Note- The article is little technical in nature. It also refers to different geological timescale, here is a list for better understanding :-
In the early 1800s European priests and doctors visiting India found ample dinosaur remains strewn about the place. In fact, one such gentleman – a captain, is fondly remembered with the city Sleemanabad (located midway between Allahabad and Jabalpur) dedicated to him. Major General William Henry Sleeman, the dinosaur `bone collector’ was a famous man indeed.
Well, there have been many more after him, and not all of them are Europeans. Sohan Lal Jain and Sankar Chatterjee are names that hold great reverence in this field.
It is now time to discover the wonder of our desi dinosaurs. When did they live? Of course, in the same age as the other dinosaurs of the world. Perhaps it was Permian period of the Palaeozoic era when it all began, with early dinosaur like creatures, Endothiodon, slowly roaming the earth. Then, with time and evolution, Triassic saw the development of our now familiar dinosaur. Although it was the period of Jurassic that laid claim to the fastest and the cunningest of the creatures.
Ossified Skin of an Indian Dinosaur (Left) and Cross Section of the Ossified Skin (Right)
By Cretaceous, life changed! There are several theories as to why it changed. Some say that meteors struck the earth’s surface, while others stress on the increased volcanic activity both of which caused huge dark clouds to wipe out all plant forms. Plant life was rapidly snuffed out due to lack of sunlight and only those that could live in near darkness, survived.
The Lumbering Endothiodon
What kind of plants were these? Essentially ferns, fossils, which may be found in the coal seams that belong to the age. As a result the food chain was grossly disturbed and dinosaurs breathed their last.
Still others say that sea level changes affected plant life adversely. How? Well, as the sea level began to fall, perhaps due to the onset of an ice age, the lands which lay in the heart of the continent became dry and harsh due to continentality.
With such a development, the plant life found itself unable to adapt, thus wiping out the dinosaur population which depended upon them. However, we may add that it is not as if fauna and flora cannot adjust to change. But change has to be gradual, only then the flora of an area finds sufficient time to adapt and survive. A cataclysmic event, much like what happened here, doesn’t allow much scope to adjust.
And yes, we do have craters to prove that meteors did hit the land we call India. Have you visited the Lonar Lake in Maharashtra? Well, it is a crater. Moreover, the volcanic activity of the Deccan influenced the slow deterioration of the food web by blocking out sunlight.
However, whatever the reasons, the end of Cretaceous saw a new world order. Now it was the turn of the mammals to rule. But then, do dinosaurs have no present day descendants? Of course they do. Two living legends belong to the crocodile and the delightful bird family. Birds, the flying dinosaurs, in fact are theropods, which provide the missing link between dinosaurs of the past and the present.
When dinosaur roamed the earth, was India located where it is presently?
Not really! India was located in the southern continent in the Permian epoch. All clubbed together- India, Africa, Australia and Madagascar were ancient lands upon which Endothiodon, a slow moving reptile, lazily sauntered.
Parasuchians – Ancestors of the Modern Day Gharial
Then as the epoch progressed, the lands separated from each other and by Jurassic, India had drifted northwards nearer the tropics. By Cretaceous, India was closer to the equator. In fact, most scientists believe that our nation behaved like Biblical Noah’s arc, carrying varied flora and fauna through a long journey of time over 15-20 million years. The Indian landmass was reconnected with ‘land’ along the southern shores of Asia around 55 million years ago.
The Seaways of Cretaceous India
It was then that the Himalayas began to rise due to the northward push of the Indian Peninsular block.
And which small island, do you think, accompanied our peninsular block part of the way? Yes, it was Madagascar. However, about 80 million years ago, they were unfortunately separated, to follow their own paths.
How do we know this? Well, geological and paleontological evidences give clues which help us solve the puzzle of the drifting continents.
Did our peninsular block look just the same during the Cretaceous period? It would perhaps be erroneous to assume that. Evidences suggest that the landscape that you are now familiar with was broken in two places. One arm of the sea pushed inland from the west, in the present valley of Narmada, known as the Narmada seaway, while another, which lay in the southeast corner of present day India, the Godavari seaway, extended inland along the present valley of Godavari.
Why are these seaways so relevant? Well, it seems that dinosaurs were rarely found far from the arm of these seaways. Thus fossils, remains and eggs of the Cretaceous dinosaurs are easily found in these areas.
Plateosaurus – the large thumb claw owner
So much for the ancient Indian landscape, what about the dinosaurs that called India their home?
Before dinosaurs as we know them from Spielberg’s thrillers evolved, Endothiodons ruled the world (table 1). Beginning from the Permian what were the interesting creatures that lived here? There was a land and water loving amphibian named Archegosaurus, besides other fish and shark like creatures. And of course there was our low-bellied Endothiodon, grand daddy of dinosaurs.
However only about 20 per cent of all creatures that were known in the Permian managed to survive in the Triassic epoch. Why? Well, because there was a catastrophe which led to mass extinction. A sudden change in climate, a drop of oxygen levels and the skies above covered with smoke and ash from the Siberian vulcanism cut out the sunlight and filled the air with toxic gases.
However, thankfully the ancestors of man and the dinosaurs survived. Thecodonts or small two and four footed carnivorous animals began to gain prominence in this adaptation period. Early crocodiles, proter-osuchians evolved in this period.
In fact India had an animal called the Parasuchus hislopi, which was perhaps somewhat like our modern day gharial. They were excellently adapted for land and water, blissfully basking on the banks, devouring Triassic fish and other poor creatures that happened to visit the water hole.
Another creature, the Rauisuchians were ferocious thecodonts of the age. Look at the picture – their jaws do look awesome! However you would be surprised to know that these poor beasts, Indian one called Paradepedon huxleyi, perhaps ate only snails and molluscs, cracking their hard shells open with these powerful jaws.
Rauisuchian – Paradepedon Huxleyi
As dinosaurs evolved they became fast moving, larger and bipedal, and slowly moved up the food chain to become top predators. In fact, the earliest dinosaur of the Triassic, Alwalkeria maleriensis, was a cunning little chap. He could even hunt down our snail cracking Paradepedon huxleyi, who was no doubt a slow moving hunter of the times and no match for the athletic Alwalkeria.
Nearing the end of Triassic, fossils of Plateosaurids are found. These were the ancestors of the better known four legged huge sauropods of the Jurassic. These creatures roamed languidly over the plains clasping food with their huge thumb claws, chewing them thoughtfully with peg like teeth.
But again suddenly, all good things came to an abrupt end. Severe dry conditions prevailed for a continuing period which wiped out several plant species. The food chain was again disturbed. But then, after the darkest night we do see the glimmer of day light – at least that is what we have experienced uptil now. Thus fair weather again took charge and dinosaurs increased in size and adapted to a whole new world.
In fact these animals could give a run for the poor thecodont’s life, who uptil now co-existed with his faster descendants. It is also known that between the dinosaur stage and the thecodont stage, a coelosaus stage also existed. The coelosaus were small, very agile little fellows and have been grouped as early dinosaurs. Thus the change from thecodonts to a full fledged dinosaur took over 5 million years, by the end of which the dinosaur constituted more than 60 per cent of the known vertebrates of the time.
And when do you think this happened?
Yes, it was during the Jurassic! The saurids (reptiles) grew larger and two of them; Barapasaurus tagorei and Kotasaurus were huge creatures towering over 4 to 5 m in height and 24 m in length. In fact we have a story behind why they were called what they are! `Bara’ ‘pa’ would literally means big foot; which is indicative of the huge femur bone of 1.7 m found initially, before the rest of the fossil was unearthed. Why tagorei? Well, because the day it was discovered happened to be the birth centenary of Guru Rabindranath Tagore. As for Kotasaurus it was unimaginatively named after the bed of find.
Barapasaurus (The Big Footed Reptile)
But, whatever the stories, it was a remarkable find. So unique was this immense animal that its skeleton was found to be modified so that its mobility and efficiency stood uncompromised.
How was the skeleton modified? Well, besides the bones that formed the support of the barapasauras, the other bones were hollow and light. It also had huge pillar like legs to support its immense weight and a relatively small skull. This herbivorous saurid munched its food with spoon like teeth.
| Critters of the Past at a Glance | |||
| Period | Dinosaur / Creature | Description | Area Found |
| Permian (290 Million Years Ago) | |||
| Permian | Archegosaurus | Amphibian | Andhra Pradesh is the Kundaram formation |
| Permian Fish and Sharks | Fish and Sharks | ||
| Endothiodon | Herbivore, ungainly low bellied reptiles with sprawling gait which migrated great distances. | Kashmir | |
| Late Permian | Thecodonts – formed part of 20 per cent that survived the End-Permian upheaval. | Reptiles were 1-3 meters in size. These are ancestors of dinosaurs which is an intermediate stage to the much larger and better known Sauropods of Jurassic. | Andhra Pradesh |
| End Permian | Witnessed a mass extinction due to a great catastrophe which included sudden change in climate, sudden drop in oxygen levels and intensive volcanism from Siberia. | ||
| Triassic (248 Million Years Ago) | |||
| Early Triassic | Thecodonts is the form of Proterosuchians and | Early Crocodiles | |
| Pseudosuchians | False Crocodiles | ||
| In India the form of Thecodont found was Parasuchus hislopi | Long snouted gharial like animal which lived on fish in land and water | Maleri beds in Andhra Pradesh | |
| Rauisuchians | Contemporary thecodonts, 5-6 meters in length | ||
| A form in India is Paradepedon Huxleyi | 1.4 meter in length. It ate snails and molluscs. It could crack thin hard shells open with the help of powerful jaws and teeth | ||
| Triassic | Alwalkeria Maleriensis – The earliest dinosaur in India | Small and slender, skull about 9 cm. (like a modern day dog), teeth not serrated but pointed backwards. Neck elongated, foot had three toes. It was bipedal and fast moving. Equipped to hunt the other hunter of the time, Rauisuchians, although they were much larger and no match for the fast moving Alwalkeria. | Village Nennel in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh |
| End of Triassic | Great aridity with desert like conditions placing severe stress on animals and plants. There was mass extinction of the several plants and animals which died out suddenly. | ||
| Plateosaurus | Primitive pro-sauropod dinosaur. They represent and intermediate stage of evolution between the earliest dinosaur and better known Jurassic Sauropods. They were fairly large being about 5-10 meters in length, with strong hind limbs, huge thumb claws for clasping, peg like teeth, and had relatively small skull | Dharmaram formation in Andhra Pradesh | |
| Jurassic (206 Million Years Ago) – Age of Dinosaurs | |||
| Early Jurassic | Coelosaurus | Small active theropods – early dinosaurs that were fast on the toes – much like the athletes of today. | Jabalpur Cantonment around Bara Shimla Hill |
| Jurassic | Barapasaurus Tagorei (Sauropod Dinosaur) | Big foot reptile, thigh bone 1.7 meter in length, teeth small and spoon-shaped and small skull. Herbivore – 4 to 5 meters in height, 24 meters in length | Kutch, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Kota and Adilabad |
| Kotsaurus | Similar to Baraspasaurus | Specimens from limestone deposit representing a lake or a lagoon now known as Kota Limestone | |
| Stegosaurus | Small elongated slender skull, large dermal, triangular bony plates | Bagra beds of Satpura region and Kutch | |
| Cretaceous (142 Million Years Ago) | |||
| Early Cretaceous | Has not produced any fossils but has immense potential in the Gangpur formation in the Godavari Valley | ||
| Cretaceous | Diplodocine | Long neck, small skull, pillar like legs and a large body | Bagra beds of Satpura and Kutch |
| Titanosaurus Colberti – Most common saurapod found, with 6 to 7 types of genera | Large plant eating species – 25 meters in height, 15 meters in length. Extremely small teeth. Perhaps swallowed pebbles (gastoliths) to break up food in their stomach as their teeth seemed inadequate for supporting such a large diet. | Wardha area, north of Nagpur | |
| Abelisaurids had two forms – Indosuchus raptorious and Indosaurus matleyi | Biggest enemies of titanosaurus. Carnivorous with incisor like teeth – 8 to 10 cms. Their approximate height was 4 meters and length was 10 to 12 meters. | In all localities and also in Ariyalur beds in South India | |
| Nodosaurid ankylosaur | Well-developed spiny scales, armoured, long slender headed herbivores | Found in the Balasinor – Rahioli localities in Kheda near Ahmedabad | |
| Late Cretaceous | Dinosaur materials are found in Cretaceous Lamenta formation near Jabalpur. Fossils are sandwiched between Deccan flows suggesting that they died out during Deccan volcanic activity. | ||
| Note: – These dinosaurs are examples of what was perhaps found in India. There are many more creatures that inhabited this land. We have however highlighted just a prominent few. | |||
You will find it interesting to note that teeth structure of dinosaurs were quite different from mammals. Why? Because if you loose your permanent teeth, beware of brawls, you wouldn’t be able to grow it again. On the other hand unlike our two sets of teeth dinosaurs could grow any number of sets all its life. Old age thus posed no problem for him and munching was easy as ever.
Well, to get on with it, let us discuss another Indian dinosaur of the age, known as the Stegosaurus. It supported large bony plates made of skin. Although initially assumed to be armour, it was later conjectured that these plates may have been a heat regulating mechanism as it contained many blood vessel openings. Still others have argued that in all probability these plates may be gender specific, owned and perhaps prominently displayed by the males!
Then we had our Diplodocine, who in all probability, dominated the scene in the end Jurassic and early Cretaceous. It had long necks with pillar like legs that supported a small skull besides its immense body.
As we move on to Cretaceous, another dinosaur, the Titanosaurus colberti emerged. A huge plant eating species, aptly named, was about 25 m in length and 15 m in height. However, perhaps all of them weren’t this large.
Titanosaurus (The Large Plant Eating Reptile)
Titanosaurus was represented in six different types of genera, marked with a difference in size and appearance. Also the teeth of this dinosaur seemed rather small for supporting such an immense frame. Scientists believe that it probably had some other means of digesting food. One suggestion points towards little pebbles, which were swallowed, to aid the animal in grinding food in the stomach. What an innovative use for pebbles that we wistfully toss away! However, we forbid you to try such an experiment on yourself or anyone!
Well, despite its size, the world wasn’t safe for our Titanosaurus. Why? Because we can hardly dare to forget the two ferocious Abelisaurids – Indosuchus raptorius and Indosaurus matleyi. These were the Indian answers to the world famous Tyrannosaurus rex. They were ferocious predators that slashed their victims open with their huge serrated teeth. The front teeth were incisor like while the teeth that lay in the posterior were nearly 8-10 cm. long. Indeed a force to reckon with!
Indosuchius (Indian Answer to T. Rex)
Finally we have the Nodosaurid ankylosaur, a herbivorous four footed dinosaur. These fellows had a triangular skull with a small and slender face. Its body was heavily armoured with heavy bony spikes. However, unlike many others which were found with clubs on their tails, the Indian species lacked such an appendage.
Ankylosaurus (The Slender Headed Herbivore)
Before ending this discussion it would be important to remember that when we discuss certain creatures in a specific epoch, it does not necessarily mean that the others have all disappeared. The issue is relative! In relation to many other critters that were found, the ones that we specially discuss in a certain era, gained importance and were the prime most species of those times.
Stegosaurus (Creature with Bony Plates of Skin)
Secondly, a fact worth mentioning is that along with the dinosaurs there were many other creatures belonging to the mammalian species that existed at the same time. Besides, over and above the dinosaurs that have achieved status in this feature, there were many other dinosaur genera which were found in India. They include Dravidosaurus, Antarctosaurus, Compsosuchus, Laevisuchus, Laplatasaurus, Jubbulpuria, Brachypodosaurus, Dryptosauroides, Lametasaurus, Ornithomimoides, and Orthogoniosaurus.
However, we need detailed research on these before we can decide what they looked like or how they led their lives.
Thirdly, the world was different from as we know it today. There were land bridges and interconnections that allowed the migration of plants and animals. Thus it would be wrong to assume that India was an isolated sphere. In fact, all our dinosaurs are in some way connected to the larger species that roamed worldwide. It must not be assumed that our study shows genera of dinosaurs which have evolved in isolation.
Finally it would perhaps be worthwhile to remember that fossil remains are always not bones. It may be anything that living creatures leave behind, from droppings to paw prints on the wet mud. In fact extensive studies are carried out on brain cases, coprolites or dung and footprints to arrive at fairly accurate records of what the creature ate and how he lived.
It is indeed hard to believe that these animals were similar to our modern day wild life, where some creatures prefer to roam in solitary abandonment while others saunter in herds. Perhaps they were even capable of intelligent coordinated killings – who knows?
Keeping the above in mind it is time to shut the time capsule and bring you to an age where clouded acrid skies, burnt plants and dying moans of the huge dinosaurs is all you can visualise. Yes, by the end of Cretaceous, about 65 million years ago, it was time for the mammals to take over.
Diplodocine (The Dinosaur with a Long Neck and a Small Skull)
Where can we find dinosaur materials in India?
Dinosaur remains are found in Mesozoic formations in India. Most of the occurrences are in the central and southern India. The stratigraphic units that contain dinosaur fossils can perhaps be classified as follows:
- Jabalpur rocks of Central India -Most dinosaurs found here are from late Cretaceous rock beds.
- The Lameta Beds which lie below the Deccan Trap located in the southern states comprising of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. This contains the most diverse and best known Indian fossils which mainly are from the Cretaceous.
It is dominated by sauropods, like the Titanosaurus, Jainosaurus, Laplatasaurus and many Titanosaurid eggs and theropods such as Indosuchus, Indosaurus, Compsosuchus, Iubbulpuria, Laevisuchus, Dryptosauroides, Coeluroides and Ornithomimoides with a few omithischians like Lametasaurus and Brachypodosaurus. - The Kota Formation of Gondwana Supergroup in Godavari Basin-Early Jurassic remains are confined largely to the Kota Formation. It also contains fossils of creatures such as Crossopterygians, Pterosaurs, Teleosairrids and Symmetrodonts. It contains a possible omithopod and two sauropods. Barapasaurus and Kotasaurus.
- The Trichinopoly and Ariyalur Formations in Cauvery Basin -Triassic deposits include the Mated Formation, which has yielded Temnospondyls, Rhynchosaurs, Phytosaurs, Cynodonts and the small theropod Alwalkeria, and the Dharmaram Formation which contains several unidentified dinosaurs including Iwo prosauropods.So much for distribution what happened to all the eggs that these dinosaurs produced?
An Indian dinosaur natural site abounds with eggs that never hatched. Digging them out of their rocky graves some were found to be ellipsoidal while most were spheroidal ranging in diameter from l0 to 211cm.
Whose eggs were these? Well paleontologists have designated different names to them according to their structure. ‘Megaloolithus’ literally mean line eggs. These may have been the babies of Titanosaurus or others belonging to the same family. Elongatoolithus are generally assigned to treat eating dinosaurs – A third type of egg, much like the modem day hens’, was the Omithischian, but without any embryos within it is impossible to ascertain whether they belonged to small theropods or birds.
Ornthischian Egg
Shell Microstructure (Pathological Section of Dinosaur Egg)
Why was no little dinosaur, or developing embryo found within these eggs?
Well, no scientist can say for certain, except perhaps conjuncturing about the likely cause. Some say that the hatcheries may have been flooded drowning these unformed babies.
Still others add that perhaps these eggs were pathologically abnormal. How? Well, it seemed that they had exceedingly thick shells, which in all probability could not absorb oxygen. Thus the eggs could not develop. A third theory suggests that these were unfertilized eggs which were produced in large quantities.
Why were they unfertilized? Perhaps during the later stages the female population exceeded the male, progressively wiping out the entire population. But whatever the cause we need more research to conclusively prove anything!
| Did you know that the tribal’s that inhabitate the dinosaurs material belt were familiar with these dinosaur eggs? Only they did not know what it was. What did they do with it? Well, they worshipped the eggs! Everyone believed that these eggs are part of God. In fact these and smooth stones were deified as symbols of Shiva and magical occurrence in clutches of five to six made their belief more powerful and their presence mystical. |
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- Floods
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- Coastal States, particularly on the East Coast and Gujarat are vulnerable to cyclones.
- 4 crore hectare landmass is vulnerable to floods
- 68 per cent of net sown area is vulnerable to droughts
- 55 per cent of total area is in seismic zones III- V, hence vulnerable to earthquakes
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- Mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction in Developmental Strategy-Prevention and mitigation contribute to lasting improvement in safety and should beintegrated in the disaster management. The Government of India has adopted mitigation and prevention as essential components of their development strategy.
- Mainstreaming of National Plan and its Sub-Plan
- National Disaster Mitigation Fund
- National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Project (NERMP)
- National Building Code (NBC):- Earthquake resistant buildings
- National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP)
- Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project (ICZMP)-The objective of the project is to assist GoI in building the national capacity for implementation of a comprehensive coastal management approach in the country and piloting the integrated coastal zone management approach in states of Gujarat, Orissa and West Bengal.
- National Flood Risk Mitigation Project (NFRMP)
- National Project for Integrated Drought Monitoring & Management
- National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme (NVBDCP)- key programme
for prevention/control of outbreaks/epidemics of malaria, dengue, chikungunya etc., vaccines administered to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to diseases like measles, diphtheria, pertussis, poliomyelitis etc. Two key measures to prevent/control epidemics of water-borne diseases like cholera, viral hepatitis etc. include making available safe water and ensuring personal and domestic hygienic practices are adopted. - Training
- Education
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- Hyogo Framework of Action- The Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA) 2005-2015 was adopted to work globally towards sustainable reduction of disaster losses in lives and in the social, economic and environmental assets of communities and countries.
- United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)-In order to build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters through the implementation of the HFA , the UNISDR strives to catalyze, facilitate and mobilise the
commitment and resources of national, regional and international stakeholders of the ISDR
system. - United Nation Disaster Management Team (UNDMT) –
- To ensure a prompt, effective and concerted country-level support to a governmental
response in the event of a disaster, at the central, state and sub-state levels, - To coordinate UN assistance to the government with respect to long term recovery, disaster mitigation and preparedness.
- To coordinate all disaster-related activities, technical advice and material assistance provided by UN agencies, as well as to take steps for optimal utilisation of resources by UN agencies.
- To ensure a prompt, effective and concerted country-level support to a governmental
- Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR):-
- GFDRR was set up in September 2006 jointly by the World Bank, donor partners (21countries and four international organisations), and key stakeholders of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR). It is a long-term global partnership under the ISDR system established to develop and implement the HFA through a coordinated programme for reversing the trend in disaster losses by 2015.
- Its mission is to mainstream disaster reduction and climate change adaptation in a country’s development strategies to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards.
- ASEAN Region Forum (ARF)
- Asian Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC)
- SAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC)
- Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER):-The Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER) is a regional training programme initiated in 1998 by the United States Agency for International Development’s, Office of U.S Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) to strengthen disaster response capacities in Asia.
- Policy guidelines at the macro level that would inform and guide the preparation and
implementation of disaster management and development plans across sectors - Building in a culture of preparedness and mitigation
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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
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inclusive approach addressing the disadvantaged sections of the society towards disaster risk reduction. - Addressing climate risk management through adaptation and mitigation
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A disaster is a result of natural or man-made causes that leads to sudden disruption of normal life, causing severe damage to life and property to an extent that available social and economic protection mechanisms are inadequate to cope.
The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) of the United Nations (U.N.) defines a hazard as “a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.”
Disasters are classified as per origin, into natural and man-made disasters. As per severity, disasters are classified as minor or major (in impact). However, such classifications are more academic than real.
High Powered Committee (HPC) was constituted in August 1999 under the chairmanship of J.C.Pant. The mandate of the HPC was to prepare comprehensive model plans for disaster management at the national, state and district levels.
This was the first attempt in India towards a systematic comprehensive and holistic look at all disasters.
Thirty odd disasters have been identified by the HPC, which were grouped into the following five categories, based on generic considerations:-
Water and Climate Related:-
Geological:-
Biological:-
Chemical, industrial and nuclear:-
Accidental:-
India’s Key Vulnerabilities as articulated in the Tenth Plan, (2002-07) are as follows:
Vulnerability is defined as:-
“the extent to which a community, structure, service, or geographic area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of particular hazard, on account of their nature, construction and proximity to hazardous terrain or a disaster prone area”.
The concept of vulnerability therefore implies a measure of risk combined with the level of social and economic ability to cope with the resulting event in order to resist major disruption or loss.
Example:- The 1993 Marathwada earthquake in India left over 10,000 dead and destroyed houses and other properties of 200,000 households. However, the technically much more powerful Los Angeles earthquake of 1971 (taken as a benchmark in America in any debate on the much-apprehended seismic vulnerability of California) left over 55 dead.
Physical Vulnerability:-
Physical vulnerability relates to the physical location of people, their proximity to the hazard zone and standards of safety maintained to counter the effects.
The Indian subcontinent can be primarily divided into three geophysical regions with regard to vulnerability, broadly, as, the Himalayas, the Plains and the Coastal areas.
Socio-economic Vulnerability:-
The degree to which a population is affected by a calamity will not purely lie in the physical components of vulnerability but in contextual, relating to the prevailing social and economic conditions and its consequential effects on human activities within a given society.
Global Warming & Climate Change:-
Global warming is going to make other small local environmental issues seemingly insignificant, because it has the capacity to completely change the face of the Earth. Global warming is leading to shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels. Along with floods, India also suffers acute water shortages.
The steady shrinking of the Himalayan glaciers means the entire water system is being disrupted; global warming will cause even greater extremes. Impacts of El Nino and La Nina have increasingly led to disastrous impacts across the globe.
Scientifically, it is proven that the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, and in the next fifty to sixty years they would virtually run out of producing the water levels that we are seeing now.
This will cut down drastically the water available downstream, and in agricultural economies like the plains of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar, which are poor places to begin with. That, as one may realise, would cause tremendous social upheaval.
Urban Risks:-
India is experiencing massive and rapid urbanisation. The population of cities in India is doubling in a period ranging just two decades according to the trends in the recent past.
It is estimated that by 2025, the urban component, which was only 25.7 per cent (1991) will be more than 50 per cent.
Urbanisation is increasing the risks at unprecedented levels; communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable, since high-density areas with poorly built and maintained infrastructure are subjected to natural hazards, environmental degradation, fires, flooding and earthquake.
Urbanisation dramatically increases vulnerability, whereby communities are forced to squat on environmentally unstable areas such as steep hillsides prone to landslide, by the side of rivers that regularly flood, or on poor quality ground, causing building collapse.
Most prominent amongst the disasters striking urban settlements frequently are, floods and fire, with incidences of earthquakes, landslides, droughts and cyclones. Of these, floods are more devastating due to their widespread and periodic impact.
Example: The 2005 floods of Maharashtra bear testimony to this. Heavy flooding caused the sewage system to overflow, which contaminated water lines. On August 11, the state government declared an epidemic of leptospirosis in Mumbai and its outskirts.
Developmental activities:-
Developmental activities compound the damaging effects of natural calamities. The floods in Rohtak (Haryana) in 1995 are an appropriate example of this. Even months after the floodwaters had receded; large parts of the town were still submerged.
Damage had not accrued due to floods, but due to water-logging which had resulted due to peculiar topography and poor land use planning.
Disasters have come to stay in the forms of recurring droughts in Orissa, the desertification of swaths of Gujarat and Rajasthan, where economic depredations continuously impact on already fragile ecologies and environmental degradation in the upstream areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Floods in the plains are taking an increasing toll of life, environment, and property, amplified by a huge population pressure.
The unrestricted felling of forests, serious damage to mountain ecology, overuse of groundwater and changing patterns of cultivation precipitate recurring floods and droughts.
When forests are destroyed, rainwater runs off causing floods and diminishing the recharging of groundwater.
The spate of landslides in the Himalayas in recent years can be directly traced to the rampant deforestation and network of roads that have been indiscriminately laid in the name of development.
Destruction of mangroves and coral reefs has increased the vulnerability of coastal areas to hazards, such as storm surges and cyclones.
Commercialisation of coastal areas, particularly for tourism has increased unplanned development in these areas, which has increased disaster potential, as was demonstrated during the Tsunami in December 2004.
Environmental Stresses:- " Delhi-Case Study"
Every ninth student in Delhi’s schools suffers from Asthma. Delhi is the world’s fourth most polluted city.
Each year, poor environmental conditions in the city’s informal areas lead to epidemics.
Delhi has one of the highest road accident fatality ratios in the world. In many ways, Delhi reflects the sad state of urban centers within India that are exposed to risks, which are misconstrued and almost never taken into consideration for urban governance.
The main difference between modernism and postmodernism is that modernism is characterized by the radical break from the traditional forms of urban architecture whereas postmodernism is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions.
Illustration of Disaster Cycle through Case Study:-
The processes covered by the disaster cycle can be illustrated through the case of the Gujarat Earthquake of 26 January 2001. The devastating earthquake killed thousands of people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses and other buildings.
The State Government as well as the National Government immediately mounted a largescale relief operation. The help of the Armed Forces was also taken.
Hundreds of NGOs from within the region and other parts of the country as well as from other countries of the world came to Gujarat with relief materials and personnel to help in the relief operations.
Relief camps were set up, food was distributed, mobile hospitals worked round the clock to help the injured; clothing, beddings, tents, and other commodities were distributed to the affected people over the next few weeks.
By the summer of 2001, work started on long-term recovery. House reconstruction programmes were launched, community buildings were reconstructed, and damaged infrastructure was repaired and reconstructed.
Livelihood programmes were launched for economic rehabilitation of the affected people.
In about two year’s time the state had bounced back and many of the reconstruction projects had taken the form of developmental programmes aiming to deliver even better infrastructure than what existed before the earthquake.
Good road networks, water distribution networks, communication networks, new schools, community buildings, health and education programmes, all worked towards developing the region.
The government as well as the NGOs laid significant emphasis on safe development practices. The buildings being constructed were of earthquake resistant designs.
Older buildings that had survived the earthquake were retrofitted in large numbers to strengthen them and to make them resistant to future earthquakes. Mason and engineer training programmes were carried out at a large scale to ensure that all future construction in the State is disaster resistant.
This case study shows how there was a disaster event during the earthquake, followed by immediate response and relief, then by recovery including rehabilitation and retrofitting, then by developmental processes.
The development phase included mitigation activities, and finally preparedness actions to face future disasters.
Then disaster struck again, but the impact was less than what it could have been, primarily due to better mitigation and preparedness efforts.
Looking at the relationship between disasters and development one can identify ‘four’ different dimensions to this relation:
1) Disasters can set back development
2) Disasters can provide development opportunities
3) Development can increase vulnerability and
4) Development can reduce vulnerability
The whole relationship between disaster and development depends on the development choice made by the individual, community and the nation who implement the development programmes.
The tendency till now has been mostly to associate disasters with negativities. We need to broaden our vision and work on the positive aspects associated with disasters as reflected below:
1)Evolution of Disaster Management in India
Disaster management in India has evolved from an activity-based reactive setup to a proactive institutionalized structure; from single faculty domain to a multi-stakeholder setup; and from a relief-based approach to a ‘multi-dimensional pro-active holistic approach for reducing risk’.
Over the past century, the disaster management in India has undergone substantive changes in its composition, nature and policy.
2)Emergence of Institutional Arrangement in India-
A permanent and institutionalised setup began in the decade of 1990s with set up of a disaster management cell under the Ministry of Agriculture, following the declaration of the decade of 1990 as the ‘International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction’ (IDNDR) by the UN General Assembly.
Consequently, the disaster management division was shifted under the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2002
3)Disaster Management Framework:-
Shifting from relief and response mode, disaster management in India started to address the
issues of early warning systems, forecasting and monitoring setup for various weather related
hazards.
National Level Institutions:-National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA):-
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was initially constituted on May 30, 2005 under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister vide an executive order.
SDMA (State Level, DDMA(District Level) also present.
National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC)
Legal Framework For Disaster Management :-
DMD- Disaster management Dept.
NIDM- National Institute of Disaster Management
NDRF – National Disaster Response Fund
Cabinet Committee on Disaster Management-
Location of NDRF Battallions(National Disaster Response Force):-
CBRN- Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear
Policy and response to Climate Change :-
1)National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC)-
National Action Plan on Climate Change identified Eight missions.
• National Solar Mission
• National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
• National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
• National Mission for Sustaining The Himalayan Ecosystem
• National Water Mission
• National Mission for Green India
• National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
• National Mission for Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change
2)National Policy on Disaster Management (NPDM),2009-
The policy envisages a safe and disaster resilient India by developing a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster oriented and technologydriven strategy through a culture of prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response. The policy covers all aspects of disaster management including institutional and legal arrangements,financial arrangements, disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness, techno-legal regime, response, relief and rehabilitation, reconstruction and recovery, capacity development, knowledge management, research and development. It focuses on the areas where action is needed and the institutional mechanism through which such action can be channelised.
Prevention and Mitigation Projects:-
Early Warning Nodal Agencies:-
Post Disaster Management :-Post disaster management responses are created according to the disaster and location. The principles being – Faster Recovery, Resilient Reconstruction and proper Rehabilitation.
Capacity Development:-
Components of capacity development includes :-
National Institute for Capacity Development being – National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM)
International Cooperation-
Way Forward:-
Principles and Steps:-
The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.