GS II Topic: Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies.
Vigilance Awareness Week, 2016
The Indian Railways has observed of Vigilance Awareness Week, 2016 with a Pledge taking ceremony by Officers and staff.
- Theme- “Public participation in promoting integrity and eradicating Corruption” .
- This is aimed to reinforce commitment of officials towards bringing about integrity and transparency in all spheres of their activities and to fight corruption with vigour.
- There is a special focus on sensitizing the youth and to achieve this objective through lectures, panel discussions, debates, discussions, plays, essay writing competitions etc.
GS II Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources, issues relating to poverty and hunger.
Empowerment of differently abled
Registrar General of India has released Census 2011 data on Disabled Population in the age-group 5-19 by their Attendance Status in Educational Institutions and type of Disability.
Observation
- There are 380.1 million people in the age group of 5-19 years, of which 269.8 million (71%) are attending educational institutions. In all, 44.9 million (11.8%) people have attended schools earlier, while 65.4 million (17.2%) have never been to a school.
- There were about 6.57 million disabled people in the age group of 5-19 at Census 2011 in India out of which 4.02 million people (61.2%) are attending educational institutions (2.28 million (56.7%) are males and 1.74 million (43.3%) are females).
- There is an improvement of about 11 percentage points for the disabled persons attending schools in the age group 5-19 during the decade 2001-2011.
- Disabled persons with ‘any other disability’ show the highest percentage (71.2%) in attending educational institution followed by ‘seeing’ (68%), ‘hearing’ (67%), ‘movement’ (59.6%), ‘speech’ (58.9%), ‘mental retardation’ (47.2%), ‘multiple disability’ (37.2%) and least with ‘mental illness’ (34.1%).
- Maximum percentage of disabled persons who attended educational institution earlier is seen in ‘movement’ (17.7%) followed by ‘mental illness’ (15.5%), and least in ‘multiple disability’ (8.4%).
- on the basis of percentage of differently abled attending school-Kerala> TN> Karnataka
India and Nepal must build on their unique political, social and economic ties
For India, Nepal is the “Punya Bhoomi”, as Prime Minister often reminds us. Nepal’s sacred geography is a living repository of the Subcontinent’s spiritual heritage. For Nepal, India is the vast economic hinterland and may well be called its “Karma Bhoomi”. (For example, the fact that India offers the citizens of Nepal national treatment on its soil. Nepalese are free to come and work in India including in its Central government services. Nepal on its part allows its citizens to serve in large numbers in the Indian army.) If their destinies are inseparably intertwined, problems have often arisen whenever Delhi or Kathmandu has acted against the logic of extraordinary interdependence.
Problems
- Delhi’s too deep an involvement in Nepal’s internal affairs- India’s frequent political interventions fuel the demands in Nepal for breaking the interdependence. Delhi must learn to resist the temptation to meddle in Nepal’s political processes. Frequent interventions, in pursuit of tactical goals, damage India’s strategic interests in Nepal.
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Nepal’s internal divisions make its political classes seek Delhi’s intervention in their favour and resent it when the Indian moves help their opponents. If Nepal has a settled constitutional framework and its elites share power on that basis and ensure peaceful political transitions, Delhi will have no reason for injecting itself into its internal disputes.
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If geography makes Delhi the most important economic partner for Kathmandu, Nepali leaders have often politicized commercial cooperation with India at great costs to the people. Delhi, which must take the larger share of the blame, has had no economic imagination beyond formal aid projects that increasingly ran into political resistance from the Left in Nepal.
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Political vs economic- While Delhi’s political classes see Nepal as a mere extension of India and the security establishment views the northern neighbour as part of India’s exclusive sphere of influence, the economic decision makers have treated Nepal as a separate sovereign entity. Delhi’s economic separatists have done more damage to the relationship than the political separatists in Nepal.
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Little appreciation for the value of trading with neighbours has allowed the border infrastructure to deteriorate and turned an open frontier into a huge barrier for trade and commerce. In the last two decades, India has indeed talked about regionalism and connectivity; but progress has been very slow.
Way forward-
- Implementation of major infrastructure projects.
- Changing the nature of the frontier through trade facilitation, simplifying transit arrangements, removing non-tariff barriers, improving transborder roads, improving the ease of business for Nepali enterprises and making life easier for Nepali citizens working in India.
For all the political efforts in Kathmandu to construct a political symmetry between relations with Delhi and Beijing, the logic of economic geography tilts Nepal massively towards India. If Delhi has allowed this advantage to dissipate over the decades, Beijing is trying to overcome its geographic disadvantage through mega projects like the Tibet Railway. But Nepal’s nearest ports will always be in India and the Gangetic plain will remain its largest market. If only Delhi respects the logic of its profound interdependence with Kathmandu and acts in tune with it, it would have fewer reasons to worry about China’s rising profile in Nepal.
10th Indo-Nepal Joint Exercise Surya Kiran
- Indo-Nepal Joint Military Exercise Surya Kiran-X has commenced at Army Battle School, Saljhandi, Nepal. It is conducted annually, alternatively in Nepal and India.
- The Surya Kiran series of Exercises are of all the exercises involving India Surya Kiran series with Nepal is the largest in terms of troop’s participation.
- The aim of this exercise is to conduct battalion level joint training with emphasis on Counter Terrorism in mountainous terrain. Aspects of Disaster Management have also been included in the exercise.
Rashtriya Ekta Diwas
- It was observed on 31stOctober across the nation on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
- The theme this year is Integration of India.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.