Facebook plans to hire team of editors to help curate your news stories

Current Affairs

Facebook has long relied on algorithms to select news stories for its users to see.Now the social network wants to rely on something else for the same task, too: humans.
Specifically, Facebook plans to hire a team of editors to work on a news initiative called News Tab, which is its latest venture into the world of publishing.
The Silicon Valley company said that journalists would help curate News Tab, a new section inside of the company’s mobile application that will surface the most recent and relevant stories for readers. Facebook said it planned to hire seasoned journalists from various outlets for the roles and would put up job postings on its employment board on Tuesday.
News Tab is part of the company’s effort to highlight real-time journalism and news. It will exist outside of the News Feed, Facebook’s never-ending stream of status updates and friend requests.
“Our goal with the News Tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” said Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships. “To start, for the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”

 Facebook has been under pressure for spreading misinformation and disinformation to millions of its users. In 2016, Russian operatives manipulated Facebook and disseminated false news stories across its network to influence the outcome of the American presidential election. On Monday, Facebook also revealed that China was behind Facebook pages and groups that were sowing disinformation about the protests in Hong Kong...Read More

Can environmental populism save the planet? It is difficult, but possible

Current Affairs

Populism and environmentalism are words seldom seen in the same sentence. One is associated predominantly with nationalists and charismatic leaders of “real people”, the other with broadly-based collective action to address the world’s single most pressing problem.
Differences don’t get much starker, it would seem. But we are increasingly seeing the two strands combine in countries around the world.Exhibit A in support of this thesis is the remarkable growth and impact of Extinction Rebellion, often known as XR.
When I finished writing a book on the possibility of environmental populism little more than six months ago, I’d never even heard of XR. Now it is a global phenomenon, beginning to be taken seriously by policymakers in some of the world’s more consequential democracies. Britain’s decision earlier this year to declare a climate emergency is attributed in part to 11 days of Extinction Rebellion protest that paralysed parts of London.
Greta Thunberg, the remarkable Swedish schoolgirl who has rapidly become one of the world’s leading climate activists, is another – rather inspiring – example of a rising tide of popular opinion demanding political leaders take action before it is too late. It is also a telling indictment of the quality and imagination of the current crop of international leaders that schoolchildren are taking the lead on an issue that will, for better or worse, define their future.

 It is striking that so many prominent figures in international politics are not just buffoonish, self-obsessed and ludicrously underqualified for the positions they hold, but are also rather old.I speak as an ageing baby boomer myself, and a childless one at that. My rather ageist point is that I simply don’t have the same stake in the future that young people do, who have perhaps 70 or 80 years yet to live...Read More

Benefits of Reverse Mortgage for Senior Citizens

World Senior Citizen Day 2019

regardless of how well senior citizens have invested their money within the old age, additional coins flow is extra than welcome. amongst the many senior citizen pushed schemes that exist in india, opposite loan is a lesser-known one. permit’s recognize this scheme in detail and the way senior citizens can benefit from it.
what is reverse mortgage?
the opposite loan scheme changed into brought in 2007-08 by means of the indian authorities to permit senior citizens get complement income. below this scheme, senior citizens obtain periodic bills each month in opposition to the house owned by means of them. they are able to mortgage their owned residential belongings as collateral with a financial institution or a financial group and get a loan in opposition to it. that is the ‘reverse’ of a domestic loan in which the borrower pays month-to-month emi.
the maximum monthly payment to the senior citizen is capped at rs 50,000 in a 12 months
benefits of opposite mortgage
new supply of income
opposite loan serves as a supplementary income source apart from conventional investment alternatives inclusive of financial institution fixed deposits, country wide financial savings certificate, put up office scheme, etc.
all-cause profits

 senior residents can use reverse mortgage income for any motive – household charges, medical bills, travel, debt charge and any every day want. there may be no restrict on how this income must be used...Read More

Odisha improves child and mental health faster; UP, Bihar lag behind

Current Affairs

Odisha, one of India's poorest states, has made significant progress in reducing child undernutrition—less than India as a whole, but more than other poor states, such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, according to government data studied by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
In Odisha, stunting--low height for age and a sign of malnutrition--reduced from 46.5% of children below five years in 2005-06 to 35.3% in 2015-16; the proportion of underweight children decreased from 42.3% of children below five years to 35.8%; and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the government’s child nutrition and education program, reached 34% more people in 2017 than it had in 2014.
As National Nutrition Week gets under way on September 1, 2019, and the Indian government prepares to launch Poshan Abhiyaan with an aim to improve nutrition among children, pregnant women and lactating mothers and make India malnutrition-free by 2022, we examine the success of Odisha. IFPRI, a research advocacy based in Washington D.C., studied the progress of several countries and 28 Indian states, identifying Odisha as a "nutrition champion", along with Thailand, Brazil, Bangladesh, Nepal, Peru, Vietnam and Ethiopia.
Odisha performed better than other poorer states

 India’s ICDS programme is the world’s largest nutrition programme, launched in 1975 to address health, nutrition and pre-school education of children under the age of six years. The programme operates through a network of anganwadi centres that provide services for pregnant and lactating women, and for children aged six months to six years. The programme mandates one anganwadi per village or for a population of 1,000...Read More

Hong Kong leader setting up communication platform to help end protest

Current Affairs
Hong Kong's embattled leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday said she hoped "calm" will prevail after a massive weekend march passed without clashes between police and demonstrators, but again refused to give ground to protester demands.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the heart of the city on Sunday in a show of peaceful protest after escalating street battles with police drew stark warnings from Beijing and threatened to undermine public support.
"On Sunday, many Hong Kong residents participated in a rally at Victoria Park that was largely peaceful," Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at a televised press conference."I wholeheartedly hope that this is the beginning of society returning to calm and staying away from violence." The protests began against a proposed extradition law to China but morphed into a pro-democracy movement sparking the city's biggest political crisis in decades.
They have been fuelled by anger over alleged police brutality, with tear gas and rubber bullets deployed against protesters. Lam reported 174 complaints have been made against police since protests began.
She said they would be "robustly" investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Council, whose head is appointed by the chief executive. However, the probe is unlikely to satisfy protesters who have called for an independent inquiry by an external body.In addition to universal suffrage and cancelling the extradition bill, protesters also demand the release of those detained during clashes.

 Lam, pilloried by press and protesters for failing to step down while the city plunges into crisis, said her government would continue a "fact-finding mission" on how to move forward from the demonstrations...Read More

Chandrayaan 2 reaches Moon's orbit, is just days away from landing

Current Affairs

India's second Moon Mission, Chandrayaan 2, successfully entered the lunar orbit on Tuesday morning in a significant milestone that brings India closer to joining select nations that have explored the moon. Isro Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan had earlier described this event as a major challenge.
Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) manoeuvre was completed successfully today (August 20, 2019) at 0902 hrs IST, as planned, using the on-board propulsion system. The duration of the manoeuvre was 1,738 seconds. With this, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into a Lunar orbit. The orbit achieved was 114 km x 18,072 km.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) fired the spacecraft's liquid engine for a short while and placed it on a lunar bound orbit. From here, the spacecraft is scheduled to go through four more orbit manoeuvres to reach its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.Subsequently, the lander will separate from the Orbiter and enter into a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Then, it will perform a series of complex braking manoeuvres to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019.
Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft land the lander Vikram, and rover Pragyan, in a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70° south. The mission has 13 Indian payloads, including eight on Orbiter, three on lander and two on rover, and one passive experiment from US space agency NASA.

 The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, near Bengaluru. All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 are healthy...Read More

Would be unwise to alienate India, turn to Pakistan as partner: US expert

Company News

Amid an increased India-Pak tension on Kashmir and an ongoing Afghan peace talks, a top American foreign policy expert has cautioned the Trump Administration against any strategic tilt towards Pakistan and moving away from India.
"The US would be unwise to turn to Pakistan as a strategic partner," Richard N Hass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an op-ed last week.Pakistan sees a friendly government in Kabul as vital to its security and competition with arch-rival India, he wrote in his op-ed that was first published by Project Syndicate and thereafter, on the CFR website.
"There is little reason to believe that the military and intelligence services, which continue to run Pakistan, will rein in the Taliban or rule out terrorism," Hass said."Equally, the US would be unwise to alienate India. Yes, India has a tradition of protectionist trade policies and often frustrates US policymakers with its reluctance to cooperate fully on strategic issues," he wrote.
But democratic India, which will soon surpass China as the world's most populous country and will boast the world's fifth-largest economy, is a good long-term bet, he added.
"It is a natural partner to help balance China. India has rejected participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative, whereas Pakistan, struggling economically, has embraced it," Hass said.According to the top American scholar, the US would also be unwise to race for the exits from Afghanistan.

Peace talks with the Taliban mostly look like a means to extract US forces from the country, he claimed, adding that the process is reminiscent of Vietnam, where a 1973 agreement between the US and North Vietnam provided a pretext for American withdrawal from the South but not a basis for peace....Read More