Climate Change

Food and Nutrition Security in the light of Climate Change

By 2050, the world population will reach nearly 9.5 billion, which effectively means that we will have to produce 70% more food for over two billion additional mouths. Hence, the food and agriculture systems need to adapt fast to the changing climate and become more resilient, productive and sustainable. This would require judicious use of natural resources and minimised post-harvest losses coupled with improved harvesting, storage, packaging, transportation and marketing practices as well as appropriate infrastructural facilities.

Aptly, theme for this year’s World Food Day is “Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too”. Ever since 1979, it is being celebrated on October 16 with the aim to raise public awareness regarding hunger challenges and encourage them for necessary actions to fight hunger. The global goal for achieving ‘Zero Hunger’ is 2030 which cannot be reached without addressing climate change – food security being highly vulnerable to changing climatic patterns.

Food security refers to an ability to access/utilize sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food; however, the related challenges are afflicting the urban/rural populations in wealthy/poor nations alike. FAO estimates nearly 194.6 million Indians (15.2%) were undernourished during 2014-16.

Climate change – a catalyst of crisis and food/nutrition insecurity

By the end of 21^st century, global temperature is predicted to rise by nearly 1.4-5.8˚C leading to a substantial reduction in food production. As per ISRO, the Himalayan glaciers already on retreat (shrinkage during the last 15 years: 3.75 km) may disappear by 2035. Ill effects of climate change include growing deserts and escalation in extreme weather events like droughts, cyclones, floods and droughts. Such situations often pose worst effects on the poorest of the poor (many being farmers) and are, thus, a serious threat to our goal – ending hunger by 2030! Hence, concerted action on climate change is crucial for sustainable development. Ironically, agriculture is also considered amongst the big contributors to climate change. On 2 October 2016, India has ratified the Paris Agreement which aims to combat climate change and limit global temperature rise to well below 2˚C.

To quote, our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji “The world is today worried about climate change, global warming, natural disasters. Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhayay had understood the need for striking the fine balance between human development and the need to preserve natural resources….to be vigilant about the exploitation of natural resources. Human race has only now realised the disastrous impact of our material development on the nature”.

Since a consistent increase in greenhouse gases is the major cause for climate change, it is imperative to ensure the wellbeing of ecosystems by reducing their emissions. In the context of Indian agriculture, key issues of climate change include – vastness of the nation with diverse climatic conditions;  varied cropping/farming systems; excessive monsoon dependency; climate-change  hampering water  availability; small land holdings;  lack of coping mechanisms; poor penetration  of risk management strategies; extreme rainfall events (droughts/floods – esp. in coastal regions); high incidence of pests/diseases; speedy oxidation of carbon-print affecting soil fertility and extinction of biodiversity. Though, India has been successful in achieving self-sufficiency in grain production, it has not been able to address chronic household food insecurity. It is likely that climate change will exacerbate food insecurity, particularly in areas vulnerable to hunger/under-nutrition.

For our country, where a large chunk of our population is poor and nearly half the children are malnourished, ensuring food security is of utmost importance. While access to food is directly/indirectly affected via collateral effects on household/individual incomes, food utilization gets impaired due to poor access to drinking water and its adverse health effects. India is likely to be hit harder by global warming – affecting more than 1.2 billion, particularly those residing in flood/cyclone/drought prone areas. Climate change is a significant ‘hunger­risk multiplier’ which can affect all the dimensions of food/nutrition security – Food availability, accessibility, utilization and stability.

Attaining and sustaining food security is one of the biggest challenges worldwide. Food security plans must emphasise on effective handling of threats, efficient storage/distribution of food along with suitable monitoring/surveillance according priority to corrective actions. Adaptive measures such as modified cropping patterns, innovative technologies and water conservation become rather important, particularly in arid/semi-arid areas. Therefore, necessary efforts should be directed towards carbon sequestration and mitigation of green-house gases. In this regard, there is a dire need for awareness generation and efficient involvement of the public at every step.

Some of the governmental initiatives for ensuring food/nutrition security in India include –Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, Soil Health Card/Soil Health Management Schemes,Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Annapurna Scheme,  MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, ICDS and MDMS etc. However, all these programmes need effective implementation, and monitoring to bridge the gaps, particularly for the vulnerable groups. It is rather important to protect and judiciously use our precious natural resources, prevent environmental pollution by adopting eco-friendly approaches, safeguard our forests and avoid food wastage at all levels – from farm-to-plate. Apart from laying more stress on plant foods vs. animal foods, wastages can be avoided by purchasing/cooking only the needed amounts coupled with appropriate storage and judicious use of leftover foods.

At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit-2015, world leaders were served dishes reformulated from 'trash' (vegetable scraps, rejected apples/pears and off-grade vegetables). This is an exemplary utilization of unwanted/would-be-wasted food – highlighting the crucial issue of global food wastage and its harmful effects; otherwise this food would have ended up in landfills, got rotten and emitted methane – a potent greenhouse gas.

There is an urgent need for investing in “climate‑smart food system” that is more resilient to the impact of climate change on food security. Millets – the drought resistant crops, require fewer external inputs, can grow under harsh circumstances and are, therefore, called ‘crops of the future’.  These nutri-cereals have a rather short sowing-to-harvest period (~65 days) and if stored properly, can be kept for two years and beyond.Unlike paddy (contributing immensely to green-house gases from water-drenched rice fields), millets help in mitigating the climate change by reducing atmospheric CO₂; while wheat production (a heat-sensitive crop) is liable to adverse effects. Owing to wide capacity of adaptation, millets can withstand variations in moisture, temperature and soil type including infertile lands. Further, millets contribute to the economic efficiency of farming by providing food and livelihood security to the millions, particularly small/marginal farmers and people in rain fed/remote tribal regions.

Rome Declaration on Nutrition and Framework of Action (Nov, 2014) recognized the need to address the impact of climate change on food/nutrition security – particularly the quantity, quality and diversity in food production; and recommended policies/programmes to establish and strengthen the food supply institutions for enhancing resilience in crisis­prone areas.

Thus, mitigating climate change is a global issue; appropriate adaptation strategies being the immediate solution to ensure livelihood/food security. India needs to sustain its ecosystem for meeting the food/non-food needs of its ever-growing population. Major thrust of the concerned programmes should be on soil conservation, appropriate/judicious use of the natural resources including rainwater harvesting. Raising population awareness regarding adversaries of climate change on crop production is one of the prime-most solution for attaining food/nutrition security.

Alleviating Energy Poverty through Solar Power Providing cheap solar lanterns has the possibility to replace the fossil based polluting kerosene that is used for lighting in many parts of rural India.

Alleviating Energy Poverty through Solar Power

Providing cheap solar lanterns has the possibility to replace the fossil based polluting kerosene that is used for lighting in many parts of rural India.      

It is estimated that 18000 villages in the remote areas do not have access to electricity in the country. The conventional approach to solve this problem is to provide connectivity through centralised electricity grids. However this solution is not only capital intensive and comes with high financial costs, but it also has high environmental costs due to power transmission form conventional power generation stations.

In contrast to this, the small scale decentralised off grid solutions, especially installation of solar power will meet the needs with provision of reliable power supply.

What are these off grid solar power systems and how does this work?

Solar power has enormous capacity to generate power without causing pollution; it is one of the main sources of clean energy and alternate to burning fossil fuels. The installation of captive solar power plants, roof top solar systems is essentially geared towards connecting to the existing countrywide power grids.  In contrast to this the off grid systems are those which utilises the solar energy at decentralised household or village level.

Solar Home Systems, with solar panels to generate power for individual homes is an easy way to connect those who are deprived of power connection, it can also act as stand by during the severe power cuts in the countryside.

The installation of solar irrigation pumps is another off grid power initiative that is being successfully tried out in many parts of the country. Though the initial capital costs are high, over the years it pays back the owner through provision of cheap uninterrupted power over with very little maintenance costs. This has the potential to resolve the power crisis as well as provide energy and food security to the farming community.

Providing cheap solar lanterns has the possibility to replace the fossil based polluting kerosene that is used for lighting in many parts of rural India. Similarly, micro grids supported with battery can store the power. This can provide easy access to recharge mobile sets and power the telecommunication systems in remote hill areas.  Solar powered refrigeration systems in Primary Health Centres can store the lifesaving medicines in the countryside.

The solar driers for agricultural processing and industrial use, and water heating systems are already in use that needs to be supported under the ongoing solar mission. These systems lead to reduction in consumption of conventional energy resulting in saving the energy.

Realising the importance of solar power, the Prime Minister has given the approval for increasing the capacity of solar mission from 22 giga watts (GW) to 100 GW to be achieved by the 2022. The Government of India has set a detail road map to achieve this through roof top solar generation of 40 GW and the medium decentralised off grid connection of 60 GW.

In order to meet the target, an investment of Rs 60000 crores is being made that is bound to unleash enormous opportunity to entrepreneurs who wants to take advantage of the lucrative solar market. India is the only country in the world that has attracted of US dollars one billion from The World Bank to realise the goal of harnessing solar power.

Recognising this factor the global leaders in solar power are keen to invest in India to harness the ever increasing solar market. Already 40 companies have come forward to install solar home systems. The high initial costs of these systems needs to be shared by the financial institutions, especially banks in the rural areas. Policy support towards this will pave way for a sustained growth of off grid solar market with large customer base willing to use the products to meet the home needs. Like any consumer goods, the people would be willing to purchase the solar products across the counter with assured follow up services over the years.

In order to achieve the target of off grid solar systems will require the skilled manpower and barefoot technicians in rural areas to provide maintenance and services. The skill development programme launched by Government of India needs to be linked to building the capacities of rural youth that can provide livelihood opportunities and sustained source of income. The potential of creating 1 million green jobs to cater to the needs of solar energy as technicians will regenerate the rural economy.

Accessing energy is strongly linked to achieving millennium development goals.  The lack of accesses to modern forms of energy leads to energy poverty. In India 360 million people live without grid connectivity, suffering energy poverty.

The Solar Mission launched by Government of India has the capacity to alleviate this population above energy poverty and provide regular and clean source of renewable power.

Challenges of Skill Development in India

India enjoys a demographic dividend where more than 60 percent of its population is in the working age group. The youth bulge presents an opportunity for India to enhance its growth and also supply skilled manpower to the rest of the world. According to the World Bank Report, this is because India’s working age population will be more than the dependent population for at least three decades till 2040. The National Higher Education Commission, in its report estimated that the average age of population in India by 2020 would be 29 years as against 40 years in USA, 46 years in Europe and 47 years in Japan. It is also estimated that during the next 20 years, the labour force in the industrial world is expected to decline by 4%, while in India it will increase by 32%.

 However, the country is facing a paradoxical situation where on the one hand young men and women entering the labour market are looking for jobs; on the other hand industries are complaining of unavailability of appropriately skilled manpower. This paradox reflects the criticality of skill development to enhance the employability of the growing young population and also to gear-up the economy to realise the target of faster and inclusive growth. However, keeping in view the heterogeneity of the labour market and also preponderance of the unorganised sector; designing a model which benefits the key players of the ecosystem: employer, training providers, trainee and the government is a challenging task.

It is known that 93% of the total labour force is in the unorganised sector. Thus, the major challenge of skill development initiatives is also to address the needs of a vast population by providing them skills which would make them employable and enable them to secure decent work leading to improvement in the quality of their life.

The National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 supersedes the policy of 2009. This primarily aims at meeting the challenge of skilling at scale with speed, standards (quality) and sustainability. According to India Labour Report 2012, it is estimated that 12.8 million new persons join the labour market annually vis-à-vis the current capacity of the skill development which is 3.1 million in our country.

It is estimated that incremental HR requirement for skill development in the period 2012 to 2022 for the whole country is 12.03 crore. Hence there is pressing need to expand the infrastructure for skill development many fold to cater to the target which is more than four times the present capacity.  As mid- term strategy, 104.62 million fresh entrants to the labour force between 2015 to 2022 would  be required to be skilled/provided vocational education. At present 21 Ministries/Departments of Government of India are engaged in skill development programme.

         There are several challenges which have been identified in skill development of the Indian Youth. For instance increasing the capacity of the existing system to ensure equitable access for all and at the same time maintaining their quality and relevance is a big challenge. This involves strong and effective linkages between the industry and the trainer institute with adequate provisions for constant knowledge upgrading of the trainers. Creating effective convergence between school education and the governmental efforts in the area of skill development also need to be reworked. All this has to be in consonance with Labour Market Information System. Other challenges include creation of institutional mechanism for research development, quality assurance, examination, certification, affiliation and accreditation. Needless to say that efforts should be on to make the skill development attractive and productive to motivate the youth to aspire for it.

Addressing the above challenges, government has taken some concrete steps which include dovetailing and rationalization of the Central Government Schemes on Skill Development in order to achieve maximum convergence and making skill development an integral part of all Government of India schemes which has ensured that all government schemes now has the component which takes care of skill development as per the programme’s requirement.  Skill gap studies conducted by NSDC for 21 high growth sectors of the country will project he human resource requirement in those sectors by 2022.

Monitoring and evaluation is the spine of any development plan. Since National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has been structured as an outcome oriented policy, it has been decided to set up a Policy Implementation Unit (PIU) for reviewing the implementation and progress of the various initiatives and undertaking corrective measures under this policy. For bringing improvements in the scheme through the feedback, provision has also been made to facilitate constant consultation with the stakeholder.  To ensure that the desired results are achieved on this account, it is necessary that along with monitoring, a quick evaluation of the Programme is undertaken at the earliest possible. Based on evaluation findings, we would be able to take effective measures and breach all the gaps in the implementation process.

What happens when GPS fails? Wi-Fi, Li-Fi, Beacons to the rescue Researchers at University of California-Riverside develop ‘highly reliable and accurate navigation system’ that exploits existing environmental signals

f you ever thought that Global Positioning System, or GPS, is the only technology used to develop navigation systems and give directions, you may want to think again.

A team of researchers at the University of California-Riverside (UCR) has developed a “highly reliable and accurate navigation system” that exploits existing environmental signals such as cellular and Wi-Fi rather than GPS.

Most navigation systems in cars and portable electronics use the space-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), which includes the US system GPS, Russian system GLONASS, European system Galileo, and Chinese system BeiDou.

For precision technologies such as aerospace and missiles, navigation systems typically combine GPS with a high-quality on-board Inertial Navigation System (INS), which delivers a high level of short-term accuracy but eventually drifts when it loses touch with external signals, the UCR researchers point out.

However, GPS signals alone are very weak and unusable in certain environments like deep canyons. Second, GPS signals are susceptible to intentional and unintentional jamming and interference. Third, civilian GPS signals are unencrypted, unauthenticated, and specified in publicly available documents, making them spoofable, or prone to hacking, the researchers say.

Hence, current trends in autonomous vehicle navigation systems rely not only on GPS/INS, but a suite of other sensor-based technologies such as cameras, lasers, and sonar. “By adding more and more sensors, researchers are throwing ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ to prepare autonomous vehicle navigation systems for the inevitable scenario that GPS signals become unavailable. We took a different approach, which is to exploit signals that are already out there in the environment,” said Zak Kassas, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in UCR’s Bourns College of Engineering, in a 13 October statement. He led the team that presented its research (bit.ly/2dYsBUm) at the 2016 Institute of Navigation Global Navigation Satellite System Conference (ION GNSS+), in Portland, Oregon, last month.

Instead of adding more internal sensors, Kassas and his team in UCR’s Autonomous Systems Perception, Intelligence, and Navigation (ASPIN) Laboratory have been developing autonomous vehicles that could tap into the hundreds of signals around us at any point in time, like cellular, radio, television, Wi-Fi, and other satellite signals.

In the research presented at the ION GNSS+ Conference, Kassas’ team showcased ongoing research that exploits these existing communications signals, called “signals of opportunity (SOP)” for navigation. The system can be used by itself, or, more likely, to supplement INS data in the event that GPS fails.

The team’s research approach includes theoretical analysis of SOPs in the environment, building specialized software-defined radios (SDRs) that will extract relevant timing and positioning information from SOPs, developing practical navigation algorithms, and finally testing the system on ground vehicles and unmanned drones.

While GPS is a good outdoor location technology, it is unreliable indoors. However, the idea to supplement GPS with other technologies for indoor location use with widely-used location technologies including Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), Li-FI (light fidelity), Beacons and NFC (near field communication) is not entirely new.

Technologies like Beacons (such as Apple Inc.’s iBeacon) are low-cost, low-powered transmitters equipped with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) that can be used to deliver proximity-based, context-aware messages. They are ideal for detecting smartphones indoors, where GPS isn’t always effective, and can communicate with apps on devices when they are indoors.

NFC requires users to pull out their phones and tap onto a NFC reader, thus requiring investments in tags, readers, etc. The range, however, is limited to 20cm and less. Beacons, on the other hand, typically have a wireless range of 1m to 70m but being radio transmitters, they too are susceptible to interference.

Skyhook Wireless Inc. has a Wi-Fi-based location system, which it calls Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS). Skyhook’s patented ‘Precision Location’ combines Wi-Fi with GPS, cell towers, IP (Internet protocol) address and device sensors to provide positioning for any device on any operating system (OS).

Li-Fi is another option. Almost four years back, Harald Haas, who was then professor of mobile communications at the University of Edinburgh and the person who coined the term Li-Fi. and Gordon Povey, now chief executive at Trisent, claimed that Li-Fi broadband can replace GPS (bit.ly/2dbiQ6A).

Haas, now co-founder and interim chief executive officer of pureLifi—a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh—believes that light fidelity (Li-Fi)-enabled LED light bulbs can also transmit data much faster than Wi-Fi (bit.ly/1Tn7rPM). According to a 2012 report in UK-based newspaper Independent (ind.pn/2e1Hoga), Li-Fi promised to challenge the dominance of GPS with Li-Fi LED bulbs so long as we are in the line of sight of the light source.

U.S. author Paul Beatty wins Man Booker Prize

Paul Beatty was on Tuesday named as the first American to win the prestigious Man Booker fiction prize, for “The Sellout”, a biting satire on race relations in the United States.

The narrator of “The Sellout”, an African-American called “Bonbon” tries to put his Californian town back on the map, from which it has been officially removed, by re-introducing slavery and segregation in its high school.

The 289-page novel begins with “Bonbon” facing a hearing in the Supreme Court, looking back over the events that led up to that point.

The language is uncompromising and may offend some readers. So might some of the content — one old black film actor asks to become Bonbon’s slave — as Beatty lampoons racial stereotypes. The protagonist’s father is unjustly shot by police.

“This is a hard book. It was hard for me to write, it’s hard to read,” said a tearful Beatty immediately after winning the award at a ceremony at London’s historic Guildhall.

“For me, it’s just really gratifying that something that’s important to me is also important for other people,” he later told a news conference.

Chair of the five judges for the £50,000 ($60,900) prize Amanda Foreman said “The Sellout” had been a unanimous choice, reached after a meeting lasting some four hours.

“It plunges into the heart of contemporary American society with absolutely savage wit of the kind I haven’t seen since Swift or Twain,” she said.

“It manages to eviscerate every social nuance, every sacred cow, while making us laugh and also making us wince ... It is really a novel for our times.”

Asked about the language, Foreman said, “Paul Beatty has said being offended is not an emotion. That’s his answer to the reader,” Foreman said.

“The Sellout” is 54-year-old Beatty’s fourth novel. He has also edited an anthology of African-American humour.

It was publisher Oneworld’s second Man Booker victory after winning the 2015 prize for “A Brief History of Seven Killings” by Jamaican Marlon James.

Beatty said he would not have written the book had his partner not persuaded him to apply for a grant that allowed him time to complete the book.

“I don’t like writing,” he said. “I’m a perfectionist in some ways and I get easily disgruntled and discouraged with what I’m doing.”

Apart from the £50,000 prize, each of the six shortlisted authors wins £2,500 ($3,045) winning the Man Booker can have a major impact on a writer’s sales and readership. James told Reuters recently that winning the prize can have a “seismic” impact.

In its 48-year history, the prize has gone to authors including Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood. Three years ago the rules were changed to cover any novel written in English, regardless of the writer’s nationality, and published in Britain. Previously it was confined largely to authors from the Commonwealth.

Since January, the judges have read 155 novels before whittling the pile down to a “longlist” of 13 then a shortlist of six.

This year’s shortlist comprised works by two Britons, a Briton born in Canada, a Canadian and two Americans.

Deborah Levy, whose “Hot Milk” was in the final six this year, has been on the shortlist before, while Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Eileen” was her debut novel.

India ranks 87 in WEF gender gap report

The global workplace gender gap is getting wider and economic parity between the sexes could take as many as 170 years to close after a dramatic slowdown in progress.

The slowdown is partly because of chronic imbalances in salaries and labour force participation, despite the fact that, in 95 countries out of the 144 that are ranked, women attend university in equal or higher numbers than men. These are the key findings of The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2016, released on Wednesday.

The report is an annual benchmarking exercise that measures progress towards parity between men and women in four areas: educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity and political empowerment.

In the latest edition, the report finds that progress towards parity in the key economic pillar of gender has slowed dramatically with the gap—which stands at 59%—now larger than at any point since 2008.

Behind this decline are a number of factors. One is salary, with women around the world on average earning just over half of what men earn despite, on average, working longer hours, taking paid and unpaid work into account.

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Another persistent challenge is stagnant labour force participation, with the global average for women at 54%, compared to 81% for men.

In 2015, projections based on the Global Gender Gap Report data suggested that the economic gap could be closed within 118 years, or by 2133.

The education gender gap has closed 1% over the past year to over 95%, making it one of the two areas where most progress has been made to date. Health and survival, the other pillar to have closed 96% of the gap, has deteriorated marginally. Two-thirds of the 144 countries measured in this year’s report can now claim to have fully closed their gender gap in sex ratio at birth, while more than one-third have fully closed the gap in terms of healthy life expectancy. The pillar where the gender gap looms largest, political empowerment, is also the one that has seen the greatest amount of progress since the WEF began measuring the gender gap in 2006. This is now over 23%; 1% greater than 2015 and nearly 10% higher than in 2006. However, improvements are starting from a low base: only two countries have reached parity in parliament and only four have reached parity on ministerial roles, according to the latest globally comparable data. The slow rate of progress towards gender parity, especially in the economic realm, poses a particular risk given the fact that many jobs that employ a majority of women are likely to be hit proportionately hardest by the coming age of technological disruption known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “Women and men must be equal partners in managing the challenges our world faces—and in reaping the opportunities. Both voices are critical in ensuring the Fourth Industrial Revolution delivers its promise for society,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF.

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Which are the world’s most gender-equal countries?

Globally, the leading four nations continue to be Scandinavian: Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, in that order. The next highest placed nation is Rwanda, which moves one place ahead of Ireland to the fifth position. Following Ireland, the Philippines remains unchanged at seventh, narrowly ahead of Slovenia (8) and New Zealand (9), which both move up one place. With Switzerland dropping out of the top 10, the 10th position is taken up by Nicaragua.

The US (45) loses 17 places since last year, primarily due to a more transparent measure for the estimated earned income. Other major economies in the top 20 include Germany (13), France (17) and the UK (20). Among the BRICS grouping, the highest-placed nation remains South Africa (15), which moves up two places since last year with improvements across all pillars. The Russian Federation (75) is next, followed by Brazil (79). India (87) gains 21 spots and overtakes China (99) with improvements across Economic Participation and Opportunity and Educational Attainment.

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Where does India stand?

India is ranked 87 out of 144, improving from its 108 position in 2015. It has closed its gender gap by 2% in a year: its gap now stands at 68% across the four pillars of economy, education, health and political representation. The major improvement, however, has been in education, where it has managed to close its gap entirely in primary and secondary education. In the economic sphere, much work remains to be done. Overall, it ranks 136 in this pillar out of 144 countries, coming in at 135th for labour force participation and 137 for estimated earned income.

India is also among a group of countries that have made key investments in women’s education but have generally not removed barriers to women’s participation in the workforce and are thus not seeing returns on their investments in terms of development of one half of their nation’s human capital. This group also includes Iran, Islamic Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Chile. These countries have an educated but untapped talent pool and would have much to gain from women’s greater participation in the workforce.

The report shows that there remain huge differences in the opportunities for women in the best and worst performing countries around the world.

Now, India has a nuclear triad

Now, India has a nuclear triad

India has quietly completed its nuclear triad by inducting the indigenously built strategic nuclear submarine INS Arihant into service.

With this India joins the select group of countries which have a nuclear triad, i.e. capable of delivering nuclear weapons by aircraft, ballistic missiles and submarine launched missiles.

Key facts:

Arihant is capable of carrying nuclear tipped ballistic missiles, the class referred to as Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN). SSBNs are designed to prowl the deep ocean waters carrying nuclear weapons and provide a nation with an assured second strike capability — the capability to strike back after being hit by nuclear weapons first.
The vessel weighing 6000 tonnes is powered by a 83 MW pressurised light water nuclear reactor.
It will be armed with the K-15 Sagarika missiles with a range of 750 km and eventually with the much longer range K-4 missiles being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation