Karnataka forest encroachments outpace reclamation efforts:-
Forest land, as much as thrice the size of Bengaluru, has been encroached upon in Karnataka as of October 2016. According to data from the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEF), a total of 187,000 hectares of forests were encroached in this southern state. After Madhya Pradesh (534,000 hectares) and Assam (317,000 hectares), Karnataka reported the highest encroachment of forests in India.
Other problems
Evicted people are targeting other forests. so the state forest department is trying to ensure maximum plantation on the reclaimed land so that encroachers find it difficult to settle in that area in future.
“Encroachments are done by illegal land grabbers. Traditional forest dwellers don’t suddenly encroach into forest lands,”.
“There’s a 50 per cent shortage of frontline staff like beat patrolling officers in certain districts. Without enough human resources to monitor forest areas, it is becoming difficult to identify encroachment cases.”
According to forest officials, the nature of offences ranges from chopping of trees like sandalwood and teak and cutting of forest trees for housing needs.
Are we ready for Diwali?
Diwali is less than a week away and New Delhi’s air quality has already plunged to “very poor” levels. Delhi’s air quality index showed a reading of 318 and 306 on October 23 and 24 respectively, both categorised as “very poor”. It is unusual for levels to rise this early in the season. The air quality has been fluctuating between the “poor” and “very poor” categories, made worse by a sudden dip in temperatures and low wind speed.
According to Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director at Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Crop burning in the neighbouring states has also affected air pollution. According to the satellite images from NASA, there is an increase in the number of crop fires in Haryana and Punjab. Locally too, waste burning has been rampant.
An analysis of the air quality done by CSE between October 7 and October 24 showed that air quality on almost 78 per cent of the days was “very poor”, on 16.6 per cent of the days, it was “poor”, and on 5.6 per cent of the days, it was “moderately polluted”.
CSE’s analysis of air quality data from Delhi Pollution Control CommitteeIndia Meteorological Department officials have said that the wind speed might come down just before or on Diwali. Northwesterly winds were favourable for dispersion of pollutants. “But we see the wind pattern changing around October 29 when it may become calm. Visibility will reduce and winds may have a westerly influence. This will obviously lead to accumulation of aerosols, which will be accentuated by fire-crackers during Diwali.
Town today, gone tomorrow
Perhaps for the first time, an entire town will be brought down for mining development. The Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Amendment Act, 1957, is threatening to wipe Morwa—a town in Madhya Pradesh—off the map. Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, is set to acquire the entire town and 10 adjoining villages under the Act, turning the area into a coal mine. This is an emergency provision that allows immediate takeover of land and will cover the entire town. The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to invest one trillion rupees in thermal power plants. By 2017, Singrauli alone is expected to feed around 35,000 MW of electricity to the national grid.
Morwa is situated at the heart of Singrauli district, which is home to abundant reserves of power grade coal and is known as India’s energy capital. The town was born in the 1950s when rapid infrastructure and industrial development in the region displaced people by the thousands (see ‘Displaced, again’). They flocked to the seven villages in Morwa, and gradually the area mushroomed into a bustling township of 11 municipal wards with a population of 50,000 residents.
Acquisition process
Towards the end of 2015, local media first reported that Ward number 10 of Morwa and 10 villages dominated by the Gond tribe would be acquired for expansion of coal mines. The move would affect areas on the outskirts of the town and displace 400 families.
A senior NCL official told Down To Earth that the company has already planned to set up a smart city called New Morwa to relocate the displaced people. But the city will be spread over only 4 sq km, making the resettlement of 50,000 residents of Morwa town and 3,500 residents of the adjoining villages seem impossible.
Compensation hurdles
In Kathas village on the outskirts of Morwa, many land owners do not stand a chance of getting compensation because they do not have pattas. The collector has also banned the registration of new pattas because “land sharks are trying to usurp adivasi land.
So despite the Despite the Forests Rights Act (FRA), the Adivasis are unable to convert their land. The FRA may also not apply in this case since the acquisition is for the expansion of existing mines, and not the digging of new ones.
| Displaced, again
Thousands of people in Singrauli have suffered recurring displacement due to industrial and infrastructure development
|
Bird flu monitoring panel says containment measures in place
The Monitoring Committee constituted by the MoEFCC for overseeing outbreak of H5N8 avian influenza, reviewed the control and containment of the avian influenza and submitted its first ’24-hour Mortality Status Report’ on Tuesday, October 25. The committee, comprising the Member Secretary of Central Zoo Authority as the chairman, Director of the National Zoological Park as the Member Convenor and the Deputy Inspector General of Forest (Wildlife) as the Member, was constituted on October 22.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the National SC/ST hub and the Zero Defect, Zero Effect (ZED) scheme for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) at Ludhiana in Punjab.
What is National SC/ST hub?The objective of the SC/ST (Schedule Castes/Schedule Tribes) Hub is to provide professional support to entrepreneurs from the SC/ST. It also seeks to promote enterprise culture and entrepreneurship among the SC/ST population and to enable them to participate more effectively in public procurement. It will work towards strengthening market access/linkage, capacity building, monitoring, sharing industry-best practices and leveraging financial support schemes.What is Zero Defect, Zero Effect (ZED) scheme?
- ZED Scheme aims to rate and handhold all MSMEs to deliver top quality products using clean technology. It will have sector-specific parameters for each industry.
- MSME sector is crucial for the economic progress of India and this scheme will help to match global quality control standards. T
- It was given for producing high quality manufacturing products with a minimal negative impact on environment.
- ZED Scheme is meant to raise quality levels in unregulated MSME sector which is engine of growth for Indian economy. The scheme will be cornerstone of the Central Government’s flagship Make in India programme, which is aimed at turning India into a global manufacturing hub, generating jobs, boosting growth and increase incomes.
Green train corridors
GS III Topic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Green Train Corridors are sections of the railways which will be free of human waste on the tracks. The Indian Railways has declared the Okha-Kanalus (141 Kms) and Porbandar-Wansjaliya (34 Kms) sections of Gujarat in Western Railway as the Green Train Corridors. This will be achieved by the installation of bio-toilets in all coaches of Indian Railways.
first Green Train Corridors of India- Rameswaram to Manamadurai ( 114-km) had been identified as a Human Waste Discharge Free Train Corridor and was formally inaugurated as the first green corridor in July this year. Accordingly, ten passenger trains consisting of 286 coaches moving over this section have been provided with bio-toilets.
Bio-toilets:
To ensure proper working of the bio-toilets, Southern Railway had established a bio-lab at the coaching depot, which handled the coaches, in September last year for testing the discharge. Indian Railway had developed the environment friendly ‘IR-DRDO Bio-toilets’, in association with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Regenerative type anaerobic bacteria in liquid form was poured into the six-chamber retention tanks in the bio-toilets and the bacteria helped in disintegrating human waste into liquid and gas. The liquid would be chlorinated and discharged with no harm to the environment. The bio-lab had facilities to test total solids, total dissolved solids and total volatile solids.
2nd joint tactical exercise by India and China:
- Indian and Chinese armies recently held Second Joint Exercise “Sino India Cooperation 2016” in Ladakh.
- During the day long exercise on Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) a fictitious situation of earthquake striking an Indian Border village was painted. Thereafter joint teams carried out rescue operations, evacuation and rendering of medical assistance.
- The exercise is aimed at increasing the level of trust and cooperation between the two border guarding forces along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh.
- The joint exercise, compliments the Hand in Hand series of the India -China joint exercises and the effort of both the nations to enhance cooperation and maintain peace and tranquility along the border areas of India and China.
INS Tihayu
- The Indian Navy has commissioned the highly manoeuvrable fast attack craft INS Tihayu at the Eastern Naval Command.
- INS Tihayu is the second ship of the four follow-on Water Jet Fast Attack Craft (FO-WJFAC), being built by M/s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE).
- Conceived, designed and built indigenously, the commissioning of this ship completes the addition of another chapter to the nation’s ‘Make in India’ initiative and indigenisation efforts in the field of warship design and construction
- Named after Tihayu island (presently known as Katchal island) in the Nicobar group, the 320-tonne INS Tihayu, measuring 49 meters can achieve speeds in excess of 35 knots.
- The ship is capable of operating in shallow waters at high speeds and is equipped with enhanced fire power. Built for extended coastal and offshore surveillance and patrol the warship is fitted with advanced MTU engines, water jet propulsion and the latest communication equipment.
India look forward to a JV in fertilizer sector
The huge phosphatic reserve available in Algeria draws the attention of India to explore the possibilities of setting up a multi-billion dollar fertilizer project. The estimated phosphate reserve in Algeria is estimated to be more than 5 billion tonnes and possible Indian investment in the sector is expected to be $5 to 7 billion.
Benefits
Around 90 to 95% phosphate being used by Indian fertilizer companies is imported and the production cost is also very high. The price of fertilizer in India is expected to come down along with the subsidy burden if the talks between the two countries lead to setting up of a joint venture mega fertilizer company in Algiers.
- India currently imports raw phosphate resources from a number of African countries including Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt and Syria, as also from Russia, Canada and Israel among others.
- India ranks second in the production of nitrogenous fertilizers and third in phosphatic fertilizers.
Recent Posts
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.