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Note:- Check Part 1 for Problems , Causes, Manifestations and Weaknesses , this part deals with the dissatisfaction , reforms and solutions.

Instrumentality of State to maintain Public Order:-

public order1

Why the Public is dissatisfied with the Police and Administrative Machinery:-

  • Reasons For dissatisfaction :-
    • extraneous influence in public order management
    • the root causes of problems not being addressed by the administrative agencies
    • absence of attempts to find long-term solutions to problems
    • administrative decisions being guided by political expediency
    • inadequate involvement of civil society, NGOs and social workers in public order management
    • lack of an institutional mechanism defining the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in conflict resolution
    • lack of empowerment of junior ranks at the cutting edge levels of administration to effectively deal with problems at the nascent stage
    • lack of appropriate training
    • lack of modern technology & equipment
    • absence of centralized digital databases on criminal, anti-social and anti-national elements;
    • lack of specialised, well-trained wings
    • ineffective performance monitoring systems
    • Lack of cohesion between different organisation
    • lack of accountability of the police and administration to the public

Status-quo : The existing police system :-

  • ‘Public order’ and ‘Police’ figure as Entry 1 and 2 respectively, in List II (State List) in the Seventh Schedule of our Constitution, thereby making State Governments primarily responsible for maintaining public order.Invariably, police, which is a part of the civil administration, is at the forefront in maintaining law and order.
  • Broken Window Syndrome:-
    • If a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired , people walking by will conclude that no one cares and that no one is in charge . One unrepaired window is an invitation to break more windows and lawlessness spreads outward from buildings to streets to entire community.Similarly when one witnesses when justice is delayed or inaction of police , one looses faith in them and i.e. exactly one of the undercurrent running in  Indian society. Public cynicism is the testament to this fact.
  • Article 355 of the Constitution enjoins upon the Union to protect every state against external aggression and internal disturbance and thereby to ensure that the government of every state is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
  • The Police Act, 1861 is still the basic instrument governing the functioning of the Indian police.

People’s Perception of Police:-

  • State’ as an organisation that has a “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force” – MaxWeber
  • The police are the instrument of physical force of the State. They have to bear the burden of failure of other instruments of governance as well. Thus the police always has to be at the  forefront and face the wrath of the public even for the failure of other instruments of governance.
  • The police have faced and continue to face many difficult problems. In a country of India’s size and diversity, maintaining public order at all times is indeed a daunting task. It is to the credit of the police that despite many problems, they have by and large been successful in maintaining public order. Despite this, the police are generally perceived to be tardy, inefficient, high-handed and often unresponsive or insensitive.
  • In the perception of the people, the egregious features of the police are politically oriented partisan performance of duties, partiality, corruption and inefficiency, degrees of which vary from place to place and person to person.
  • The lack of professionalism in an overburdened, under-funded and poorly-skilled police force, coupled with undue interference has led to lower level of trust in law enforcement

Problems faced by Police force:-

The problems faced by police force is not only fault of the police fore with in , it amalgamation of social discontent arising out of multiple institutions of government.

  • Problems related to general administration:-
    • Poor enforcement of laws and general failure of administration
    • Large gap between aspirations of the people and opportunities with resultant deprivation and alienation
    • Lack of coordination between various government agencies.
  • Problems related to police:-
    • Unwarranted political interference
    • Lack of empowerment of the cutting edge functionaries;
    • Lack of motivation at the lower levels due to poor career prospects, and hierarchical shackles
      • Nearly 87% of all police personnel are constables .The constable is the lowest level at which recruitment takes place. The educational requirement for selection of a constable is a school leaving certificate. A constable can generally expect only one promotion in a life time and normally retires as a head constable.
      • A constable devoid of dignity, lacking opportunities for vertical mobility, constantly pilloried by superiors and politicians, often derided by the public and habituated to easy recourse to violence and force cannot generally be expected to sustain his/her self-esteem or acquire the professional skills to serve the citizens
    • Lack of modern technology/methods of investigation
    • Obsolete intelligence gathering techniques and infrastructures
    • Divorce of authority from accountability
  • Problems of organisational behaviour:
    • Inadequate training
    • Entrenched attitudes of arrogance, insensitivity and patronage
  • Problems of stress due to overburdening :-

    • Multiplication of functions, with crime prevention and investigation taking a back seat
    • Shortage of personnel and long working hours
    • Too large a population to handle
  • Problems related to ethical functioning:-
    • Corruption, collusion and extortion at different levels
    • Insensitivity to human rights
    • Absence of transparent recruitment and personnel policies
  • Problems related to prosecution:-
    • Best talent not attracted as public prosecutors
    • Lack of coordination between the investigation and the prosecution agencies
    • Mistrust of police in admitting evidence
  • Problems related to the judicial process/criminal justice administration:-
    • Large pendency of cases
      • Judge-population ratio is of the order of 11 to 1 million,  whereas in many developed democracies it is of the order of 100 to 1 million, or nearly ten times that of the strength of the Indian judiciary.
      • The pendency of over 25 million cases is a testimony to this.It is therefore not surprising that people, particularly the poor and vulnerable, have little faith in the system’s capacity to deliver justice or enforce their rights.
      • The case of Machan Lalung who was released in 2005 at the age of 77 from a jail in Assam after 54 years in prison for an IPC offence, for which the maximum sentence is
        not more than 10 years, puts a human face to the statistics mentioned above. The fact that over 65% of our prison population comprises undertrial prisoners (with the undertrial
        population reaching 90% in the states of UP, Manipur and Meghalaya) means that there could be a large number of comparable cases where similar injustice is being meted out to
        individuals by an impersonal and sometimes cruel criminal justice system
    • Low conviction rates
    • No emphasis on ascertaining truth
    • Absence of victims’ perspective and rights
  • Miscellaneous Problems:-
    • One of the major problems impeding police reforms stems from the traditional approach of clubbing a variety of disparate functions in a single police force and concentrating all authority at one level. A single, monolithic force now discharges several functions: maintaining law and order, riot control, crime investigation, protection of State assets, VIP protection, traffic control, ceremonial and guard duties, service of summons and production of witnesses in courts, anti-terrorist and anti-extremist operations, intelligence gathering, bandobast30 during elections, crowd control and several other miscellaneous duties. Often,even fire protection and rescue and relief are treated as police functions.
    • Aggregation of all these functions in a single police force is clearly dysfunctional for four reasons:-
      • Core functions are often neglected when the same agency is entrusted with
        several functions.
      • Accountability is greatly diluted when duties cannot be clearly and unambiguously stated and performance cannot be measured and monitored.
      • The skills and resources required for each function are unique and a combination of often unrelated functions undermines both morale and professional competence.
      • Each function requires a different system of control and level of accountability. When a single
        agency is entrusted with all functions, the natural propensity is to control all functions by
        virtue of the need to control one function.
    • Emphasis on brawn rather than brain in most situations tend to brutalise and dehumanise policemen.
  • Inherent Impedements :-
    • Lateral entry to the police is not feasible, as rigorous training, experience, expertise and knowledge of peers and colleagues are vital to the police service. Since this is a sovereign function, no agency or experience outside government prepares outsiders for police work. At the same time, incentives for performance within the police agencies are feeble.

Reforms:-

  • Learnings from Past :-
    • The indigenous system of policing in India was carried out through the village headman or Zamindar in early days.
    • British relieved the zamindars of their liability for police service and their place was taken over by the Magistrates in the district.
    • First major step was the constitution of the Police Commission of 1860:-
    • At the national level, the Gore Committee on Police Training (1971-73) was set up to review the training of the police from the constabulary level to IPS officers.
    • The Government of India constituted in September 2005 a Police Act Drafting Committee (PADC) with Shri Soli Sorabjee as Chairman, to draft a new Police Act to replace the Police Act of 1861 , whose core recommendation as long as principle is concerned is:-

      • The two most important functions of the police in addition to crime prevention are investigation of crime and maintenance of law and order. These two functions are quite
        distinct requiring different capabilities, training and skills. More importantly they require different types of accountability mechanisms and different degree of supervision from the
        government.
  • Reforms Required:-
    • Revamping the Police functions:–
      • Crime Investigation should be separated from other policing functions.A Crime Investigation Agency should be constituted in each state.
      • This agency should be headed by a Chief of Investigation under the administrative control of a Board of Investigation, to be headed by a retired/sitting judge of the High Court
      • The Chairman and Members of the Board of Investigation should be appointed by a high-powered collegium, headed by the Chief Minister and comprising the Speaker of the Assembly, Chief Justice of the High Court, the Home Minister and the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly. The Chief of
        Investigation should be appointed by the State Government on the recommendation of the Board of Investigation
      • The following provision should be incorporated in the respective Police Acts:-
        “It shall be the responsibility of the State Government to ensure efficient, effective, responsive and accountable functioning of police for the entire state. For this purpose, the power of superintendence of the police service shall vest in and be exercised by the State Government in accordance with the provisions of law”
    • Accountability of Law and Order Machinery – A State Police Performance and Accountability Commission should be constituted.
    • Police Establishment Committees – A State Police Establishment Committee should be constituted. It should be headed by the Chief Secretary . The Director General of Police should be the Member Secretary and the State Home Secretary and a nominee of the State Police and Accountability Commission should be the Members. This Committee should deal with cases relating to officers of the rank of Inspector General of Police and above..
    • Competent Prosecution and Guidance to Investigation:-A system of District Attorney should be instituted. An officer of the rank of District Judge should be appointed as the District Attorney.
    • Local Police and Traffic Management:-A Municipal Police Service should be constituted in Metropolitancities having population of more than one million. The Municipal  Police should be empowered to deal with the offences prescribed under the municipal laws.The function of Traffic control (along with traffic police) may be transferred to the local governments in all cities having a population of more than one million
    • Reducing Burden of Police – Outsourcing Non Core Functions:- Outsourcing of non core functions like – Traffic management,patrolling streets ,surveillance domestic violence response disposal of dead bodies forensic service  etc.
    • Welfare Measures for the Police:-Rational working hours should be strictly followed for all police personnel.Welfare measures for police personnel in the form of improved working
      conditions, better education facilities for their children, social security measures during service, as well as post retirement should be taken up on priority.
    • Independent Complaints Authorities:-A District Police Complaints Authority should be constituted to enquire into allegations against the police within the district
    • Improvement of Forensic Science Infrastructure – Professionalisation of Investigation :- There is need to set up separate National and State Forensic Science
      Organisations as state-of-the-art scientific organizations
    • Strengthening Intelligence Gathering:-Intelligence agencies should develop multi-disciplinary capability by utilising services of experts in various disciplines for intelligence
      gathering and processing. Sufficient powers should be delegated to them to obtain such expertise.
    • Training of the Police:-Deputation to training institutions must be made more attractive in termsof facilities and allowances so that the best talent is drawn as instructors.  The Chief of Training in the state should be appointed on the recommendation of the Police Performance and Accountability Commission
    • Gender Issues in Policing:-The representation of women in police at all levels should be increased through affirmative action so that they constitute about 33% of the police.
    • National Security Commission:- There is no need for a National Security Commission with a limited functionof recommending panels for appointment to Chiefs of the Armed Forces  of the Union. There should be a separate mechanism for recommending the names for appointment as Chief of each one of these forces, with the final authority vesting in the Union Government
    • Measures to be Taken during Peace Time:-
      • The administration should be responsive, transparent, vigilant and fair in dealing with all sections of society. Initiatives such as peace committees should be utilised effectively to ease tensions and promote harmony
    • Security Proceedings:-The use of preventive measures in a planned and effective manner needs to be emphasized. Training and operational manuals for both Executive Magistrates and police need to be revised on these lines.
    • Regulating Processions, Demonstrations and Gatherings
    • Accountability of Public Servants Charged with Maintaining Public Order:-The State Police Complaints Authority should be empowered to identify and fix responsibility in cases of  glaring errors of omission and commission by police and executive magistrates in the discharge of their duties relating to the maintenance of public order
    • Adoption of Zero Tolerance Strategy:-All public agencies should adopt a zero tolerance strategy towards crime, in order to create a climate of compliance with laws leading to maintenance of public order
    • Citizen Friendly Registration of Crimes
    • Confessions before Police:-Confessions made before the police should be admissible. All such statements should be video-recorded and the tapes produced before the court. Necessary amendments should be made in the Indian Evidence Act.
    • Perjury:-The penalties provided under Section 344 CrPC for those found guilty of perjury after a summary trial should be enhanced to a minimum of one year of imprisonment
    • Witness Protection:-A statutory programmme for guaranteeing anonymity of witnesses and for witness protection in specified types of cases, based on the best international models should be adopted early
    • Victim Protection
    • Classification of Offences:-There is need to re-examine certain offences which have inter-state or national ramification and include them in a new law.The following offences may be included in this category:
      i. Organised Crime
      ii. Terrorism
      iii. Acts threatening National security
      iv. Trafficking in arms and human beings
      v. Sedition
      vi. Major crimes with inter-state ramifications
      vii. Assassination of (including attempts on) major public figures
      viii. Serious economic offences.
    • Organised Crime:-Specific provisions to define organised crimes should be included in the new law governing ‘Federal Crimes’. The definition of organised crime in this law should be on the lines of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999
    • AFSPA:- The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 should be repealed . To provide for an enabling legislation for deployment of Armed Forces of the Union in the North-Eastern states of the country, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 should be amended accordingly.

Police in Future:-

The concept of police as a ‘Service’ instead of a ‘Force’ encompasses the ideas of effective accountability, citizen centricity and respect for human rights and the dignity of the individual, These values should permeate all aspects of policing.

police future

Importance of Public Order:-

Importance of Maintaining Public Order India today is poised to emerge as a global economic power with all its high growth rate of economy and all-round economic development. For realising our legitimate aspirations of economic development, it is essential that the problems of peace and order are managed efficiently in the country. No developmental activity is possible in an environment of insecurity and disorder. Failure to manage the multifarious problems arising out of violent conflicts based on religious, caste, ethnic, regional or any other disputes, can lead to unstable and chaotic conditions. Such conditions not only militate against realisation of our economic dream, but also would jeopardise our survival as a vibrant democracy. We have to look at the problem of public order management and the role of law enforcement in that regard, in this perspective. We should not forget that it is the weaker sections which suffer the most in any public disorder. There is also a need for greater transparency in the law enforcement agencies.

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    Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.

    Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.

    a) Based on Departure from Normal
    Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
    Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C

    b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature

    Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C

    Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C

    If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day

     

    It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.

    Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.

    It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.

    Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.

    Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.

    However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.

     

     

    a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).

    b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).

    c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).

    d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.

    Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).

     

    The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
    1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
    2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
    3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.

     

     

    Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964

    Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.

    One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.

    The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.

    India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.

    The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.

    The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.

    Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.

    This transformation, however, was not smooth.

    In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.

    To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.

    As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.

    The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.

    Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.

    Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.

    At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.

    As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.

    The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.

    Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.

    Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.

    It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.

    The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.

    A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.

    Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.

    Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).

    Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.

    Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.

    In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.

    Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.

    These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.

    More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase  rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.

    The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:

    • Items provided through FPS
    • The scale of rations
    • The price of items distributed through FPS across states. 

    It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.

    The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.

    For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.

    Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.

    Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.

    There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.

    Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

    It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.

    Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.

    The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.

    In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.

     

    Agroforestry is an intentional integration of trees on farmland.

    Globally, it is practised by 1.2 billion people on 10 per cent area of total agricultural lands (over 1 billion hectares).

    It is widely popular as ‘a low hanging fruit’ due to its multifarious tangible and intangible benefits. 

    The net carbon sequestered in agroforestry is 11.35 tonnes of carbon per ha

    A panacea for global issues such as climate change, land degradation, pollution and food security, agroforestry is highlighted as a key strategy to fulfil several targets:

        1. Kyoto Protocol of 2001
        2. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) as well as REDD+ mechanisms proposed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
        3. United Nations-mandated Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDG)
        4. Paris Agreement 
        5. Carbon Neutrality

     

    In 2017, a New York Times bestseller Project Drawdown published by 200 scientists around the world with a goal of reversing climate change, came up with the most plausible 100 solutions to slash–down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

    Out of these 100 solutions, 11 strategies were highlighted under the umbrella of agroforestry such as:-

    1. multistrata agroforestry,
    2. afforestation,
    3. tree intercropping,
    4. biomass production,
    5. regenerative agriculture,
    6. conservation agriculture,
    7. farmland restoration,
    8. silvopasture,
    9. tropical-staple tree,
    10. intercropping,
    11. bamboo and indigenous tree–based land management.

     

    Nowadays, tree-based farming in India is considered a silver bullet to cure all issues.

    It was promoted under the Green India mission of 2001, six out of eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and National Agroforestry and Bamboo Mission (NABM), 2017 to bring a third of the geographical area under tree cover and offsetting GHG emissions. 

    These long-term attempts by the Government of India have helped enhance the agroforestry area to 13.75 million hectares. 

    The net carbon sequestered in agroforestry is 11.35 tonnes of carbon per ha and carbon sequestration potential is 0.35 tonnes of carbon per ha per year at the country level, according to the Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi.

    India will reduce an additional 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO2 by increasing tree cover. This extra tree cover could be achieved through agroforestry systems because of their ability to withstand minimum inputs under extreme situations. 

    Here are some examples which portray the role of agroforestry in achieving at least nine out of the 17 SDGs through sustainable food production, ecosystem services and economic benefits: 

    SDG 1 — No Poverty: Almost 736 million people still live in extreme poverty. Diversification through integrating trees in agriculture unlocks the treasure to provide multifunctional benefits.

    Studies carried out in 2003 in the arid regions of India reported a 10-15 per cent increase in crop yield with Prosopis cineraria (khejari). Adoption of agroforestry increases income & production by reducing the cost of input & production.  

     

    SDG 2 — Zero hunger: Tree-based systems provide food and monetary returns. Traditional agroforestry systems like Prosopis cineraria and Madhuca longifolia (Mahua) provide edible returns during drought years known as “lifeline to the poor people”. 

    Studies showed that 26-50 per cent of households involved in tree products collection and selling act as a coping strategy to deal with hunger.

    SDG 3 — Good health and well-being: Human wellbeing and health are depicted through the extent of healthy ecosystems and services they provide.

    Agroforestry contributes increased access to diverse nutritious food, supply of medicine, clean air and reduces heat stress.

    Vegetative buffers can filter airstreams of particulates by removing dust, gas, microbial constituents and heavy metals. 

    SDG 5 — Gender equality: Throughout the world around 3 billion people depend on firewood for cooking.

    In this, women are the main collectors and it brings drudgery and health issues.

    A study from India stated that almost 374 hours per year are spent by women for collection of firewood. Growing trees nearby provides easy access to firewood and diverts time to productive purposes. 

    SDG 6 — Clean Water and Sanitation: Water is probably the most vital resource for our survival. The inherent capacity of trees offers hydrological regulation as evapotranspiration recharges atmospheric moisture for rainfall; enhanced soil infiltration recharges groundwater; obstructs sediment flow; rainwater filtration by accumulation of heavy metals.

    An extensive study in 35 nations published in 2017 concluded that 30 per cent of tree cover in watersheds resulted in improved sanitisation and reduced diarrheal disease.  

    SDG 7 — Affordable & Clean Energy: Wood fuels are the only source of energy to billions of poverty-stricken people.

    Though trees are substitutes of natural forests, modern technologies in the form of biofuels, ethanol, electricity generation and dendro-biomass sources are truly affordable and clean.

    Ideal agroforestry models possess fast-growing, high coppicing, higher calorific value and short rotation (2-3 years) characteristics and provide biomass of 200-400 tonnes per ha.

    SDG 12 — Responsible consumption and production: The production of agricultural and wood-based commodities on a sustainable basis without depleting natural resources and as low as external inputs (chemical fertilisers and pesticides) to reduce the ecological footprints.

    SDG 13 — Climate action: Globally, agricultural production accounts for up to 24 per cent of GHG emissions from around 22.2 million square km of agricultural area, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. 

    A 2016 study depicted that conversion of agricultural land to agroforestry sequesters about 27.2± 13.5 tonnes CO2 equivalent per ha per year after establishment of systems. 

    Trees on farmland mitigate 109.34 million tonnes CO2 equivalent annually from 15.31 million ha, according to a 2017 report. This may offset a third of the total GHG emissions from the agriculture sector of India.

    SDG 15 — Life on Land: Agroforestry ‘mimics the forest ecosystem’ to contribute conservation of flora and faunas, creating corridors, buffers to existing reserves and multi-functional landscapes.

    Delivery of ecosystem services of trees regulates life on land. A one-hectare area of homegardens in Kerala was found to have 992 trees from 66 species belonging to 31 families, a recent study showed. 

    The report of the World Agroforestry Centre highlighted those 22 countries that have registered agroforestry as a key strategy in achieving their unconditional national contributions.

    Recently, the  Government of India has allocated significant financial support for promotion of agroforestry at grassroot level to make the Indian economy as carbon neutral. This makes agroforestry a low-hanging fruit to achieve the global goals.

    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:-

    1. Floods
    2. Cyclones
    3. Tornadoes and hurricanes (cyclones)
    4. Hailstorms
    5. Cloudburst
    6. Heat wave and cold wave
    7. Snow avalanches
    8. Droughts
    9. Sea erosion
    10. Thunder/ lightning

    Geological:-

    1. Landslides and mudflows
    2. Earthquakes
    3. Large fires
    4. Dam failures and dam bursts
    5. Mine fires

    Biological:-

    1. Epidemics
    2. Pest attacks
    3. Cattle epidemics
    4. Food poisoning

    Chemical, industrial and nuclear:-

    1. Chemical and Industrial disasters
    2. Nuclear

    Accidental:-

    1. Forest fires
    2. Urban fires
    3. Mine flooding
    4. Oil Spill
    5. Major building collapse
    6. Serial bomb blasts
    7. Festival related disasters
    8. Electrical disasters and fires
    9. Air, road, and rail accidents
    10. Boat capsizing
    11. Village fire

    India’s Key Vulnerabilities as articulated in the Tenth Plan, (2002-07) are as follows:

    1. Coastal States, particularly on the East Coast and Gujarat are vulnerable to cyclones.
    2. 4 crore hectare landmass is vulnerable to floods
    3. 68 per cent of net sown area is vulnerable to droughts
    4. 55 per cent of total area is in seismic zones III- V, hence vulnerable to earthquakes
    5. Sub- Himalayan sector and Western Ghats are vulnerable to landslides.

    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.

    dis frame

    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 :-

    Disaster frme legalDMD- Disaster management Dept.

    NIDM- National Institute of Disaster Management

    NDRF – National Disaster Response Fund

    Cabinet Committee on Disaster Management-

    ncmc

    Location of NDRF Battallions(National Disaster Response Force):-

    bnsCBRN- 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:-

    • 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.

    Early Warning Nodal Agencies:-

    dis nodal

    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 :-

    • Training
    • Education
    • Research
    • Awareness

    National Institute for Capacity Development being – National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM)

    International Cooperation-

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. United Nation Disaster Management Team (UNDMT) –

       

      1. 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,
      2. To coordinate UN assistance to the government with respect to long term recovery, disaster mitigation and preparedness.
      3. 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.
    4. Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR):-
      1. 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.
      2. Its mission is to mainstream disaster reduction and climate change adaptation in a country’s development strategies to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards.
    5. ASEAN Region Forum (ARF)
    6. Asian Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC)
    7. SAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC)
    8. 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.

    Way Forward:-

    Principles and Steps:-

    • 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

  • FP & IR

    Is this India’s moment of reckoning ?

  • Economy

    [Economy] Eight Core Industries of India, their Weightage and IIP

    • 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.

    Flags outside the UN building in Manhattan, New York.

    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.

  • History

    [History] Indian History Timeline