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Number of extremely poor people in the world
Hunger is increasing
Faced with the impossibly long list, in three years only two countries – India and Germany – have made even a partial assessment of how much investment is required for the goals.
The Agenda is woefully underfunded – one estimate shows $2.5 trillion more needed each year.
Even if we spent all of the world’s development funding it would only get us 5% of the way.
Prioritise what we want first
Investing an extra $8 billion annually in agricultural R&D would increase yields globally, generating more food at lower cost.
It could save 79 million people from hunger and prevent 5 million cases of child malnourishment, with each dollar producing $35 of social benefits.
Because the UN didn’t prioritise when it created the SDGs, nations are making those choices themselves.
The biggest risk is that their selection will not be based on which targets could do the most good, but on far more capricious measures such as which targets have more media-friendly images or the most NGO attention.

ISRO invites foreign ‘riders’ to Venus

An 18-month-old pitch for what could be the first Indian orbiter mission to Venus has just been refreshed and relaunched, opening it up now for international experiments.
Tentatively marking the yet to be named ‘Mission Venus’ for mid-2023, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to study the planet from an elliptical orbit that is closest to Venus at 500 km and 60,000 km at the farthest end — similar to its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) of 2013.
The new round invites space-based experiment ideas on Venus from space agencies, universities and researchers.
From the Moon orbiter mission Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 and the ₹450 crore MOM, the Venus voyage — if approved — would be ISRO’s third interplanetary dash.
A lunar lander and rover mission called Chandrayaan2 is getting ready to take off in January or February 2019.

A National Monogenic Diabetes Study Group has been formed to identify cases of monogenic diabetes across the country.
Monogenic diabetes is a group of disorders where mutation of a single gene causes diabetes; the three commonest forms being – Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY), Neonatal Diabetes Mellitus (NDM) and Congenital Hypoglycaemia, according to V. Mohan, chairman, DMDSC.

Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan has contended that the introduction of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) were the two major events that held back India’s economic growth last year.
Speaking at the University of California in Berkley on Friday, Rajan maintained that the seven per cent growth rate is not enough to meet the country’s needs.
“The two successive shocks of demonetisation and the GST had a serious impact on growth in India. Growth has fallen off interestingly at a time when growth in the global economy has been peaking up,”
Commenting on the rising Non-Performing Assets (NPA), he said the best thing to do in such a situation is to “clean up”. It is essential to “deal up with the bad stuff”, so that with clean balance sheets, banks can be put back on the track.
“It has taken India far longer to clean up the banks, partly because the system did not have instruments to deal with bad debts, ” Rajan said.
Excessive centralisation of power in the political decision making is one of India’s main problems, Rajan said during his address.
“India can’t work from the Center. India works when you have many people taking up the burden. And today the central government is excessively centralised, ” he said.

2018 Pneumonia and Diarrhea Progress Report by International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC).
World Pneumonia Day: November 12
Despite improvements in full immunisation coverage across India, girls under the age of five in rural and poorer urban localities continue to lose out on vaccinations, an annual report released by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found.
Improvements to full immunization coverage in India have not succeeded in closing the gender gap in coverage, as only 78 females were fully immunized for every 100 males fully immunized in poorer areas of Delhi.
India and Tonga were the only two countries in the world where the under-five mortality rate of girls is higher than boys.

Religious tolerance is an integral part of Indian culture and it must be retained and preserved, said Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat during his address at a programme in Ludhiana Saturday.
Citizens must not forget that India has a rich cultural heritage of its own and it should be retained at every cost.
Our nation is on the move. We are growing and rising.
We have a very strong cultural heritage and legacy which we must honor.
But gradually Westernization is taking over. We must not forget that we have a culture of our own which is rich. It must be retained. Humanity, religious tolerance, compassion, care- all these are a part of our rich Indian culture.

US President Donald Trump Saturday said the suggestion of his French counterpart Emanuel Macron that Europe should build its own army was “very insulting”, asserting that Europe should first pay its “fair share” to NATO.
Trump slammed Macron in a tweet, moments after he landed in Paris for a weekend trip to commemorate Armistice Day and attend the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which is being attended by several world leaders, including India’s Vice President Venkaiah Naidu.
“President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the US, China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the US subsidizes greatly!” he said in a tweet.

A UK police force on Saturday launched an appeal to arrest vandals who attacked a newly-inaugurated Indian war memorial in the town of Smethwick in the West Midlands region of England.
West Midlands Police said officers are treating the vandalism to the retaining wall surrounding the ‘Lions of the Great War’ sculpture as “raciallyaggravated criminal damage”.
The 10-foot high statue, which depicts a Sikh soldier symbolic of the contribution of South Asian soldiers to World War I, was unveiled last Sunday at a spot between the town’s High Street and Tollhouse Way and is believed to have been targeted with graffiti in the early hours of Friday.
The gurudwara donated around 20,000 pounds for the sculpture, with the local Sandwell Council investing in creating the public space with seating and lighting to house the new monument. The inaugural event was attended by hundreds, including Labour Party MP Preet Kaur Gill, the UK’s first female Sikh MP.