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15th June 2021
High-level Dialogue on Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought
Recently, the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi gave a keynote address at the UN 'High-Level Dialogue on Desertification, Land degradation and Drought'.
Initiatives adopted by India to check land degradation
Crisis in Tigray Region
Famine conditions in Tigray Region
- The Prime Minister acknowledged that India has taken the lead to highlight land degradation issues at international forums.
- The Delhi Declaration of 2019 called for better access and stewardship over land, and emphasised gender-sensitive transformative projects.
- India has enhanced the combined forest cover to almost one-fourth of the country's total area by adding 3 million hectares of forest cover over the last decade.
- India is on track to achieve its national commitment of Land degradation neutrality.
- India is also working towards restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 which would contribute to India's commitment to achieve an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
- India is assisting fellow developing countries to develop land restoration strategies in the spirit of South-South cooperation.
- A Centre of Excellence is being set up in India to promote a scientific approach towards land degradation issues.
- Bring attention to recovery opportunities during and after the COVID-19 pandemic that can be aligned with action to address DLDD through job-creating projects.
- Elevate the discourse on DLDD issues’ global significance for the entire SDG agenda and for climate, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction.
- Build upon the commitments and initiatives from Member States and stakeholders made during the Summits on Biodiversity and Climate Change.
- Encourage all UN Member States to adopt and implement Land Degradation Neutrality targets and National Drought Plans, in line with implementing the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction.
- Call for countries to support the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund and other funding mechanisms to scale up land restoration by all sectors of society.
- Share experiences and best practices, cutting-edge technologies and innovative business models that advance green, resilient and inclusive recovery strategies.
- Land use, biodiversity loss and climate change: Land degradation currently undermines well-being of 3.2 billion people i.e. more than 40 per cent of the entire world population.
- The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimates that over 70 per cent of all natural, ice-free land has been transformed by human activity, devastating global biodiversity.
- Water scarcity, drought, wildfires and migration: The climate change is worsened by unsustainable land use, with many regions suffering more frequent and prolonged droughts.
- The droughts and climate change are intensifying the incidence of wildfires that devastated roughly 30 million acres of land in the global north and south from 2018-2020 alone.
- By 2025, two-thirds of the world could be living under water-stressed conditions, with 1.8 billion people experiencing absolute water scarcity.
- Land use, zoonoses and building back better: Unsustainable land-use change, including deforestation, has been identified as the primary driver of emerging infectious diseases.
- Combating desertification, land degradation and drought, and achieving land degradation neutrality, are key to accelerate achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
- It is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management.
- It was established in 1994.
- It addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands.
- India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention for Combating Desertification (UNCCD).
- The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is the nodal Ministry of Government of India that oversees implementation of the Convention in the country.
- The scheme was launched on a pilot basis in four states in 2019.
- The government decided a nation-wide rollout of the scheme in all states and Union Territories by March 2021.
- The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution in association with State/UT Governments is implementing ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ (ONORC) plan.
- It is aimed at nation-wide portability of ration cards under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA).
- Under ONORC, the beneficiaries can lift their entitled foodgrains from any ePoS (electronic Point of Sale device) enabled Fair Price Shop (FPS) of their choice by using their same/existing ration cards with biometric authentication on the ePoS device.
- The identification of eligible beneficiaries and issuance of ration cards to them for distribution of foodgrains under NFSA lies with the concerned State/UT Government.
- Any citizen, who is declared under Below Poverty Line (BPL) category, will be eligible to get the benefit of this scheme across the country.
- The directions under Section-38 of the NFSA have been issued to all States/UTs to cover all eligible disabled persons under the NFSA.
- All States/UTs have also been advised to identify needy persons from the weaker sections of the society including disabled persons and issue NFSA ration cards to all eligible persons/households.
- The beneficiaries will be identified on the basis of their Aadhaar based identification through the electronic point of sale (PoS) device.
- Around 80 crore beneficiaries are entitled to receive subsidised food and grain under the National Food Security Act 2013 but only 23 crore ration cards have been issued in all the states and Union Territories of the country.
- A beneficiary with ration card could only purchase subsidised food and grain from the PDS (Public Distribution System) which was assigned to them in their locality.
- The scheme aims to ensure all beneficiaries, especially migrants get ration (wheat, rice and other food grains) across the nation from any Public Distribution System (PDS) shop of their own choice.
- The scheme is launched with the purpose that no poor person should be deprived of getting subsidised food grains under the food security scheme when they shift from one place to another.
- It aims to reduce instances of corruption by middlemen and fraudulence in ration cards to avail benefits from different states.
- The scheme is also aimed at reducing the incidents of hunger deaths in the country, to further improve rankings in the Global Hunger Index.
- The change in the consumer price index over a period of time is referred to as CPI-based inflation, or retail inflation.
- The CPI is an index measuring retail inflation in the economy by collecting the change in prices of most common goods and services used by consumers.
- The CPI is calculated for a fixed list of items including food, housing, apparel, transportation, electronics, medical care, education, etc.
- The CPI specifically identifies periods of deflation or inflation for consumers in their day-to-day living expenses.
- The CPI is used as a:
- Macroeconomic indicator of inflation;
- Tool by the central bank and government for inflation targeting and for inspecting price stability; and
- Deflator in the national accounts
- The domestic investor sentiment will likely take a hit, given concerns about rising inflation and contracting industrial production.
- The steep increase in commodity costs, especially oil prices, has started to gradually worry markets about the likely impact on corporate earnings.
- It might lead to concerns that the central bank will be compelled to normalise liquidity by revising interest rates sooner than anticipated.
- The excess liquidity in the system combined with volatility in fuel prices can pose upward risk to inflation.
- In India, there are four consumer price index numbers, which are calculated, and these are as follows:
- CPI for Industrial Workers (IW)
- CPI for Agricultural Labourers (AL)
- CPI for Rural Labourers (RL) and
- CPI for Urban Non-Manual Employees (UNME)
- The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation collects CPI (UNME) data and compiles it but the remaining three are collected by the Labour Bureau in the Ministry of Labour.
- The wholesale inflation has been rising for five months, and is expected to rise further as the impact of high crude prices and surging commodity prices feeds in.
- It would cause the retail inflation to rise as well, putting the central bank on a tightrope walk in balancing the growth-inflation dynamics.
- The food inflation component for retail inflation rose significantly higher to 5.01 per cent in May from 1.96 per cent in the preceding month.
- The items that pushed retail inflation were fuel which recorded an inflation of 11.6 per cent, transport and communication at 12.6 per cent, edible oil at 30.8 per and pulses at 9.3 per cent.
- The high rate of inflation in May 2021 is primarily due to low base effect and rise in prices of crude petroleum, mineral oils viz. petrol, diesel, naphtha, furnace oil etc. and manufactured products.
- The continued rise in global crude oil prices, a weaker rupee and the upward revision in domestic fuel prices remain risk factors for the upcoming WPI print.
- The scholars have suggested that Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with a history of 2000 years.
- Robert Caldwell (1814-1891), in his book ‘A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages’ had called Tulu as one of the most highly developed languages of the Dravidian family.
- In between 14th to 15th century the oldest inscriptions were available in Tulu.
- These inscriptions are in Tigalari script and it is found in Barkur (capital of Tulu nadu) during Vijaynagar period.
- Tulu is a Dravidian language.
- It is spoken mainly in two coastal districts Dakshina Kannada and Udupi of Karnataka and Kasaragod district of Kerala.
- As per the 2011 Census report, there are 18,46,427 Tulu-speaking people in India.
- It has a rich oral literature tradition with folk-song forms like paddana, and traditional folk theatre yakshagana.
- It has an active tradition of cinema with around 5 to 7 Tulu language movies produced a year.
- The Tulu speakers, mainly in Karnataka and Kerala, have been requesting the governments to give it official language status and include it in the eighth schedule to the Constitution.
- The official languages mentioned under eighth schedule are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.
- According to Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy president Dayananda G Kathalsar, people who speak Tulu are confined to the above-mentioned regions of Karnataka and Kerala.
- They are informally known as Tulu Nadu.
- Tulu is not an official language in the country.
- If included in the eighth schedule, Tulu would get recognition from the Sahitya Akademi.
- The Karnataka government introduced Tulu as a language in schools a few years ago.
- In the year 2020, a total of 956 children from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts wrote Tulu as the third optional language in SSLC (Class 10) examination.
- In 2020, ‘Jai Tulunad’ conducted an online campaign demanding to include Tulu in the new National Education Policy (NEP).
- The Maharashtra government set up a 27 per cent quota in local bodies for OBCs in 1994.
- The 27 per cent reservation was applicable to all urban (Municipal Corporations, Councils and Nagar Panchayat) and rural bodies (Zilla Parishad, Panchayat Samiti and Gram Panchayat) across the state.
- In Maharashtra, the OBCs include the Denotified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category.
- The quota for OBCs increased their representation in rural and urban local bodies.
- As per the Mandal Commission report, the last caste-wise census was conducted in 1931 and it was later discontinued.
- The Mandal commission worked out the OBC population to be 52 per cent and recommended a 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in view of the SC judgment limiting reservation up to 50 per cent.
- There was already a 22.5 per cent reservation for SC and ST categories and the Mandal Commission report recommended 27 per cent reservation in government jobs and promotions along with others.
- The Mandal Commission report gave momentum to OBC leaders and the community’s demand for a caste-wise census of OBC.
- The SC stated that the section 12(2)(c) of the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961 may be invoked only upon complying with the triple conditions before notifying the seats reserved for OBC category in the concerned local bodies.
- The Section 12(2)(c) deals with reserving the 27 per cent seats in Zilla Parishads for OBCs.
- The triple conditions included:
- Setting up a dedicated Commission to conduct contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies;
- Specify the proportion of reservation required to be provisioned local body-wise in light of recommendations of the commission.
- Such reservation, in any case, shall not exceed the aggregate of 50 per cent of the total seats reserved in favour of SCs, STs and OBCs taken together.
- The apex court observed the reservation for OBCs is only “statutory”, to be provided by the state legislations, unlike the “constitutional” reservation regarding SCs/STs which is linked to the proportion of the population.
Crisis in Tigray Region
- In November, local government officials in Tigray had told Reuters that some 2.2 million people had been displaced by the fighting and many forced to flee to neighbouring countries.
- Ethiopia’s federal National Disaster Risk Management Commission disputed the number of displaced people.
- In April, the UN said investigations by news organisations and independent observers had revealed that sexual violence was being used as a “weapon of war”.
- The UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said Tigray was now also witnessing widespread famine.
- The term ‘famine’ was used after the release of an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis update.
- It uses a standardised scale originally developed by the UN, integrating “food security, nutrition, and livelihood information into a statement about the nature and severity of a crisis”.
Famine conditions in Tigray Region
- According to the IPC analysis, famine conditions in Tigray are in phase 5 which starts with a catastrophe warning and rises to a declaration of famine in a region.
- According to the IPC analysis, approximately 350,000 people out of Tigray’s 6 million population are experiencing famine.
- The Eritrean forces were “trying to deal with the Tigrayan population by starving them”, blocking supplies to over a million people.
- It is a widespread condition in which many people in a country or region are unable to access adequate food supplies.
- A natural disaster, such as a long period of drought, flooding, extreme cold, typhoons, insect infestations, or plant disease, combined with government decisions on how to respond to the disaster, can result in a famine.
- The famine might be initiated by a natural disaster, and a government's inability or unwillingness to deal with the consequences of that event may magnify the effects.
- Human events also lead to famine and a major human cause of famine is warfare.
- During war, crops are destroyed, either intentionally or as a result of combat.
- In addition, supply lines and routes are cut off, and food cannot be distributed or is prevented from being distributed by combatants.
- It is India’s first such device which functions even without electricity.
- It is adapted to both kinds of oxygen generation units like O2 cylinders and oxygen pipelines in hospitals.
- It is a leak-proof, low-cost CPAP delivery system.
- It is designed for a 22mm CPAP closed circuit tube.
- It can deliver high flow oxygen (20–60 LPM) while maintaining a continuous positive pressure of up to 20 cm H2O.
- It is designed to maintain FiO2 of above 40% with a PEEP (positive end-expiratory pressure) of 5-20 cm H2O.
- The Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is a treatment method for patients having breathing problems during sleep called sleep apnea.
- The machine uses mild air pressure to keep the airways open for easy breathing.
- It is also used to treat infants whose lungs have not fully developed.
- The treatment is all the more necessary during early stages of the Covid-19 infection.
- It reduces lung damage and allows patients to recover from the inflammatory effects.
POSTED ON 15-06-2021 BY ADMIN
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