VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Vice President Jusuf Kalla has called for increasing food productivity through technological developments to build food resilience. The vice president remarked that one of the problems currently faced by Indonesia was a decline in the area of agricultural land that has caused a food shortage.  "In short, it is how our food security can be maintained, how productivity can be increased through the use of technology and systems, as well as how the environment can be preserved. Unless the environment is preserved, everything will come to a standstill, as all plants need water," he noted while opening the Jakarta Food Security Summit in Jakarta, on Thursday ( 8 March ). 

Kalla pointed to the decrease in agricultural land due to the rising population in the country, which is estimated to reach 350 million by 2045, and will certainly increase the demand for food. The vice president also urged to conduct technological research in the field of agriculture in the region to increase food productivity in the midst of the depleting agricultural land.

"It means the demand for food will continue to increase at a rate of about three percent a year. Indonesia must be ready to meet the increasing demand through production with regard to a change in the consumption patterns and depletion of agricultural land owing to urbanization," he explained.

He underlined that bussinessmen must give the support the research to boost the productivity. 

"Research on rice has been conducted in Subang, rubber research in Sumatra, and sugar research in Pasuruan. Certainly, businessmen must support the research work with regard to boosting productivity, with the hope that the use of technology will help to tackle the challenges posed by the rising population or climate change that may affect food productivity," Kalla said. (antara )

March 8 is celebrated worldwide as International Women's Day. This celebration is a form of appreciation of women’s achievement in various fields, ranging from politics to social spheres. At the same time, the celebration also shows that a lot of homework has to be done. One of them is the level of violence against women.

International Women's Day has a long history of protests or demonstrations by women in America and Europe to demand their rights in the early 20th century. March 8 was chosen to commemorate the massive demonstrations and strikes by women that took place in Russia on 8^th of March, 2017.

In 1977, International Women's Day was inaugurated as an annual celebration by the United Nations –UN to fight for women's rights and to realize world peace.

According to UN Women Watch, this year's theme is "Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women's lives". This theme is inspired from the campaign #Metoo in the United States and other countries around the world such as France, Mexico, Italy, and even Arab countries. The campaign was conducted to show how widespread the incidence of violence and sexual harassment against women is, especially in the workplace which has happened so far. International Women's Day wants a movement to provide support to those who are victims of sexual harassment. In addition, this year's theme also wants the advocacy or legal assistance given to the survivors and punishment to the perpetrators.

One of the steps that can be taken to reduce violence against women is through empowerment. At the UN forum in New York in last September 2015, all member countries of the UN, including Indonesia along with UN Women launched ‘Planet 2030’. The target to be achieved in 2030 is gender equality 50:50 or conditions in which one country has created justice and equality between men and women in all aspects. This can be achieved by increasing the empowerment of women in various fields.

Empowerment is the key to eliminating violence and improving women's dignity. This empowerment can start from instilling values ​​that respect the existence of women in the family. In addition, women need to be empowered economically, because the family economy becomes one of the causes of violence and women have a major role in the family economy. 

Empowerment must be done since early, including in Indonesia. That is by instilling an even education and various skills for girls. This task is the responsibility of all parties to eliminate violence against women as a final result can be achieved.

President Joko Widodo has underlined improvement of confidence in Indonesia`s economy as three main rating companies have upgraded the country`s sovereign bond ratings to investment grade. "The improvement of confidence should be utilized," Joko Widodo said here on Wednesday.

Three main rating companies : S&P Global Ratings, Moody`s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings have a positive outlook on their assessments of the nation`s debt. Based on the World Bank`s latest report, Indonesia ranked 72nd out of 190 countries in the 2018 Ease of Doing Business. This means Indonesia rose by 19 positions from 2017 when Indonesia was ranked 91st

Indonesia`s nominal gross domestic product was at Rp 13,558 trillion, or US$1 trillion in the 2017 exchange rate. This has placed Indonesia in a group of countries with economies above US$1 trillion, like Australia, South Korea and India. President said "Indonesia`s economy is in good condition".

Based on data of The Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), Indonesia`s economic growth would still mainly be driven by domestic consumption and investment. Until the third quarter of 2017, investment in Indonesia amounted to Rp 513.2 trillion, constituting 75.6 percent of the government`s target of Rp 678.8 trillion. In addition, the government has proposed a growth target at 5.4 (yoy), while Bank Indonesia offered the growth range of 5.1 to 5.5 percent. ( antara ) 

Indonesia`s Communication and Informatics Ministry has found more than 360 accounts in microblogging platform Tumblr that contained pornography. Director General for Informatics Application of the Ministry, Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan said on Wednesday ( 7 March ), " We found more than 360 accounts following reports from the public on pornography contents in Tumblr".

Based on the finding, the ministry has sent an e-mail on February 28 to notify Tumblr about it. A team has given the social networking website a two-day deadline to clean its platform from pornographic contents.  However, the microblogging platform has failed to respond to the demand, and so the ministry has blocked eight Tumblr Domain Name Systems (DNS) on March 5.

The ministry has opened the chance for normalization of the website, on condition that the provider would adhere to the regulation. "As long as the platform conduct the cleaning and meet other requirements for handling negative content, and agree to adhere to the regulation, of course it will become our consideration for normalization," Semuel said. ( antara )