Swachh Bharat Mission :Fast Facts
Taking stock of 2 years of the Mission:-
- The Rural household toilet coverage has increased from 42% at the start of Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin to 55.34%as of today.
- This entailed the construction of 2.4 crore toilets under SBM and 15.04 lakh under MNREGA.
- 35 districts and about one lakhvillages are targeted to be declared Open Defecation Free (ODF)
- In the first year alone, there was an increase of 446% in construction of toilets after the launch of SBM(G) as compared to pre-SBM period of 2014-15.
- The ‘Swachh Survekshan’, a nationwide survey in 75 districts, conducted earlier this year, has created a sense of healthy competition among districts to achieve ‘Swachhta’.
Swachh Bharat is becoming a ‘Jan Andolan’:-
- This is the biggest mass mobilization in history – the focus is on behavior change rather than on toilet construction because SBM is about the change of mindset.
- Cross-benefits of Community mobilization due to SBM: In Sawamahu Gram Panchayat in Punjab, during routine cleaning of villages, women found that a big component of garbage was empty liquor bottles, leading to them starting adaru-bandi(no alcohol) campaign. They also learnt the use of internet and WhatsApp to share their activities with one another.
- Shri Chandrakant Kulkarni, a retired government employee from Maharashtra, has donated one-third of his pension to the Swachh Bharat Kosh
- A team of brave army personnel, led by Wing Commander Paramvir Singh undertook a ‘Ganga Avahan’ for the cause of Swachh Bharat. The expedition swam 2800 km along the length of River Ganga, from Devprayag (Uttarakhand) to Ganga Sagar (West Bengal), to spread awareness about the Swachh Bharat Mission
Beyond ODF: Focus on Solid and Liquid Waste Management in villages
- Mahila mandals of Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh took up the work of weekly cleaning of their villages. This became a good source of income for many as they sold one lakh kg of scrap worth about Rs.5 lakh from February 2015 to August 2016.
- In Indore, the famous Khajrana Ganesha temple receives more than 100 kg of green waste in the form of flower offerings every day. These flowers are converted into compost using on-site facilities. The same compost is being purchased by the devotees and locals
- In Tamil Nadu, nearly 53056 MGNREGA workers are engaged in solid waste work in 9000 Gram Panchayats. Through sale of compost and recyclable waste, the Panchayats have generated a total income of Rs. 75.41 lakh
- Several villages in Nanded district in Maharashtra are “mosquito free” owing to the presence of individual soak pits called “magic pits” in every household. This helps them not only avoid water-borne diseases like diarrhea, cholera and jaundice due to reduced ground and surface water contamination, but also vector borne diseases like dengue, malaria and the dreaded zika virus.
- Waste stabilization ponds have not only helped control the problem of safely draining out liquid waste in villages, but many of these ponds have been converted into beautified spots which have now become the pride of their villages
Economic benefits of sanitation and SLWM
- Lack of proper sanitation leads to a less healthy and less productive population, leading to economic loss. A World Bank study estimates that the resulting loss to the Indian economy is 6.4% of the GDP because of poor sanitation. According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, India would save $19 billion worth of health care costs if everyone started washing their hands with soap before meals and after defecation
- Bhusrapara village in Malda district, West Bengal has 14 households, without any toilets. The villagers regularly contracted diarrhea in the monsoons, the time when they got employment as agriculture labor. The village became ODF on 15th July 2015, after which there has been only one case of diarrhea in the village. The villagers estimate that they have saved between Rs.1800-Rs.3000 per person per year.
- Since becoming ODF, Saragaon village in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh has recorded a reduction in loss of man-days from 83 per year earlier to 11 now. The average yearly health expenditure in the village has reduced by 85%. Increasing demand for toilets leads to increasing demand for masonry services. Nadia, the first ODF district in West Bengal set up two masonry training institutes which trained around 2400 men and women to construct toilets and became a source of livelihood
Challenges
- Importance of sustaining ODF and preventing slip-backs – This is very critical and there needs to be sustained efforts to ensure that once a village turns ODF, it stays ODF. The district administration must focus on continued awareness campaigns and sanitation champions must continue mobilizing people to highlight the importance of toilet usage even after attaining ODF status
- Aiming for ODF+ (ODF Plus) : ODF Villagesneed to include SLWM and general cleanliness as the ultimate goal to become truly “Swachh”
‘India will Protect the Interests and Strongly Present the Viewpoint of Developing Countries at Cop 22 in Morocco’
India has said that it will protect the interests and strongly present the viewpoint of the developing countries at the upcoming COP 22 at Marrakech, Morocco.
India’s decision to ratify the Paris agreement has come after ensuring compliance of domestic legal requirements, internal discussions and after obtaining clarity from UNFCCC with regard to transparency and participation of Parties in the future processes. Countries have been assured by UNFCCC that other Parties will be given sufficient time to ratify the Paris Agreement, at least till 2018, so that future decision-making is as inclusive as possible. India through its participation in the Paris Agreement, under the UNFCCC process, will articulate the interests of the poor and vulnerable groups.
India led from the front at COP 21 last year, to ensure the inclusion of climate justice and sustainable lifestyles in the Paris Agreement and launched the International Solar Alliance. India will continue to champion such action-oriented initiatives and joint ventures.
President Presents ‘Vayoshreshtha Samman’ to Older Persons & Institutions on International Day of Older Persons
- National Awards for Senior Citizens “Vayoshreshtha Samman-2016” to eminent senior citizens and institutions in recognition of their service towards the cause of elderly persons, especially indigent senior citizens at a function organized by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
- International Day of Older Persons is observed on 1st of October every year pursuant to the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly to observe the year 1999 as the International Year of Older Persons with the theme, “a society for all ages
Tourism Organizes ‘5th International Buddhist Conclave’ in Varanasi-Sarnath
- With a view to showcasing and projecting the Buddhist heritage and pilgrim sites of India, the Ministry of Tourism is organizing the “5th International Buddhist Conclave (from 2nd to 6th October 2016)” in Varanasi-Sarnath in collaboration with the State Governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
- The International Buddhist Conclave is also one of the initiatives being taken by India as its commitment as the land of origin of Buddhism and to improve the experience of pilgrims as well as tourists wishing to savor the essence of Buddhist heritage, at the Buddhist sites of the country.The Conclave will include presentations, panel discussion, business to business meetings between the international and domestic tour operators, an exhibition highlighting the Buddhist attractions in India, as well as visits to important Buddhist sites in and around Varanasi and Sarnath.
Sustainable Urban Development strategy for next 20 years
- Reducing water and electricity use by 50% from that of normal use,
- Enabling over 60% of urban travel by public transport,
- Generating half of power from renewable sources,
- Promoting walking and cycling for last mile connectivity, compact and cluster urban development, promoting natural drainage patterns, reducing waste generation of all kind, promoting greenery and public places etc.
Theme of this year’s Word Habitat Day of ‘Housing at Centre’,
Cabinet approves amendments to the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2014
The HIV and AIDS Bill, 2014 has been drafted to safeguard the rights of people living with HIV and affected by HIV. The provisions of the Bill seek to address HIV-related discrimination, strengthen the existing programme by bringing in legal accountability and establish formal mechanisms for inquiring into complaints and redressing grievances. The Bill seeks to prevent and control the spread of HIV and AIDS, prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV and AIDS, provides for informed consent and confidentiality with regard to their treatment, places obligations on establishments to safeguard rights of persons living with HIV arid create mechanisms for redressing complaints. The Bill also aims to enhance access to health care services by ensuring informed consent and confidentiality for HIV-related testing, treatment and clinical research.
The Bill lists various grounds on which discrimination against HIV positive persons and those living with them is prohibited. These include the denial, termination, discontinuation or unfair treatment with regard to:
(i) employment,
(ii) educational establishments,
(iii) health care services,
(iv) residing or renting property,
(v) standing for public or private office, and
(vi) provision of insurance (unless based on actuarial studies). The requirement for HIV testing as a pre-requisite for obtaining employment or accessing health care or education is also prohibited.
Every HIV infected or affected person below the age of 18 years has the right to reside in a shared household and enjoy the facilities of the household. The Bill also prohibits any individual from publishing information or advocating feelings of hatred against HIV positive persons and those living with them. The Bill also provides for Guardianship for minors. A person between the age of 12 to 18 years who has sufficient maturity in understanding and managing the affairs of his HIV or AIDS affected family shall be competent to act as a guardian of another sibling below 18 years of age to be applicable in the matters relating to admission to educational establishments, operating bank accounts, managing property, care and treatment, amongst others.
The Bill requires that “No person shall be compelled to disclose his HIV status except with his informed consent, and if required by a court order”. Establishments keeping records of information of HIV positive persons shall adopt data protection measures. According to the Bill, the Central and State governments shall take measures to:
(i) prevent the spread of HIV or AIDS,
(ii) provide anti-retroviral therapy and infection management for persons with HIV or AIDS,
(iii) facilitate their access to welfare schemes especially for women and children,
(iv) formulate HIV or AIDS education communication programmes that are age appropriate, gender sensitive, and non-stigmatizing, and
(v) lay guidelines for the care and treatment of children with HIV or AIDS. Every person in the care and custody of the state shall have right to HIV prevention, testing, treatment and counseling services. The Bill suggest that cases relating to HIV positive persons shall be disposed’ off by the court on a priority basis and duly ensuring the confidentiality.
There are no financial implications of the Bill. Most of the activities are being already undertaken or can be integrated within the existing systems of various Ministries under training, communication and data management, etc. The Bill makes provision for appointment of an ombudsman by State Governments to inquire into complaints related to the violation of the Act and penal actions in case of non-compliance. The Ombudsman need not be a separate entity, but any existing State Government functionary can be deputed or given additional charge.
There are approximately 21 lakh persons estimated to be living with HIV in India. Even though the prevalence of HIV is decreasing over the last decade, the Bill would provide essential support to National AIDS Control Programme in arresting new infections and thereby achieving the target of “Ending the epidemic by 2030” according to Sustainable Development Goals.
World Sustainable Development Summit Organized By The Energy And Resources Institute
The statements below can come in handy while writing answers or essays.use as you see fit.
Excerpt from the address:-
- The threat of climate change is real and immediate. It concerns the whole world as its ill-effects are all-pervasive. Developing economies are more vulnerable to climate change as these economies are closely tied to climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and forestry. As a developing country with shared concerns on climate vulnerability, India has a vital stake in an equitable and multi-lateral approach towards climate change
- India is home to almost 18 percent of the world’s population. However, we possess only four percent of the world’s renewable water resources. Our energy consumption constitutes six percent of the global energy consumption. Resource constraints notwithstanding, we have worked hard to become the fastest growing economy amongst the major economies of the world. We have the capacity to clock sustained high growth. But growth is dependent on resource availability, especially energy. Factors such as demography, development and urbanization exert tremendous pressure on availability of resources. Large-scale utilization of resources leads to their depletion and also impacts adversely on the environment. This results in reduced availability of resources for future growth putting a question mark on the sustainable development of an economy.
- The world is facing challenges in all the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. On the one hand, over a billion-and-a-quarter people are still living in poverty. On the other, patterns of unsustainable production and consumption are endangering our planet’s eco-systems. This threat presents us with an opportunity to work together. Global action built on partnerships is required to achieve sustainable economic and social progress, inclusive growth and protection of the earth’s eco-systems. Both the Nationally Determined Contributions and the Sustainable Development Goals impel us to look beyond national boundaries and act in solidarity rather than in silos. Collective action, indeed, is necessary to address the shared concerns of our world.
Facts
- Indo-Russian military exercise ‘INDRA-2016′
- Jharkhand becomes first state to launch Direct Benefit Transfer in Kerosene
- PETROTECH-2016, the 12th International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition will be organised at New Delhi
- INS Eksila- Eksila, located at Gajuwaka, Visakhapatnam, is the only naval establishment in South East Asia where “Men in Uniform” undertake major overhaul of Marine Gas Turbines powering Naval Ships. The Unit has witnessed an exciting phase of transformation in the last two and a half decades since her inception as Marine Gas Turbine Overhaul Centre (MGTOC) on 22 October 1991. Significant strides have been made by the Unit in embracing contemporary cutting edge technologies in the field of Marine Gas Turbine maintenance, keeping in line with the Indian Navy’s commitment to ‘Self Reliance through Indigenisation’.
- First BRICS U – 17 Football Tournament kicked off in Goa
Recent Posts
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.