25-26-10-22 Daily-Odisha-OPSC Current Affairs

International research body GISIAD, which has been monitoring the changes in the Covid-19 virus, has confirmed 380 cases of the XBB sub-variant of the Omicron variant in nine States in India.

While Nadu has reported 175 XBB cases, West Bengal has 103 cases followed by Odisha with 35. The other States having the XBB virus are Maharashtra with 21, Delhi 18, Puducherry 16, Karnataka 9, Gujarat 2 and Rajasthan 1.

According to reports, the XBB sub-variant is fast emerging as the dominant one in the country.

Going by the demand momentum in the ongoing festive season and the first three quarters of 2022, housing sales across the top seven Indian cities this year is likely to breach the previous peak of 2014.

As per the latest research by Anarock, cumulative sales in the top seven cities — NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata — may exceed 3.6 lakh units in 2022. In 2014, 3.43 lakh units were sold in the top seven cities.

NCR and MMR have retained their top slot rankings in the first nine months of 2022, with around 1,30,450 units collectively sold in these two regions, accounting for 48% of the total sales in the top seven cities.

Other high-selling cities were Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, which accounted for a 42% cumulative sales share.

MMR and Hyderabad recorded the maximum new launches during this period, with 1.43 lakh units and accounting for 54% of the total new supplies.

The GHI score is calculated on a 100-point scale reflecting the severity of hunger, where zero is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

Indias score of 29.1 places it in the serious category.

India also ranks below Sri Lanka (at 64), Nepal ( at 81), Bangladesh ( at 84), and Pakistan (at 99).

Afghanistan, at 109, is the only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index.

China is among the countries collectively ranked between 1 and 17 having a score of less than five.

Indias rank in the Global Hunger Index has consistently worsened in the last 10 years.

The Global Hunger Index 2022 was released recently. Out of 121 countries in this list, Indias ranking is at 107

It was Jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, Non-Government Organisations from Ireland and Germany respectively.

It is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels.

The GHI is intended to raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger.

It provides a way to compare levels of hunger between countries and regions.

And even call attention to those areas of the world where hunger levels are highest and where the need for additional efforts to eliminate hunger is greatest.

The reason for mapping hunger is to ensure that the world achieves Zero Hunger by 2030, which is one of the Goals laid out by the United Nations.

Each countrys GHI score is calculated based on four indicators.