Asia’s first ‘Gyps Vulture Reintroduction Programme’ launched
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar recently launched ‘Gyps Vulture Reintroduction Programme’ by putting ten captive bred vultures in pre-release aviaries close to Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre at Pinjore near here.
The exercise was part of reintroduction programme in the pre-release aviary, where birds will have an unobstructed view of the surrounding.
It will also help them in getting use to the habitat in which they would be released in future.
The ten vultures released by the CM include two Himalayan Griffons, which were brought as sick birds. They have been in captivity for last ten years.
All the vultures have dummy satellite transmitters fitted as a back pack, but it will be replaced with actual transmitters at least a week before they are released in the wild. It will help in tracking the vultures.
Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre, run by Haryana Wild Life Department and the Forest Department, has been constantly working to increase their numbers through breeding and conservation, he said.
Saving Asian vulture from fatal drugs :-
- After successfully campaigning for the ban on multi-dose vials of painkiller drug diclofenac in veterinary use, conservationists have stepped up pressure for withdrawing two more drugs – Ketoprofen & Aceclofenac, which they say, are fatal for Asian vultures.
- The “three species of Gyps vultures endemic to South and Southeast Asia, oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis), long-billed vulture (G. indicus) and slender-billed vulture (G. tenuirostris), are the worst affected and are threatened with global extinction after rapid population declines, which began in the mid-1990s
- IUCN lists Vultures as Critically Endangered
- Why do we need to save Vultures:-
- Environmental:-
- The disappearance of vultures has allowed other species, such as rats and wild dogs, to take their place. These newly abundant scavengers, however, are not as efficient as vultures. A vulture’s metabolism is a true “dead-end” for pathogens, but dogs and rats become carriers of the pathogens.
- Wild dogs, carrying diseases from rotting carcasses (rabies, anthrax, plague, etc.),are directly or indirectly responsible for thousands of human deaths. Today in India, 30,000 people die from rabies each year, more than half the world’s total.Hence Wild Dogs are inefficient scavengers.
- Treating these diseases is extremely costly for the Indian government and people. Around half a million Indians are treated for rabies each year, at a cost of 1500 rupees per person,
- Cultural :-
- While the sanitary, ecological, and economic consequences are considerable, the cultural impact is also notable.
- According to Parsi beliefs, Earth, Fire, and Water are sacred elements, and both cremation and burial are sacrilegious. For the deceased Parsi to reach heaven, vultures serve as intermediaries between earth and sky. The dead body is placed on a Tower of Silence where vultures, by consuming the body, liberate the soul.
- The 82,000 Parsi Indians, deprived of their celestial emissaries, have been obliged to drop these ancient customs for reasons of hygiene, since now bodies take six months to disappear.
- Environmental:-
It’s raining cheer
For the first time in three years, the India Meteorological Department has projected that the monsoon rains will be above normal. Rainfall during the June to September southwest monsoon season is forecast to be 106 per cent of the long period average, with a margin of error of 4 per cent.
Coming as the forecast does after two years of an acute drought that has turned large swathes of the hinterland into parched dustbowls, and a scorching summer that has sent the mercury soaring past records in many regions, the prospect of abundant rains is obviously cause for cheer.
With the lives of more than two-thirds of India’s 1.3 billion people directly linked to the fortunes of the rural economy, and almost 80 per cent of India’s annual rainfall a product of the southwest monsoon, the importance of the IMD’s prediction cannot be overstated.
Significantly, the Met department also expects the above-normal rains to be well distributed across the key crop farming areas in the north-west, central and southern peninsular regions, with the likelihood of a shortfall seen only for the north-east.
In its April policy statement, the Reserve Bank of India had highlighted the significance of the rains to monetary policy when it said a normal monsoon in 2016 could provide a “favourable supply shock” by strengthening rural demand and augmenting the availability of farm produce that would help moderate inflation.
While agriculture and allied economic activities contribute just a little over 15 per cent to overall Gross Value Added, they have a disproportionate impact on rural consumption, as they provide livelihood for almost half of the country’s workforce.
So for manufacturers of goods ranging from personal care products to tractors, a bountiful monsoon can potentially deliver a substantial boost to sales. Adequate rainfall, especially in upstream catchment areas, would also help improve electricity supply in States more dependent on hydel-power, such as Karnataka and Kerala.
India joins The Hague Code of Conduct
India has joined The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCoC).
India’s joining the Code signals its readiness to further strengthen the global non-proliferation regimes.
The government has also made it clear that this joining will not have any impact on the national security as well as country’s missile programmes.
Details about HCoC
HCoC is a global ballistic missile proliferation regime established in 2002. It is a voluntary legally non-binding multilateral body aimed at preventing the spread of ballistic missiles that can deliver weapons of mass destruction.
It is the only multilateral code in the area of disarmament which has been adopted over the last years. It is the only normative instrument to verify the spread of ballistic missiles.
The HCOC does not ban ballistic missiles, but it does call for restraint in their production, testing, and export. Presently, there are 137 signatories.
The Code is meant to supplement the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) but its membership is not restricted. Under the Code, States make politically binding commitments to curb the proliferation of WMD-capable ballistic missiles and to exercise maximum restraint in developing, testing, and deploying such missiles.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.