Bangladesh: Taka 58.00 / Pakistan: Rs 58.00 / Nepal: Rs 38.00 / Sri Lanka: Rs 117.00 / Maldives: Rf 28.00 Bhutan: Ngultrum 24 / Rest of the World (South): US $2.70 / Rest of the World (North): US $3.40 DownToEarth SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY 1-15 FEBRUARY, 2016 SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY Subscriber copy, not for resale `45.00 As half of India reels from drought, more than water, it is the scarcity of fodder that is crippling rural economy LAST STRAW LAST STRAW
Transcript
Bang
lade
sh: T
aka
58.0
0 / P
akist
an: R
s 58
.00
/ Nep
al: R
s 38
.00
/ Sri
Lank
a: R
s 11
7.00
/ M
aldi
ves:
Rf 2
8.00
Bhu
tan:
Ngu
ltrum
24
/ Res
t of t
he W
orld
(Sou
th):
US $
2.70
/ Re
st o
f the
Wor
ld (N
orth
): US
$3.
40
DownToEarthSCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY
1-15 FEBRUARY, 2016
SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY Subscriber copy, not for resale `45.00
As half of India reels from drought, more than water, it is the scarcity of
fodder that is crippling rural economy
LAST STRAWLAST
STRAW
01Cover.indd 1 22/01/16 5:36 PM
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE- New Delhi, India) in collaboration with UNESCO-IHE (Delft, The Netherlands) is launching an online course on "Faecal Sludge Management".About the CourseThis is the first e-learning course dedicated to faecal sludge management. It addresses the planning and organization of the entire faecal sludge management service chain, from the collection and transport of sludge and its treatment options, to the final end use or disposal of treated sludge. The course will provide participants access to updated information and experience from coaching staff in the field as well an opportunity to participate in the international community of professionals. At the end of the course, a formal certificate from an internationally recognized educational institution will be presented. Participants will have the opportunity to enhance their professional career through involvement in projects funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others.
Who can apply?Practitioners (engineers/architects/planners/ representatives of non-governmental organizations and government officials); academicians; consultants; students pursuing courses in environment science/ management/engineering and researchers.
Course Fees: K 10,000/-SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE !For scholarship and course application kindly contact us at [email protected]
How to apply?Fill up the online application form available at http://cseindia.org/fsm/onlinecourse.html
Send your query toCourse Coordinator, FSM, Water management UnitCentre for Science and Environment41, Tughlakabad institutional areaNew Delhi- 110062Ph: 91-11-40616000 (Ext: 225)Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
Last date of Application: March 1, 2016!
02Online Course ad.indd 2 25/01/16 12:18 PM
E D I T O R ’ S P A G E
IN JAMMU, litchi was flowering—much earlier and out of sea-son. This is because winter had not come and it was warmer than usual. But now as the chill has set in, the flowers are fall-ing and there will be no fruit this summer, fear horticultur-ists. In Bihar, standing wheat crops were hit last fortnight by
unseasonal hail and bitter cold that came after days of warmer-than-usual temperatures.
I saw this situation first-hand in the Mewat district of Haryana, where farmers told me they had been suffering for the past three cropping seasons. They were broke as each time they planted crops there was some unseasonal devastation that took a crippling toll. In the summer of 2015, for instance, they had planted rice and first rains were delayed. They begged and borrowed to run expensive die-sel-fuelled tube wells (electricity for agriculture is supposedly as-sured but it goes off when farmers need it most). Finally, paddy was ready. But then came a night of apocalyptic rain—it rained over 250 mm in five hours. This, in a district where average annual rainfall is 500-600 mm. When I visited the village, not even two hours’ drive from Delhi, fields were flooded, crops destroyed. There was deep de-spair in the eyes of every farmer I met.
Let’s leave for the moment the ques-tions—very real and urgent—why these ex-treme weather events are happening in our world with greater frequency and intensity. Let’s discuss instead what we need to do.
First, we need to know that these events are breaking our world. Today, we read more about Snowzilla—the massive snowstorm that has hit the eastern coast of the US—than the hailstorms and freak rain events that are livelihood spoilers in our country. These events have to make news, even if the people who are devastated are not the consuming middle classes. Because if we bury this distress by simply not hearing about it, then we will never understand the magnitude of the catastrophe that is on us.
Second, we need insurance for an increasingly climate-vulner-able world. The question is how insurance will work for the poor, who have little collateral but face the highest risk. Last week, the Union Cabinet cleared a new crop insurance policy called Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (pmfby), which will replace the existing national agricultural insurance scheme. My colleagues, who have studied the state of agricultural insurance in India in their report, “Lived Anomaly: how to enable farmers in India to cope with ex-treme weather events”, find that it is a step ahead in addressing some concerns. But there is a long way to go to design a universal insur-ance scheme, which can be an effective safety net for farmers.
The key problem is estimating the crop damage and then paying for the claim without fuss and delay. In pmfby the insurance unit is now a village, as against the revenue administrative unit of a block in the previous scheme. A block covers a large area with sub-regional variations in weather events. Therefore, if it rains heavily in a few villages but not across the block, then farmers would not be able to claim damage without evidence to show this anomaly. This, when weather stations to record such an anomaly remain grossly inadequate.
The system of verifying claims also remains a problem. State governments are expected to conduct crop-cutting experiments to estimate what would be the actual yield and, thus, estimate the loss. These experiments are often poorly done and do not give real value of the produce. Then, when the claim is filed, the assessment is done by the patwari, the lowest revenue official in the district who is ex-pected to visit and estimate damage. The tales of corruption in this process are legion, as farmers will tell you how the patwari did not
visit or processed claims for people who did not lose crop or simply denied the claim.
The answer will lie in the use of new tech-nologies—remote-sensing to mobile-based image-capturing systems. The new insurance policy talks about the use of mobile phone to improve yield data and timeliness of process-ing claims. But the question will be how this can happen and how fast.
The question also is: who is really the sub-ject of insurance? Is it the farmer or is it the banker? Today crop in-surance is mandatory for all farmers who take a bank loan under the Kisan Credit Card. The insurance policy is a package deal, and in most cases farmers do not even have the requisite information about what it entails. Not only is the insurance premium deducted as an additional charge to the loan, but even when the claim is processed and paid, it is the bank that has the first right on it. All this has to be worked out. Insurance coverage has to be universal and payouts enough to cover losses.
This is one product design that should capture our imagination. This is the true challenge before our climate-risked world.
INSURE FARMERS TO ENSURE FUTURE
@sunitanar
www.downtoearth.org.in/blogger/sunita-narain-3
www.downtoearth.org.in 3 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
03Editors.indd 3 27/01/16 12:58 PM
SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLYDown To Earth
WHAT'S HOT
O N T H E W E B
FOUNDER EDITOR Anil Agarwal
EDITOR Sunita Narain
MANAGING EDITOR AND PUBLISHER
Richard Mahapatra
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Vibha Varshney, Archana Yadav, S S Jeevan
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Arnab Pratim Dutta
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ajit Bajaj
GRAPHIC EDITOR Sorit Gupto
REPORTING TEAM Anupam Chakravartty, Jitendra Choubey, Kundan Pandey, Rajeshwari Ganesan, Shreeshan Venkatesh, Karnika Bahuguna. Jigyasa Watwani
Down To Earth editorial does not endorse the content of advertisements printed in the magazine www.downtoearth.org.in
The 103rd Indian Science Congress concluded on January 7 in Mysuru, amidst calls to build an invention ecosystem for ªMake in Indiaº. Nobel laureate David Gross stressed that ªMake in Indiaº must be preceded
by inventing in India, and discovering in India. There were also calls for increasing the gross domestic expenditure on research and development (gerd) as a percentage of gross domestic product (gdp).
Arjun Ram Meghwal, MP from Bikaner, does his bit in making Delhi a cleaner city. He cycles from Janpath to Parliament whenever it is in session.
PHOTO GALLERY
BLOGSPECIAL FEATURE
`Invent in India before making here'
A conscientious parliamentarian
Can the inter-linking of India's rivers ever become a reality or will it remain a utopian idea, asks A K Ghosh
Delhi's SUV ban staysThe Supreme Court recently ruled that the ban on the sale and registration of diesel vehicles with engine capacities of 2,000 CC and above in Delhi would continue till March 31. The apex court added that it is mulling a ban on the sale and registration of diesel vehicles below 2,000 CC as well. It said it would seek industry's opinion on the matter and would issue an order.
SPECIAL COVERAGE
On web A ̀ Godzilla' El Ni�o to disrupt the world in 2016
On Facebook Why people are abandoning their villages in Uttarakhand
On Twitter Lagos seals off houses sans standard toilets
POPULAR
WIKIPEDIA
PIB
V IKAS CHOUDHARY / CSE
4 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
04web and credits.indd 4 22/01/16 11:47 AM
Stop car saleThis refers to the cover story ªDesperate for clean airº (1-15 January, 2016). The only solution to minimise pollution caused by vehicles is to ban the sale and purchase of cars in metropolitan and other big cities, where the levels of pollution are high.
When the roads are not equipped to handle the growing number of cars in a city, how can their sale be allowed? There is logic in stopping the sale of motor vehicles. When cinema shows are sold out, ticket sales are stopped. The same is the case for trains and flight tickets, so why not in the case of vehicles? The odd-even formula will not solve the pollution problem, but add much more problems for Delhiites.
MAHESH KUMARNEW DELHI
lett
ers
VIKA
S CH
OU
DH
ARY
/ CS
E
Misplaced credit?We, the residents of Khliehshnong village in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district, wish to clarify certain issues brought up in the story, ªMeghalaya springs backº by Karnika Bahuguna (16-31 December, 2015). All the works taken up at the Wah Shari spring in Khliehshnong were implemented by the Soil and Water Conservation Department, Meghalaya, under the Cherrapunjee Ecological Project, for the
restoration of degraded land from 2012-2013, and not by
the Meghalya Basin Develop-ment Authority (mbda). The project was conceptualised by the director of the depart-ment along with his team of officers and staff. In the past, important Central govern-ment officials have visited Wah Shari and lauded the efforts of the department for the project. The claim of the mbda of being the sole executor of the project is, therefore, baseless.
P TARIANG HEADMAN, KHLIEHSHNONG
KARNIKA BAHUGUNA / CSE
www.downtoearth.org.in 5 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
05-07Letters.indd 5 20/01/16 12:33 PM
Author replies:The story mentions that the Soil and Water Conservation Department was roped in for digging recharge trenches to revive the Wah Shari spring. Also, the story was not about one particular spring, but the overall initiative of the Meghalaya government to rejuvenate springs across the state. MBDA is the umbrella organisation which is actively involved in spring rejuvenation encompassing various other departments, including the soil and water conservation department. MBDA is working on spring mapping, protection and rejuvenation in Meghalaya. It claims to have imparted assistance and trained officials from the Soil and Water Conservation Department for spring shed development, including for the Wah Shari spring.
Unconstitutional, undemocraticThe Uttar Pradesh government's move to de-enfranchise the residents of
207 villages is unconstitutional and reeks of an undemocratic attitude (ªLeft without a vote,” 1-15 January, 2016). The Akhilesh Yadav government has denied these people their right to avail the benefits of more than two dozen Union government schemes, which is a clear case of discrimination under the Constitution. Having found their case to be weak and given the rising opposition of the affected residents, the state government surreptitiously tried to de-list some of the villages. This, though, was not done with good intent but rather to weaken the villagers.
It is in the residents' interest to gather collective courage and simultaneously fight the legal battle by way of filing an appeal in the Supreme Court, challenging the decision of the Allahabad High Court, where they failed to put up a strong case.
R M RAMAUL PAONTA SAHIB
Go swadeshiThis refers to the editorial ªIntolerance in Parisº (16-31 December, 2015). The key to recreate a fair climate negotiation regime is to minimise our (the developing world's) dependence on
lett
ers
Is Jallikattu really a “blood sport”?
http://www.facebook.com/down2earthindia
If this sport is cruel, then what will you call the slaughtering of poor animals for food? I cannot understand why people would be willing to go to zoos for watching animals and birds kept in cages than to watch them in action.
MURALIDHARAN GOPALAN
Jallikatu is a sport and a part of Tamil culture. We worship the bull as a god and play with it. What is wrong with that?
Trust me, we will never torture our god.
NAVEEN KUMAR
I have seen Jallikattu, and it is barbaric and cruel. I am against the slaughtering, enslavement or abuse of birds and animals.
SUREN ABREU
It is cruel to deal this way with a helpless animal. And it is certainly not a sport. It should
be banned.SUBROTO BANERJEE
I am surprised that some people still find fun in torturing animals in the name of tradition.
ARUN B INAMDAR
Jallikattu is certainly a blood sport. You cannot call torturing an animal a “sport”.
K MATTHEW
RUPE
SH V
ERM
A
6 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
05-07Letters.indd 6 20/01/16 12:34 PM
The Bhoomi CollegeOffers 1 year Post Graduate Programmes on
Diploma in Science & Management for Sustainable LivingDiploma in Hostarting Aug 2016; Bhoomi Campus: Bangalore
Cutting-edge and unique curriculum, great teachers, participative learning, focus on holistic science, economics, meaningful �ield trips and exploration of psychological and interpersonal strengths...
the developed world's technology in our daily lives, and replace them with indigenous natural solutions. As long as the developing world's (especially India's) markets are flooded with western-made products, western business will know that they have a long-term, sizeable market. It is not a single country's principles or justice which are at stake, but the future of the planet.
BHARATH KUMAR K CHENNAI
The case against meatArchana Yadav takes pleasure in captious criticism of vegetarianism in her article ªTrouble with vegetarian fascistsº (16-30 November, 2015). She has tried to relocate humanity to its primitive stage. She forgets that human beings are cerebral creatures and the most intelligent of all living animated species. It is therefore our duty to establish an order on Earth and dispense equity and justice to all living beings.
Humans have evolved primarily as vegetarians and their anatomy corroborates this fact. Carnivores have
an altogether different structure and anatomy. By describing agriculture as a violent practice, the writer implies that human beings ought to have lived in their primitive state-naked, homeless and incestuous. A further extension of Yadav's hypothesis would mean that there would not be any civilisation. Since Yadav believes in the dictum, "Anything that eats is eaten", should humankind also start eating its own? The writer has chosen to quote western experts like Weston Price and Denise Minger and has overlooked ancient Indian scientists like Charaka and Sushruta. So, this debate is not a balanced and fair analysis of the issue. Vegetarian food is not incomplete as the article surmises. The elephant is a herbivore, yet it is the most powerful mammal on earth. And who says that the meat-eating world is disease-free? Today, the most dreaded diseases in the world emanate from non-vegetarian foods.
KIRAN SHARMAVIA EMAIL
Empowering village headsThe article ªDevolution chinksº (16-30 November, 2015) about empowering panchayats in Jharkhand opens a Pandora's box of problems and anomalies in local self-governance. Jharkhand's case is symbolic and relevant to all states. The institution of pradhan or mukhiya has acquired a unique status. While an MP or MLA has no financial and executive powers, the panchayat mukhiya/pradhan does. They sign cheques, make
purchases and disburse money. When any MP or MLA becomes a
minister, he/she has a three-tier structure to discharge financial and executive obligations. In contrast, the mukhiya has no such assistance available. Additionally, no qualification is required to get elected to the post of the panchayat mukhiya. Even a pradhan can be illiterate. In this context, the Haryana government's recent declaration to make matriculation mandatory for the pradhan's post was struck down by the high court. Mukhiyas are likely to get more powers if all the 29 items in the 11th Schedule of the Constitution are bestowed. In such circumstances, empowering the pradhans is fraught with myriad problems. If they are empowered to sanction the leave applications of officers in the panchayats, it may create administrative chaos. Either pradhans need to be trained or government officials will have to be posted in all panchayats. Either way, it is a gigantic task for the government to accomplish.
L R SHARMASUNDERNAGAR
SHOLAI SCHOOLLocated in the campus of the Centre for Learning, Organic Agriculture and Appropriate Technology, in a beautiful sylvan valley of the Palani Hills, we are a non-conventional, 70 acre residential School registered with the University of Cambridge International Examinations (IN499). The students take IGCSE (Xth standard) and A level exams. Having a teacher : student ratio of 1:6 we are able to explore learning well beyond the confines of syllabi.
Comprehension of conditioning and its limiting effect on the mind and reflecting on responsibility and sensitivity in relationships are some of the themes explored between students and teachers. Send for brochure to:
Goa debates a new law that derecognises coconut palm as a tree
28
THE FORTNIGHT
NEW BUSINESS
Meghalaya diversifies
After a ban on small-scale coal mining, the north-eastern
state has started investing in other sectors
A victory for tribal rights
Seven villages in Chhattisgarh's Baiga
Chak, populated by Baiga tribespeople, have been
granted habitat rights Jharkhand attempts a blue revolution It encourages people to raise fish in dams and ponds
Natural and repulsive
A number of companies are launching mosquito repellents
made of natural ingredients
18
1420
22
24cont
ents
11
8 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
08-09Contents.indd 8 25/01/16 3:27 PM
50
48
44
COVER STORY
A crisis of fodderFodder in India is getting scarcer due to government apathy, lack of research and overgrazing. Drought makes it worse
How rainforests developCompetition for sunlight determines the
structure of a rainforest, says a study
52
BIOLOGY
FOOD
Bat mapA study maps the transmission landscape for diseases emanating from contact with bats
Root of the matterSohphlang, a delicious tuberous
root found in Meghalaya, has medicinal properties
GOOD NEWS
TECHNOLOGY
Flawed approachWhy the government's Start Up India programme cannot solve India's job problems
All in the genes?
Genetics may have some but not all the answers to
humanity's past
Letting go...of patents
Firms like Toyota and Tesla are freeing up their patents
to expand the market for alternative fuel vehicles
SCIENCE
40
The ̀ sin' taxWill the government act on a panel recommendation to levy a 40 per cent tax on harmful lifestyle products?
HEALTH
58
20-PAGE DTE SUPPLEMENTW I T H S U B S C R I P T I O N C O P I E S
59-78 Supplement Editor: Souparno Banerjee Copy: Diksha Chopra and Arif Ayaz ParreyDesign: Ajit Bajaj, Ritika Bohra and Surender Singh Illustration: Sorit Gupto, Tarique Aziz and Ritika Bohra
GOBAR TIMESP L A N E T P E O P L E P O L I T I C S
Predicting fog
Indian scientists embark on a study to
find new facts about fog
42
39
The ̀ white Eskimo'A book on the life of an explorer who spent a lifetime studying the Inuit peoples of the Arctic
REVIEW
46
56
OPINION
55
Formalising wasteSeveral initiatives demonstrate how the informal e-waste recycling sector can be formalised
Jharkhand's woesA study reveals the problems
being faced by tribal women in Jharkhand
www.downtoearth.org.in 9 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
08-09Contents.indd 9 25/01/16 2:24 PM
10 FEB 1-15 2016
March 14-18, 2016
Send this form by Post/Email : [email protected] OR Apply online at http://www.cseindia.org/node/5501
Centre for Science and Environment, a non-profit organisation set up Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) in 2000 to monitor environmental pollution. PML is an ISO certified laboratory with highly qualified and experienced staff that exercise Analytical Quality Control and meticulously follow Good Laboratory Practices. It is equipped with sophisticated state-of-art equipments including GC, GC-MS, HPLC, AAS, microwave assisted digestion system, PM2.5 & PM10 analyser, ozone monitor, sound level meter, EMF radiation measurement system etc. and has facilities for microbiological analysis also.
PML has conducted several scientific studies that have brought government food standards and food safety policy changes and new regulations in India. This includes pesticides in bottled water, pesticides in soft drinks, phthalates in toys, lead in paints, antibiotics in honey and antibiotics in chicken, etc.
PML has been organising training and capacity building programmes for Central and State Pollution Control Boards for mid/senior level officers on water quality, air quality, trace metals and organic analysis. The participants get hands-on experience on the use of sophisticated analytical equipments for analysis of air, water and soil pollution parameters. The programme includes lectures, demonstrations and experiments and on latest equipments and technologies for pollution monitoring.
LECTURE CONTENTn Sample collection, storage and preservation techniquesn Vehicular pollution and its control techniquesn Chromatographic “Finger Printing” Technique for Fuel Quality
Monitoring and Analysisn Mercury Pollution in Sonbhadra – a case studyn Microbial tools and techniques in the analysis of different samples
LAB CONTENTn Laboratory experiments on determination of pesticides,
determination of heavy metals, microbiological analysis of water, field monitoring for PM2.5, Ozone and Noise pollution, field monitoring of EMF radiation pollution from cell phone towers
Training on Pollution Monitoring Techniques and InstrumentationMarch 14-18, 2016
Name:......................................................................... Age:..............Designation:............................................................................................Name of Organisation:............................................................................Brief description of present responsibilities (if any):................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Office Address:........................................................................................................................................................................................................
Phone(s): ...................................... Fax:..............................................Official Website:......................................................................................Contact email:.........................................................................................What does the participant expect to learn?................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
COURSE FEE`10,000 per participant without boarding and lodging. Tea and lunch will be provided during the training sessions
Nominations are invited from Scientists/analysts working in government organisations, academic institutions, CPCB laboratories, SPCB laboratories, private sector analytical labs, EIA consultants, and students
PROGRAM SCHEDULEDate: March 14-18, 2016 Time: 10 am to 6 pmVenue: CSE, Core 6A, 4th Floor India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road New Delhi-110003
POLLUTION MONITORING TECHNIQUES AND INSTRUMENTATION
NOMINATION
FORM
Centre for Science and Environment Core 6A, 4th Floor, India Habitat Centre Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110003 Phone: 011-24645334/335
10lab ad revised.indd 10 25/01/16 1:00 PM
T H E F O R T N I G H T
60cmThe depth by which the Himalayas subsided after the April 2015 Nepal
earthquake
WHO declares Liberia Ebola-freeT H E W O R L D Health Organization (who) recently declared the end of the most recent outbreak of Ebola in Liberia. It said all known chains of transmission had been stopped in West Africa. However, the UN health agency said more flare-ups were expected and strong surveillance and response systems would be critical in the months to come.
Liberia was first declared Ebola-free in May 2015, but the virus has come back twice since then, with the latest flare-up occurring in November, 2015. Ebola claimed 11,300 lives in West Africa. There were over 28,500 infections. The epidemic left 17,000 survivors with lingering symptoms. For more, visit www.downtoearth.org.in/africa
CR
OS
S H
AIR
S
POINT
www.downtoearth.org.in 11 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
Source: Nature Geoscience
11-13The Fortnight.indd 11 21/01/16 10:41 AM
T H E F O R T N I G H T
B E N G A L U R U , O N C E called the City of Lakes, is fast losing its water bodies due to encroachment, a recent government report has stated. The Karnataka Legislative Assembly's House Committee on Tank Encroachment released the names of people and organisations that have encroached upon lakes in and around Bengaluru. Those named in the list are mostly real estate developers.
But government agencies like the Bengaluru Development Authority and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (bbmp) too have been held equally responsible for concretising lake beds. Government agencies together have encroached more than 30 per cent of the total encroached area of 4,238 hectares, according to the report. For more, visit www.downtoearth.org.in/news
Sikkim is India's first fully organic state S I K K I M H A S become India's first fully organic state by converting around 75,000 hectares of agricultural land into certified organic farms following the guidelines as prescribed by National Programme for Organic Production, the state government recently announced. In 2003, the government had decided to make the state an organic one. Chief Minister Pawan
Chamling, who was in power then, made the promise in the Legislative Assembly. The government restricted the use and sale of chemical fertilisers. Farmers, therefore, had no option but to go organic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now promised that Sikkim will get an airport soon so that tourists can come to the state and savour its organic farms, among other things.
Karnataka names encroachers on Bengaluru's lakes
AG
RIC
ULT
UR
E
URB
ASH
I PR
ADH
AN
SAAD FARUQUE
12 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
11-13The Fortnight.indd 12 21/01/16 10:41 AM
T H E F O R T N I G H TBY
SPE
CIAL
ARR
ANGE
MEN
T
S E V E N T Y - T H R E E short-fin pilot whales died on the Tiruchendur beach, south of the port city of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. The whales were part of a pod of 81 that were found stranded on the beach by fisherfolk. Forty-five were already dead by then. The remaining 36 were pushed back into the sea, but 28 again found their way back and died. The last time such an incident occurred in Thoothukudi was in 1973 when 147 whales died. Most experts have said that one of the animals could have lost its way due to a fault in its sonar and got stranded ashore. The rest would have followed suit. Government veterinarians have conducted post mortem on the whales and samples have been sent to Chennai for further analysis.
73 pilot whales die on Thootukudi's shores
"Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it"Ð Barack Obama, US President in his last ̀ State of the Union' address
VERBATIM
THIN
KSTO
CK P
HO
TO
India is experiencing a warmer winter
The winter season in 2015-2016 seems to have played truant with India. More than half of the season has passed, but the characteristic chill felt in many parts is missing due to persistent above normal temperatures.
Average temperatures across the country, except in Jammu and Kashmir and some adjoining areas, are about 4 to 5 ÊC above the normal temperature.
Strong El Ni�o conditions in the Pacific Ocean are being held responsible.
The winter weather is affecting crop sowing across the Indo-Gangetic plain. Wheat output could fall for the second consecutive year with sown area till December lagging by 2 million hectares from last year, according to the agriculture ministry.
IN FOCUS IN COURT
On January 11, the Supreme Court said that environmental clearance was now required for mining of sand and gravel and directed the Madhya Pradesh state government to frame rules accordingly
On January 8, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) slapped a penalty of `25 crore on Adani-Hazira Port Pvt Ltd and Hazira Infrastructure Pvt Ltd for carrying out work at Hazira near Surat without acquiring environment clearance
Delhi
On January 11, the Delhi High Court refused to interfere in Delhi government's odd-even vehicles on road scheme and allowed it to continue till January 15
On January 12, the NGT came down heavily on the Uttar Pradesh government for ªunsatisfactoryº implementation of its order to provide clean drinking water in six western districts of the state
On January 13, the NGT appointed an independent body of experts to find out whether the walkway constructed on the Hooghly river bed adjacent to the Manor Floatel Hotel in Kolkata was hydraulically significant
On January 12, the Supreme Court accepted the report by the Central Empowered Committee (cec) and said the lease area of M/s FACOR fell within the Hadgarh Wildlife Sanctuary and hence mining could not be permitted
On January 12, the Supreme Court restrained the Tamil Nadu government from conducting its traditional bull-taming sport Jallikattu, and stayed the Centre's notification lifting the ban on it
Compiled by DTE/CSE Data Centre. For detailed verdicts, visit www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in
Gujarat
Tamil Nadu
SUPREME COURT
HIGH COURTS
NGT
07 09 47
Number of environmental cases reported last fortnight*
*(During January 6-18, 2016)
Uttar Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
West Bengal
Odisha
www.downtoearth.org.in 13 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
11-13The Fortnight.indd 13 21/01/16 10:41 AM
LIVING IN the dense sal forests of Maikal Hills, where streams intersect their homesteads, the Baigas in Dindori district of
Madhya Pradesh have gained the right to their habitat. This is for the first time habitat rights have been given under the Forest Rights Act of 2006. For the Baigas, it is a Pyrrhic victory that has come after a struggle for more than a century.
Habitat rights go beyond the individual and community rights conferred under the Act. They aim to protect not just land rights and livelihoods of the people living in forests, but encompass their whole culture and way of life. These are composite rights over larger landscapes covering multiple villages that recognise territories used by vulnerable tribes and pre-agricultural com- munities for habitations, livelihoods, social, spiritual, cultural and other purposes.
The Baiga community is one of the 75
particularly vulnerable tribal groups, or pvtgs, who are eligible to get habitat rights under the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, also known as the Forest Rights Act (fra). Over the years, increasing state control over forests and diversion of forest land for development and conservation have seriously threatened these forest communities.
Although gazette notifications dating back to 1890 provided the basis for giving habitat rights to the Baigas, the adminis- tration, activists, experts and community leaders were clueless about implementing such rights. The forest department’s reluctance to relax its control over forests only made it difficult. Even when the fra enshrined this right in the law, in the absence of guidelines to implement these rights no one is sure of how to go about it.
The definition of the habitat rights was
S P E C I A L R E P O R T
The vulnerable tribe in Madhya Pradesh is the first to get habitat rights in India. It is a landmark in the forests rights movement
ANUPAM CHAKRAVARTTY | dindori, madhya pradesh
Baigas get home
PHOTOGRAPHS: VIKAS CHOUDHARY / CSE
14 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
14-16Forest.indd 14 25/01/16 2:24 PM
F O R E S T
incorporated through an amendment in the fra in 2012. As per the amendment, the district level committee under the Act shall ensure that all pvtgs receive habitat rights, in consultation with the concerned traditional institutions of these groups, after filing claims before the gram sabha.
Participatory exercises to help the Baigas claim habitat rights began in 2013. “The exercise we conducted was to determine the habitat zone of the tribe, crops they grow, their cultural beliefs,” says Nirmal Joshi, Prime Minister’s rural development fellow, who is attached to the Dindori district collectorate to oversee the implementation of habitat rights.
District Collector Chhavi Bhardwaj held the first meeting with activists and Baiga members to recognise the rights in November 2014. Naresh Biswas, a forest rights activist in the region, says that to explain their habitat, the Baigas used the
example of a tiger’s territory. Tigers roam a large area in a forest when they hunt, one of the tribals pointed out, adding that when national parks are created that whole area becomes the habitat of the tiger, not just its dwelling, which could be a cave. When the collector was convinced, a mapping exercise was undertaken in which villagers were asked to prepare their own maps. These maps were overlaid on the ones prepared with the help of gps locators.
Community members and activists allege that the forest department opposed the claims to habitat rights. Initially, they did not even come to the meetings organised by the district collectorate, says Ujiyar Singh Dhurve, peoples’ represen- tative in the Zilla Parishad.
After three years of research, consulta- tion and mapping, it was in November 2015 that the authorities began handing over legal titles. Bhardwaj told Down To Earth that the right has been granted over 9,300 hectares (ha) to about 900 families in seven villages (see ‘Habitat, legally’).
However, in selecting these villages the district administration relied on a notification passed by the British in 1890. The notification recognised seven villages in the region as having limited rights over the forest. This area was called Baiga Chak. Today the Baiga territory is spread over 52 villages in the Samnapur block of Dindori. “If we were to really consider the area of the Baigas, it would begin in Achamakmar forests in Chhattisgarh to Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh, an expanse that would include forests like Kanha,” says Ramesh Sharma, convenor of Ekta Parishad, a non-profit based in Chhattisgarh that works on tribal rights. “However, for the authorities that was not possible. This is still a small victory for the community.”
A history of persecution The recognition of Baiga Chak came after several attempts by the British to remove the community from the forests. Historical accounts show the British were in desperate need of teak to build railways and ships, and the Baigas were resisting felling of trees. Shifting cultivation or bewar done by the Baigas was outlawed as one of the measures to drive them out of these villages, says Sharma. “However, some officials realised that the Baigas were completely
O F T H E 4.4 million claims consisting of individual and community forest rights filed, only 2 million titles were given in 19 states till October 2015, according to official data. This means close to 47 per cent of the claims were rejected. Except Assam, north-eastern states say the FRA has minimal relevance in view of the customary laws that protect their people and forests. Uttarakhand and Goa have not been able to implement the law. The Uttarakhand government has an amusing excuse: the state had elections in 2012, so it could not notify any measure as "there was a model conduct of elections in force". Goa blamed opposition from Other Backward Castes.
According to a preliminary assessment of community and individual forest rights by the US group Rights and Resources Initiative and Odisha-based non-profit Vasundhara in July 2015, at least 150 million forest-dwelling people have had their rights recognised over at least 40 million hectares (ha) of forest land in over 170,000 villages.
Community forest rights (CFR), which also reflect tribal land-owning patterns, have not received much thrust. For these rights, 40,269 gram panchayats have received titles for 870,711 ha till October 2015. This includes 2,148 titles for 28,438 ha to collect community forest resource.
This is when the national census and the Forest Survey of India show that half of India's forests fall within the definition of CFR under FRA. "But barely 1.2 per cent of this area has been recorded and (rights) recognised," says Arvind Khare, executive director of Rights and Resources Initiative working on forest rights. Potential CFR recognition could be from 7.72 million ha to 11.4 million ha. In contrast, since 1980 1.2 million ha of forest area has been diverted for mining, dams and other industrial projects, says environment minister Prakash Javadekar.
Ten years of FRAA report card
A Baiga woman in Rajni Sarai crosses the area from where people collect mushroom
www.downtoearth.org.in/forests
M A D H Y A P R A D E S H
Habitat, legallySeven Baiga villages, namely Dhaba, Rajni Sarai, Dhurkutta, Limauta, Jilang, Silpidi and Ajgar, in Samnapur block have received habitat rights
Dindori district
Samnapur
www.downtoearth.org.in 15 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
14-16Forest.indd 15 25/01/16 2:24 PM
F O R E S T
dependent on forests and led a simple life, even as the other part of the administration was busy seizing their farming tools—a practice that continued till the beginning of the 21st century,” adds Sharma.
With the recognition of Baiga Chak, the community was allowed to practice bewar within the seven villages. But the recogni- tion was short-lived. By 1927, the British government formed a new law related to transportation and collection of timber and forest produce, jeopardising the Baigas.
Ironically, after participatory exercises for habitat rights, the administration has come to appreciate shifting cultivation that protected and enriched soil. It involves mixed cropping of up to 18 varieties of grains, vegetables and mushrooms.
Wrong twist in the rightWhen distributing the land titles the Dindori administration told the people they are free to enjoy their ancestral rights over land and forest, and even State cannot transfer any of their land for non-community uses without their consent. However, people are not convinced. Accor- ding to Dhurve, the forest department has other plans. A working plan of the department seen by Down To Earth shows that the Madhya Pradesh government plans a tiger heritage corridor focusing on wildlife tourism in an area 600 km long and
80 km wide. This will uproot not only the seven villages recently accorded habitat rights but also 45 others where Baigas coexist with other tribes like the Gonds.
The proposed corridor will span the buffer zones and tourism areas in Jabalpur, Dindori and Mandla districts. While forest officials were not available to comment on the status of habitat rights, Joshi says the district administration is yet to take any decision on the corridor. “We are working closely with the forest department so that habitat rights are not violated when the corridor comes up. We have worked closely with the community so that they can assert these rights,” he says.
Lalla Singh, sarpanch of Ranjda village in the area, says 96 individual claims were settled in his village, while community forest rights have provided the village with 24.5 ha. “The efforts will go waste if the wildlife corridor is allowed,” he adds.
Long way to goDindori district officials say the granting of habitat rights is still in an experimental stage. Interpretation of habitat rights under the fra varies in languages. While the English interpretation uses the expansive meaning of the word “habitat” under Section 3 (e) of the Act, the Hindi inter- pretation, largely used in title deed, restricts the meaning of habitat to “gruh” meaning
home and “awaas” meaning dwelling.In case of habitat rights given to the
Baigas, the Dindori administration used Section 3 (i) of the fra, which, according to experts, is nothing but community forest rights. Although the title deed states that the Baigas have a right to habitat in collecting forest produce, cultivation near their homesteads and fishing, Section 3 (i) refers to a community’s right to regenerate and manage its forests. “Ideally, the district administration should have conferred these rights under Section 3 (e) which are rights to community tenures of habitat,” says Venkat Ramanujam Ramani, a scholar with the non-profit Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, who is studying the Baiga habitat. “In effect, this means the government can potentially divert the rest of the forest (not mentioned in the title deeds) for other purposes.”
Most crucial is understanding what constitutes a habitat and lay down clear-cut guidelines for recognising habitat rights. While the Union tribal affairs ministry has commissioned a study to gain clarity on these matters, the report is yet to be published. But the trickle has started. A couple of other tribal communities, such as the Sahariyas in Madhya Pradesh and the Kutia Kondh in Odisha, have taken their first steps to claim their habitats.
@yield82
Officials distribute title
deeds and seek feedback on the
implementation of FRA at a meeting
in Rajni Sarai in January 2016
16 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
14-16Forest.indd 16 25/01/16 3:28 PM
27 FEB 1-15 201617AMway ad.indd 17 25/01/16 12:19 PM
IN GOA, coconut palm is not a tree anymore. On January 14, the state government passed an amendment to the Goa, Daman and Diu Preserv-
ation of Trees Act, 1984, which defined the dimensions of a tree and dropped section 1-A that included the coconut palm as a tree for preservation under the Act.
The amendment defines tree as a woody plant whose trunk is not less than 10 cm in diameter at a height of one metre from the ground. As per the earlier defini-
tion, tree was a woody plant whose trunk was not less than 5 cm in diameter at a height of 30 cm from the ground.
The move caused a huge controversy. The Opposition, which staged a walk-out in the Assembly when the amendment was being passed, and media reports say that the decision has been taken to facilitate the construction of a distillery unit in Sanguem taluk. The unit is proposed at a plot that has around 500 coconut trees and the project is being supported by the area’s legislator,
who belongs to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. If the coconut is not considered a tree, no permission is required from the Forest Department to cut it. Residents of the taluk have been protesting against the unit. The coconut palm defines not just the landscape, but also the culture and food of the state, say activists.
Independent members of the state Assembly have found an issue to criticise the government. They have threatened to form a new party for Goa ahead of the
S P E C I A L R E P O R T
Coconuts Goa government's decision to derecognise
coconut palm as a tree has left the state's trademark tree at the mercy of developers
PAMELA D'MELLO | goa
On January 14, a protest was held in Goa against the government decision to derecognise coconut palm as a tree
COURTESY: GOA FORGIVING
18 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
18-19Environment.indd 18 28/01/16 12:03 PM
E N V I R O N M E N T
Assembly poll next year.“It is not just to benefit a single project
but to fast-track several developmental projects in the state. However, this would also fast-track degradation of the state,” says independent legislator Vijai Sardesai, who has been distributing coconut saplings in his constituency ever since the amend-ment was passed. “The coconut tree is cen-tral to the state and to our identity,” says Sardesai, who has seized the issue to build support for a new regional party.
It all began on December 18, 2015, when the state Cabinet approved a deci-sion to amend the Act and placed the amendment Bill before the Assembly. Even before the amendment was passed, a Chipko-style demonstration was held on January 11 during which protesters hugged coconut trees.
The government, on the other hand, says that the Opposition is unnecessarily politicising the issue. “We are only correcting an error. Even botanically, the coconut palm is not called a tree,” said the state’s environment and forest minister Rajendra Arlekar during an interaction with the media.
The government has justified its deci-sion by saying that the Act has been amend-ed to facilitate felling of trees that are ru-ined and have become a danger to the public. It also says that coconut was never included as a tree under the original Act in 1984 and was only included through an amendment in 2008 under Congress chief minister Digambar Kamat. This “errone-ous” introduction made it difficult for peo-ple to get permissions to deal with old and sick trees.
Kamat, however, has refuted the pre-sent government’s reasoning. The coconut tree was included in 2008 to prevent felling and to boost production of coconut in the state, which had by then begun importing coconuts from neighbouring states, he said in the Assembly on January 14.
Plantations v real estateApart from the increased threat after the amendment, coconut plantations in the state face financial problems as well. Goa has around 25,000 hectares (ha) of coconut plantations (1.32 per cent of the total area of the state) and produces over 124 million
coconuts a year. Hit by a fall in production due to Eriophyid mite infestations, low minimum support price (the government gives a minimum support price of `8 per piece), and unavailability of pluckers and toddy tappers, the planters are under constant pressure to sell land to real estate agents or for tourism-related initiatives, says Miguel Braganca, former agricultural officer and executive member of the Botanical Society of Goa.
“Prices have been low for about a dec-
ade now. The use of substitutes of coconut oil in soap production and import ofprocessed coconut products (grated coco-nut, coconut milk and virgin oil) have ad-versely affected the local coconut economy,”he says.
But still people do not want to fell coco-nut trees unless it is absolutely necessary. “Nobody cuts a coconut tree unless there is a dire need. People have even gone to court to protect their coconut trees,” says environ-mentalist Claude Alvares.
Alvares’ non-profit, Goa Foundation, has stopped several real estate development projects that required cutting of trees and were in violation of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, and the Goa, Daman and Diu Preser-vation of Trees Act, 1984. Several other public interest petitions in the state have also been successful on similar counts.
“Apart from coconut, the amendment will also impact shrubs, hillside wild plants like the kanta (Carissa carandas), hibiscus, and young plants of all varieties (including cashew trees). All of these can now be cut without forest department permissions,” says Braganca.
Government unmovedThe government has not acceded to the Opposition’s demand to refer the amendment to a Select Committee for further deliberation. In reply to criticism, Arlekar has proposed to enact special laws to protect coconut. The government, however, has also refused to pass the protection laws before derecognising the coconut palm as a tree.
The Congress party has said that the state government is unravelling all the environment protection laws that were put in place by previous Congress regimes. The 1984 Act was passed by then Congress chief minister Pratapsingh Rane though after much lobbying from environmentalists. Digambar Kamat included the coconut tree under the Act in 2008 to pacify citizensand activists who were agitating against large-scale felling of coconut groves and resettlement of villagers in Bambolimfor a gated housing project and a sevenstar hotel. However, the only certainty in this debate is the threat the coconut tree faces in the state.
@down2earthindia
"The decision will impact young plants of all varieties, including cashew
trees. All these can now be cut without government permission"
ÐMiguel Braganca, executive member, Botanical Society of Goa
"Nobody cuts a coconut tree unless there is a dire need. People have even gone to court to protect their coconut trees"
ÐClaude Alvares, Goa-based environmentalist
"Apart from fast-tracking government projects, the decision will also fast-track
degradation of the state"ÐVijai Sardesai, member,
Goa Legislative Assembly
www.downtoearth.org.in/environment
www.downtoearth.org.in 19 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
18-19Environment.indd 19 25/01/16 2:25 PM
Naturally repellingABOUT SIX years ago, Bengaluru’s
John Thomas began getting frequent attacks of asthma and upper respiratory infections.
Doctors advised him to stop using chemical mosquito repellents. He scouted the Internet for herbal alternatives but without any success. Today, Thomas is the founder and chief executive officer of Herbal Strategi, a company that manufactures natural repellents.
To develop the product, he took help from the Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (cimap), a plant research laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (csir). The funding came entirely from his savings. Before starting Herbal Strategi, Thomas worked at a marketing company for nine years. But he always wanted a business of his own.
“In 2009, cimap agreed to help me formulate a product that would keep bugs
away for at least 8-12 hours. I conducted field trials in Kerala, which, unlike other states, is home to all 400 known breeds of mosquitoes in the world,” Thomas says.
The research yielded a combination that worked for 91 per cent of the breeds. In 2011, Thomas floated Herbal Strategi, making it the first company in the country to produce natural repellents with government help. csir and the Indian Institute of Integrated Medicine, Jammu, are responsible for quality control. About 70 people work for the Bengaluru-based company which exports its products to Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, south India and to South East Asian and African countries. The products provide protection against mosquitoes, cockroaches, ticks and fleas. The range includes room sprays, body sprays, vapourisers, incense sticks, bed bug repellent sprays, surface cleaners, disinfectants, fresheners, handwash and hand sanitisers.
Given the global upsurge in the demand for organic
mosquito repellents, companies are launching
products made from natural oils
JIGYASA WATWANI | new delhi
N E W B U S I N E S S
Launched in 2011, Herbal Strategi is the country's first company to manufacture herbal repellents with government help
BISH
WES
HW
AR D
AS
20 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
20-21New business.indd 20 20/01/16 12:34 PM
N E W B U S I N E S S
Rise in demandAccording to a 2015 report released by Infiniti Research Ltd, a private market research firm, there has been a global surge in the demand of organic repellents. Dabur ventured into the market in September 2014 to cash in on the opportunity and launched Odomos Naturals, a range which includes water-resistant wrist bands and patches (see ‘Gone organic’). These contain 100 per cent natural citronella and mask body odour to make the wearer invisibleto mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are attracted by carbon dioxide, lactic acid and other excretory products present in the sweat of warm blooded animals. Repellents block the lactic acid receptors of mosquitoes by masking the human scent or by using a scent which insects naturally avoid.
While brands like Dabur started making organic repellents after having spent considerable time in the synthetic repellent industry, others, like Deve Herbes, launched natural products right from the start. In 2013, this company brought out a range of mosquito repellent sprays made from citronella, lemon grass and other oils. These remain effective for four to six hours.
Apart from India, the Delhi-based company sells its products in over 100 countries, including the US, UK, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
“There is a growing demand for organic repellents but the number of good companies catering to this demand is very less. I know of so many companies that sell chemical repellents in the name of herbal repellents,” says Vikas Bhardwaj, founder-and chief executive officer of Deve Herbes. Bhardwaj has worked in the corporate sector for the past 20 years.
Though the demand for herbal repell-ents has increased only recently, they are certainly not new entrants to the market. In 2009, Godrej, a key player in the mosquito repellent market, extended the franchise of its Good Knight brand by launching a mosquito repellent cream under the name of Good Knight Naturals.
Another new player in the herbal repellent market is Aringel, a Gurgaon-based household products company that started business with repellents in 2012
and then diversified into products such as herbal tea and mouthwash. “Herbal repellents are the need of the day. When my daughter had dengue in 2012, I could not find any herbal repellents. I did my own research and launched Aringel,” says Arun Gupta, founder of the company. “We started as a small company but now have a large and steady customer base. We even export our products to Africa,” Gupta adds.
Cost v efficacyThough herbal products are 5-10 per cent costlier than synthetic repellent, they are more effective and provide immediate results. According to a 2012 paper in a journal of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, plants whose essential oils have been reported to induce repellency include citronella, neem, cedar, verbena, penny-royal, geranium, lavender, pine, catnip, cinnamon, rosemary, basil, thyme, allspice, garlic and peppermint.
But unlike natural repellents that mask the wearer or repel mosquitoes, chemical repellents are made to kill. They are made from chemicals like allethrin, dimethyl phthalate and N-N-diethyl-m-toluamide (deet). The unpleasant smell, potential toxicity and oily feeling associated with these are among their major drawbacks. “Chemical products are dangerous as they get absorbed into the skin more easily than natural products. For instance, 15 per cent of whatever quantity of deet you use gets absorbed in your skin,” Thomas says.
A paper on toxicity of plant-based mosquito repellents/killers, published in a journal of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 2012, tested some plant derivatives for their toxicity. Neem was found to be non-toxic for mammals for a dose of 1,200 mg/kg. Other plants like salvia, pyrethrum and shankhpushpi were also tested and showed the same results.
Though natural repellents have started to make a mark in the market, the demand for synthetic products is still much more. “Nearly 70 per cent of the population is not bothered about what repellents they use,” Thomas says. Licensing of organic products is also a concern. “Many companies claim their products are 100 per cent natural but they use chemicals along with essential oils,” says Thomas.
For sale and export of Ayurvedic medi-cines and cosmetics made in India it is mandatory to obtain a drug manufactu-ring licence. The licensing authority is the Union Ministry of ayush. Aringel and Herbal Strategi claim to have the licence. Deve Herbes says it has an appropriate cosmetic licence but has not divulged details about the licensing authority.
“Trust a product to be 100 per cent natural only if it has an ayush licence,” Thomas concludes.
@jigyasawatwani
Herbal repellents are a little costlier than synthetic ones, but much more effective
Gone organic
HERBAL STRATEGI
Room spray(100 ml)
K 160
Vapouriser (40 ml)
K 70
ARINGEL
Mosquito repellent spray (100 ml)
K 150Repellent patches (12 patches)
K 180
DABUR
Odomos Naturals (Spray) (100 ml)
K 79Odomos Naturals (Cream-50 g)
K 47
Good Knight Naturals (125 g)
GODREJ
K 75
Body spray(100 ml)
K 160
Cockroach and ant repellent (100 ml)
K 200
Mosquito repellent spray (100 ml)
DEVE HERBES
K 195
Source: company websites
www.downtoearth.org.in/health
www.downtoearth.org.in 21 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
20-21New business.indd 21 20/01/16 12:42 PM
JUST A week after Shillong hosted one of the most popular and widely attended music festivals, NH7 Weekender in October, the streets
of Shillong were gleaming with promo-tional banners for a festival, to which India was a debutant host. The Indigenous Terra Madre, a five-day conference held in November 2015, brought together indi-genous tribes and saw over 600 delegates from 58 countries celebrate the knowledge of food, nutrition and biodiversity.
Post its popularity, Meghalaya has decided to organise the international food conference in 2018. A similar event targeting indigenous communities of north-east India will be organised this year followed by a conference focused on India, Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2017.
In the otherwise quiet and quaint hill state, these measures convey a dire need to earn revenue from tourism. In April 2014, the National Green Tribunal (ngt) banned rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya, owing to environmental concerns. This left a hole to the tune of R600 crore in the state’s annual revenue. Meghalaya’s total revenue in 2014-15 was R1,885 crore and for the current fiscal ending March 2016, it is projected at R1,347 crore, according to the state’s budget document. Since the mining ban caused a loss of more than a quarter of the revenue, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said the state is exploring all other sources of income.
The ngt order also threatened the livelihood of about 100,000 people. More challenging than just finding other avenues
E C O N O M Y
Out of ratholePost a ban on small-scale coal mining, Meghalaya is investing its energy and enterprise in other sectors
KARNIKA BAHUGUNA | shillong
22 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
22-23Economy.indd 22 20/01/16 12:34 PM
E C O N O M Y
of revenue is the task of reinventing the economy that was primarily dependent on small-scale coal mining. “We are looking at options which can...increase the earning capacity of the people and which invariably go a long way in creating a turnaround of the economy of a state where the resources are very limited,” Sangma told Down To Earth.
As an immediate measure to collect an additional revenue of �30.91 crore in a year, the state raised taxes on diesel from 12.5 to 13.5 per cent and on tobacco products from 20 to 27 per cent in the budget for 2015-16. Not only did the state introduce cess on clinker at �20 per tonne, it raised cess on limestone, fire clay and sillimanite. Megha-laya also raised value-added tax to 14.5 per cent to generate another �25 crore annually, besides cutting non-plan expenditures on departments.
Alternative meansSangma says the state will focus on hospi-tality, education and health to reinvent the
economy. Meghalaya aims to become a high-end tourism spot by leveraging its strengths —its landscape and culture. That means a boost to adventure sports, local festivals, wellness and herbal tourism. The state has a development plan outlay of �107 crore for the current fiscal for its hosp-itality sector against �24 crore in 2014-15.
The state plans to seek investments through public-private partnership (ppp) in the education and health sectors as ancillaries to promote tourism. Its planned expenditure on health has consecutively been at �380.50 crore for two fiscals, show-ing 65 per cent growth from �230 crore budgeted for the sector in 2013-14.
According to Sangma, Meghalaya will leverage opportunities in its universal health insurance scheme for attracting private sector investment, while providing wider healthcare options to citizens. Under the Megha Health Insurance Scheme, bene-ficiaries can get treatment in certain identi-fied hospitals. This can be extended to any private hospital.
Meghalaya has already implemented the ppp model in certain primary and community health centres. Under the exis-ting model, the management and operation of some of the poorly performing commu-nity and primary health centres is assigned to ngos and corporate agencies. Good news is that a 2012 study on the ppp model in 32 health facilities in Meghalaya showed improved facilities and functioning of the health centres following takeover by ngos. Funded by Delhi-based National Health
Systems Resource Centre and the Regional Resource Centre, Guwahati, the study also showed that the quality of healthcare was suspect due to insufficient skills and access to training programmes.
Education has also received a thrust as seen in the rise in budgetary allocation from �420.60 crore to �681.88 crore in 2015-16. Besides setting up two engineering, medical and arts and commerce colleges each, Meghalaya plans to set up three inter-national schools. The state is eyeing a repu-tation of being an educational hot spot as well as a tourist attraction that hill destina-tions like Udhagamandalam (Ooty) enjoy. “If you look at the children of well-to-do families, who are spending huge amount of money for...this level of education, why should we not take advantage of this kind of opportunity?” he asks.
Is it enough?Chief Secretary P B O Warjri thinks that extending various programmes to affected areas will take time as switching people quickly from one livelihood to another is not easy. The state government’s plans will be helpful in generating revenue but may not necessarily provide a substitute for those who lost their livelihood, says Nirankar Srivastav, professor at the department of economics, North East Hill University in Shillong.
“Unless there is an expansion in the economy, there will not be a permanent solution. There is a need for opportunities to open up. It has to come from within the society as well as some external resources like private investment. Government efforts alone will not serve the purpose,” he says. Hasina Kharbhih of Impulse ngo Network, a non-profit which combats human traffic-king, suggests extending the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gua-rantee Act and implementing its flagship scheme, Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Promotion Programme, aimed at local economic development to promote livelihood security in the affected areas. Until the state gets its draft mining policy approved to regulate mining activities, Meghalaya needs to look for an alternative to black gold.
@_karnika
A performance at the food and biodiversity festival Indigenous Terra Madre in Pyrda village in Shillong. Meghalaya is promoting itself as a tourism hot spot
KARN
IKA
BAH
UGU
NA
/ CS
E
The ban and its outcomes The National Green Tribunal
banned rat-hole coal mining in April 2014
Meghalaya reported revenue losses of I600 crore
Around 100,000 people involved in mining are affected by the ban
Investments in health, hospitality and tourism are expected to generate additional revenue and compensate loss of livelihoods
Public-private models in education and health will be tried to make up for the loss
www.downtoearth.org.in/economy
www.downtoearth.org.in 23 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
22-23Economy.indd 23 20/01/16 12:34 PM
AFFLUENCE IS not a word one would normally associate with Jharkhand’s Jamukhadi village, which falls in one of India’s 250
most backward districts. But almost all the houses in the village have TV sets, computers and motorbikes. “There were only a few pucca (brick) houses in our village till 2000 when the state was created. Today, 80 per cent of the houses are pucca,” says Rameshwar Paswan, a proud resident of the village in Koderma district. He also owns a truck and two pokland machines that he bought with friends for soil excavation. Paswan’s story depicts the meteoric growth the village has witnessed in the recent past. Till 2013, he was a labourer who would occasionally catch fish from the Tilaiya dam reservoir in Koderma district. “Today, I do
Jharkhand taps its dam reservoirs and ponds to boost fish production as well as livelihoodKUNDAN PANDEY | koderma, jharkhand
Net profit
People raise fish in cages in the Chandil
dam reservoir in Jharkhand's Serai
Kela district
G O V E R N A N C E
KUNDAN PANDEY / CSE
24 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
24-26Governance.indd 24 20/01/16 12:35 PM
G O V E R N A N C E
commercial fishing in the dam and earn over `16 lakh a year,” says he.
Like Paswan, more than 88,000 people across the state are reaping profits through aquaculture. And this has been possible because of the state government’s decision to popularise commercial fishing. Starting 2007, the state fisheries department has launched a series of initiatives to attract individuals and communities with water bodies to aquaculture. The decision was taken because the state, which has a huge fish-eating population, imported bulk of its fish from Andhra Pradesh and other states. “Over 70 per cent of the state’s population eats fish. So we thought of popularising fishing in the state,” says Rajiv Kumar, director, Jharkhand fisheries department. The impact of the initiatives is visible. Jharkhand doubled its fish production to 106,430 tonnes between 2006-07 and 2014-15 (see ‘Scaling up’). It is expected to reach 120,000 by 2016. The state has also increased its capacity of fish seed production, which is in shortage in the country. Jharkhand doubled its fish seed industry to `110-crore between 2007 and 2015.
Growing with the people“Involving local communities is one of the primary reasons behind the success,” says Kumar. He adds that Jharkhand, unlike neighbouring Bihar and West Bengal, has limited water bodies. And most of them are either privately owned or managed by com-munities; 85 per cent of the water tanks are privately owned.
With this in mind, the state launched the Matsya Mitra initiative in 2007 which invites village residents to join hands with the fish-eries department and promote aquaculture. For aquaculture, it is necessary to know the pH scale and content of organic carbon in the pond water and the soil in the surrounding area. The initiative members, called Matsya Mitras, collect these vital information, and in case of an anomaly, instruct farmers to solve the problem. The state has over 3,600 Matsya Mitras who are now helping district fisheries officers in resource assessment, doc-umentation of farming practices and in sourcing of support services. “They have also helped in identification of coal pits, small ponds and wells that are not being used for fish farming. Aquaculture activities have been started in several tanks because of the
scheme,” says Kumar. Nicolas Bando, Matsya Mitra from
Sonse village in Chatara district, says he has sent at least 70 village residents to Ranchi for training. He earned around `5 lakh in 2015 from selling seeds that he started rear-ing in 2014 after seeing a huge demand. Bando has now completely shifted to fish rearing in his four-hectare land that was earlier used for paddy.
While the Matsya Mitra scheme is for individuals, the state government has also started initiatives to involve communities in aquaculture. Officials say the initiative is aimed at community water bodies that are largely neglected because there is no sense of ownership. Under this, the government encourages residents to form a cooperative and do collective fishing. The government provides these cooperatives technical guid-
Government's aquaculture initiatives have caught people's imagination
Jharkhand's blue revolution
J H A R K H A N D
Cage culture in dam reservoirs
Fishing in community and private ponds
Number of fishers in the districts
Koderma (4,031)
Seraikela (6,250)
Dumka (2,934)
Bokaro (29,155)
Dhanbad (5,175)Hazaribagh (1,457)
Chaibasa (945)
Chatra (2,272)
Gumla (1,939)
Latehar (1,420)
Fish production has more than doubled after the state started popularising aquaculture
Scaling up
Source: Jharkhand fisheries department
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
2006
-07
2007
-08
2008
-09
2009
-10
2010
-11
2011
-12
2012
-13
2013
-14
2014
-15
2015
-16
Fish
pro
duct
ion
in to
nnes
120,000Projected
88,378People are involved in aquaculture
3,600Matsya Mitra are working in Jhrakhand
393Communities have formed cooperatives to practise aquaculture
54,080
(xx)
www.downtoearth.org.in/governance
www.downtoearth.org.in 25 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
24-26Governance.indd 25 20/01/16 12:41 PM
G O V E R N A N C E
In cage culture, farmers grow fish in four cages in the reservoir. It is highly profitable: with an annual investment of `6 lakh, one can earn `16 lakh
Big catch 1Healthy fish seeds are kept in the enclosure for breeding
4Some of the healthy fish are bred to lay eggs that are then shifted to the first enclosure
2Small fish are shifted to the second enclosure
3Big fish are shifted here and kept before they are sold
Net
P O R T I O N O F A D A M R E S E R V O I R
Wooden plank
Drums
ance and support in terms of vehicles to transport fish to the local market. According to state government data, 393 cooperative societies are engaged in fishing. One of the recent examples of this is the abandoned Bundu dam in Ranchi district. The 4.5-ha reservoir, which was completely covered with grass till November 2015, is today be-ing used to commercially grow fish (see ‘Jharkhand’s blue revolution’, p23).
Cage of prosperityEncouraged by the success, Jharkhand gov-ernment started the cage culture initiative in 2013 that involved communities around dams in aquaculture. The initiative has been implemented to take up water bodies that are
traditionally not used for aquaculture. Under the initiative, small portions of a dam reser-voir are allotted to individuals, such as Paswan, who grow fish in the cages sub-merged in the reservoirs. The cages are cov-ered on all sides with nets that do not decom-pose in water. The state has over 3,000 cages in different reservoirs (see ‘Big catch’).
“Normally, an individual is given four small cages, together called a battery. The reason big water bodies such as reservoirs are not used for aquaculture is because one can-not restrict the movement of the fish. This method addresses the problem because the fish are trapped inside the cage,” says Dhanraj R Kapse, a fisheries department of-ficial in Serai Kela district, where the initia-
tive has been successful. He adds that the fish inside the cage are also protected from pred-ators. Kapse says the initiative has not only increased fish production, but also helped in rehabilitation of the communities that were displaced by the construction of the dam in the 1970s. “Residents of the villages that were displaced by the Chandil dam have been de-manding for compensation for a long time. In fact, some of the community members also joined ultra-left insurgents. Today, 116 villages around the dam are benefitting from the initiative,” say he. Kapse sums it up by saying that Jharkhand’s fishery story is a classic example of how government planning and people’ support can benefit the state.
@kundanpandey
" People started respecting me after I became a Matsya Mitra. I have
helped over 100 people to start aquaculture and surveyed 72 water bodies " Ð Saryu Yadav, Matsya Mitra in
Jamukhadi village, Koderma district
"I was a labourer before I joined the cage culture initiative of the state
government. Today I own a truck and my family has a TV, computer and a motorbike " Ð Rameshwar Paswan, farmer practising cage
culture in Jamukhadi village, Koderma district
"Involving comm-unities is the reason aquaculture has been successful in
the state because a majority of the water bodies are privately owned" Ð Rajiv Kumar, director, Jharkhand
fisheries department
5 m
etre
s12 metres
8 metres
26 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
24-26Governance.indd 26 20/01/16 12:35 PM
Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (A Deemed University)
Admission to PhD Programme in Science Education – 2016 (Advt. No. 01/2016)
We are looking for young people with
● Interest in science education
● Flair for teaching and writing
● Curiosity about how students learn
● Critical and analytical skills
● Commitment to improve education
Science and mathematics teachers and educators are also encouraged to apply. They would have to spend a minimum of two
years at HBCSE and can do their research work while stationed at their parent institutions.
To submit the form online, to download the form and for more information about the admission please visit:
http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/admissions/. For information about the PhD programme visit:
http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/graduate-school
Note: This is a programme in education. It is not a pure or applied science research programme.
Areas of Research (More details at http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/research-development)
● Teaching and learning of science and mathematics from primary to undergraduate level
● Innovative curricula and assessment methods, experimental problem-solving in science
● Development of scientific and mathematical thinking in students at school and college level
Livestock has always been the buffer that helped farmers cope with droughts. But today India faces an acute fodder shortage that has left farmers in drought-hit regions vulnerable. JITENDRA finds out how years of neglect triggered the fodder crisis that has the potential to cripple the country's rural economy
ven bottled water is more expensive than milk.” This is the reply 39-year-old Kishore Nirmal gives when asked why he wants to sell off his healthy cow. Waiting for buyers under a peepal tree at a weekly animal fair, the farmer from Neknoor village in Maharashtra’s Beed district says he gets only `12 by selling a litre of milk, whereas a litre of bottled drinking water costs ̀ 20.
The highest price Nirmal has been offered for his cow so far is `20,000, which is not even half of what he was expecting. But Nirmal fears that the price of cows in his area will only drop because it is decided on the amount of milk it produces, which depends on the amount of green fodder a cow consumes. “And finding green fodder is a luxury in today’s times when the entire district is reeling from consecutive droughts,” says a worried Nirmal. He adds that ̀ 20,000 would be just enough to keep his family of six afloat till the rainy season in June 2016. “I have no option but to hope that the monsoon will not disappoint us this year,” says the farmer from Beed district.
Beed registered a 50 per cent rain deficit during the 2015 rainy season. The deficit reached 55 per cent by December. In fact, the entire Marathawada region, except Aurangabad district, saw 46 per cent rain deficit during the last monsoon. The region recorded 47 per cent rain deficit during the 2014 monsoon.
The gravity of the fodder shortage hits home when farmer Bhaorao Silke, who is also at the fair to sell his ox pair, says, “I am okay even if somebody takes them right now and pays me six months later because I have nothing to feed them.” He says fodder scarcity is responsible for the increase in the number of cattle sellers at the fair. “Generally around 100 sellers came to the fair, but the number of sellers has shot up by three times since December,” he says.
What is more worrying is that the worst is yet to come. “The period between February and May is going to be the most challenging when fodder will be used up in most districts,” says Nishikant Bhalerao, an ag-
E
REU
TERS
www.downtoearth.org.in 29
28-38Cover story.indd 29 25/01/16 3:28 PM
C O V E R S T O R Y
riculture expert from the region. Even Maharashtra animal husbandry department data shows that most districts in Marathwada will run out of fodder by February (see ‘Out of stock’, p31).
Seeing the crisis, Maharashtra government an-nounced the setting up of 172 cattle camps by October 2015 and started the Kamdhenu Dattak Gram Yojana under which farmers will be given `1,500 per hectare (ha) and seeds to grow fodder. It also started a water harvesting programme called Jalyukt Shivir, which will create rain harvesting structures in villages. The state has also put a ban on inter-state and inter-district trade of fodder.
According to Umakant Dangat, agriculture divisional commissioner, Aurangabad, the Jalyukt Shivir will cover the entire Marathawada region by 2019. “We have selected 1,682 villages in the Marathwada region that will have access to water by next year,” says Dangat. While Marathwada is the worst affected by fodder crisis, the story is not very different in most of the other drought-hit states (see ‘Pushing the panic button’, p31).
India faces a green fodder shortage of 63.5 per cent, says the vision document of the country’s premier research institute Indian
Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (igfri). The shortage of dry fodder is 23.5 per cent, estimates the national institute that is under the administrative control of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. If the current situation
continues then India’s green fodder shortage will reach 66 per cent and dry fodder will reach 25 per cent by 2030 (see ‘Worst is yet to come’, p32). Traditionally during drought, livestock assumes the role of a shield for farmers, mostly small and marginal. But with the acute fodder shortage, sustaining cattle has become extremely difficult in drought-affected areas. If the situation continues, it will completely derail the rural economy.
The deficit pinches different states different-ly. Ajit Singh, a dairy farmer from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, is a worried man. The reason: he has not earned profit in the past six months de-spite having 23 healthy cattle that produce nearly 180 litres of milk every day.
“The cost of fodder, which accounts for 70 per cent of the input cost, has doubled in the past six months,” says a worried Singh (see ‘Out of reach’, p35). Uttar Pradesh, like Maharashtra, wit-nessed consecutive droughts in 2014 and 2015. Government data suggests 50 out of the 75 dis-tricts in the state faced drought-like situation in the two years. “The cost of green fodder has in-creased from `1,500 to `2,500 per tonne in the past six months. We are compensating the green fodder shortage with feeds that are substantially more expensive,” he adds.
While for Punjab and Haryana, where nearly eight per cent of the total cultivable area is used for fodder, the shortage is limited, it is acute in arid re-gions like Bundelkhand, which grows fodder on
The number of cattle sellers at a weekly animal fair at Neknoor village in
Maharashtra's Beed district has tripled because of acute fodder shortage
in the area
PHO
TOGR
APH
S: G
ANES
H S
UD
HAK
AR D
AHIW
ALE
30 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 30 25/01/16 2:25 PM
C O V E R S T O R Y
Areas that face chronic droughts in the country
Drought-hit states are rolling out emergency measures to arrest the fodder shortage
Pushing the panic button
11%of the world's livestock population is in India
65.5% is the projected green fodder deficit by 2030 if India does not act
63.5%is the green fodder shortage India faces today
3 times is the increase in the cost of green fodder between 2011 and 2016
Rajasthan Directs district
collectors to stop diversion of husk for non-agricultural uses such as in brick kilns
Stops inter-state trade of fooder
Maharashtra
Bans inter-district and inter-state trade of fodder
Starts more than 150 cattle camps that will provide free fodder for livestock
Karnataka Starts 42 banks to
provide fodder to farmers at 50 per cent subsidy
Opens 26 cowsheds
Uttar Pradesh Allocates I2 crore for each
drought-affected district for fodder procurement
Starts distributing free seeds to grow fodder crops
Odisha Instructs banks to provide
insurance for fodder crops
Telangana Distributes fodder seeds
Constructs more than 4,000 water tanks for cattle
Plans to start banks to meet fodder deficit of half a million tonnes
Most Marathwada districts will run out of fodder by FebruaryOut of stock
Source: Maharashtra animal husbandry department, vision document of Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute and news reports
Arabian sea
M A H A R A S H T R A
AurangabadFebruary 2016
BeedDecember 2015
JalnaJanuary 2016
ParbhaniApril 2016
HingoliFebruary 2016
NandedJanuary 2016
LaturFebruary 2016
www.downtoearth.org.in 31 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 31 25/01/16 2:25 PM
C O V E R S T O R Y
less than two per cent of its cultivable land. Similarly, Odisha is also struggling with severe fodder shortage. The Odisha government has asked banks for insurance of rabi crops because of the poor kharif crop. Deficient rainfall during kharif has severely affected agricultural produc-tion in 139 blocks of 21 districts. “As farmers are likely to face scarcity of cattle fodder, particularly in drought-affected areas, banks will also finance fodder cultivation this season,” says chief secretary G C Pati. A study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ilri) shows that lack of ade-
quate amounts and quality of fodder is one of the biggest constraints Odisha farmers face. “Odisha is facing an emergent fodder crisis necessitating urgent redirection of strategies to bridge the wid-ening demand-and-supply gap as well as ensure quality feed to boost livestock productivity,” the study says. It estimates that there is already a shortfall of 48 per cent in green fodder availabili-ty and 24 per cent in dry fodder in the state. By 2020, there will be 57 per cent deficit in dry fod-der availability, taking into consideration the fact that one farmer will require at least four kg every day for a large ruminant.
Despite several state governments rolling out schemes to address the fodder short-age, Union government agencies main-
tain there is no fodder problem. They dismiss the shortage on the flimsy ground that no comprehen-sive data exists on fodder production. “There is no credible survey or study that assesses the ground situation. Whatever studies are in the public do-main are just guess work. Logically speaking, such a huge deficit should have affected the country’s milk production, which is only increasing. This year, the production will touch 145 million tonnes, which will increase to 162 million tonnes next year,” says S S Kandpal, director, department of animal husbandry under the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. He says the shortage in the Marathwada region is a local prob-lem. “We had spoken to the Ministry of Railways to supply fodder from Punjab and Haryana to states that are facing shortage. But not a single state has asked for fodder,” says Kandpal.
However, private players in the feed industry have a different explanation for the increase in milk production. The huge fodder gap, they say, is being bridged by their industry. “The crisis of green fodder has boosted the feed industry. This explains the consistent rise in India’s milk produc-tion despite severe fodder scarcity,” says Amit Saraogi, chairperson, clfma, a consortium of 250 feed companies. According to government data, there are more than 500 feed companies in the country. A report by clfma says India’s feed indus-try, which is already worth $15 billion, is expected to double by 2020. According to The Indian Feed Industry-Revitalizing Nutritional Security Knowledge, a report published by Yes Bank in 2015, many companies are eyeing the huge feeds market. “The sector is growing by eight per cent every year,” says Saraogi.
Fooder shortage will widen if corrective measures are not takenWorst is yet to come
Source: Indian Grassland and Fodder Institute
Green fodder deficit Dry fodder deficit
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
-60
-70
Defic
it (in
%)
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
-65.45
-24.90-19.95
-59.95
Maharashtra government has announced the setting
up of 150 cattle camps in drought-hit districts
1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 32 25/01/16 2:25 PM
C O V E R S T O R Y
EXPERTS SAY the reason behind the crisis is that nobody really cares about fodder in the country. This, despite the fact that the contribution of livestock in agriculture
production is around 35 per cent and its contri-bution to the gdp is 4 per cent. The sector also pro-vides livelihood to 70 per cent of rural population. According to the erstwhile Planning Commission’s report of the working group on animal husbandry and dairying, the livestock sector has been grow-ing faster than the crop sector. The report adds that the livestock sector is expected to emerge as an engine of agricultural growth in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). Umakant Dangat, agricul-ture divisional commissioner of Aurangabad, says fodder has always been the last priority at times of drought. “When there is a water scarcity, we only think of drinking water and never think about fod-der,” says Dangat.
“Today’s crisis is a result of decades of negli-gence. It is a side effect of our development pro-cess,” says S B Pawar, director, Marathwada Agric- ultural University, Regional Research Station, Aurangabad. The current shortage is a result of
government apathy, coupled with shrinking com-mon land and lack of research work on fodder crop. Pawar says the country has achieved self-suf-ficiency in food grain at the cost of fodder. The tra-ditional fodder crops have been replaced by cere-als and cash crops. Government data clearly shows rice and wheat have reduced the area under culti-vation of traditional fodder crops such as barley, millets and other coarse cereals. Maize is the only fodder crop the cultivation area of which has in-creased in the past 50 years because 60 per cent of maize is used in the feeds industry (see ‘At the cost of fodder’ p35).
“Traditionally, the Marathwada region would grow drought-resistant coarse cereals such as sor-ghum, millet, maize and pulses,” says Pawar. “But in the absence of any assured price for traditional crops, farmers opted for cash crops such as cotton, soybean, sugarcane and wheat, prices of which are assured. It made the traditional crops marginal-ised, triggering chronic fodder shortage in the re-gion,” he adds.
The shift was possible because of government apathy towards fodder crops. For starters, India
Government apathy, changing farming pattern and lack of innovations are reponsible for India's fodder shortage
Neglected by all Farmers have ditched fodder crops for cash crops and pulses that get government support
www.downtoearth.org.in 33 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 33 25/01/16 2:25 PM
C O V E R S T O R Y
has does not have a national fodder policy. In fact, the recent crisis has prompted Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh to formulate a fodder policy. In November 2015, Singh asked igfri to prepare a draft policy. The country also does not have fodder census, unlike animal and crop census. “We do not have a system in place to monitor the availability of fodder. We have now asked the statistics unit to conduct a study on the same. The survey starts next year,” says S S Kandpal, director, department of animal husbandry. Vikas Kumar, scientist (agricultural economics), igfri, says one of the reasons for the neglect is that fodder, despite being a crop, comes under the animal husbandry department, which is equipped to deal with veterinary subjects. Sanjay Bhoosreddy, joint secretary, department of animal husbandry, justifies the limited role of the Centre in the sector by saying that fodder is a state subject. “So the Centre cannot intervene. We can only issue fodder advisories to the states,” says Bhoosreddy.
P K Ghosh, director of igfri, says a national fodder policy is essential. “Like other agriculture crops, the Centre should have a national policy of fodder. The policy should fix minimum support price on fodder crops, provide fodder loans to farmers and subsidies to private investors for production of hybrid fodder seeds,” he says (see ‘Fodder, at present, is nobody’s priority’).
India’s development has come at the cost of its common spaces that were traditionally used for grazing. According to the 54th round of nsso in
1999 on common property resources (cpr) , just 15 per cent of the total geographical area in India was under cpr. The survey also states that these re-sources have been declining at the rate of two per cent every year. cprs include village pastures and grazing grounds. They have traditionally been a source of economic sustenance for the rural poor and have played an important resource-supple-menting role in the private farming system.
Ghosh says this problem can be fixed through a national grazing policy implemented at block and panchayat levels to engage communities. “Village residents should be involved to ensure that encroachment and overgrazing does not happen on common land,” he adds. The failure to promote fodder crops with high productivity has worsened the situation.
P K Ghosh, director of the Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (IGFRI), speaks to
Jitendra on the current fodder shortage in the country. In November 2015, the Union agriculture ministry had asked IGFRI to submit a draft fodder policy. Excerpts from the interview How serious is the fodder scarcity? Why has the government rejected your assessment of the fodder shoratage being acute?Unfortunately, there is no authentic data available to objectively assess or figure out fodder scarcity. Our vision document on grassland and fodder
situation is based on the comprehensive assessment of the past and present trends.Our study shows that only 5.4 per cent (around 7.8 million hectares) of total cultivable land is engaged in fodder production in the country that has one of the world's largest livestock population. If the current situation continues then India's green fodder shortage will reach 66 per cent and dry fodder will reach 25 per cent by 2030. Even the feed industry will not fulfil this deficit, so fixing the problems is imperative.
In December last year you submitted a memorandum to the Union agriculture ministry. What was it about?IGFRI submitted a memorandum after Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh raised concerns over fodder deficit in November 2015. He felt the need for a national fodder policy. We made suggestions such as assured minimum support price for fodder crops especially coarse grains, fodder crop loans and attracting private investors for production of quality hybrid seeds of fodder. We even recommended a national grazing policy that will involve local governance institutions to manage common/ pasture land. This is important because no initiative can sustain till the time the local community is not engaged. For example: In a village, grazing should be allowed in a portion of the common land at a time, so that the remaining portions get time to regenerate. Our community should learn about rotational grazing. We also recommended the setting up of the National Grassland and Fodder Authority, on the lines of the Rainfed Area Development Authority.
Why do you think a body on the lines of Rainfed Area Development Authority can be the solution?Let me make it clear that fodder is right now nobody's baby. It never got any attention from any quarter despite playing an important role in the rural economy. If an authority is formed, at least senior government officials would be accountable for fodder shortages. So the body can be a good start to build on.
India urgently needs national policies on fodder production and grazing practices
Fodder, at present, is nobody's priority
1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 34 25/01/16 2:25 PM
Scientists say that the problem is not just with research but also with the government’s fail-ure to popularise the innovations among
farmers. Pawar says that his institute developed hydroponics, a fodder variety that requires little water, grows quickly and takes little space. “But the variety failed to pick up because proper dem-onstration was never carried out,” says Pawar. “It should have been demonstrated on a large scale in areas that regularly face droughts,” he adds. Scientists at icar-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur, are also main-taining and working on forage rape, which is also known as Chinese cabbage (Brassica pekinsis). “Mustard or canola is an oilseed brassica which is not really suitable for grazing by livestock, but for-age rape, which is a member of the brassica fam-ily such as radish, turnip, and cabbage, will pro-vide high quality feed when pasture quality is low, or its quantity is limited,” says Dhiraj Singh, direc-tor of the Bharatpur institute. The variety will pro-vide quick feed, with high digestibility and energy.
Additionally, there are no seed standards for perennial grasses and legumes. The igrfi vision document points out that rampant use of uncertified, poor quality seed is adding to the problem. “Usually farmers do not produce seed. And in the absence of standards, the seeds available in local market are of poor quality,” says S N Pandey, agriculture expert with Jhansi-based non-profit Development Alternative. Kamal Kishore, a livestock expert with Ahmedabad-based non-profit Foundation for Ecological Security, says the reason new varieties never pick up is because farmers do not want to grow fodder. “The government should make it mandatory to dedicate small portions of farmland to fodder crops,” says he.
Farming area of cereals peaks as fodder crops declineAt the cost of fodder
Source: Directorate of economics and statistics, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
1966-67 2013-14
Rice
Whe
at
Mai
ze
Jow
ar
Bajra
Ragi
Smal
l m
illet
s
Barle
y
Coar
se
cere
als
35,2
50.8 43
,954
.5
12,8
37.6
30,0
03.3
5,07
3.8
9,08
7.2 18
,054
.15,
714.
8 12,2
39.7
7,952
.7
1,984
.21,
138.
1
4,58
469
7 2,82
4.8
756.
6
44,7
60.6
25,3
46.3
How the price of fodder skyrocketed in the recent pastOut of reach
Source: Based on field work by Vikas Kumar, scientist (agricultural economics), IGFRI
Green fodder Dry fodder
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
Price
in I
per
tonn
e
2011-12 2013-14 2015-16
K2,750
K5,500
K9,500
K1,000 K1,200K2,500
ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur, Rajasthan, is working on a forage rape plantation that can be used for grazing
Figu
res i
n he
ctar
es
EKLA
VYA
KU
MAR
Crops with high fodder content
www.downtoearth.org.in 35 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 35 25/01/16 2:26 PM
C O V E R S T O R Y
IN THE middle of the fodder crisis, residents of Devbani village in Tonk district of Rajasthan are showing the way. The village has identified 25 hectares of common land to collectively
grow fodder. Under the initiative, the panchayat manages the fodder and then individual farmers cut the fodder from the common land according to their livestock needs. The initiatve is encouraging especially beecause it is happening in Rajasthan, which has the highest livestock population in the country and faces droughts every alternate year.
“Due to small land holdings and frequent droughts, village residents struggled to feed their livestock,” says Kuldeep Arora of the Indian Institute of Rural Development (iird), a Jaipur-based non-profit that helped the village residents in the initiative. The village has set up a panchayat-level committee for the management of the common land. In 2013, iird helped the village residents to grow nutritious and highly regenerative fodder. “It took us time to convince them about how common land could help the entire community,” says Arora.
“The regional centre of igfri helped us with the fodder variety Dhaman, which is highly nutritious and regenerates in 20 days.” Devbani residents reaped the benefits of the initiative for the first time during the 2014 droughts.
Another example is found in the Baijnath block in Himachal Pradesh where farmers from three villages have come together to grow fodder. Till 2011, farmers in Kharnal, Panter and Paprolakhas villages spent half of their income on buying fodder from Punjab. As a result, they decided to start growing fodder on a 10 ha common pastoral land that was largely infested with weeds. The village residents used the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme to remove weeds like parthenium, lantana, and ageratum. The common land had lost its native vegetation to infestation by exotic weeds over time. Akshay Jasrotiya, president of Tehsil Kisan Sabha Samiti, a people’s organisation based in the block, says that in 2012 they arranged for native fodder seeds such as bracheria and steria that are suitable to germinate in the mid-Himalayan region from igfri and Kerala Livestock Development Board.
The initiative hit a road block in 2013 when the forest department stopped the farmers from growing fodder by claiming it was a forest land. But this did not deter the farmers who started growing the fodder varieties on a portion of their farmland. Seeing the success, in 2014, the farmers decided to reclaim their rights on the land through the Forest Rights Act (fra). “The process
Everything's not lostLittle steps in the right direction can arrest the shortage
36 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
28-38Cover story.indd 36 25/01/16 2:26 PM
is underway and we are hoping a positive decision in the coming months,” says Jasrotiya.
Ghosh says such examples can be replicated in drought-prone regions across the country. “This will be possible if the government sets up a national authority for grassland and fodder development,” he says.
India can also learn from Africa. “The condi-tions in Africa and India are similar. The govern-ment in Ethiopia, which has the largest livestock population in Africa, supports a policy of collect-ing and preserving fodder for lean periods,” says Assahi Ndambi, livestock scientist, Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, a Nairobi-based institution researching on livestock and fish in Asia and Africa. He adds that govern-ments of India and African countries are support-ing big investors’ farms, instead of lending sus-tainable support to rural economy. “In India, the government is framing policies that help big farm-ers. It needs to understand that the support live-stock extends to the rural economy is indispen-sable,” says Ndambi. What Ndambi says makes sense when one sees that most states are provid-ing subsidies to private feed companies to com-pensate for the fodder shortage. This is reducing the urgency with which the government should re-juvenate the practice of growing fodder.
Interestingly, there is enough space to revive fodder in the country. “India has nearly 25 million ha of fallow land which can be easily used for production of fodder,” says Kumar. “And even if
we cultivate fodder in 10 per cent of the fallow land the current deficit can easily be met,” he adds.
The revival of several natural grass varieties that would earlier grow in the wild—cenchrus, heteropogon, chyrsopogon, cynodon dactylon and sawan grasses—can also help. Till 25 years ago, these wild grass varieties fed 70 to 80 per cent of the livestock population in rural India. They were completely rainfed and did not require any sup-port from farmers. But encroachment of common land over the years has substantially reduced these fodder species. “They were drought-tolerant and as a result provided fodder even during the lean summer season,” says Sunil Kumar, head of divi-sion (crop production), igfri. “Now they have been replaced by exotic varieties such as lucerene and berseam grass,” he adds.
Pandey provides another solution when he says pulse crops that have high fodder content need to be incorporated in the farming system. “Pulses such as cowpea and pigeon pea can be used for feed especially during the dry season,” he says.
Finally, the main reason fodder production should be revived is that livestock in India helps rural poor come out of poverty. According to the 11th Planning commission report, the incidence of rural poverty is less in areas with high livestock population. This happens because about 80 per cent of livestock are owned by marginal and small farmers. And the cattle reduce their dependency on agriculture, which is largely rain-dependent.
@_jitendrachoube1
Ethiopia, which largely depends on livestock economy, has a policy of collecting and preserving fodder for lean periods
INDIA | WORLD | AFRICA | CLIMATE CHANGE | HEALTH | AIR | FOOD | ENVIRONMENT | AGRICULTURE | MINING |
WATER | NATURAL DISASTERS | URBANISATION | WASTE | ENERGY | WILDLIFE & BIODIVERSITY | ECONOMY | SCIENCE
& TECHNOLOGY | GOVERNANCE | FORESTS | LIFESTYLE
Kn wledgewww.downtoearth.org.in
DownToEarth
Websites21in one place
n wLOG IN
38DTE Ad knowledge.indd 38 25/01/16 12:21 PM
C OMPETITION FOR sunlight determines the structure of most tropical rainforests. Researchers used data from a rainforest in Panama and found that rainforest
structure is based on what happens after a tall tree falls and creates a gap in the canopy. Sunlight reaches the forest floor through this gap fuelling rapid growth of small trees. Rainforests store about twice as much carbon as other forests and about half of that is due to huge trees, but the other half is all the plants in the middle. The study can be used in climate simulations to predict how rainforests absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Science, January 8
Scientists have broken down the structure of tropical rainforests
Carbon stores G I A N T I C E B E R G S may play a major role in the Southern Ocean carbon cycle. Geographers analysed 175 satellite images of ocean colour, which is an indicator of phytoplankton productivity at the ocean's surface, and found that giant icebergs are responsible for storing up to 20 per cent of carbon in the Southern Ocean. The researchers discovered melting water from giant icebergs, which contains iron and other nutrients, supports hitherto unexpectedly high levels of phytoplankton growth. This activity, known as carbon sequestration, contributes to the long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide, therefore helping to slow global warming. Nature Geoscience, January 11
G E O L O G Y
S C I E N C E
Oral is safeTHERE IS no increased risk of any major birth defect associated with oral contraceptive exposure either before or during pregnancy. Researchers analysed 880,694 liveborn infants, 2.5 per cent of whom had a major birth defect. The prevalence of major birth defects, per 1000 births, was consistent across all groups. BMJ, January 6
Ray dawn
BYTES
Dairy aidA N A T U R A L L Y occurring food preservative, Nisin, which grows on dairy products, can remove cancer cells. Researchers found that feeding rats a "Nisin milkshake" killed 70-80 per cent of head and neck tumor cells after nine weeks and extended survival. Many foods contain Nisin, but nowhere near the 800 mg/kg needed to kill cancer cells. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, December 18, 2015 (online)
H E A LT H
H E A LT H
THINKSTOCK PHOTOS
www.downtoearth.org.in/science-and-technology
www.downtoearth.org.in 39 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
39S&T bytes.indd 39 20/01/16 12:35 PM
40 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
H E A L T H
Will the Union government accept its own panel's recommendations
for a 40 per cent tax on harmful lifestyle products to minimise deaths due to non-
communicable diseases?KARNIKA BAHUGUNA
INDIA COULD be on its way to curb the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and sugary drinks if the recommen-dations of a panel, set up in June 2015 and headed by Chief Economic Adviser (cea) Arvind Subramanian,
are incorporated in the Constitution (122th Amendment) Bill, 2014, popularly known as the Goods and Services Tax (gst) bill. The panel on Revenue Neutral Rates for State gst & Central gst has proposed a 40 per cent tax on such products; the Union government can levy an additional excise duty on tobacco products over and above this.
The final rate will be decided by the proposed gst Council, comprising Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and finance ministers of various states. At present, the bill is stuck in the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling National Democratic Alliance government lacks a majority. The government hopes to pass it in the upcoming Budget ses-sion of Parliament.
Global cueThe committee, which submitted its report in December 2015, says taxes known as “demerit taxes” and “sin tax-es” are levied globally on goods considered to have neg-ative externalities on the economy. Demerit or sin tax is
Sealingsinful
products
www.downtoearth.org.in/healthTHINKSTOCK PHOTOS
40-41Health.indd 40 22/01/16 5:09 PM
www.downtoearth.org.in 41 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
a growing international practice and tax-ation is an established tool to reduce con-sumption. The UK levied a tax on alcohol and tobacco products and services on 2015. Mexico enforced an excise tax of 10 per cent on sugar sweetened beverages (ssbs) from January 1, 2014. Indonesia and the Phili-ppines are mulling similar taxes on ssbs (see ‘Reforming lifestyle’).
The proposed tax is significant as India is fast emerging as a consumption super-power of tobacco, alcohol and ssbs. With lack of proper nutrition and no exercise, these products are responsible for non-communicable diseases (ncd) like diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and lung dis-eases, which account for about two-thirds of total deaths in India.
A 2014 study, published in PLoS Medi-cine, observed that if linear secular trends in ssbs consumption continues in the absence of a tax, overweight and obesity prevalence in India would increase from 39 to 49 per cent for adults in the age group of 24–65 be-tween 2014 and 2023, and Type 2 diabetes incidence would rise from 319 to 336 per 100,000 persons per year.
The study says a 20 per cent ssbs excise
tax would prevent 11.2 million new cases of overweight and obesity (a decline of three per cent) and 400,000 cases of Type 2 di-abetes (a decline of 1.6 per cent) between 2014 and 2023.
The tax would also protect India from the adverse health effects of tobacco con-sumption. “Tobacco is the leading cause of ncds, therefore, taxation should be ex-tremely high on all tobacco products,” says Pankaj Chaturvedi, a cancer specialist and associate professor at the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. Simulations by the Wor-ld Health Organization (who) estimate if countries increased taxes on cigarette packs by 50 per cent, 11 million deaths from smoking could be averted globally.
According to a 2014 report, Economic Burden of Tobacco Related Diseases in Ind-ia, prepared by the Public Health Found-ation of India (phfi), economic costs at-tributed to tobacco use in 2011 for people between the ages of 35 and 69 amounted to �1,045 billion. This figure is 1.6 per cent of the gross domestic product and 12 per cent more than the combined state and central expenditure on health in 2011-12. The to-tal central excise revenue from all tobacco
products the same year was only 17 per cent of the estimated economic cost of tobacco.
Predictable industryAs expected, the industry is not happy with the recommendations. An acceptance of the 40 per cent tax on aerated beverages will have a negative ripple effect on the en-tire beverage ecosystem, said Ishteyaque Amjad, vice president, public affairs and communication, Coca-Cola India, in a press release on December 11. “If imple-mented, the proposal will leave the com-pany with no option but to consider shut-ting down certain factories,” he adds.
Shweta Khandelwal, research scien-tist and adjunct assistant professor, phfi, says the industry has resorted to gimmicks and arm-twisting to influence decisions. Industry bodies are engaging with the gov-ernment through pre-budget consulta-tions, conferences, seminars and even rep-resentations to the cea. In a press release on December 5, the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (assocham) said the cea-led panel has not identified which items will be treated as luxury goods for the demerit tax to be levied. “It is feared that the list of such goods may be expanded by including large number of normally used items by large populations which is not de-sirable,” says assocham. It adds that only sin goods should be taxed, but without elabo-rating which are those goods.
Civil society, on the other hand, is de-manding that the tax should be even high-er. “who has recommended that the tax should be at least 60-70 per cent of the retail price,” says Monika Arora, execu-tive director, Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth and Stu-dent Health Action Network (hriday-shan). Seema Gulati, a nutritionist with the Diabetes Foundation (India), adds that there should be a simultaneous re-duction in the prices of healthy food prod-ucts like fruits and vegetables. Whether the Union government gets the bill passed in Parliament, and whether the gst Council accepts the panel’s recommendations, re-mains to be seen.
@_karnika
Country Tax Impact
The UK In 2015, cigarettes were taxed In 2014-2015, there was an at 16.5 per cent of retail price eight per cent fall in plus £3.79 (US $ 5.37) on a consumption, as compared packet of 20. Also, a standard to 2013-2014 20 per cent Value Added Tax
Mexico A 10 per cent tax on sugar There was an overall sweetened drinks was decrease of 12 per cent in introduced in 2014 sales within one year of implementation
Brazil Between 2006-13, the average During the same period, real price of cigarettes domestic cigarette sales increased by 74 per cent decreased by 32 per cent
Egypt In 2010, the government Cigarette sales reduced by raised the tax per pack for 14 per cent within two years most popular brand of cigarettes by 46 per cent
How sin taxes are helping other countries
Reforming lifestyle
Sources: Action on Smoking and Health; BMJ; WHO; Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
40-41Health.indd 41 28/01/16 12:04 PM
42 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
WHAT'S COMMON between the Nipah virus disease that struck in 1999, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (sars) in 2002, the recent outbreaks of Ebola disease and the
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (mers)? Bats. Scien-tists have now come up with the first-ever map showing areas where large number of viruses are present in bats, and where transmission to humans is possible. Classified as zoonotic diseases, they have become a significant threat to global health.
The map, prepared as part of a study by the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College, London, indicates that 60-75 per cent of the re-ported emerging infectious diseases in humans can be zo-onotic. The highest risk hot spots for disease transmission are West Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. India is at high risk. Phylogenetic analysis shows bats to be more ancient hosts of these viruses (they were infected much longer ago in time) than anyone expected.
Influencing factorsZoonotic transmission is dictated by the presence of virus in the environment (or ‘richness’), opportunity of virus to transmit to humans (usually via bat-human contact), and human infection. The study, published in The American Naturalist on January 5, 2016, categorised environmen-tal conditions and human activities to map whether they influence richness or contact with bats. The researchers mapped the potential distribution of 33 viruses shared be-tween bats and humans. They made separate risk maps
S C I E N C E
A new study maps the transmission landscape for diseases emanating
due to contact with batsRAJESHWARI GANESAN
BIOLOGY
BATting for disease
www.downtoearth.org.in/science-and-technology
THIN
KSTO
CK P
HO
TOS
42-43Biology.indd 42 28/01/16 12:04 PM
www.downtoearth.org.in 43 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
for richness and contact—to distinguish ar-eas that are at high risk as they have a natu-rally high diversity of viruses, and those that are at high risk because there’s huge poten-tial for contact between bats and humans (see ‘Bat watch’).
The map shows that places where wild bat populations host viruses do not seem to be the same places where people frequent-ly come in contact with bats. And both con-tribute to risks in different ways. Kate Jones, who led the study, says there is a large risk hot spot in Sub-Saharan Africa, including West Africa, where the recent Ebola virus outbreak occurred.
Central and South America are also risk hot spots because of the presence of natural high diversity of viruses. “In contrast, South and East Asia seem to be risk hot spots be-cause of the potential of high bat-human contact, a reflection of high densities of hu-mans and domestic animals, as well as bush-meat practices,” says Jones.
We are seeing hot spots for emerging diseases where there are increasing pop-ulations of both humans and their live-stock. This is a result of settlements and in-dustries expanding into wild areas such as forests, and this is increasing contact be-tween people and bats. People in these ar-eas may also hunt bats for bush meat, un-aware of the risks of transmissible diseases which can occur through touching body flu-ids and raw meat of bats, says Liam Brierley
of the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, the UK, who is the first author of the study.
Bush meat twistHowever, P Jambulingam, director, Vector Control Research Centre, Puducherry, rules out the possibility of bush-meat consump-tion in India. “We only know the number of cases due to viruses transmitted from bats. But how the transmission of viruses hap-pens from bats to humans is still not known,” he says.
Brierley explains that this anomaly could be due to shortage of data on spatial patterns in bush meat hunting. “The bush meat layer in our model is sourced from one study, which reviews countries where any bat bush meat hunting occurs. India is in-cluded in this due to hunting of the flying Indian fox (Pteropus giganteus) in south India.” This could be relatively minor and unlikely to be a major source of zoonotic transmission and better data on which hu-man populations hunt bats for bush meat would improve the accuracy of bush meat
inputs to future models, says Brierley. “Yet India represents a hot spot for bat-
human contact as the other significant fac-tors in our model for increasing risk of bat-human contact were human population density and populations of livestock (rep-resented by populations of domestic pigs). Certain areas of India may rank very high-ly for both these factors, although these are more general than bush meat hunting, and may represent a number of transmission mechanisms,” says Brierley.
“Nipah virus, Hendra virus, sars coro-navirus, and most recently, the mers coro-navirus have emerged in the last 20 years, which reflects the accelerating speed of global changes in land use and demogra-phy as many industries are either expand-ing into or removing bat habitats. Modern travel networks and infrastructure can in-crease the spread of viruses to new regions, as was the case with sars, adds Brierley.
“We will delve deeper into the specif-ic connections between bats and people in the future, which could help prevent dis-ease outbreaks. Though there is much we are yet to understand, what is clear is that bats should not be vilified for their associa-tion with emerging diseases, as they are key contributors to environmental stability and ecosystem services. Admittedly, they’re fas-cinating animals, whose world we’ve only just ventured into,” adds Jones.
@rajeshwariyer
Bat viruses have emerged in the last 20 years, reflecting changes in land use and demography. Modern travel networks have widened the transmission window
Number of bats-human shared viruses
1 4 8 12 16
The highest risk hot spots for disease transmission are West Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia
Bat watch
Ebola | Nzara, Sudan and Yambuku,
Congo in 1976;Guinea in
December 2013
Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever
| Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany,
and Belgrade, Serbia, 1967
SARS | Guangdong Province, China, November 2002
Nipah | Kampung Sungai Nipah, Malaysia, 1998
Sources: World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; The map is based on data published globally between 1999 and 2013 in six world regions, as grouped by WHO
MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) | Saudi Arabia, April 2012
HeV (Hendra virus infection) | Hendra, Queensland, Australia, 1994
42-43Biology/factsheet.indd 43 22/01/16 11:00 AM
44 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
IN ONE corner of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (igia), unmind-ful of the surrounding dense fog, top scientists and meteorologists of India
have come together, for the first time, on a campaign trail of fog. Literally. The experi-ment has been named the “Winter Fog Campaign”. The pilot project will study fog for better forecasts. For this, India’s two pre-mier scientific institutions, the India Meteo-rological Department (imd), New Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (iitm), Pune, have come together to deploy their best brains.
A sophisticated technology infrastruc-ture has been set up at the igia to record ob-servations of atmospheric variables at dif-
ferent heights (up to 20m) to the surface as well as of soil moisture up to one metre be-low the surface.
About 48 fog days are observed on an av-erage across north India and the Indo-Gangetic plain during winter. The number and intensity of fog events have been rising—from 62 dense fog hours in 2010-11 to 174 in 2014-15. Every year, dense fog events cause more than 15,000 road accidents, delay of over 10,000 trains and diversion of over 100 flights in igia alone. Many airlines are now insuring themselves against fog-related de-lays and cancellations.
Fog is nothing but tiny droplets of water suspended in the air, but it remains one of the least understood weather phenomenons.
During a dense fog, visibility falls below 200 m. Six different types of fog have been observed around the world, but the most rel-evant type in the Indian context is radiative fog, which envelops vast areas of northern India during winter. Across north India, land is cooled overnight by thermal radiation and this, in turn, cools the air close to the surface. This reduces the ability of the air to hold moisture, allowing saturation of the air at the surface, leading to condensation and the for-mation of fog. Radiative fog usually dissi-pates soon after sunrise, but can be very thick during dawn.
Despite advances in satellite technology, India has a low fog forecasting ability. Its success rate in predicting a fog two hours
T E C H N O L O G Y
Walking deep into fogIndia embarks on an ambitious scientific sojourn
to understand the crippling weather phenomenonSHREESHAN VENKATESH
VIKA
S CH
OU
DH
ARY
/ CS
E
www.downtoearth.org.in/science-and-technology
44-45Technology.indd 44 22/01/16 4:44 PM
www.downtoearth.org.in 45 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
before the event is 70 per cent, while it is sev-en per cent four hours before the event.
On the other hand, the ongoing Paris Fog Field Experiment has created a model which can predict a fog two days in advance, and the hit rate is 87 per cent. The experi-ment is being conducted at sitra (Site Instrumental de Recherche par Teledetec-tion Atmospherique), a French national at-mospheric observatory dedicated to cloud and aerosol research.
The initiative has caliberated hitherto unknown aspects of droplet distribution, vertical profile of fog and the effect of aero-sols and particulate matter in forecast mod-els. The imd-iitm campaign is based on the Paris experiment.
Developing a model In recent years, climate scientists have been collaborating to understand fog better and improve forecasting. The imd-iitm cam-paign is just the latest step. The igia is the worst hit airport in India, so it is no surprise that it has been chosen as the primary site for the experiment.
The observations will include simul-taneous measurements of surface meteoro-logical conditions, radiation balance, turbu-lence, thermo-dynamical structure of the surface layer, droplet and aerosols micro-physics, fog water chemistry, vertical profile of droplets, winds, temperature and humid-ity to understand how fog develops (see ‘Fog formation...’). “We are looking intently at fog
microphysics, along with constant monitor-ing of factors such as aerosols, dust, and en-vironmental factors such as relative humid-ity and atmospheric temperature which have not been addressed in earlier models adequately,” says G S Bhat, a professor at the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Scien-ces at the Indian Institute of Science (iisc), Bengaluru, who is also the chairperson of the Winter Fog Campaign.
Over 30 individual components are be-ing used to study fog dynamics. “We are fol-lowing the Paris experiment, and collec-ting specific information pertaining to fog droplets and conditions conducive to fog formation,” says Sachin Ghude, iitm’s co-ordinator for the experiment. Fog updates have been generated through statistical techniques, which is less effective since it relies on a few variables and probability.
Plugging the gaps “Fog is a complicated weather phenomenon. While we can predict onset of fog to some ex-tent, but we are still studying the way it evolves, its intensity and duration,” says R K Jenamani, head of igia met office. Today, most of India’s fog tracking is done through Indian Space and Research Organisation’s (isro) insat-3D satellite. The near-real time detection is achieved by using separate algorithms for day-time and night-time ob-servations relayed by the satellite.
While the algorithms have been quite successful, a glaring gap is that neither the day-time nor the night-time algorithms are able to successfully detect fog occurrence during periods of day-night transition, which is arguably the most crucial period for fog formation.
Another problem with fog detection is wrong detections. “From a satellite perspec-tive, low-lying clouds and fog look nearly identical. This makes it difficult to differen-tiate between the two leading to inaccurate detections,” admits Sasmita Chaurasia, a scientist with isro. With this fog experi-ment, scientists and meteorologists are gearing up for more accurate fog forecast-ing. “We hope to put in place a system to forecast by next winter,” says imd director general L S Rathore.
@shreeshanV
Under surface (0-1 metre)Ground heat flux; how conduction of heat in the ground affects fog
20 metre
12 metre Droplet size and distribution and effect of wind turbulence
8 metre Net radiation for effect of radiating heat
6 metre
4 metre
1 metre
0 metre Temperature and infra-red radiation
2 metre Rain measurement and net radiation
Fog formation...
Heat radiating from the surface at night, cools the bottom air until it reaches saturation
Fog forms first at the surface, thickening as cooling continues
Further radiational cooling at the top of the fog layer deepens it
Vertical force of wind to understand the effect on fog lifting, combinations conducive to fog formation and mixing that affects fog spread, depth and dissipation
GRAPHIC: RAKU/CSE
... and what scientists are studying to understand it
44-45Technology.indd 45 22/01/16 11:45 AM
F O O D
Sohphlang, a delicious tuberous root found in Meghalaya, has medicinal properties KARNIKA BAHUGUNA
Roots of flavour
A VISIT TO Pyrda, a small village in the East Khasi Hills of Meghalaya, reinforces nature’s healing quality. I was on a visit to take part in Indigenous Terra Madre —a five-day conference on indigenous and local food. As soon as we ar-
rived in the village, we were greeted with boiled potatoes and fried sweet potatoes along with a refreshing tea made of boiling roots of a tree called shiahkrot (Smilax ferox). Prepared without milk and with a little sugar, the tea had a distinct flavour and was dark red in colour. This was followed by the main course—rice cooked with pork intestine, pork in black sesame gravy and red rice, which is native to Meghalaya. For vegetarians, there was boiled mustard leaves with a pinch of salt. The parting gift was an edible wild root. Called sohphlang (Flemingia vestita) in local Khasi language, it was carefully wrapped in a banana leaf and packed with a neatly-folded satchel of salt.
Wonder rootSohphlang is a tuberous root which tastes somewhat like water chestnut and is popular among tribal communities. Apart from being consumed as a snack, it is also flavoured with local sesame paste or just salt and chilli powder. The paste of local perilla (Perilla
www.downtoearth.org.in/food
The root peel extract of sohphlang has anti-diabetic and anti-obesity drug properties
DARYL KHYRIEM
46-47Food.indd 46 22/01/16 3:31 PM
frutescens) is called Nei-lieh. The root has a delicate skin which can be easily peeled off.
According to Khasi folklore, a widow once went to collect sohphlang. While she was collecting the edible tuber, her two children were playing nearby. A bright flower caught the fancy of her elder child and she went on top of the rock to pluck the flower. The myth says that the rock started swallowing the children while the mother was busy collecting sohphlang. When she realised she had lost her kids to the mons-trous rock, the widow cursed sohphlang that it would be crushed under the feet and eaten raw.
Local chefs today use it to cook delicious meals. Esther M Sawian, who works with the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society, a food collaborative, uses it to make a curry (see recipe). She says that sohphlang is a delicious accompaniment and a key ingredient in Meghalaya’s kitchens. Soh-phlang can be prepared as a sweet as well as a savoury recipe. Esther also recommends sohphlang salad. “This is the winter crop of Meghalaya and can treat indigestion.”
Sohphlang is also found in parts of China, Nepal, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam. In Meghalaya, sohphlang is main-ly found in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. The state also cultivates this wild herb commer-cially. Sohphlang is planted in February and usually grown in jhum (shifting cultivation) plantations. It is available in the market du-ring November and December.
Medicinal valueThe root is particularly rich in phosphorus and proteins. Local people consume so-hphlang to treat parasitic infections as it has anthelmintic properties. This tradi-tional wisdom has also been authenticated by scientific research which shows the peel extract of sohphlang can remove intestinal worms.
A research published in Parasitology International in 2003 found that the plant components may influence the glycogen metabolism of the fowl tape worm. Gen-istein, an isoflavone derived from the root peel extract of sohphlang, can serve as a potential anti-diabetic and anti-obesity drug and inhibits cell growth, says a study published in the Public Library of Science in November, 2015.
Genistein is also found to have anti-angiogenic effects—blocking the formation of new blood vessels. It may also block the uncontrolled cell growth associated with cancer, according to a study published in Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry in 2012.
The state has taken steps to promote its cultivation. In 2013, the Krishi Vikas Ken-dra in West Khasi Hills organised a training programme to sensitise farmers about the importance of cultivating this crop, which is sold for as much as �200 per kg. The programme also demonstrated that it is possible to cultivate sohphlang in farm-lands, though it is mostly grown in jhum
plantations now. Sohphlang can create job opportunities for small and marginal far-mers in rural areas.
So, on your next visit to Meghalaya, don’t forget to snack on this cream-coloured edible root which is not only filling and fibrous, but also wonderfully medicinal.
@_karnika
Sohphlang curryI N G R E D I E N T S
2 sweet potatoes (parboiled)1 bowl peas (parboiled)100 g Sohphlang (made into paste)5 g pepper or 1 tsp (freshly ground)150 g onion paste15 g ginger paste15 g garlic paste10 g chillies (sliced)500 g tomatoes (skinned)30 ml vegetable oil20 g sugar1 bunch wild coriander (finely chopped)2 1/2 cup of water
M E T H O D Make a paste of all seasoning separately. Heat oil in a pressure cooker and add onion paste and saute for few seconds. Add ginger and garlic paste and stir for few seconds. Add sweet potatoes and peas. Stir well. Add pepper, chillies, lemon and stir. Add 1/2 cup of water and salt to taste. Close and let it simmer. After one whistle and cook in slow fire for five minutes. Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan and saute the onions, then add the tomatoes. Add sugar to caramelise a little then add the Sohphlang paste. Stir well and season with salt. Add 2 cups of water/vegetable stock and let it boil over low flame till the sauce turns thick. Remove from fire and let cool. Add the sweet potatoes and peas into the pan with the sauce and cook for 10 minutes. Garnish with chopped wild coriander and slices of Sohphlang. Serve hot. Non-vegetarians can substitute sweet potato with chicken.
R E C I P ER E C I P E
1-15 FEBRUARY 2016 www.downtoearth.org.in 47
KARNIKA BAHUGUNA / CSE
46-47Food.indd 47 20/01/16 12:36 PM
G O O D N E W S
Recycling the bin
Several initiatives are demonstrating how the
informal e-waste recycling sector can be formalised
KANKANA DAS
SAVITA DEVI (name changed), a municipal solid waste worker in Ahmedabad city, used to earn R1,500 per month. When she joined an initiative of giz India in 2012, where she was trained to collect e-waste, her income rose to R2,500 per
month. “We are now able to hire private tutors to educate our children,” says a ragpicker. The initiative has also led to the channe-lisation of e-waste to authorised dismantling and recycling units. The project is run by sewa-Gitanjali Cooperatives, which is a joint collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusam-menarbeit (giz) India and Microsoft Corporation.
India generated around 1.7 million tonnes of e-waste in 2014, says a UN report. E-waste is a complex waste stream as it contains rare and valuable components and materials worth recovering. But it contains toxic materials which can harm human health and the environment. A study done by the Centre for Science and
48-49Good news.indd 48 20/01/16 12:36 PM
Environment (cse) in Moradabad’s infor-mal e-waste recycling units revealed heavy metal contamination in water and soil samples. The contribution of waste workers in the informal sector has long been neglected and ignored, though they are considered key economic actors, who feed the recycling market. They lack formal recognition, safe livelihoods and dignity. Worse, they are exposed to dangerous tox-ics that can damage to human health.
Reinventing the cycleThe Ahmedabad initiative has been able to channelise about 4,950 kg of e-waste each
year. “Women workers need to devote only two hours weekly, compared to earlier days when they used to spend the entire day sorting and collecting waste,” says Varsha Ben of sewa.
The success of e-waste management and handling lies in the integration of in-formal sector into the formalisation loop. In Kolkata, non-profit disha has initiated the process of formalising informal units so that after dismantling, the waste can be sent to the authorised recyclers. “This has helped secure the livelihood of workers,” says Sasan-ka Dev, secretary of disha.
E-waste recycling—from the household to the dismantling unit—is a three to four tiers process. At present, apex traders con-trol e-waste trading in the informal business market. disha worked with middle level collectors of e-waste and also tied up with an authorised recycler in Tamil Nadu. In the last 18 months, about two tonnes of dis-carded mobile phones and its parts have been collected and channelised to the auth-orised recycling unit. Now, ragpickers get immediate monetary returns, and prices on products are fixed, which otherwise would have been the apex trader’s decision.
In Pune, a public-private partnership, under the EU Switch Asia-weee recycle project, has integrated 192 informal small and medium-sized enterprises (smes). Here, the Pune Municipal Corporation fulfilled its responsibility, under the e-waste rules, by providing support in the form of land to set up a collection facility.
In Bengaluru, saahas, a non-profit, pro-vided support to establish four smes, who have established linkages with the Indian Space Research Organisation (isro) to han-dle 40 tonnes of e-waste. The initiative is achieving sustainability through the estab-lishment of business cycles—smes are buy-ing e-waste and re-selling it to larger autho-rised recyclers. “To make a business case, the producers, manufacturers, re-cyclers and the government need to encourage decen-tralised set ups of e-waste collection points run by companies, civil society-led organ-isations or cooperatives to formalise in-
Though the E-waste Rules, 2011, and the draft E-waste Rules, 2015, lay the responsi-bility of managing e-waste on the producers and manufacturers, under the principle of Extended Producer Respon-sibility, manufacturers are not implemen-ting it, as the existing rules lack the scope for bringing the informal sector into the loop of formalisation (see ‘The impediments...’).
These initiatives have shown how the informal e-waste sector can be streamlined and formalised. But more importantly, these initiatives have recognised the role of waste workers, creating new livelihoods, improved working conditions for women and enhanced social and educational status for their children.
@kankanadas121
The impediments......to formalise the informal e-waste sectorT H E E - W A S T E (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, says that producers/manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipments (EEE) and Waste EEE (WEEE) have to set up authorised collection centres to ensure maximum collection of e-waste, under the Extended Producer Responsibility, following which they have to ensure environmentally sound disposal of the collected waste. However, producers/manufacturers failing because of:
■ Lack of collection centres; ■ Non-recognition of the vast informal
sector, who can become the last mile connect to collect e-waste from individual households; and,
■ Absence of mass awareness programmes on the need to manage discarded e-waste.
Other reasons include lack of authorised recyclers who undertake end-to-end recycling.
Women ragpickers gather for a training session in Ahmedabad
GIZ/
VOST
RY
www.downtoearth.org.in 49
48-49Good news.indd 49 22/01/16 3:31 PM
THE FIRST Jewish settlers in India arrived about 1,500 years ago from West Asia. Over time, as they married and mixed into the local popula-tions, their original pedigree got progressively
diluted and was dyed deeply in the South Asian hue, says a team of geneticists who compared the genetic layout of contemporary Indian Jews with native Indians as well as of Jews living in West Asia.
This is no groundbreaking news. The finding is more or less in line with what conventional historians have long suspected, based albeit on flimsy evi-dence. What is new, however, is that now there is scientific evidence backing this claim. Researchers at the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (ccmb) used clues called genetic markers (essentially spelling differenc-es between any two dnas) to reconstruct a genetic history of the Indian Jews. The study, published recently in Scientific Reports, found that while markers on chromosome Y, which is passed on from father to son, and mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from the moth-er, linked them tenuously to one anoth-er through their West Asian origins. However, markers on other chromosomes, which carry the full genetic blue-print, suggest deep roots in the south Asian stock.
Scientists are increasingly using genetic history to il-lumine the dark corners of humans’ shared past, which a traditional historian could only interpret vaguely us-ing remnants of ambiguous or unreliable oral, written or archaeological data. Even as genetic histories fill cru-cial gaps in traditional historical accounts, they are, as Princeton science historian Keith Wailoo put it, “lend-ing renewed authority to biological conceptions of hu-man difference and providing fodder for national debates over belonging, self-definition, and political power”. For instance, one school of historians believes that the caste system in India became more rigid and clarified during colonial rule. However, in 2009 scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ccmb recon-
structed the genetic history of various caste and tribal groups and found little dilution in some genetic lines, suggesting that the caste system is of ancient vintage.
The study also found that all Indians were a hybrid of two ancestral groups that preceded the arrival of both Indo-Europeans and Dravidians, thus countering the popular view that north Indians descended from Aryans from Central Asia and south Indians from Dravidians.
Genetic archeology is not without its pitfalls though, as illustrated by the science writer Nicholas Wade’s con-
troversial book A Troublesome History, in which he used data on human genet-ic differences to claim that variation in IQ among various races is an outcome of natural selection. But geneticists, on whose work Wade based his claims, de-nounced the book as “inaccurate and in-complete account” of their research.
Fetishing dna as the cipher of all or-igins has also led to a comic exploitation of the age-old question: “Who am I?”. Anyone can now get their genetic his-tories unscrambled by ancestry compa-nies for as little as R15,000. In a world marked by a pervasive feeling of aliena-
tion, it’s not odd to feel a little flattered by a probable kin-ship with famous figures like King Charlemagne or Sage Agastya. The truth, alas, is most such genetic deciphering is imprecise at best and fallacious at worst. The reason is simple. Tracing back your pedigree unfolds in a geomet-rical progression, with the number of ancestors doubling every generation until the family tree begins to look more like a complex labyrinth where anyone or every one could be your ancestor. As the 2009 ccmb study demonstrat-ed, all Indians are complex mongrels bred from two an-cient ancestral lines.
Curious as we are about our origins, human pasts are hopelessly tangled in the twisted ciphers of dna. Genetics can at best illumine a few dark corners of our lineage. It is perfectly legit to imagine yourself as related to a famous clan or a notorious horde. For that you don’t have to line the pockets of pedigree hunters.
C O L U M N
DNA as history and sophistry Genetics is only giving us some clues about our identity and lineage
HEDGEHOG TALES RAKESH K ALSHIAN
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
50 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
50Column.indd 50 20/01/16 12:36 PM
Advertisements
51feb 1-15 201651council half=quark half ad.indd 51 27/01/16 10:47 AM
B O O K
Stephen R Bown retells the expeditions of a fearless explorer Knud Rasmussen, which provide us a benchmark to measure changes in Inuit culture. Exclusive excerpts
Kindred spirit
WHITE ESKIMO: KNUD RASMUSSEN'S FEARLESS JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE ARCTIC Stephen R Bown D a C a p o P r e s s / M e r l o y d L a w r e n c e B o o k s |
3 8 4 p a g e s | ` 1 , 8 3 0.0 6 ( h a r d c o v e r )
THE ESKIMO are an exploring people,” Rasmussen observed, “always longing for a change and a surprise. A people who like moving about in search of fresh hunting grounds, fresh possibilities, and ‘hidden things.’ They are born
with the explorer’s inclination and thirst for knowledge, and they possess all those qualities which go to make an explorer in these latitudes.” Rasmussen may also have been referring to himself and his almost painful longing for something intangible—the wind spirits or the bird’s land—a never-satisfied ache to be roaming, searching for distant images in his mind.
Supernatural powersAngakoqs were believed to have supernatural powers. These varied slightly from region to region, but they all had the same basic function and purpose in society. They understood and navigated the spirit world by entering into trances to do battle with evil spirits or the ill intentions of other angakoqs to steal souls. They could visit the spirit world and return with wisdom or advice. One of the primary jobs of an angakoq in traditional Inuit society was to cure sickness; this was done by curing not the body but the soul, by battling with the evil spirits that were causing the sickness—the Inuit believed sickness was a manifestation of some crime or sin or the influence of a malevolent spirit.
Crime and punishmentThe traditional culture of the Greenlanders was certainly governed by a different morality than the one that governed early twentieth-century Europe and America. Among the Inuit, theft, lying and deceit were considered to be serious crimes, for example, but murder was not necessarily so; sometimes it was even required as punish-
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF DENMARK
www.downtoearth.org.in/reviews
52 DOWN TO EARTH
52-54Book.indd 52 22/01/16 5:54 PM
ment. In the absence of a central authority, those who committed a crime against the group, such as stealing meat or killing another with whom they disagreed, had to be punished by selected members of the group. Because there were no jails, serious crimes were punished by the offender being killed during a hunting “accident” or in some other unofficial manner. Sometimes the treatment of the less fortunate was appalling, by modern standards; orphans or the elderly might be abandoned, or pushed off the ice into freezing water, or denied food. But Rasmussen had seen and experienced enough of what life in Greenland could be like—the brutal, meaningless starvation, unpredictable death by accident, drowning and freezing—that he could understand how and why these practices developed and how they helped smooth the working of Inuit society under certain conditions. The society had no surplus, no ability to support the very young or elderly, who were incapable of contributing or of surviving arduous travel.
Eskimo cousinsAs the Greenlanders walked the gangplank off the ship in Seattle, crowds pressed in, snapping photographs, and a throng of journa-lists asked dozens of questions. Robert Flaherty’s documentary film Nanook of the North, detailing a Hudson Bay Inuit family’s struggle for survival in Arctic conditions, had been a massive hit two years earlier, and Rasmussen and his companions were celebrated as a real-life example of Arctic life and travel. Their story fed into the
public appetite for knowledge of this remote and harsh region. “I have positive proof of the origin of the Eskimo race,” Rasmussen enigmatically declared to the press, “but regret that I cannot make public my discoveries at present.” But he did declare that all the tribes of people he had met, from Greenland to Russia, spoke a variation of a common language.
According to a theory then proposed by the Scottish professor Boyd Dawkins, the Inuit and the European Cro-Magnons were the same “race.” Rasmussen discounted the theory but nevertheless suggested that they were “spiritually like-minded.” He was intimately familiar with Inuit stone tools and compared them to the tools discovered in France and Spain; to his mind at least, they appeared fundamentally the same. His mind was always working along unusual, if not entirely scientific, lines of thought, and he was willing to debate his ideas and explore them further. Despite the inaccuracy of some of his theories, Rasmussen essentially proved that the Inuit were the most dispersed people in history, having a similar language, material and intellectual culture and similar artistic sentiments throughout their broad northern territory.
Expedition and collectionsThe Fifth Thule Expedition collected 15,000 to 20,000 ethnological and archaeological treasures that were donated to the Danish National Museum, including items that covered the entire spectrum of Inuit material culture: clothing, tools, amulets, even kayaks and sledges. The collection was a colossal donation that made Copenhagen an international center for polar and Inuit cultural research. It included comprehensive collections from the Igloolik, Caribou, Netsilik and Copper Inuit, in addition to comprehensive collections from Mackenzie Delta and northern Alaska. Also included were extensive archaeological collections of artifacts from sites throughout Greenland, Canada and Alaska, as well as geological, botanical and zoological collections. The expedition also contributed to polar knowledge by mapping vast areas of coastline previously only vaguely charted.
Window into Inuit lifeRasmussen’s view of the Inuit was so different from that of other people at the time because he had a window into their rich inner world. He was not put off by the shabby, often rough external image. When he was inhabiting this inner world, a bubble of awe enveloped him and he saw the Inuit in a heroic mold. The reality perceived by many other observers was quite different: a barren landscape, scraps of tattered hides, old chopped and chewed-up bones lying around, dirty cold stones to sit on, huts made from snow, mangy dogs, greasy old furs as garments and people who reeked of rancid whale oil. To newly arrived outsiders, the impression was less than heroic, but these were facts of life in the Arctic. And conditions were likely similar for Bronze Age Greeks, crammed aboard tiny ships in less than sanitary conditions. Odysseus’s epic adventures would not have seemed heroic to a casual observer, either, with the men grimy, scabrous from the salt water, and emaciated from lack of food. Much is in the perception. Rasmussen understood that beneath the veneer of daily life lies the hidden world shared by the participants.
Rasmussen’s work is the foundation upon which further knowledge of Inuit culture has been built—even though some of his
Rasmussen (left) and ethnographer Kaj Birket-Smith wearing Inuit clothing during the 5th Thule Expedition, 1921-24
www.downtoearth.org.in 53
52-54Book.indd 53 22/01/16 5:16 PM
Stephen R Bown is a renowned author of eight literary non-fiction books on the history of science. ªMy lifelong interest in history
is fuelled by the lessons to be learned from studying the successes and failures of history's greatest thinkers, leaders and innovators, those who challenged conventional thinking and entrenched power structures to change their world,º he says. Bown spoke to Down To Earth on the significance of Rasmussen's work
How has Rasmussen helped us understand Inuit culture?Nearly everything known about pre-modern Inuit intellectual life is a result of Rasmussen's work in the early 20th century. Theirs was an oral culture on the cusp of enormous social and technological change. Rasmussen, who was born and raised in Greenland in a part-Inuit family, saw this change occurring around him in southern Greenland and anticipated that this change would accelerate along with the development of motors for ships, airplanes and better maps that would allow the intrusion of more people from southern cultures into regions that had hitherto been extremely remote.
Because he was fluent in the culture and language of the Inuit, as well as being an excellent seal and walrus hunter and dog-sled driver, he was accepted into homes and communities in a way that no outsider ever could have been. Because of his incredible social intelligence and charisma, he was trusted and respected. Over months of
living with isolated bands helped him to earn the trust of people and to convince them to share their most intimate beliefs and customs. He learned and recorded poetry, philosophy, legends, songs, religious beliefs and personal stories of tragedy, mystery and adventure. He did this in the era just before fur traders and missionaries changed Inuit culture forever. So Rasmussen's work captures the ancient aspects of a fascinating culture at that point in time before much of it was lost or altered. All cultures are always changing, but the scope of Rasmussen's work a century ago gives us a benchmark from which to compare modern developments.
Rasmussen's own life was also a string of epic adventures, including a 20,000 mile dog-sled journey from Hudson Bay to Alaska. In Rasmussen we have an explorer as well as an anthropologist, a rare combination more commonly found in movies or novels. His writings are literary masterpieces and
constitute a priceless contribution to world culture.
What are the challenges of Inuits living in various parts of the world? The obvious answer is climate change. But I think if we go further it is cultural assimilation in a globalised world—the loss of traditions and a traditional world-view depends on how these traditions have changed. Essentially, the loss of a unique version of the question: what does it mean to be human and alive in the world. Part of the reason for this is increased global populations and the hunt for resources to maintain high-density, high-technology southern civilisations. More people from non-Inuit cultures are moving to the Arctic to work or live and bringing new technology and ideas with them, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it does undermine the foundation for traditional culture.If a changing climate renders impossible what remains of traditional life patterns that will, of course, further the loss of a distinct identity, which is linked to the environment. If the seasons are changing, if the animals, such as caribou and seals, are struggling to adapt to these new environmental patterns, that will necessarily affect the people who depend on the hunting of these animals for sustenance. Within a couple of generations Inuit would have moved from traditional and nomadic way of life to a globalised wage economy—it is understandably a challenge to maintain a cultural identity in the face of such rapid change.
`Climate change may render impossible what remains of traditional Inuit life patterns'
theories have been rejected and his concept of the interrelatedness of the different branches of the Inuit language has been revised. But it is important to recall that Rasmussen did his work in an era when merely getting to the locations to do the fieldwork was an epic struggle, in a time without accurate maps, reliable transportation or communication technology. He is the giant upon whose shoulders other scholars of the Inuit have stood to gain their vista.
Rasmussen’s contributions to Arctic ethnography and literature are unique in that his subjects were not merely sources of data, but his friends. His goal was not merely the collection and interpretation of this data to advance a scientific career: he was a wanderer and a poet, keen to immerse himself in the polar world and its peoples, to
understand them and seek out something grander than data, something that hinted at the mystery of their lives and at the mystery of life in general.
To Rasmussen, the world was a magical place, not in the sense of spells and powers, but in the sense of the unexplained. His contribution to science was to collect the various oral expressions of Inuit life in order to celebrate the unique philosophy they represented; to organize and interpret the unscientific. No one else has combined such incredible geographical explorations with such literary power and philosophical depth.
(Reprinted courtesy of Da Capo Press/ Merloyd Lawrence Books)
54 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
52-54Book.indd 54 22/01/16 5:16 PM
SOMETHING REMARKABLE is happening in the world of automobile manufacture. And it is de-cidedly odd. Carmakers are opening up their pat-ents, hundreds of them, in the alternative fuel ve-
hicle industry to spur development in the sector, turning on its head the basic rationale of patents which is to give innovators a monopoly for a fixed term. And yet, here are the big names in the global auto industry making their innovation open source in a highly competitive sector. So what lies behind this radical shift in thinking?
The first to open up his vault of pat-ents was Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, which makes electric cars. Musk, an en-gineer-turned-entrepreneur who also has a rocket building company, SpaceX, decided in June 2014, to free up patents on the most advanced electric vehicle technology he holds (see ‘Tesla’s ̀ insane’ move to free up patents’, Down To Earth, 1-15 September, 2014). The maverick en-trepreneur had said that Tesla would not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use its tech-nology. The idea was to bring down the wall of patents that was acting like an in-tellectual property (IP) landmine in the acceleration of the development of sustainable transport.
Six months down the line, Toyota Motor Corporation announced that it would freely share its 5,700 patents on hydrogen fuel cells with other auto companies. Japan’s largest carmaker has said it would charge no royalty fee on the use of its technology in order to speed up the pro-duction of more such cars. The majority of the patents, a portfolio ranging from fuel cell stacks, high-pressure hy-drogen tanks to software control systems, will be acces-sible without royalty until 2020. However, some 70 pat-ents related to hydrogen production and supply are not time-bound.
By comparison, Ford Motor Company comes across as a reluctant patent liberaliser. Its 650 patents on elec-tric cars and fuel cells would be available to other au-tomakers at a fee because it thinks ªlicensing is appro-
priateº. Toyota, which has launched a small number of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles, has gone further than the rest. Should another car company license its technology, Toyota would ask, but not demand, access to that com-pany’s patented hydrogen-fuel technology as well.
So should this new renounce-and-share attitude of auto firms, a complete change from the normal predato-ry IP practices of companies, make one suspicious? Not unduly. The simple fact is that both fuel cell vehicles and sophisticated electric cars are at a nascent stage and need
economies of scale to bring prices down to more affordable rates. And more im-portantly, these need widespread infra-structure networks. While infrastructure to support electric cars is coming up in many countries, refuelling stations for hydrogen-powered cars are a tougher proposition. By freeing up its patents, Toyota is hoping to overcome this block. Very few of its hydrogen Mirai cars—these cost around $58,000—have been launched and production can be ramped up only if more refuelling stations come up. Many experts believe hydrogen is the ideal transportation fuel because of its
reusability and it makes sense for more companies to work on such fuel cells. For instance, the only emission in a fuel cell car is water vapour.
In the case of Tesla, too, the idea is to expand the mar-ket for electric vehicles. If more firms were to adopt Tesla’s technology, Musk would be able to leverage such charging networks for its cars at a minimum cost and at-tract more customers, who are now wary because of the limited infrastructure.
As automakers begin to demolish traditional corpo-rate boundaries, there is a better chance the world will benefit faster in new technologies that are less damaging to the environment. As a Toyota official put it, “When good ideas are shared, great things can happen.” Indeed, they can, and should, in other spheres where new tech-nology is urgently needed such as clean energy, where IP is proving to be a major obstacle.
C O L U M N
PATENTLY ABSURD L ATHA JISHNU
Car makers turn patent radicals To expand the market for alternative fuel vehicles, firms like Toyota and Tesla are freeing up their patents
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
www.downtoearth.org.in 55 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
55Column.indd 55 22/01/16 4:43 PM
O P I N I O N
ANJU LAKRA (name changed) lives in Bisakhtanga village, Mandar block, Ranchi. She left home in 2009 and started staying at her in-laws place in
line with a tribal practice called “Dhuku” or living in. Her husband went to Bengaluru in search of work. After a rel-
ative suggested, Anju left for Ghaziabad to work as a domestic worker. But she did not seek any information about her wages and living conditions. In the house she worked, Anju did not get proper food and had to work from 5.30 am to 1.30 am. And there was no privacy. After one and half months, she left, but the place-ment agency was uncooperative and placed her in another house in Ghaziabad. This time she negotiated for better wages, but un-fortunately after a month, she fell seriously ill and was forced to return home without any money. The employer had paid the agent R6,000 as advance.
Lakra’s case may seem unusual, but it is not. While interview-ing 30 migrants (young girls and women) in Jharkhand for a study, with the support of International Labour Organization, we found that changing agricultural practices have also aggravated distress
migration. People are forced to migrate as there is only single cropping in agriculture and there is no work for half the
year. The size of landholdings per household too has
DISTRESS CALLThe collapse of natural assets is fuelling migration in Jharkhand. A recent study throws light on problems faced by tribal communities, especially womenTANVI JHA
SORIT / CSE
1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
56-57Opinion.indd 56 20/01/16 12:36 PM
decreased over generations, and in some districts like Palamau, it is less than one hectare. Upland cultivation of nitrogen fixing pulses like kurthi, gundli sargujja, madua, which required less water and no fertilisers, is vanishing.
The study also found that tribal society is female dominant and many women migrate alone with brokers without any safeguards or information about the work and wages. Even when they go with their family, they are underpaid, as compared to men. For instance, in the brick kilns in Mandar block, Ranchi district, women are paid R85 per day and men R200 per day for the same work. Very few tribal migrants know about minimum wages they are entitled to and never negotiate with the employer. The women mostly work as domestic workers in nearby cities, but do not like to reveal this in their village fearing stig-matisation, as trafficking of girls and women for domestic work and then ex-ploitation is a common phenomenon.
The state, known for its forest cover and coal belts, was carved out of Bihar in 2000. Due to increasing urbanisation, forest cover is vanishing, affecting the lives of tribal communities. The Santhal, Mun-da, Ho, Oraon, Kharia and other tribal communities living here have for long de-pended on forests and its produce for their livelihood. Urbanisation and the resultant deforestation have robbed them of their self-sus-tenance sources such as firewood and food sources. Landless la-bourers are the worst affected who have no livelihood options in non-agricultural periods and are forced to migrate. Sometimes the families migrate together and the children accompany them, spen-ding their time at worksites where they are neglected, and are often subjected to exploitation. They usually work in brick kilns or as ag-ricultural labourers in Bihar.
Change triggersDevelopment policies have also played a part in the dietary transi-tion. The 1990s saw major reforms in the public distribution sys-tem and these communities gained access to rice and wheat. This gradually altered their food habits. The new generation has got used to eating rice, while consumption of traditional foods such as mad-ua has come down.
Further, the government distributes paddy and wheat seeds, which are water intensive, and this has changed traditional culti-vation practices. But rains have become erratic; 2015 was a drought year and this has increased widespread migration. Traditional wa-ter harvesting structures like small check dams, which used to tap and store rain, are gradually disappearing or are built without prop-
er survey of the area and requirement. Government initiatives to provide irrigation facilities are being carried out in a non-integrat-ed manner. For instance, there are cases where wells have been built in one village under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employ-ment Guarantee Act (mgnrega), but the pumps to draw the water for irrigation are installed in another village. Missing linksPromotion of utilisation of Jharkhand’s natural resources like coal and mica has not taken off yet due to resistance of tribal communi-ty to part with their land for industrial establishment. Maoist in-surgency infestation is also a huge deterrent. There is paucity of skilled workers and technical training institutions.
Rearing cattle is an important sour-ce of livelihood, but there are no govern-ment schemes to support poultry and goat rearing. For instance, the National Rural Livelihood Mission is providing broiler grade hens to women Self Help Groups (shgs), but training on immu-nisation and feeding recommendations are not provided.
The non-integrated approach of government programmes seems to be
the key cause for the negligible impact of otherwise well- intended schemes. It is evident that planning is done without a par-ticipatory approach and without an understanding of community needs and existing community resources. For instance, there is now a provision for providing eggs in the mid-day scheme in government schools across the state, but there is lack of vision in terms of link-ing the purchase of eggs with poultry reared by local shgs. Multi-cropping needs to be promoted so that farming can be sustained throughout the year. Currently, less than 10 per cent of total cropped area in the state is irrigated. This can be increased to 25-30 per cent through various methods like integrating digging of wells with pump set distribution.
Migration cannot be curbed totally, as seeking a better life is a right of all, but there is an urgent need to make migration safe. The state government has made provisions for registration at the pan-chayat office, under the Interstate Migrant Worksmen Act, 1979, which provides insurance coverage of R150,000 in the event of an accident or death at the workplace. However, the potential mi-grants are largely unaware of this provision. Increasing utilisation of abundant natural resources through the promotion of industries can be a key strategy to curb distress migration.
The author is senior programme officer, Child in Need Institute, Kolkata
Migration cannot be curbed totally, as seeking a better
life is a right for all. But there is an urgent need to make migration safe, along with efforts to regenerate and utilise natural resources
www.downtoearth.org.in 57 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
56-57Opinion.indd 57 22/01/16 3:32 PM
LIKE THE 1960s jingle for Coca-Cola, things do go better with Narendra Modi. When he joined the Start Up India Stand Up India conclave in Delhi, the meeting gathered pace and zing. From
the hallmark sloganeering title of the policy to its cryp-tic motto, “We Unobstacle”, it had the stamp of a Modi show all over it. True to form was the selfie moment when some top entrepreneurs and analysts gathered in Vigyan Bhavan jostled for photos with the PM, recalling images of the Madison Square Garden and Palo Alto jamborees.
There were mostly cheers when the government un-veiled the Start Up India action plan which offers tax breaks, a $1.5 billion start-up fund and the promise of getting rid of many bottlenecks that choke the entre-preneurial spirit of the coun-try. The biggest incentives the government is proposing are: a new category of innovative start-ups; new rules that will make it simpler for entrepre-neurs to start and close these businesses; and impressively, a mobile app that will make it possible to register a start-up in just a day.
All this is to the good. But will Start Up India work a miracle for the country which desperately needs to push up growth in manufacturing and create employment for the legion of its young of whom at least a million enter the job market every month? That is when the cheers tend to get muted. It is pretty evident by now that the hope of getting factories to deliver on growth and jobs is turning increasingly bleak.
The crucial questions Start Up India raises are the same that another of Modi’s pet projects, Make in India provoked. Who will benefit and how? The Economic Survey 2014-15, prepared under the charge of Arvind Subramanian, the government’s chief economic adviser, highlights a worrying factor why manufacturing will not provide a job bonanza for the millions of unskilled peo-
ple. Both the manufacturing and services sectors depend on skilled workers, whereas India’s “natural compara-tive advantage” is its vast numbers of unskilled workers.
Similarly, Start Up India caters to a select few, the elite that can leverage technology. At least that is how the government has configured the scheme and the kind of people who flocked to the Vigyan Bhavan conclave. It does appear that the definition of “innovative start-ups” would exclude the young persons in the rural areas who might naturally opt to start a traditional kind of business.
Basically, the problems Make in India and Start Up India need to resolve are the underlying issues of educa-tion and skilling. Without a focus on this, it is difficult to see how the country will be able to prise itself out of the
rut. The revamped National Skill Development Mission that Modi has launched is not much of an improve-ment of that of the United Progressive Alliance govern-ment, and far from adequate to meet the demographic challenge it confronts.
A moot point: India al-ready has a culture of smart
tech start-ups—think Flipkart, inMobi and oyo—so the issue is not of seeding such ventures. The problem is to ensure that the big ones remain in India. Analysts point out that the most successful of these, termed unicorns (companies valued above $1 billion), have shifted base to Singapore and the US because of friendlier tax rules and simpler regulations. Another concern is that we will now be competing with well-established start-ups across the world, such as in Brazil, Chile, Israel and South Korea that draw the best entrepreneurs because of superior in-frastructure. How will India fare, given its limitations?
There’s another fallacy that Modi needs to correct. He says the less the government is involved, the greater the progress. Sadly, the enabling environment can only come from official action.
L A S T W O R D
RIGHT TO DISSENT
Sit up India, start worryingStart Up India is a niche project that is unlikely to create the kind of job opportunities we need
L ATHA JISHNU
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
58 DOWN TO EARTH 1-15 FEBRUARY 2016
58Last Word.indd 58 25/01/16 2:26 PM
feb15, 2016 59
The increase in urbanisation has led to increase inthe fresh water demand along with wastewatergeneration. The current water crisis is attributed tomismanagement of water resources and emphasison the energy as well as resource intensivecentralized urban water management. Need is, forthe practitioners and user communities, toimplement sustainable and affordabledecentralised water management practices. Thisshort term four day course will focus on —designing rainwater harvesting (RWH) anddecentralised wastewater treatment systems(DWWT) including local reuse. Registration to thispopular course is on first come first basis.
HOW TO APPLY?Fill up the online application form available athttp://www.bit.ly/1Z0wi9U
VENUECSE, Anil Agrawal Environment Training Institute (AAETI)38, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi
Full and part fellowships available for candidates from African and South Asian countries
Send your query by mail or fax to:Course Coordinator, SUWM, Water Management UnitCentre for Science and Environment41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi–110062 Ph: 91-11-40616000, Ext: 244/257 Fax: 91-11-29955879 Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For more information: http://www.cseindia.org
We accept demand drafts and cheques drawn in favour of ‘Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi’.
PROGRAMME DESIGNThe two training programmes will include interactivesessions, presentation on case studies and visit tosuccessfully implemented RWH and DWWT systems in CSEcampus. The participants will get the opportunity to planand design sustainable urban water management systemsas part of ‘Do it youself’ – group exercises.
Urban Rainwater HarvestingTwo day programme will focus on understanding thepotential of water augmentation at building and/orneighbourhood scale. The training will impart skills onplanning and designing both recharge and storagestructures, techno-economic feasibility, operation andmaintenance etc.
Decentralised Wastewater TreatmentTwo day programme will focus on understanding potentialof sustainable and affordable DWWT systems for localreuse. The training will provide hands on experience inplanning, designing, techno-economic feasibility,operation and maintenance of DWWTs etc.
WHO CAN APPLY?Practitioners (engineers / architects / planners /representatives of non-governmental organisation andgovernment officials), academicians, consultants,students, researchers.
SUSTAINABLE URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT
RAINWATER HARVESTING AND DECENTRALISED WASTEWATER TREATMENT
FEBRUARY 23–26, 2016
Co
urs
e o
n
COURSE FEES:1̀3,500/– ($205)
Limited discounted seats are available for representatives from
NGOs, students and groups of 2 or more from same organisation.
Option to attend either of the 2 trainingprogrammes is available on request with
a fee of 8̀,000/– ($125)
COURSE FEESRs 10,000 for CSR Foundations,
Companies, Public Sector Undertakings, Consultants
Rs 7,500 for academicians, NGOs andresearchers, Rs 5,000 for students
Note: Accommodation can be arrangednearby the training centre, would incur
OPEN FOR ALLCSR practitioners, officials fromcompanies, PSUs, consultants,academicians, students, NGOs
For details contact: Saumya Ranjan Nath, Programme Officer, Industry & Environment UnitCentre for Science and Environment 38, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110062Ph: 91-11-2995 5124 / 6110 (Ext. 251); Fax: 91-11-2995 5879 Mobile: +91 9910532252, +91 9891921959, +91 919899676027 Website: www.cseindia.org
Training programme on CORPORATE SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY – PLANNINGAND IMPLEMENTATION
Selection will be done on first
come first basis
feb15,16 BC
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) recognises CSR as a key businessprocess that helps organisations demonstrate their commitments to beingsocially responsible. In fact, after the amendment of Companies Act in 2013 and
promulgation of CSR Rules in 2014, addressing and reporting CSR performance hasbecome mandatory.
This training programme is designed based on the provisions of the Act and Rules.The training programme aims at giving practical exposure to participants on CSRwith specific reference to the regulatory framework, formulating CSR strategy andpolicy, stakeholder engagement, methodologies for implementation, performanceevaluation and statutory reporting.
The objective of the programme is to build a cadre of CSR leaders and professionalswho would assist in effective development and implementation of CSR activities oforganisations for the benefit of communities as well as business. This trainingprogramme will be relevant and effective for CSR heads, senior and mid-levelmanagers, CSR practitioners and implementation partners, NGOs, etc.
What participants would learn?1. Regulatory Framework for CSR
• Companies Act 2013 and CSR Rules 2014• International guideline and best practices
2. Developing CSR Policy• SWOT Analysis and Identification of Major Risks & Opportunities• Developing Strategy and CSR Policy
3. Stakeholder Engagement • Identification of Stakeholder• Engagement—Social Need Assessment• Prioritisation of Key Issues
4. CSR Planning and Implementation • Participatory Planning• Implementation (Social and Gender Inclusion)
5. Monitoring, Measurement and Evaluation 6. Grievances Redressal (Processes and Practices)7. Guidelines for CSR Reporting
Training Methodology—Lectures, case studies, class room exercises, discussions androle plays
F o r r e g i s t r a t i o n : K i n d l y e m a i l a t : s a u m y a @ c s e i n d i a . o r g / d i g v i j a y @ c s e i n d i a . o r g
R.N.I. NO. 53588/92 POSTAL REGN. NO. DL(S)-17/3109/2015-2017 ISSN 0971-8079. Licensed to Post without Pre-payment U(SE)-44/2015-2017 at Lodhi Road HO,New Delhi-110003. Published on 1st of every month. POSTED ON: 2-3 of the same fortnight.
