41 minute read
Changing India's Energy Mix to Green Energy
Climate change has resurfaced as a foundation of the United States' partnership with India since Joe Biden assumed office as president. It was revealed during a recent online conference of the Quad countries' chiefs of state — Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.
“We will form a climate working group to boost climate efforts worldwide on mitigation, adaptation, resilience, technology, capacitybuilding, and climate finance,” the leaders said in a joint statement. Our specialists and top officials will meet on a regular basis, and our foreign ministers will meet at least once a year. By the end of 2021, we will have an in-person meeting for leaders.”
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Climate change was raised as a topic of conversation during the first major meeting (although virtual) between the US president and the Indian prime minister. However, this isn't the first time that climate change has been used to break the ice between the two leaders.
In March 2000, then-US president Bill Clinton paid a visit to India at a time when bilateral relations were only beginning to warm up following the economic sanctions put on India following the nuclear tests at Pokharan in May 1998. Despite predictions that Clinton would speak about defence and security, there were signs that the focus will be on green diplomacy.
Clinton unveiled a package of green assistance while speaking in the foreground of the Taj Mahal, confirming this prediction. What impact would pollution have on children if Taj's walls might acquire "marble cancer," he questioned while vowing support for power sector reforms, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. When Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited the United States later in 2000, the green diplomacy continued.
The Paris Agreement, India has been steadily increasing the growth rate of renewable energy in comparison to conventional energy, as part of its INDC pledge.
However, the circumstances between 2000 and 2021 have changed drastically. India's carbon dioxide emissions in 2000 were 0.97 billion tonnes (BT), whereas the United States were 6 BT, according to statistics gathered by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC). India's emissions increased to 2.62 BT in 2019 (the most recent statistics available), whereas the United States' emissions decreased to 5.28 BT. In terms of per capita CO2 emissions, India had 0.93 tonnes in 2000, while the United States had 21.29 tonnes, which had changed to 1.91 tonnes and 16.06 tonnes in 2019. The United States was one of the nations with binding emission reduction objectives under the Climate Change Convention in 2000, but India did not. The Kyoto Protocol allowed the two nations to work together under the Clean Development Mechanism, which allowed the United States to get carbon credits for its mitigation and adaptation efforts in India. However, by 2021, India will be just as dedicated to reducing emissions as the United States. Even though it was self-mandated through the planned nationally decided contributions, the Paris Agreement of December 2015 obligated every country to establish emission reduction objectives (INDCs). Climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives give an excellent opportunity for diplomatic and corporate cooperation in the altered paradigm, where India has big energy transformation goals.
The energy transition in India
India declared its anticipated nationally determined contributions for emission reduction on October 2, 2015, before the Conference of
Parties (COP) in Paris. It pledged to reduce the emissions intensity of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 33 to 35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. To increase the share of renewable energy in the country, it was planned that by 2030, non-fossil fuel-based energy resources would account for roughly 40 per cent of total electric power installed capacity. By 2030, an India declared its extra carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent will be generated through anticipated increased forest and tree cover, nationally boosting carbon sequestration. determined The INDC commits to generating contributions for emission reduction 175 gigawatts (GW) of electricity capacity from renewable sources by 2022. Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to go beyond the on October 175 GW planned for 2022 and 2, 2015, subsequently up to 450 GW before the at the United Nations General Conference of Parties (COP) Secretary's Climate Action Summit on September 23, 2019. in Paris Since the Paris Agreement, India has been steadily increasing the growth rate of renewable energy in comparison to conventional energy, as part of its INDC pledge. While the relative growth percentages for renewable and conventional energy in 2015-16 were 6.47 per cent and 5.64 per cent, respectively, in 2019-20, they were 9.12 per cent and 0.12 per cent. The renewable energy sector grew at an annual pace of about 24 per cent between 2016-17 and 2018-19. According to statistics from the Ministry of Power, India has a total installed capacity of 379.13 GW by the end of February 2021. Thermal power capacity accounts for 233.17 GW (61.5 per cent), hydropower for 46.20 GW (12.19 per cent), nuclear power for 6.78 GW (1.79 per cent), and renewable energy for 92.97 GW (24.52 per cent).
A look ahead to 2040
The epidemic has slowed India's energy consumption growth, according to the India Energy Outlook 2021. It was previously predicted that demand will increase by 50 per cent between 2019 and 2030. However, it is currently more in the region of 35 per cent. “By 2040, India will have the highest growth in energy consumption of any country due to its growing economy, population, urbanisation, and industrialization.”
Solar power, according to the research, will surpass coal's proportion of the energy mix in the next two decades, indicating a rapid growth trajectory. India might become a worldwide leader in battery storage as a result of this increased emphasis on stable grids and other sources of flexibility. All of these would assist the government meet its INDC target of using non-fossil fuels for 40 per cent of energy output. Renewable energy is expected to account for 60 per cent of total energy consumption, according to the research.
When a country the size of India, with a population of over 1.3 billion people, embarks on an energy transformation, it draws international attention. The International Energy Agency's India Energy Outlook 2021 study notes, "As the world considers methods to accelerate the speed of transition in the energy sector, India is in a unique position to pioneer a new paradigm for low-carbon, inclusive growth." The study emphasises that government actions will shape India's energy destiny.
One step forward, two steps back?
The signals are mixed in this area of government policy. While the national government encourages the use of renewable energy, fossil fuels are also receiving greater governmental backing. Measures to privatise and authorise commercial coal mining were undertaken as part of a package to aid the country's recovery from the Covid-19 lockdowninduced economic catastrophe.
The government also announced structural changes in the mining industry to make it easier to do business and to reduce the time it takes to get an Environmental Impact Assessment notification. More coal is being dug, and thermal power facilities are being pushed to use domestic coal. Mining changes, such as the establishment of a single-window clearance system and the easing of public hearings for legacy mines, have been implemented. Overall, the message appears to encourage further coal mining.
The government is promoting coal despite the fact that the plant load factor (power generation in relation to the maximum power available) for thermal power plants have fallen from 77.5 per cent in 2009-2010 to 55.99 per cent in 2019-20. The energy deficit — the gap between the country's energy demands and its energy output — fell from 10.1 per cent in 2009-10 to 0.5 per cent in 2019-20 throughout the same time period. Thus, even if thermal power plants have produced less in terms of capacity over the last ten years, the energy deficit has not increased, showing that alternative energy sources have developed to cover the void and even created additional space.
Legacy and new issues might lose Green's shine
The traditional view of the energy transition is that it is a good environmental shift when fossil-fuel-based energy generation is replaced with renewable energy. This is only true on the surface because the shift not only continues certain historical difficulties but also adds new ones. As a result, India is on the verge of a worldwide change, with the potential and responsibility of making the process ecologically and socially just.
Land disputes will persist unless precautions are taken, as solar photovoltaic electricity is expected to supplant thermal power in the future decades. A 1,000 megawatt (MW) thermal power plant utilising indigenous coal would require 574 hectares, according to a 2007 Central Electricity Authority assessment (1,420 acres). If the power plant employs imported coal and is located near the shore, the risk is considerably reduced.
In comparison, each megawatt (MW) of solar photovoltaic takes 2.5 hectares of land, according to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. Because the packing density of wind and biomass is lower than that of solar, the land need is higher. According to recent research published in Scientific Reports by the Nature Group, if solar energy accounts for 54 per cent of India's total energy output by 2050, it will take 0.7 per cent to 0.9 per cent of the country's entire geographical area.
The energy shift in India will put more strain on the land than the thermal energy it will replace. This might imply a larger conversion of agricultural areas, biodiversity-rich regions, or sites set aside for other development purposes. It might also lead to further land disputes.
Installing solar panels on roofs can minimise the amount of land needed, but decentralised energy gathering and delivery could pose more management challenges. Furthermore, only utility-scale solar power aggregation can assist India in making the large-scale change that it requires.
The notion of anchoring solar photovoltaic panels on aquatic bodies is a relatively recent outgrowth. As a result, environmental issues may arise.
Renewable energy initiatives may also be an option for addressing underlying environmental concerns. For example, the international airport in Kochi, Kerala, is shown as a completely solar-powered facility. Despite its accomplishment, the airport was inundated during the storms of 2018 and 2019, forcing all relief and rescue operations to be conducted from the smaller naval airport. The airport is built on reclaimed paddy fields at a bend in the Periyar River, making it flood-prone and hence a non-climate resilient construction. Another issue that India faces as it pursues large-scale adoption of electric vehicles is maintaining a clean battery supply chain.
Growth with sustainability and equity
Given that India's energy development is still in its early stages, the switch to renewable energy can help keep the country's greenhouse gas emissions from skyrocketing. Reduced emissions might result in lower average temperature rises over the subcontinent, smaller changes in agricultural output, and fewer and less severe extreme weather occurrences.
These are definitely outcomes to strive towards. However, the methods of transition are just as essential as the ultimate result, and this is both an opportunity and a difficulty. Green may not be what the country aims for if energy transition objectives are met without taking into account negative environmental and social consequences. The task at hand is to perfect the procedure. In the next decades, this is the chance for India's growth to be both sustainable and equitable.
PRESIDENT BIDEN LOOKS AT HIS TENURE’S FIRST SUMMER HOLIDAY
Even after over six months of work amid fighting the deadly coronavirus, discussing a bipartisan development bill and mending the United States image abroad, President Joe Biden, must be heading out on holiday and a traditional holiday break from Washington. But with legislative work on the infrastructure bill has kept the Senate in session for a second straight, Biden had not gone far but he was at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, as he did all these. Stressing that presidents cannot ever really tune out, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that most of the presidents often worked, it hardly meant where they were. President, Biden must spend some time at the White House before he decamps again, either for Delaware — he owns homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach. The incumbent president was not at all free from work, tethered by secure telephone lines and other technology with a coterie of top aides and advisers often closed by.
As such, like his predecessors, Biden travelled with a large entourage of aides, Secret Service agents and journalists in an instantly recognizable motorcade of over a dozen dark vehicles.
Although, the work goes on 24/7, the presidents can or even often change their surroundings, particularly when month witnesses growing and humidity and Washington empties out. Former president, George W. Bush, mostly spent the month of August clearing brush in the 100-degree heat that baked his central Texas ranch. Barack Obama functioned on his golf game on the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. Smilarly, Donald Trump spent time at his home on his private golf club in central New Jersey. In spite of being in vacation, none of the presidents ignored receiving briefings on national security, the finance and the other serious issues, attending to matters of state and mapping out future plans.
Likewise, Biden and his aides have also resolved to converse relevant issues, comprising getting the USD1 trillion infrastructure bill through the Senate, strategizing next steps to counter surging the deadly coronavirus infections and looking into the given deadline for the United States’ pullout from Afghanistan. The director of Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, Jeffrey Engel, said that he would say a vacation for a president really meant working two-thirds of a day as were opposed. He also offered them a little bit more time for a round of golf in the afternoon or for lounging on a beach for a few hours. Engel added, “The presidents are never off duty”.
For example, Bush would sort of symbolize the vacation by having his regular morning security briefing at 8 a.m. instead of at 7 a.m. As such, no crises would turn over trip of Biden, as he decided to leave Washington for longer than a weekend. The first impeachment trial of Trump spread over his 2019 Christmas holidays at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. He spent much of his final winter holiday in office stewing over his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, a loss he has refused to acknowledge.
Obama disrupted his Christmas vacation in Hawaii in 2012 to return to Washington when he was not able to negotiate a compromise with Congress to avoid acrossthe-board tax increases. Then he flew back to Honolulu to rejoin first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters. He replied to the beheading of American journalist, James Foley, by Islamic State militants during the summer vacation of his family on Vineyard of Martha in 2014.
George W. Bush was at his Texas ranch when Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in late August 2005. Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes against al-Qaida terrorists from Martha’s Vineyard in response to the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. President George H.W. Bush, chalked out the United States reply to the invasion of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait in the year 1990 from his family’s oceanfront compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
As such, while being at home in Wilmington, Biden ventured out to play golf, attend Mass and head to his sister’s Pennsylvania home for family dinner. He has been to the home in Rehoboth Beach just once so far, spending several days there with first lady Jill Biden in early June to celebrate her 70th birthday. They rode bicycles on a nearby trail. It was unclear whether Biden will get more time at the beach this summer.
POLICE SEARCHES JOURNALIST’S HOUSE IN RUSSIA
The Russian police had in the last week of July 2021 searched the house of the Editor In-Chief of an investigative news site, which was recently chosen as a Foreign Agent’. The fresh move of the authorities is meant to put pressure on the freedom of media, ahead of the scheduled parliamentary elections in the country. The occurrence came into light only after the Editor In-Chief of the Insider news site, Roman Dobrokhotov, tweeted that the police were knocking his door and his wife reported the raid to the OVD-Info legal aid group before her phone turned inaccessible. that were brought by this sexagenarian leader would allow him to continue into power until 2036. Despite, he has been in Power for the last two decades.
The government has chosen many independent media outlets and journalists as ‘foreign agents’ — a label that implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong derogatory connotations that may discredit the recipients. Out of the targeted outlets comprising VTimes and Meduza, the VTimes was subsequently shut down, citing the loss of advertisers and the Meduza launched a crowd-funding campaign after
Pravozashchita Otkrytki, an advocate from a legal aid group headed the apartment of Dobrokhotov. “The police seized cell phones, laptops and tablets during the raid. They also seized passport of Dobrokhotov. A journalist from the Insider, Sergei Yezhov, said that Dobrokhotov was likely to visit outside of Russia on July 28, 2021. Police also raided the parents’ home of Dobrokhotov. Dobrokhotov was taken to police custody for interrogation & then released, after the raid. Dobrokhotov said that it would become more difficult to work. “I do not have cell phones, I can’t travel and meet my colleagues”, he added.
The Insider Report revealed that the Russian opposition party supporters, independent journalists and human rights activists were facing widespread pressure from the Government ahead of the upcoming elections that is largely being witnessed as vital part of the effort of the President Vladimir Putin to strengthen his rule ahead of the scheduled Presidential election in 2024. The recent constitutional changes
encountering the same problem. The Insider was the latest addition to the list. The news outlet, which is registered in Latvia, has worked with the investigative group Bellingcat to investigate high-profile cases, such as the nerve agent poisonings of former Russian spy Sergei Sripal and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The Justice Ministry of Russia worked under a law that often acted to designate as foreign agent to non-governmental organizations, media outlets and individuals who get foreign funding and engage in activities vastly termed as political. Another regulation may be used to outlaw groups deemed ‘unwanted’ and makes membership in them a criminal offense. It has been used to ban 41 groups, comprising opposition groups, foreign NGOs & recently, the publisher of Proekt, an online investigative media outlet. The Ministry of Justice also chose two Proekt journalists and three other reporters as foreign agents. Russia used the law to levy heavy fines on the broadcasters funded by the United States Radio Free Europe for failing to recognize its objects as produced by foreign agents. The broadcaster has asked the European Court of Human Rights to intervene.
The Insider says, the raids focusing Dobrokhotov is supposed to be connected to a slander case launched in April 2021 after getting a complaint by a Dutch blogger. This media group also accused Max van der Werff of working with Russian intelligence and military services to spread false information challenging the findings of the official investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine that killed about 298 people on board. Dobrokhotov was a witness in a criminal case against some unidentified persons who were on the charges of slander, launched over a tweet in Dobrokhotov’s account containing disinformation about the downed Boeing MH-17”, the legal aid group revealed. During the last week of July, the Russian officials blocked almost 50 websites linked to the imprisoned opposition leader Navalny. It all happened almost a month after a court in Moscow outlawed Navalny’s political infrastructure — his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a network of regional offices — as extremist in a ruling, which can prevent people associated with the groups from seeking public office and exposes them to lengthy prison terms. The fiercest political foe of Putin, Navalny, was arrested in January while he was returning from Germany.
AFTER TOKYO OLYMPICS, TSIMANOUSKAYA FLIES WARSAW ON HUMANITARIAN VISA
Sprinter of Belarusian Olympic, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, flew into Warsaw on a humanitarian visa after leaving the Tokyo Olympics. According the Deputy Foreign Minister, Marcin Przydacz, said that the 24-year-old athlete had returned in the Polish capital after flying in from Tokyo via Vienna.
The diplomat said that he wanted to thank all the Polish consular and diplomatic staff involved that had flawlessly planned and secured her journey safe. The airbus in which she was traveling on from Vienna was directed to a different airport building in Warsaw used by government officials. The police vehicles were witnessed across the airport. The travelers said that a young woman was left on the board soon after they came out from the plane and were put on buses to the main terminal.
Later on Tsimanouskaya was witnessed with a top Belarusian rebel in Poland, Pavel Latushko, in a photo taken just after her arrival inside the airport building. Latushko, through het Twitter handle said that they were glad that Kristina Timanovskaya had managed to get to Warsaw safely. She also added that she would be able to return to a “New Belarus” and continue her career there. Tsimanouskaya said, the Belarus team officials tried to force her to fly home soon after she criticized them. Later she appealed that the International Olympic Committee had taken into the dispute and some European Nations sought offer assistance. It is still not clear what would be the next for the runner — either in her sporting life or her personal one. Prior to leaving her Japan she hoped to continue her running career but that safety was her instant priority.
A top Austrian government official, soon after the plane of Tsimanouskaya arrived in Vienna, said that they were very happy that she was safe there. The runner, at the Vienna airport, was protected by the Austrian police officers, public broadcaster ORF reported, and stayed in the transit area. Tsimanouskaya flew first to Austria instead of directly to Poland on the advice of Polish authorities for security reasons. The entire episode started after the criticism of Tsimanouskaya of how officials were managing her team set off a massive backlash in state-run media in Belarus, where the government has relentlessly stifled any criticism. The runner, Instagram, said on that she was put in the 4x400 relay even though she has never raced in the event. She accused team officials of hustling her to the Tokyo airport but she refused to board a plane home and was protected by Japanese security. “The officials made it clear that, upon return home, I would definitely face some form of punishment”, Tsimanouskaya told the media through video call from Tokyo. The sprinter called on international sports authorities to investigate the situation, who gave the order, who actually took the decision that I can’t compete anymore.
When contacted through phone, the head of the delegation of the Belarus at the Tokyo Olympics, declined to comment. The standoff has drawn more attention to Belarus’ uncompromising authoritarian government. When the country was rocked by months of protests following a presidential election that the opposition and the West saw as rigged, authorities responded by arresting some 35,000 people and beating thousands of demonstrators. In recent months the government has orchestrated a strong crackdown on independent media and opposition figures. President Alexander Lukashenko has strong desire in sports, seeing it as a key point of national prestige.
Noticeably, he presided the Belarus National Olympic Committee for almost a quarter century before handing over the job to his son in February 2021. Besides, his government showed that it was willing to go to extreme lengths to target its critics. In May 2021, Belarus authorities diverted a European passenger jet to the capital of Minsk, where they arrested an opposition journalist on board. Amid Tsimanouskaya’s rift with team officials, two other Belarusian athletes announced their intention to stay abroad. Heptathlete Yana Maksimava said she and her husband, Andrei Krauchanka, who won silver in the decathlon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, would remain in Germany.
The airbus in which she was traveling on from Vienna was directed to a different airport building in Warsaw used by government officials.
OCTOGENARIAN VETERANS OF WW II REUNITE AT ITALY’S BOLOGNA AIRPORT
By Colleen Barry
The 97-year-old World War II veteran had on August 23, 2021 met the three siblings — now octogenarians themselves — in person for the first time since the war. Adler held out his hand to grasp those of Bruno, Mafalda and Giuliana Naldi for the joyful reunion at Bologna’s airport after a 20-hour journey from Boca Raton, Florida. Then, just as he did as a 20-year-old soldier in their village of Monterenzio, he handed out bars of American chocolate. It was a happy ending to a story that could easily have been a tragedy.
The very first time the soldier and the children saw each other, in 1944, the three faces peeked out of a huge wicker basket where their mother had hidden them as soldiers approached.
Adler thought the house was empty, so he trained his machine gun on the basket when he heard a sound, thinking a German soldier was hiding inside.
Meanwhile, Adher recalled, “The mother, Mamma, came out and stood right in front of my gun to stop me shooting. She put her stomach right against my gun, yelling, ‘Bambinis! Bambinis! Bambinis!’ pounded my chest”. That was a real hero, the mother, not me. The mother was a real hero. Can you imagine you standing yourself in front of a gun and screaming?
Adler still trembles when he remembers that he was only seconds away from opening fire on the basket. And after all these decades, he still suffers nightmares from the war, said his daughter, Rachelle Donley. The children, aged 3 to 6 when they met, were a happy memory. His company stayed on in the village for a while and he would come by and play with them.
Giuliana Naldi, the youngest, is the only one of the three with any recollection of the event. She recalls climbing out of the basket and seeing Adler and another U.S. soldier, who has since died. “They were laughing,’’ Naldi, now 80, remembers. “They were happy they didn’t shoot.” She, on the other hand, didn’t quite comprehend the close call.
“We weren’t afraid for anything,’’ she said. She also remembers the soldier’s chocolate,
which came in a blue-and-white wrapper. “We ate so much of that chocolate,’’ she laughed. Donley decided during the COVID-19 lockdown to use social media to try to track down the children in the old black-and-white photo, starting with veterans’ groups in North America.
Eventually the photo was spotted by Italian journalist Matteo Incerti who had written books on World War II. He was able to track down Adler’s regiment and where it had been stationed from a small detail
Adler thought the house was empty, so he trained his machine gun on the basket when he heard a sound, thinking a German soldier was hiding inside
in another photograph. The smiling photo was then published in a local newspaper, leading to the discovery of the identities of the three children, who by then were grandparents themselves. They shared a video reunion in December, and waited until the easing of pandemic travel rules made the trans-Atlantic trip possible. “I am so happy and so proud of him. “Because, the things could have been very different in just a second. Because he hesitated, there have been generations of people”, Donley said.
The serendipity isn’t lost on Giuliana Naldi’s 30-year-old granddaughter, Roberta Fontana, one of six children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren who descended from the three children hidden in the wicker basket. “Knowing that Martin could have shot and that none of my family would exist is something very big,” Fontana said. “It is very emotional.”
During his stay in Italy, Adler will spend some time in the village where he was stationed, before traveling on to Florence, Naples and Rome, where he hopes to meet Pope Francis.
MIGRANTS TERM INORDINATE DELAYS ACROSS BORDERING VILLAGES OF SERBIA
In the first view, this small village of Serbia appears drowsy and nearly abandoned, like various others across the Balkan country. But the close view exposes a parallel facts lived by its impermanent migrant residents that are struggling to cross from Serbia over strongly guarded borders with adjacent European Union states Romania and Hungary.
With the European Union neighbors, Majdan has been one of the hubs along Serbia’s border, where migrants remain stranded for over a month while making dozens of failure efforts to cross the border and move toward the Western Europe. It summarizes their problem as they cannot go forward and cannot go back. The officials refused and the migrants reveal few stories of being constantly pushed back at the border, especially that is being termed is an illegal anti-migrant approach.
As such, the vacated buildings serve as impermanent passage for those fled their own homes in the Middle East, Africa or Asia with the motive to start fresh life in other places. Hence at present, Majdan is hosting almost 200 migrants — almost lesser than the registered population of the villages. A 24-year old Palestinian, Marsel Abohosein, said that the border was closed and it appeared a big problem across Romania. He said, “Over the past few months, I tried almost 20-30 times to cross the border but often threw back by them. Later I was caught by Police and sent back to Serbia”. Large number of migrants moving heather and thither in scorching heat through corn or sunflower fields toward the border with Romania seems to be common in Majdan. The determination of migrants often shows their strong willpower and capacity to work in hardship in their quest for a better future. As the border of Hungry with Serbia is powerfully fenced to prevent passage, migrants in Majdan often head towards Romania first and then Hungary from there. Large chunk of other people also stuck in Serbia and focusing for Croatia in the west, or heading towards Bosnia first and then Croatia, an EU member with a standing for police brutality against migrants that the officials had refused.
In spite of number of allegations of abuse, nations towards the rout of the migrant in Europe have rejected repulse and violence claims that are normally very tough to validate independently. One, Aadam Ahmed, a resident of Somalia said that the police in Romania and Hungary had pushed him back to Serbia almost nine times over the past few months. “I often come to this house and wash my clothes, apart from preparing food. But the very next time, I will move other place”.
The Human Rights activists have repeatedly cautioned that push backs are a infringement of both international and EU norms that has banned forcible returns of people to other countries without knowing about the individual circumstances or allowing them to apply for asylum. Majdan area is now being considered as one of the flashpoints involving one or more forms of ill-treatment and infringement of human rights, including physical abuse, abusive and degrading treatment and denied access to asylum procedures. It involved 3,403 persons in various nations and also alleged that the parents are being alienated from their children by different border officials & pushed back.
The entire work seems like a partnership between the Danish Refugee Council and six civil society organizations. These numbers alone are disgraceful, but behind the statistics are real children, women and men. Often, these people have had not one, but multiple such experiences, at the same or different bordering regions. Most of the migrants in Majdan were unwilling to talk to the media. They feared retribution or that talking to journalists could harm their efforts. Not capable to cross on their own, the migrants frequently want help from the smugglers or other people to guide them over the borders.
On the other end of the hamlets, the migrants mostly used an old sofa to sit outside during the day.
ALLOTTING OBC QUOTA IN MEDICAL SEEMS A COMMENDABLE STEP
By Tejas Harad
The Central Government has now decided to execute recently demanded reservation laws meant for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as well as the Economically Weaker Sections (EWSs) in the all-India quota (AIQ) scheme, particularly for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from 2021-22 sessions. Over the past few years, the demand for the OBC quota in AIQ was raging in courts and other places. Majorities of people were in confusion that whether the issue related to the OBC quota was in AIQ with the National Eligibility-cumEntrance Test aka NEET.
But in fact, there is no specific relation between the duos. Whether there should be a standardized common entrance test across the nation for medical or students need to get admission on the basis of their 12th standard marks is another debate and not connected to the issue of reservation. Actually, the NEET was first conducted in the year 2013 but it was discontinued from the very next year & but again it was reintroduced in 2016. The AIQ scheme was started on the apex court order in the year 1986.
According to this, 15 per cent of undergraduate and 50 per cent seats are surrendered by state medical and dental colleges to the AIQ. It means the state governments’ policy regarding reservation and domicile do not apply to the AIQ. In the beginning of this scheme, the central government had already provisioned for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservation. Besides, many state governments had made provisions for OBC reservation too. And hence, the Apex Court turned the AIQ a reservation-free scheme. If the AIQ seats were remained with the states, in a state like Tamil Nadu, for example, 69 per cent of these seats would have gone to SCs, STs and OBCs.
In 2007, the Supreme Court rectified its mistake while granting reservations to the SCs and STs in the AIQ. Even this time, the OBCs were still not included in the AIQ. Even today, most state governments like: West Bengal, had implemented reservation laws for the OBCs, and the center, in the beginning of January 2007, had extended reservation for OBC to the higher educational institutions. In July 2020, the Madras High Court ultimately ruled that the students belonging to the OBC categories could also avail prescribed facilities in the AIQ from the next academic year. However the central government was still dragging its feet to implement the high the orders of the High Court that led to the HC reprimanding the government two weeks ago. The story of OBC reservation in the AIQ is a known to all. At first the laws meant for Bahujans are enacted unwillingly and even when they are passed in Parliament, the union government as well as government institutions does not show much enthusiasm in implementing them.
The Indian Institutes of Management are recognized to flout reservation laws in faculty recruitment and time and again have demanded that they be exempted from these laws. However, the IIMs are not the only culprit here. If given a chance, most public institutions would be more than happy to avoid quotas meant for SCs, STs and OBCs. This stands in stark contrast to the EWS quota. Even though this quota came on the statute books only in 2019, most governments and public institutions have exposed incredible eagerness in executing
it. Note that this quota operates just like the quotas meant for the SCs, STs and OBCs, besides is meant particularly for the upper castes. The conclusion to execute OBC quota in the AIQ is a welcome one. Despite, it became possible only because anti-caste activists and some pro-people parties raised their voice incessantly inside and outside the court for the past few years. There was no reason for this issue to drag on for so long though.
An act of Parliament prescribed 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs and all the government had to do was to realize it. The decision of health ministry will probably pave the way for executing OBC reservation in all government departments and institutions including the IIMs and IIT. The central government is tapping itself on the back for giving ministerial berths to several Bahujans in its cabinet reshuffle and is claiming credit for OBC reservation in the AIQ as well.
(The writer is senior journalist and commentator on social issues).
POLICYMAKERS, CITIZENS CAN GET ADEQUATE BENEFITS OF IPCC REPORT
The Union Government’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently released its 6th Assessment Report (AR6). Almost 3 years of work by over 230 scientists from across the world, has found the strongest and clearest report to date from the IPCC. The organization has assessed over 14,000 scientific publications on the subject of climate change. As per the report the latest weather disaster—be it floods during the monsoon season or heat waves and wildfires from across the world. These extreme events are some of the ways in which climate change manifests itself and this report provides a punctuation mark by putting them in the climate change context.
The new report states unequivocally that the human influence on climate is already influencing many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Climate change has led to other widespread and rapid changes in the last few decades with the scale of recent changes unprecedented over thousands of years.
At the same time, in the Indian territory, the Indian Ocean is finding the fastest rate of warming and sea level rise globally with grave consequences for coastal flooding and the added threat of stronger tropical cyclones. The monsoon rainfall that our country critically depends on has been adversely affected by the greenhouse gases and polluting particles that are emitted by burning fossil fuels. The frequency and intensity of hot extremes as well as heavy rainfall events have increased as a consequence of warming. As we emit more of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases, we will experience heat and temperature, and the changes we face will grow as a result.
The monsoons are supposed to become stronger but also more variable leading to increased severity of wet and dry events. Snow-covered areas and snow volumes will decrease, and glaciers will lose mass. Growing temperature and rainfall can increase the occurrence of glacial lake outburst, floods and landslides over the Himalayas—predictions that have become reality of late. However, some changes could be slowed, and others could be stopped by limiting warming—through strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases. That weather and climate extremes will become more widespread, frequent and intense as the climate warms is a call for action. If we as a society have to live with the changes that have already occurred and will occur in the future, we will have to build strategies for adaptation. Current ways of dealing with extreme weather and climate events are still focused more on the short-term with early warning systems prior to a disaster followed by post-disaster management.
The shift to distant work doesn’t really help, by the same perfunctory. Individuals can begin to seem like nothing with the exception of a picture on the screen. Individuals from every office normally wind up having their virtual calls just with others from their space
It has inherent limitations as it comes to the growing hazards that we are facing as a consequence of regular global warming. First, the prediction of a cyclone or some weather event is very different from predicting the full impacts of the storm surge, the rainfall and stream flows that compound the impacts of such events. Understanding and predicting how these effects interact with the built infrastructure and the human dimension is an even harder problem and still at a nascent stage even in the most advanced countries.
In order to plan for increasing frequencies and magnitudes of disasters will require policymakers to first recognize and then invest in comprehensive systems that are aimed at managing the risk to society. Second, the costs of repeated disasters need to be better represented in our calculations of the true cost of climate change and any actions we may take to mitigate climate change. Without better analysis and decision support systems, the job of policy makers is not only going to get harder but will potentially be crippled by inadequate information.
The report has direction on the way usable information can be derived at regional and local scales and climate services can be developed to aid policy and action. A handy feature of the current report is also a dynamic online Atlas that allows people to visualize observed and modeled data from specific regions of interest, and use these to quickly perform relevant analysis.
RECENT RESHUFFLE EXPOSE ASSORTED, WIDE-RANGE PERSPECTIVES OF SAFFRON CABINET
By Ram Prasad Tripathy
Among other major steps, the first cabinet expansion by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, after assuming charge for the second term in May 2019, is being termed as socially most diverse and inclusive in the history of the Indian parliamentary, in the pursuit of realizing a ‘New India’. And hence, with the recent reshuffle, the Prime Minister has infused young blood and has also given representation to various social groups, and regions to bring into governance the ‘collective voice of all of India’. With the inclusion of 43 new faces in the Council of Ministers, of whom 15 took oath as Cabinet ministers and 28 as ministers of state, the overall strength of the Union Cabinet has risen to 78, including the Prime Minister. The New Modi Cabinet 2.0 includes the vibrancy and color of India’s various communities and regions and is represented by almost all sections of the society. Therefore, it will be not an exaggeration if we call this new cabinet, a true reflection of India’s diversity that ensures representation for India’s poor, socially oppressed and backward, various states and regions, women, and youth.
Following the expansion, the Modi cabinet 2.0 has also become the government of many ‘Firsts’. This cabinet is also energized with the Youth power – to foster innovation and change. The outgoing Cabinet had an average age of 61 years, whereas the average age of the new cabinet is 58 years, in which, 14 ministers, including six in the cabinet, are below the age of 50 years. In the same way, drawing from various sectors of the talent pool and expertise from various walks of life, the ministry includes 13 lawyers, six doctors, five engineers, seven former civil servants, seven PhDs, and three MBAs, with more than 68 having graduate degrees. For a country to be empowered, the empowerment of women is extremely vital.
Acknowledging this fact, Prime Minister Modi in the last seven years has ensured that women are given ample benefits, and equal and plentiful opportunities. Going by the tremendous amount of work done
for the welfare of women, this period will undoubtedly be remembered as the most significant period for ‘Women Empowerment’ in the recent history of India. Further continuing this effort and shaping New India’s growth story, this is probably the first time in independent India where the Prime Minister included 7 women ministers, including two cabinet ministers, taking their overall strength to 11. This transition shows that India is transforming from women development to ‘womenled development’ under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the context of social justice, the recent changes in the Union Cabinet are going to have far-reaching implications. For the first time in the post independent India, Modi government 2.0 has a record 12 Scheduled Caste Ministers, including two Cabinet Ministers, from across eight States–
Bihar, MP, UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu, and representing 12 SC communities including – Chamar, Ramdassia, Khatik, Pasi, Kori, Madiga, Mahar, Arundathiyar, Meghwal, Rajbonshi, Matua-Namashudra, Dhanga and Dusadh. Likewise, there is a record eight ST Ministers in Modi cabinet and they represent eight States – Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Assam. These eight ST Ministers, including 3 Cabinet Ministers, come from seven ST Communities – Gond, Santal, Miji, Munda, Tea tribe, Kokana and Sonowal–Kachari. Similarly, for the first time a record 28 OBC Ministers, including five Cabinet Ministers, from across 15 States and 20 communities – Yadav, Kurmi, Jat, Gurjar, Khandayat, Bhandari, Bairagi, Tea Tribe, Thakor, Koli, Vokkaliga Tulu Gowda, Ezhava, Lodh, Agri, Vanjari, Meitei, Nat, Mallah–Nishad, Modh Teli and Darzi, with many of the communities getting a seat in the cabinet for the first time, are included in the government. The minorities also got adequate representation with five Minority Ministers from across five States – Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab and Arunachal Pradesh. One Muslim, one Sikh, one Christian, two Buddhist, including three Cabinet Ministers in the government, resonate the basic mantra of Modi government ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’ Apart from it 29 Ministers are from other communities like Brahmin, Kshatriya, Baniya, Bhumihar, Kayasth, Lingayat, Khatri, Kadva and Leuva Patel, Maratha, Reddy, and Nair etc.
The Modi government has also included the experience of seniors – seasoned administrators and legislators to anchor and guide. Altogether 46 ministers have prior experience of being Ministers in the Central Government and 23 have been elected to Parliament for three or more terms – bringing in more than a decade of Parliamentary experience with them. Like many firsts, the Modi government has also for the first time included faces from almost all the states– bringing the soul of Federalism into the Central government.
At present the government has Ministers from 25 States and UTs. Five former CMs, 23 former Ministers in State Governments and 38 former MLAs – with State legislative experience will definitely enrich the government with their long experience in their respective States. The induction of new faces in the cabinet has undoubtedly infused new energy, dynamism and determination in the government. Needless to say, the new look government is brimming with confidence to counter any challenge that comes in the way of India’s emergence as a world leader.
The new Cabinet for ‘New India’ has representation from across all the states and regions of the country representing the length and breadth of the country. With it Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given a clear cut message that Social justice and Gender justice is no longer about symbolic or ceremonial presence but a more robust and result-oriented representation at crucial decision-making positions, that only can bring meaningful results.
Therefore, with the inclusion of a sizeable number of SCs, STs and OBCs, and ample number of women this will be the most socially diverse and inclusive council of ministers in the political history of the country. By making the weaker sections of our society decision makers and stakeholders in the affairs of the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has heralded a refreshing and historic change for the overall development of these sections to realize the dream of the founding fathers of the nation.
