Ranked alphabetically, here is a list of eight notable women from India and the world who have consistently worked for the betterment of our planet. Celebrating this women’s day we thank these strong women for their spirit and perseverance, and hope that many young readers find these accounts aspirational and inspiring.
Ellen Churchill Semple: Environmental Determinism (This was a geography optional question in UPSC mains 2014)
Women’s day all about acknowledging the effort of women in everyday life. Therefore, we may perhaps begin with Semple for her constant effort for asserting, “Man is a product of the earth’s surface. This means not merely that he is a child of the earth, dust of her dust; but that the earth has mothered him, fed him, set him tasks, directed his thoughts, confronted him with difficulties that have strengthened his body and sharpened his wits, given him his problems of navigation or irrigation, and at the same time whispered hints for their solution”. These golden words were in the opening passage of her pivotal literary work, ‘Influence of Geographic Environment’. With this she established herself as founder of environmental determinism, which became an important school of geographical thought advocating nature supremacy over mankind.
Gaura Devi – Mother of Chipko movement
Everyone is familiar about Sunderlal Bahuguna’s Chipko movement. But, very few know about the women behind this movement which first started way back in 1974 under the leadership of Gauri Devi. She encouraged women to hug trees and prevent their cutting. She was the head of the Mahila Mangal Dal at the Reni village. The day loggers came to cut trees, Gauri Devi led 27 women to confront them. She initially tried to talk to them, but soon the loggers resorted to abuse and threats. The women thus decided to hug the trees to stop them from being felled. They guarded the trees all night until the lumbermen surrendered and left. News of the movement soon spread to neighbouring villages and people joined in. Gaura Devi’s effort to save her forests was laudable and should always find a place on the occasion of women’s day celebrations.
Jane Goodall – Foremost ape expert
The common prejudice about female scientists being fragile and emotional about fieldwork is very prevalent – but Jane Goodall became the first exception.This British primatologist and her rigorous 55 yearlong study on the wild chimpanzees in Gomber stream National Park in Tanzania set a different trend for women environmentalists. She is perhaps the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees and is a passionate advocate for animal welfare and conservation. Women’s day celebration would be incomplete without recognizing her efforts.
Kate Sessions: The Tree Lady
Kate session was the first women to graduate from University of California with a science degree. However, seeing that San Diego was indeed a very dry city devoid of plant life, she began a movement that markedly changed the city’s landscape. After starting her horticultural career with a nursery in 1885, she managed to lease 30 acres of land in City Park (now called Balboa Park) in exchange for planting 100 trees a year in the barren park, and 300 trees a year in the rest of San Diego. Today, her gardens and parks are found throughout the City, and Sessions is known as ‘the Mother of Balboa Park’. Her pioneering effort later got her the name Tree Lady this women’s day finds special mention.
Medha Patkar: Narmada Bachao Andolan
This women’s day special list would be incomplete if we don’t mention the name of Medha Patkar, a well known public figure and avid environmentalist recognized world over for her active role in the Narmada BachaoAndolan (NBA), which became a powerful movement against the construction of a large dam on the Narmada River. The proposed multi crore project would have displaced more than 320,000 people. But, because of her consistent effort the authorities gave in, saving the livelihood of thousands of people.The movement is however still on and has gathered a lot is support from various quarters.
Rachel Carson: Silent spring
This American marine biologist stepped into the limelight with her literary work Silent Spring. Through this work, she highlighted the dangers of indiscriminate use of synthetic pesticides. Despite harsh criticism from the chemical industries, she stood strong. Even after Carson’s death, her book fueled public interest in environmental and public health issues and, within a few years, the Nixon Administration formed the Environmental Protection Agency. ‘Silent Spring’ is widely considered one of the twentieth century’s most influential works of non-fiction. Carson’s work for the betterment of environment is a must mention on women’s day.
Vandana Shiva: Organic farming
In order to boost traditional farming practices and empower women, Vandana Shiva, a Delhi based scholar and environmentalist led a campaign to promote traditional local farming practices over uniform solutions. She believes that supporting small, women-run farms can be the key to creating environmentally sustainable food sources that also provide economic growth. Protecting the Earth, she says, is simply a matter of recognizing our place within it. Her progressive thinking and hardwork must be acknowledged on women’s day.
Wangari Maathai – first African laureate
Last but not the least women’s day celebration would be incomplete without mentioning of first African laureate – Wangari Maathai. She founded the green belt movement aimed to train Kenyan women in planting new trees in deforested areas and sustainably earning an income from the land. She has trained more than 30,000 women and pulled them out of the poverty trap. The movement has seen over over 51 million trees planted. For her commitment towards environmental conservation and the advancement of women’s rights, Maathai received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, the first African woman ever to receive the award.
Endnote
Women are contributing in every sphere of life and environment conservation and development is not an exception. These remarkable women environmentalist and nature lover testifies that women can play a crucial role in making our planet livable. It is thus important that their efforts are acknowledged as part of our women’s day celebrations.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.