India has various kinds of terrain which is challenging prospect when it comes to water conservation. Here are ten traditional methods that are still used.
Having a varied terrain India poses a challenging prospect when it comes to water conservation and water usage. One particular solution is thus not applicable to different areas of the country. In addition, while the use of technology and advancement of science can provide ready solutions, sometimes, traditional time-tested ways can help fulfil the requirements of people in a much more effective way.
Here is a list of some of the traditional water conservation systems that are still in use:
Kul
Kuls are diversion channels that carry water from a glacier to village. Often spanning long distances, with some over 10 km long, kuls have been around for centuries. They are the lifeline of people of Spiti valley of Himachal Pradesh and in Jammu too.
Kul starts at the glacier, which is to be tapped. Keeping the head clear of debris is achieved by lining the sides of Kul with stones which ensure that there is no seepage or clogging. The Kul leads to the village where the water is stored in a circular water tank. The water is drawn from here are per the need of the village.
Bamboo Drip Irrigation System
This system of water conservation and usage of stream and spring water is done using bamboo pipes. Practised in Meghalaya, its primary purpose is to irrigate plantations. This 200-year-old system involves 18-20 litres of water entering the bamboo pipe system every minute to irrigate the fields downhill. A brilliant drip irrigation system, it uses bamboos of various sizes and reduces the output to to 20-80 drops per minute, which is splendid for betel leaf and black pepper crops.
The whole irrigation system is made up of different forms of bamboo pipes of varying cross sections which take the water from perennial springs on the tops of the hill. The flow of water is controlled by the changing pipes positions. The method is so efficient that it enables the water to be dropped at the base of the plant to ensure there is no runoff and wastage.
Johads
Alwar district of Rajasthan is one of the driest regions in India with water scarcity being a common occurrence. After the drought of the 1980s, the villagers attempted to revive the traditional method. Johad, a crescent shaped small check dam built from earth and rock to intercept and conserve rainwater, was thus reinvented. This helps to improve percolation and increases groundwater recharge.
By recharging the aquifer below the surface, Johads have helped increase agriculture in the area. Usage of Johads has also helped increase the flow of river Arvari, making it a perennial river now. It earlier used to dry off after the monsoon.
Zabo
Zabo means impounding water. Known locally as the Ruza system, this system is a unique combination of water conservation with animal care, forests and agriculture. Mostly practised in Nagaland, Zabo is used to deal with a lack of drinking water supply. During monsoon, rainwater that falls on the hilltops is collected into the pond like structures that are carved out on the hillsides. The water is then passed onto cattle yards below from where the water enters the paddy fields rich in manure.
The paddy fields can be used to rear fishes as well thus giving a yield of about 50-60 kg/ hectare as extra output. Quite a few medicinal plants and herbs are also grown nearby. These ponds are made in such a way that water distribution is uniform.
Eri
One of the oldest water conservation systems in India, Eri (tank) of Tamil Nadu is still widely used around the State. With over a third of irrigation in the State being made possible due to Eri, the traditional water harvesting system plays an important part in the agriculture. They also have other advantages such as prevention of soil erosion, recharge of groundwater, and flood control.
Eri can either be fed through channels that divert river water, or rain-fed ones. They are usually interconnected to balance the water in case of excess or lesser supply.
Khadin
Khadin is a water conservation system designed to store surface runoff water for the purpose of agriculture. It entails an embankment built around a slope, which collects the rainwater in an agricultural field. This helps moisten the soil and helps in preventing the loss of topsoil. Additionally, spillways are provided to ensure that excess water is drained off.
This system of water conservation is common in the areas of Jaisalmer and Barmer in Rajasthan. A dug well is usually made a bit further from Khadin to additionally take advantage of groundwater recharging that happens around the structure.
Virdas
Developed by the nomadic Maldhari tribes of Rann Of Kutch, virdas are shallow wells dug within a natural depression(Jheel). Since the area around is very saline, when rainwater seeps down the soil, it collects over the saline groundwater due to the difference in density (rainwater being less dense). The tribesmen identify areas on basis of flow of the monsoon runoff and build these shallow wells.
This smart method helps them separate freshwater from saltwater and provide water for a variety of purposes. Vegetation is planted along virdas to help protect them.
Surangam
Surangam is a traditional water conservation system present in areas of Karnataka and Kerala. The terrain of the area makes it impossible for people living around to survive only on surface water. Thus a complex labyrinth of fine tunnels are built which constitutes horizontal wells dug in laterite rocks. The Surangam can be of varying length and can even go up to 300 metres. Water is collected into a storage tank using gravitational force. Vertical shafts are provided for airflow.
The population nearby depends mainly on these horizontal wells for their water requirements. They are also used to irrigate crops such as paddy and coconut. What is also important that the water from Surangam is of good quality.
Ahar Pynes
This is a water conservation technique indigenous to South Bihar. Due to a variety of reasons including sandy soil, temporal river flow, low groundwater levels etc, floodwater harvesting is considered as the most suitable option for the area.
Ahar consists of a catchment basin embanked on three sides, at the end of a rivulet or a canal that leads from a river. Pynes are artificial channels, which were constructed to use river water for agriculture. The process starts from the river, from where the water goes to pynes and eventually lands up in an ahar. Although the system suffered under British rule, it has again been rejuvenated for agricultural purposes, especially in the district of Gaya.
Kunds/Kundis
With the look of an upturned cup nestling in a saucer, these water conservation structures are built to harvest rainwater. Usually dotting the areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat, they have a saucer shaped catchment area sloping towards the centre to where the well is situated.
To prevent debris from falling into the well, a wire mesh is used while the sides of the well pit are covered with lime and ash, which act as a disinfectant. Usually, the depth and diameter of these kunds depend upon the purpose of use i.e. drinking or for domestic usage.
There are many other methods too that are practised in various combinations. These methods have been around for hundreds of years, and with a lot of areas suffering from water scarcity, it may be time to revisit some other traditional methods to help innovate new ways of revival.
Using these methods, we can help combat monsoon failure by rain water conservation
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.