Anaemia In India

Critics have recently claimed that while anaemia in adolescent girls, boys, and women has been extensively studied, anaemia in men has been largely ignored.

Anaemia in Men:

As per National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5):

• It found that three out of ten men in rural areas were anaemic; prevalence of anaemia was more in rural areas than in urban areas — one of five urban men are anaemic, while three out of every ten rural men are anaemic.
• Prevalence of anaemia was found to be higher (34.7%) among men who were underweight compared with men who were overweight (19.3%).
• Men who consumed alcohol and smoked had “slightly higher” occurrences of anaemia, and older men were found to be more vulnerable.
• Men in the southern States had lower anaemia prevalence (18.5%), while prevalence was highest in the eastern region (34.1%).
• Anaemia prevalence was 27.2% in the north region, 28.9% in west, 26.9% in northwest and 25% in the central region.

The findings suggest the need to recognise anaemia among men as a public health issue”.

What is anaemia?

• Anaemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the concentration of haemoglobin in them is lower than normal.
• Haemoglobin is required to carry oxygen, and if you have too few or abnormal red blood cells, or not enough haemoglobin, your blood's capacity to carry oxygen to the body's tissues will be reduced.

Anaemia Causes:

• Nutritional deficiencies, including iron deficiency, are the most common causes of anaemia.
• Deficits in folate, vitamins B12 and A, as well as haemoglobinopathies and infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV, are all important causes.

Symptoms:

• It is characterised by fatigue, weakness, dizziness, and drowsiness.
• Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable, with an increased risk of maternal and child mortality.

Treatment:

• While iron deficiency anaemia is the most common type, it is relatively simple to treat with dietary changes.
• Other types of anaemia necessitate health interventions that may be more difficult to obtain.
• It has an impact on children's cognitive and physical development, as well as adult productivity.
• Anaemia is a sign of poor nutrition as well as poor health.
• It may also have an impact on other global nutritional issues such as stunting and wasting, low birth weight, and childhood overweight and obesity as a result of a lack of energy to exercise.
• School performance in children and reduced work productivity in adults can have additional social and economic consequences for the individual and family.

Anaemia Facts and Figures:

The Lancet Global Health journal:

• It was discovered that nearly one in every four men (23.2%) in India between the ages of 15 and 54 were anaemic (mild, moderate, or severe).

Estimates from the WHO:

• According to the WHO, 42% of children under the age of five and 40% of pregnant women worldwide are anaemic.

National Family Health Survey No. 5 (NFHS-5):

• It was discovered that three out of every ten men in rural areas were anaemic.
• Rural areas had a higher prevalence of anaemia than urban areas.

Interventions by the Government:

Anaemia Mukt Bharat (AMB):

• It is a life-cycle strategy aimed at reducing anaemia in women, children, and adolescents.
• It includes anaemia testing using digital methods as well as point-of-care treatment.

Scheme for Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS):

• Under the umbrella of ICDS, the government implements Anganwadi Services, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, and a Scheme for Adolescent Girls as targeted interventions to address the country's malnutrition problem.

POSHAN Abhiyaan:

• It is the nation's flagship nutrition mission to improve nutrition among children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
• Implementation of community-based programmes
• The implementation of community-based programmes for severe acute malnutrition, Jan Andolans, and community-based events, as well as increased collaboration across departments, has resulted in the implementation of a comprehensive approach to malnutrition.

Midday Meal Plan:

• It is an Indian school meal programme designed to improve the nutritional status of school-age children.

Way Forward:

• Men are less likely to be iron deficient because they do not lose iron through menstruation every month.
• Men do not lose iron unless they are bleeding or have abnormal haemoglobin, such as thalassemia or sickle cell anaemia.
• Policy Expansion: The benefits of existing anaemia-eradication programmes and policies should be extended to men as well.
• To reduce the prevalence of anaemia, targeted interventions among vulnerable groups of rural men are recommended.
• Need for precise calculation measures: The use of capillary blood samples to measure haemoglobin may have overestimated the prevalence of anaemia in rural men.
• In women, capillary blood samples can increase anaemia prevalence by 33% to 50%.
• Proper nutrition: The need of the hour is to increase the variety of foods available to men in order to improve iron and vitamin intake without the use of chemicals.

Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture

The government has started a number of initiatives employing artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) in agriculture.

• Precision farming, agricultural drones and hopping systems, livestock monitoring, climate monitoring, smart greenhouses, AI and IoT-based computer imagery, and other applications are examples.
• To encourage innovation and agripreneurship by providing financial support and fostering the incubation ecosystem, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare nominated 5 Knowledge Partners and 24 Agribusiness Incubators.

Various Government Initiatives are as follow :

A National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS)

• It is being carried out by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
• 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs) have been established across the nation in prestigious institutions of national significance in advanced technology verticals as part of the Mission.
• Funding is provided to State Governments for Digital Agriculture Projects Using Emerging Technologies Like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), Internet of Things (IOT), Block Chain, etc. under the National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGPA) programme under the Department of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare.
• Since 2018–19, the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) has run a programme dubbed "Innovation and Agri-Entrepreneurship Development" with the aim of fostering the incubation ecosystem and fostering innovation and agripreneurship.

What is artificial intelligence?

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is the emulation of human intelligence in devices that have been designed to behave and think like humans.
• Artificial intelligence has three main objectives: learning, reasoning, and perception. Example Self-driving cars, virtual assistants,etc.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in agriculture:

Use for predicting the weather:

• Using weather forecasting and artificial intelligence, farmers can plan the sort of crop that can be cultivated and the best time to plant seeds by analysing meteorological conditions.

Soil health surveillance system:

• The kind of soil and nutrition of the soil have a significant impact on the crops that are grown and their quality.
• Due to rising soil degradation, it is difficult to assess the soil's quality.

Evaluation of crop health & Pest Management:

• An AI-equipped drone can gather data from fields, which is then sent from the drone to a computer via a USB drive and examined by specialists from the government's agricultural department.
• An in-depth report on the state of the farm's health can be created by analysing the photographs that were captured.
• By identifying pests and germs, farmers can utilise pest control technologies and other timely measures to take the necessary action.

Predictive analytics and precision agriculture:

• By giving farmers appropriate guidance concerning water management, crop rotation, timely harvesting, the sort of crop to be grown, optimal planting, pest attacks, and nutrition management, AI applications can aid in correct and regulated farming.
• With equipment as basic as an SMS-enabled phone and the Sowing App, even the last-mile farmer may benefit from artificial intelligence.

AI-powered pest detection tool:

• AI systems employ satellite photos and historical data to determine whether any insects have landed and, if so, which species—such as locusts, grasshoppers, and others—have done so.
• So that farmers may take the necessary precautions, it can then send alerts to their smartphones.

Grading of Agricultural Products:

• An accurate and trustworthy way for grading fresh products (fruits, grains, vegetables, cotton, etc.) that are characterised by colour, size, and form is an automated quality analysis of photographs of food products.
• Without requiring any manual intervention, the farmer can use his phone to take a picture and instantly assess the quality of his produce.

Finding weeds:

• AI can effectively be used for differentiating between weeds and crop seedlings. It is one of the most efficient non-chemical ways of reducing weeds.

Irrigation:

• AI helps in irrigating agricultural fields. It can monitor and analyze the soil moisture and other conditions, such as aridity or humidity in the surrounding atmosphere, and then open water valves to provide water to the fields automatically, without any human involvement.

Agriculture Insurance:

• The AI-enabled agriculture insurance can help in the faster assessment of damaged crops and faster reimbursement of insurance to the farmers.

Conclusion

• Farmers' access to markets, inputs, data, advice, loans, and insurance will be improved through the use of AI in agriculture.
• An effective supply chain that is demand-driven and efficient may be built with the use of timely, reliable data and analytics.
• With the recent reforms in the agriculture industry, there is a chance that contract farming investments will expand and technology will be introduced for higher yields and productivity. This will encourage the use of AI in agriculture even more. Moreover, in order to assist
• With the recent reforms in the agriculture industry, there is a chance that contract farming investments will expand and technology will be introduced for higher yields and productivity. This will encourage the use of AI in agriculture even more. Increased investments are also required from the public and private sectors to assist these AI solutions scale.

India Internet Governance Forum 2022

• The India Internet Governance Forum (IIGF) 2022 was recently addressed by the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship.
• “Leveraging technology for empowering Bharat” is the theme for 2022.
• The purpose of the event is to discuss the roadmap to the digitization and to reaffirm India's position on the international stage by highlighting its significance in the development of global internet governance policies.

What is India Internet Government Forum (IIGF)?

• The India Internet Government Forum is an initiative associated with the UN Internet Governance Forum (UN-IGF) project.
• The UN-IGF is a multi-stakeholder forum that brings together representatives from various groups, believing that all of them are on an equal footing to discuss public policy matters pertaining to the Internet.
• The World Summit on the Information Society, which took place in 2005, produced the Tunis Agenda, which gave rise to the Internet Governance Forum.
• In accordance with the mandate outlined in the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, the IGF meeting is held annually by the Secretary-General of the United Nations since its inaugural meeting in 2006.

About Tunis Agenda:

• The Tunis Agenda is the final document adopted at the conclusion of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, (a UN Summit) in 2005.
• The document contains provisions on financial mechanisms for bridging the digital divide, Internet governance which encompasses not only technical issues related to the management of the Internet technical resources (names and addresses) but also public policy issues; and that the various stakeholders (private sector, civil society, the academic and technical communities) have roles and responsibilities in Internet governance.
• Although the Tunis Agenda is not a legally binding instrument, it outlines a series of recommendations regarding the implementation of the WSIS objectives and action lines at national, regional, and international levels.

What level of internet connectivity does India currently have?

• The largest "connected" nation in the world is India, which has 800 million internet users.
• With 1.2 billion Indian users, 5G and BharatNet's largest rural broadband connectivity project will have the single-largest presence on the internet.
• India has also increased access to the internet for developing nations in the Global South whose economies have not been able to step up and digitise at the same rate as their internet-dependent counterparts.
• Internet advantages: These advantages include increased output, financial freedom, and easier access to knowledge.

Internet governance: What is it?

• Internet Governance refers to the creation and implementation by governments, business, and civil society, in the context of their respective spheres of influence, of common values, norms, regulations, methods of decision-making, and initiatives that influence the development and use of the Internet.
• It includes tasks like the coordination and development of technical standards, the maintenance of vital infrastructure, and concerns with public policy.
• IP Addressing, DNS, Routing, Technical Innovations, Standardization, Security, Public Policy, Privacy, Legal Issues, Cyber Norms, Intellectual Property, and Taxation are all aspects of Internet Governance.

Internet governance layers:

• Infrastructure layer, physical
• Logic or code layer
• material layer
• Security

India's Strategy

• India is in favour of a multi-stakeholder strategy for Internet governance.
• The Government will continue to exercise absolute authority and control over matters pertaining to national security.
• India's industry and human resource, which can be used in a multi-stakeholder approach, are its strengths in the sector.
• Challenges include the internet's ongoing evolution, the concentration of digital power in a small number of nations and companies, the digital divide, the lack of infrastructure in rural areas, the gender divide, and decision-making that is more pro-supply than pro-demand.