National Steering Committee on Climate Change Approves Four Projects:-
Background :-
National Steering Committee on Climate Change (NSCCC) approved four projects from Tamil Nadu, Kerala ,Punjab and Madhya Pradesh
Projects:-
- Management and Rehabilitation of Coastal Habitats and Biodiversity for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihood in Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu
- The project will help in developing the much needed “Comprehensive Plan or Scheme for Coral and Sea Grass Restoration
- Promotion of Integrated Farming System of Kaipad and Pokkali in Coastal Wetlands of Kerala
- Its broad objectives – providing the main infrastructure facility of strong outer ‘bunds’ with sufficient height; use of tall varieties of salt tolerant paddy; integrating fishery to enhance paddy cultivation and maximize the inland fish production through sustainable aquaculture.
- It will also improve the quality of life for local farmers through higher disposable incomes. It will improve access to fresh water, as peripheral ‘bunds’ will prevent seepage of sea water to fresh water sources, capacity building of farmers and will reduce displacement of labourers from nearby areas and provide employment to women. It will also check carbon emission, as wetlands have good potential to act as carbon sink
- Building Resilience through Integrated Farming Systems for Enhancing Livelihood Security by MP
- Technological adaptation for gainful utilisation of paddy straw (presently burnt on-site) as fuel to replace fossil fuels by Punjab
Kaipad Rice:-
Kaipad system of rice cultivation is an organic farming system in which rice cultivation and aquaculture go together in coastal brackish water marshes
Kaipad rice is a Geographical Indicator.
Geographical Indicator:-
A geographical indication (GI) is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin. In order to function as a GI, a sign must identify a product as originating in a given place. In addition, the qualities, characteristics or reputation of the product should be essentially due to the place of origin. Since the qualities depend on the geographical place of production, there is a clear link between the product and its original place of production.
Wetland:-
Wetlands are highly variable and dynamic: they are water bodies but also include land. They are freshwater, brackish or saline, inland or coastal, seasonal or permanent, natural or man-made. Wetlands include mangroves, (peat) swamps and marshes, rivers, lakes, floodplains and flooded forests, rice-fields, and even coral reefs.
Wetlands are one of the world’s most important environmental assets, containing a disproportionately high number of plant and animal species compared to other areas of the world. Throughout history they have been integral to human survival and development.
Wetlands are vulnerable to over-exploitation due to their abundance of fish, fuel and water. When they are viewed as unproductive or marginal lands, wetlands are targeted for drainage and conversion. In many different ways, wetlands are on the “front-line” as development pressures increase.
Technical Definition:-
A wetland is “an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, which, in turn, forces the biota, particularly rooted plants, to adapt to flooding.”There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen (bogs and fens being types of mires). Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types.The largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia.
Coastal wetlands, such as tropical mangroves and temperate salt marshes are known to be sinks of carbon, therefore mitigating climate change, however they are also emitters of nitrous oxide (N2O),which is a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 300 times that of carbon dioxide and the dominant ozone depleting substance emitted in the 21st century.
Ramsar Convention:-
The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat, or Ramsar Convention, is an international treaty designed to address global concerns regarding wetland loss and degradation. The primary purposes of the treaty are to list wetlands of international importance and to promote their wise use, with the ultimate goal of preserving the world’s wetlands
Achievements of Department of Space during the year 2015
1. MARS Orbiter Mission:-
India’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft has successfully completed its mission objective as planned and has completed one year around Mars orbit on September 24, 2015
By successfully placing Mars Orbiter Spacecraft around Mars, ISRO has become the fourth space agency to successfully send a spacecraft to Mars orbit and India became the first country in the world to do so in its first attempt. The mission has benefited the country by-
(i) Upgrading the technological capabilities in spacecraft design including onboard autonomy, miniaturization, optimization of onboard resources
(ii) providing excellent opportunities in planetary research for the scientific community
(iii) generating interest in youth of the country towards science and technology
Mars Orbiter Mission has been awarded “Space Pioneer Award” for science and engineering category for the year 2015 by the US based National Space Society. The Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development has been awarded to ISRO in recognition of its path-breaking (2014 prelims question)
2.Successful launch of GSLV with Indigenous Cryogenic Stage:-
Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D6), equipped with the indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS), successfully launched GSAT-6, the country’s advanced communication satellite, into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO)
3.Development of Next Generation Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III:-
The first experimental flight of heavy lift next generation launch vehicle, GSLV-Mk III, was successfully conducted on December 18, 2014 from Sriharikota
GSLV Mk III is designed to launch 3.5 to 4 Ton class communication satellites to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.
4.Navigational Satellite System:-
Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) is designed as a constellation of seven satellites to provide satellite based navigational services in the country.
The IRNSS System will benefit the country by providing positioning services over Indian Land Mass and a region extending to the about 1500 Kms around India. The convergence of communication, earth observation and navigation satellite technologies will prove to be a boon in coming years for location based services and informed decision making.
GAGAN (GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation), which is primarily being used in aviation sector for precise position information services, has been certified by DGCA for Navigation Performance level of Approach with Vertical Guidance (APV-1) over India. With this, India becomes the Third country in the world, after USA and European Union, to offer Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) based precision approach services to civil aviation sector.
5.Augmenting the Satellite Communications infrastructure
6.India’s first multi-wavelength Observatory in Space:-
ASTROSAT satellite, India’s first dedicated astronomy satellite was successfully launched by PSLV-C30 on September 28, 2015. ASTROSAT enables simultaneous Ultraviolet to X-Ray observations to study Stars and Galaxies. It will also provide opportunity to task observations for the scientific community.
7.Commercial Launch of PSLV:-
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has launched 17 foreign satellites from seven countries (Canada, Indonesia, Singapore, UK, and USA) during 2015
8.Initiatives on Satellite for SAARC Region:-
ISRO, with active support from Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), hosted a Conference on “Satellite for the SAARC region and Space Technology Applications”. The conference deliberated on configuration and ground Infrastructure requirements for the proposed ‘Satellite for the SAARC region’ as well as other space technology applications. Representatives from all SAARC member countries have participated.
9.Disaster Management Support:-
The Indian Remote Sensing, Meteorological and Communication satellites have immensely helped in the management of recent events of disasters witnessed by the country viz. J&K Floods, HudHud Cyclone and J&K Landslides. These satellites have provided near real time support in terms of early warning, assessment of damages, emergency communication
Other Programs:-
- Identifying the water bodies in tribal dominated districts, which could be developed to culture fisheries
- Monitoring and evaluation of developmental activities in the watersheds
- Space Based Information Support for Decentralized Planning
- Bhuvan Panchayat Portal provides functionalities required to carry out the decentralized planning process at grass-root level. Citizens in general and three tiers of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) (Gram Panchayat, Block Panchayat and District Panchayat) in particular are the users of the Portal. It helps PRIs in tracking the progress of work undertaken by citizens under various schemes.
- Conservation of heritage sites
Geo-Synchronous orbit:-
A geosynchronous orbit is a high Earth orbit that allows satellites to match Earth’s rotation. Located at 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth’s equator, this position is a valuable spot for monitoring weather, communications and surveillance
A geosynchronous orbit is an orbit around the Earth, where the object orbits once per day. A common kind of geosynchronous orbit is called a geostationary orbit, where the object orbits above the same part of the Earth at all times.
This is an extremely useful type of orbit and is used for anything where a satellite needs to send or receive signals from the same part of the Earth all the time. It’s used for cell phone satellites, television satellites, weather satellites, as well as some military satellites.
Sun-Synchronous Orbits:-
A sun-synchronous orbit/polar orbits is an orbit around the Earth, where the movement of the satellite always looks the same when viewed from the Sun. A satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit still orbits the Earth, but does so in such a way that over the course of the day, its distance to the Sun will change in a consistent pattern no matter the time of year.
Polar-orbiting satellites provide a more global view of Earth, circling at near-polar inclination (the angle between the equatorial plane and the satellite orbital plane — a true polar orbit has an inclination of 90 degrees). Orbiting at an altitude of 700 to 800 km, these satellites cover best the parts of the world most difficult to cover in situ (on site).Used for weather and Spy satellites
Cryogenics and its applications:-
- Cryogenics is the study of how to attain low temperatures and how materials behave when these low temperatures are attained.What cryogenics is not: It is not the study of freezing and reviving people. This is known as Cryonics, a confusingly similar term.
- Cryogenics deals with low temperatures, from about 100 Kelvin to absolute zero.
- Cryogenic Liquids Commonly used gases, in their liquid form, are nitrogen and helium. These are the common cryogenic liquids.Liquid Helium and Nitrogen are usually stored in vacuum insulated flasks called Dewars. Liquid oxygen (LOX) is even more widely used but as an oxidizer, not a fuel.
- It has various other industry usage such as food preservation , blood banking etc.
Dr. V.Kelkar Committee report on PPP Model on Infrastructure:-
Highlights of the report:-
PPPs in infrastructure represent a valuable instrument to speed up infrastructure development in India. This speeding up is urgently required for India to grow rapidly and generate a demographic dividend for itself and also to tap into the large pool of pension and institutional funds from aging populations in the developed countries.
Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure refer to the provision of a public asset and service by a private partner who has been conceded the right (the “Concession”) for the purpose, for a specified period of time, on the basis of market determined revenue streams, that allow for commercial return on investment.
The Government may take early action to amend the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 which does not distinguish between genuine errors in decision-making and acts Measures may be taken immediately to make only malafide action by public servants punishable, and not errors, and to guard against witch hunt against government officers and bureaucrats for decisions taken with bonafide intention. The government may speed up amendment of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Vigilance and Conduct rules applicable to government officers
Experience has also underlined the need to further strengthen the three key pillars of PPP frameworks namely Governance, Institutions and Capacity, to build on the established foundation for the next wave of implementation.
The Committee recommends setting up these independent regulators with a unified mandate that encompasses activities in different infrastructure sub sectors to ensure harmonized performance by the regulators
The dominant, primary concern of the Committee was the optimal allocation of risks across PPP stakeholders. Inefficient and inequitable allocation of risk in PPPs can be a major factor in PPP failures, ultimately hurting the citizens of India. The Committee notes that the adoption of the Model Concession Agreement (MCA) has meant that project specific risks are rarely addressed by project implementation authorities in this “One-size-fits- all” approach. A rational allocation of risks can only be undertaken in sector and project-specific contexts.
For the next generation of PPP Contracts, the Committee suggests the following broad guidelines while allocating and managing risks: 1) an entity should bear the risk that is in its normal course of its business; 2) an assessment needs to be carried out regarding the relative ease and efficiency of managing the risk by the entity concerned; 3) the cost effectiveness of managing the risk needs to be evaluated; 4) any overriding considerations/stipulations of a particular entity need to be factored in prior to implementing the risk management structure
Typically infrastructure PPP projects span over 20-30 years and a developer often loses bargaining power related to tariffs and other matters in case there are abrupt changes in the economic or policy environment which are beyond his control. The Committee feels strongly that the private sector must be protected against what have been called “Obsolescing Bargain”-the loss of bargaining power over time by private player in PPPs
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS:
Revisiting PPPs: Achievements and Challenges
- Contracts need to focus more on service delivery instead of fiscal benefits
- Better identification and allocation of risks between stakeholders
- Prudent utilization of viability gap funds where user charges cannot guarantee a robust revenue stream .
- Improved fiscal reporting practices and careful monitoring of performance . Given the urgency of India’s demographic transition, and the experience India has already gathered in managing PPPs, the government must move the PPP model to the next level of maturity and sophistication.
Why it is Urgent for India to get Infrastructure PPPs.
- The Committee feels strongly that maturing the PPP model in India is an urgent priority also to take advantage of this historical conjunction of India’s infrastructure needs and the availability of long-term funding
- PPPs have the potential to deliver infrastructure projects both faster and better. Building on India’s 15 years of experience with PPPs, there is need to iron out the difficulties in the performance of PPP at every stage of the contract.
Re-balancing of risk Sharing :
Full disclosure of long-term costs, risks and potential benefits;
Comparison with the financial position for government at the time of signing the Concession Agreement;
Comparison with the financial position for government at the time prior to renegotiation.
Resolving Legacy Issues
Only a statutorily established credible empowered multi-disciplinary expert institutional mechanism can deal with the complex issues involved .
- An Infrastructure PPP Project Review Committee (“IPRC”) may be constituted to evaluate and send its recommendations in a time-bound manner upon a reference being made of “Actionable Stress” in any Infrastructure Project developed in PPP mode beyond a notified threshold value.
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An Infrastructure PPP Adjudication Tribunal (“IPAT”) chaired by a Judicial Member (former Judge SC/Chief Justice HC) with a Technical and/or a Financial member, where benches will be constituted by the Chairperson as per needs of the matter in question
In case procurement of land or clearance is pending from government authorities for more than prescribed number of days, the outstanding work should be descoped (under the provisions of Change in Law of Concession Agreement), and allow rest of activities for completed work. Balance work could be completed on a cash-contract basis, provided land and required clearances are in place.
Cancel projects that have not achieved a prescribed percentage of progress on the ground. Rebid them once issues have been resolved or complete them through public funds and if viable, bid out for Operations and Maintenance.
Generic, Including Legacy Projects
Sector specific institutional frameworks may be developed to address issues for PPP infrastructure projects . An entity should bear the risk that is in its normal course of its business (for instance, acquisition of land is a normal course of business for public entities).Overriding considerations/ stipulations of each entity to be factored in prior to implementation of risk management structure.
Learnings from the Highways sector to be utilized for other sectors to customize and adopt such frameworks .
Umbrella guidelines may be developed for stressed projects that provide an overall framework for development and functioning of the sector specific frameworks paragraph.
DEA to finalize a national PPP Policy document.
Unsolicited Proposals (“Swiss Challenge”) to be discouraged to avoid information asymmetries and lack of transparency.
Strengthening Policy, Governance and Institutional Capacity
Amend the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 to distinguish between genuine errors in decision-making and acts of corruption
Set up an institution for invigorating private investments in infrastructure, providing guidance for a national PPP policy and developments in PPP, developing a mechanism to capture and collate data for decision making, undertaking capacity building activities. The 3P-I institute for PPPs announced in 2014 may be set-up without delay.
An institutionalized mechanism like the National Facilitation Committee (NFC) to ensure time bound resolution of issues including getting timely clearances/approvals during implementation of projects for smooth running of such projects.
Ministry of Finance to coordinate with other implementing ministries may develop a policy to promote secondary market for operational assets.
Essential to set up independent Regulators in sectors going in for PPP.
Discourage government participation in SPVs(Special Purpose Vehicle) that implement PPP projects unless strategically essential.
Scaling- Up Finance
Banks to build up their own risk assessment/appraisal capabilities .
RBI may provide guidelines to lenders on encashment of bank guarantees
Monetisation of viable projects that have stable revenue flows .
Equity in completed, successful infrastructure projects may be divested by offering to long-term investors.
Ministry of Finance to allow banks and financial institutions to issue Zero Coupon Bonds which will also help to achieve soft landing for user charges in infrastructure sector.
Revitalising Contractual Processes
a) Need for review of the MCAS : Model Concession Agreement
b) Sample suggestions for generic changes, including for resolution of disputes, and sector-specific changes
Reinvigorating the Sectors:
Independent sector regulators essential
Build upon maturing landscape in Roads and Ports PPP and move into the next phase: Roads: avoiding delays, institutionalized dispute resolution, improved project development activity, monetization of operational assets, efficiency and transparency by electronic tolling, etc
Ports: review of role and need of Tariff Authority for Major Ports (TAMP), review of MCA, quicker clearances, rationalized leases and stamp duties
Airport: PPPs to be encouraged where viable in Greenfield and brownfield projects, have policy that addresses potential demand for airport services in the country, notify a unified regulatory structure, clarity in delineation of Till policy,
Encourage use of PPPs in sectors like Railways, Urban, etc. Railways to have an independent tariff regulator, tap potentially useful PPP opportunities including brownfield assets.
Fast Forward PPPs
Set up an institute of excellence in PPP to inter alia guide the sector, provide policy input, timely advice and undertake sustainable capacity building .
Ensure integrated development of infrastructure with roadmaps for delivery of projects.
India’s demographic deadlines are staring at us. There are only two or three decades left to complete the transition from a country that has just attained middle-income status to that of a high-income and developed economy. Besides the basic problems for provision of adequate infrastructure, the middle-income trap is also to be averted. Without adequate infrastructure, this will simply not be possible. India is currently in a global win-win situation with a large young population that will need good jobs and a huge pool of global savings that can be tapped for building out our infrastructure. PPPs are an important policy instrument that will enable India to compress time in this journey towards economic growth and development. A successful and growing stream of PPPs in infrastructure will go a long way in accelerating the country’s development process.
Indian Economic Association:-
Background :-98th annual conference of the Indian Economic Association (IEA) recently inaugurated at Delhi.
Indian Economic Association is a registered body of Indian Economic Professionals, established way back in 1917, with the objective of providing a Forum for debate and discussion of theoretical and policy oriented Issues of Economic Science. The IEA organizes annual conferences, special seminars and lectures by eminent persons of the profession.
The IEA is a member of the International Economic Association.
Few Facts:-
- Benefit of LPG subsidy will not be available if the consumer or his/her spouse had taxable income of more than Rs Ten lakh in previous financial year
- Khoya Paya:-Web portal Khoya-Paya launched for reporting and searching missing children. The web portal ‘Khoya-Paya’ will have information of missing and sighted children.
- Film on Good Touch Bad Touch – KOMAL:-A National Award winning animation film KOMAL has been produced to educate young children on sexual misconduct. The school organizations have been directed to have this film shown to all children in all schools. This is indeed a good initiative as the children are usually unaware of sexual harassment and most of the time could not identify it.
- 33% Reservation of Women in Police – So far 7 states and all Union Territories have joined this initiative and have started recruiting additional women police officers. Most of the other States have agreed to start working on this
Recent Posts
- Floods
- Cyclones
- Tornadoes and hurricanes (cyclones)
- Hailstorms
- Cloudburst
- Heat wave and cold wave
- Snow avalanches
- Droughts
- Sea erosion
- Thunder/ lightning
- Landslides and mudflows
- Earthquakes
- Large fires
- Dam failures and dam bursts
- Mine fires
- Epidemics
- Pest attacks
- Cattle epidemics
- Food poisoning
- Chemical and Industrial disasters
- Nuclear
- Forest fires
- Urban fires
- Mine flooding
- Oil Spill
- Major building collapse
- Serial bomb blasts
- Festival related disasters
- Electrical disasters and fires
- Air, road, and rail accidents
- Boat capsizing
- Village fire
- Coastal States, particularly on the East Coast and Gujarat are vulnerable to cyclones.
- 4 crore hectare landmass is vulnerable to floods
- 68 per cent of net sown area is vulnerable to droughts
- 55 per cent of total area is in seismic zones III- V, hence vulnerable to earthquakes
- Sub- Himalayan sector and Western Ghats are vulnerable to landslides.
- Mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction in Developmental Strategy-Prevention and mitigation contribute to lasting improvement in safety and should beintegrated in the disaster management. The Government of India has adopted mitigation and prevention as essential components of their development strategy.
- Mainstreaming of National Plan and its Sub-Plan
- National Disaster Mitigation Fund
- National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Project (NERMP)
- National Building Code (NBC):- Earthquake resistant buildings
- National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP)
- Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project (ICZMP)-The objective of the project is to assist GoI in building the national capacity for implementation of a comprehensive coastal management approach in the country and piloting the integrated coastal zone management approach in states of Gujarat, Orissa and West Bengal.
- National Flood Risk Mitigation Project (NFRMP)
- National Project for Integrated Drought Monitoring & Management
- National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme (NVBDCP)- key programme
for prevention/control of outbreaks/epidemics of malaria, dengue, chikungunya etc., vaccines administered to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to diseases like measles, diphtheria, pertussis, poliomyelitis etc. Two key measures to prevent/control epidemics of water-borne diseases like cholera, viral hepatitis etc. include making available safe water and ensuring personal and domestic hygienic practices are adopted. - Training
- Education
- Research
- Awareness
- Hyogo Framework of Action- The Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA) 2005-2015 was adopted to work globally towards sustainable reduction of disaster losses in lives and in the social, economic and environmental assets of communities and countries.
- United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)-In order to build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters through the implementation of the HFA , the UNISDR strives to catalyze, facilitate and mobilise the
commitment and resources of national, regional and international stakeholders of the ISDR
system. - United Nation Disaster Management Team (UNDMT) –
- To ensure a prompt, effective and concerted country-level support to a governmental
response in the event of a disaster, at the central, state and sub-state levels, - To coordinate UN assistance to the government with respect to long term recovery, disaster mitigation and preparedness.
- To coordinate all disaster-related activities, technical advice and material assistance provided by UN agencies, as well as to take steps for optimal utilisation of resources by UN agencies.
- To ensure a prompt, effective and concerted country-level support to a governmental
- Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR):-
- GFDRR was set up in September 2006 jointly by the World Bank, donor partners (21countries and four international organisations), and key stakeholders of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR). It is a long-term global partnership under the ISDR system established to develop and implement the HFA through a coordinated programme for reversing the trend in disaster losses by 2015.
- Its mission is to mainstream disaster reduction and climate change adaptation in a country’s development strategies to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards.
- ASEAN Region Forum (ARF)
- Asian Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC)
- SAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC)
- Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER):-The Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER) is a regional training programme initiated in 1998 by the United States Agency for International Development’s, Office of U.S Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) to strengthen disaster response capacities in Asia.
- Policy guidelines at the macro level that would inform and guide the preparation and
implementation of disaster management and development plans across sectors - Building in a culture of preparedness and mitigation
- Operational guidelines of integrating disaster management practices into development, and
specific developmental schemes for prevention and mitigation of disasters - Having robust early warning systems coupled with effective response plans at district, state
and national levels - Building capacity of all stakeholders
- Involving the community, NGOs, CSOs and the media at all stages of DM
- Addressing gender issues in disaster management planning and developing a strategy for
inclusive approach addressing the disadvantaged sections of the society towards disaster risk reduction. - Addressing climate risk management through adaptation and mitigation
- Micro disaster Insurance
- Flood Proofing
- Building Codes and Enforcement
- Housing Design and Finance
- Road and Infrastructure
A disaster is a result of natural or man-made causes that leads to sudden disruption of normal life, causing severe damage to life and property to an extent that available social and economic protection mechanisms are inadequate to cope.
The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) of the United Nations (U.N.) defines a hazard as “a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.”
Disasters are classified as per origin, into natural and man-made disasters. As per severity, disasters are classified as minor or major (in impact). However, such classifications are more academic than real.
High Powered Committee (HPC) was constituted in August 1999 under the chairmanship of J.C.Pant. The mandate of the HPC was to prepare comprehensive model plans for disaster management at the national, state and district levels.
This was the first attempt in India towards a systematic comprehensive and holistic look at all disasters.
Thirty odd disasters have been identified by the HPC, which were grouped into the following five categories, based on generic considerations:-
Water and Climate Related:-
Geological:-
Biological:-
Chemical, industrial and nuclear:-
Accidental:-
India’s Key Vulnerabilities as articulated in the Tenth Plan, (2002-07) are as follows:
Vulnerability is defined as:-
“the extent to which a community, structure, service, or geographic area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of particular hazard, on account of their nature, construction and proximity to hazardous terrain or a disaster prone area”.
The concept of vulnerability therefore implies a measure of risk combined with the level of social and economic ability to cope with the resulting event in order to resist major disruption or loss.
Example:- The 1993 Marathwada earthquake in India left over 10,000 dead and destroyed houses and other properties of 200,000 households. However, the technically much more powerful Los Angeles earthquake of 1971 (taken as a benchmark in America in any debate on the much-apprehended seismic vulnerability of California) left over 55 dead.
Physical Vulnerability:-
Physical vulnerability relates to the physical location of people, their proximity to the hazard zone and standards of safety maintained to counter the effects.
The Indian subcontinent can be primarily divided into three geophysical regions with regard to vulnerability, broadly, as, the Himalayas, the Plains and the Coastal areas.
Socio-economic Vulnerability:-
The degree to which a population is affected by a calamity will not purely lie in the physical components of vulnerability but in contextual, relating to the prevailing social and economic conditions and its consequential effects on human activities within a given society.
Global Warming & Climate Change:-
Global warming is going to make other small local environmental issues seemingly insignificant, because it has the capacity to completely change the face of the Earth. Global warming is leading to shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels. Along with floods, India also suffers acute water shortages.
The steady shrinking of the Himalayan glaciers means the entire water system is being disrupted; global warming will cause even greater extremes. Impacts of El Nino and La Nina have increasingly led to disastrous impacts across the globe.
Scientifically, it is proven that the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, and in the next fifty to sixty years they would virtually run out of producing the water levels that we are seeing now.
This will cut down drastically the water available downstream, and in agricultural economies like the plains of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar, which are poor places to begin with. That, as one may realise, would cause tremendous social upheaval.
Urban Risks:-
India is experiencing massive and rapid urbanisation. The population of cities in India is doubling in a period ranging just two decades according to the trends in the recent past.
It is estimated that by 2025, the urban component, which was only 25.7 per cent (1991) will be more than 50 per cent.
Urbanisation is increasing the risks at unprecedented levels; communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable, since high-density areas with poorly built and maintained infrastructure are subjected to natural hazards, environmental degradation, fires, flooding and earthquake.
Urbanisation dramatically increases vulnerability, whereby communities are forced to squat on environmentally unstable areas such as steep hillsides prone to landslide, by the side of rivers that regularly flood, or on poor quality ground, causing building collapse.
Most prominent amongst the disasters striking urban settlements frequently are, floods and fire, with incidences of earthquakes, landslides, droughts and cyclones. Of these, floods are more devastating due to their widespread and periodic impact.
Example: The 2005 floods of Maharashtra bear testimony to this. Heavy flooding caused the sewage system to overflow, which contaminated water lines. On August 11, the state government declared an epidemic of leptospirosis in Mumbai and its outskirts.
Developmental activities:-
Developmental activities compound the damaging effects of natural calamities. The floods in Rohtak (Haryana) in 1995 are an appropriate example of this. Even months after the floodwaters had receded; large parts of the town were still submerged.
Damage had not accrued due to floods, but due to water-logging which had resulted due to peculiar topography and poor land use planning.
Disasters have come to stay in the forms of recurring droughts in Orissa, the desertification of swaths of Gujarat and Rajasthan, where economic depredations continuously impact on already fragile ecologies and environmental degradation in the upstream areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Floods in the plains are taking an increasing toll of life, environment, and property, amplified by a huge population pressure.
The unrestricted felling of forests, serious damage to mountain ecology, overuse of groundwater and changing patterns of cultivation precipitate recurring floods and droughts.
When forests are destroyed, rainwater runs off causing floods and diminishing the recharging of groundwater.
The spate of landslides in the Himalayas in recent years can be directly traced to the rampant deforestation and network of roads that have been indiscriminately laid in the name of development.
Destruction of mangroves and coral reefs has increased the vulnerability of coastal areas to hazards, such as storm surges and cyclones.
Commercialisation of coastal areas, particularly for tourism has increased unplanned development in these areas, which has increased disaster potential, as was demonstrated during the Tsunami in December 2004.
Environmental Stresses:- " Delhi-Case Study"
Every ninth student in Delhi’s schools suffers from Asthma. Delhi is the world’s fourth most polluted city.
Each year, poor environmental conditions in the city’s informal areas lead to epidemics.
Delhi has one of the highest road accident fatality ratios in the world. In many ways, Delhi reflects the sad state of urban centers within India that are exposed to risks, which are misconstrued and almost never taken into consideration for urban governance.
The main difference between modernism and postmodernism is that modernism is characterized by the radical break from the traditional forms of urban architecture whereas postmodernism is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions.
Illustration of Disaster Cycle through Case Study:-
The processes covered by the disaster cycle can be illustrated through the case of the Gujarat Earthquake of 26 January 2001. The devastating earthquake killed thousands of people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses and other buildings.
The State Government as well as the National Government immediately mounted a largescale relief operation. The help of the Armed Forces was also taken.
Hundreds of NGOs from within the region and other parts of the country as well as from other countries of the world came to Gujarat with relief materials and personnel to help in the relief operations.
Relief camps were set up, food was distributed, mobile hospitals worked round the clock to help the injured; clothing, beddings, tents, and other commodities were distributed to the affected people over the next few weeks.
By the summer of 2001, work started on long-term recovery. House reconstruction programmes were launched, community buildings were reconstructed, and damaged infrastructure was repaired and reconstructed.
Livelihood programmes were launched for economic rehabilitation of the affected people.
In about two year’s time the state had bounced back and many of the reconstruction projects had taken the form of developmental programmes aiming to deliver even better infrastructure than what existed before the earthquake.
Good road networks, water distribution networks, communication networks, new schools, community buildings, health and education programmes, all worked towards developing the region.
The government as well as the NGOs laid significant emphasis on safe development practices. The buildings being constructed were of earthquake resistant designs.
Older buildings that had survived the earthquake were retrofitted in large numbers to strengthen them and to make them resistant to future earthquakes. Mason and engineer training programmes were carried out at a large scale to ensure that all future construction in the State is disaster resistant.
This case study shows how there was a disaster event during the earthquake, followed by immediate response and relief, then by recovery including rehabilitation and retrofitting, then by developmental processes.
The development phase included mitigation activities, and finally preparedness actions to face future disasters.
Then disaster struck again, but the impact was less than what it could have been, primarily due to better mitigation and preparedness efforts.
Looking at the relationship between disasters and development one can identify ‘four’ different dimensions to this relation:
1) Disasters can set back development
2) Disasters can provide development opportunities
3) Development can increase vulnerability and
4) Development can reduce vulnerability
The whole relationship between disaster and development depends on the development choice made by the individual, community and the nation who implement the development programmes.
The tendency till now has been mostly to associate disasters with negativities. We need to broaden our vision and work on the positive aspects associated with disasters as reflected below:
1)Evolution of Disaster Management in India
Disaster management in India has evolved from an activity-based reactive setup to a proactive institutionalized structure; from single faculty domain to a multi-stakeholder setup; and from a relief-based approach to a ‘multi-dimensional pro-active holistic approach for reducing risk’.
Over the past century, the disaster management in India has undergone substantive changes in its composition, nature and policy.
2)Emergence of Institutional Arrangement in India-
A permanent and institutionalised setup began in the decade of 1990s with set up of a disaster management cell under the Ministry of Agriculture, following the declaration of the decade of 1990 as the ‘International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction’ (IDNDR) by the UN General Assembly.
Consequently, the disaster management division was shifted under the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2002
3)Disaster Management Framework:-
Shifting from relief and response mode, disaster management in India started to address the
issues of early warning systems, forecasting and monitoring setup for various weather related
hazards.
National Level Institutions:-National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA):-
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was initially constituted on May 30, 2005 under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister vide an executive order.
SDMA (State Level, DDMA(District Level) also present.
National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC)
Legal Framework For Disaster Management :-
DMD- Disaster management Dept.
NIDM- National Institute of Disaster Management
NDRF – National Disaster Response Fund
Cabinet Committee on Disaster Management-
Location of NDRF Battallions(National Disaster Response Force):-
CBRN- Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear
Policy and response to Climate Change :-
1)National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC)-
National Action Plan on Climate Change identified Eight missions.
• National Solar Mission
• National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
• National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
• National Mission for Sustaining The Himalayan Ecosystem
• National Water Mission
• National Mission for Green India
• National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
• National Mission for Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change
2)National Policy on Disaster Management (NPDM),2009-
The policy envisages a safe and disaster resilient India by developing a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster oriented and technologydriven strategy through a culture of prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response. The policy covers all aspects of disaster management including institutional and legal arrangements,financial arrangements, disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness, techno-legal regime, response, relief and rehabilitation, reconstruction and recovery, capacity development, knowledge management, research and development. It focuses on the areas where action is needed and the institutional mechanism through which such action can be channelised.
Prevention and Mitigation Projects:-
Early Warning Nodal Agencies:-
Post Disaster Management :-Post disaster management responses are created according to the disaster and location. The principles being – Faster Recovery, Resilient Reconstruction and proper Rehabilitation.
Capacity Development:-
Components of capacity development includes :-
National Institute for Capacity Development being – National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM)
International Cooperation-
Way Forward:-
Principles and Steps:-
The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.