General Comprehension (UPSC) (Part-VII)

How best can the problems of floods and droughts be addressed so that the losses are minimal and the system becomes resilient? In this context, one important point that needs to be noted is that India gets 'too much' water (about 75% of annual precipitation) during 120 days (June to September) and 'too little' for the remaining 245 days. This skewed water availability has to be managed and regulated for its consumption throughout the year.

We often hear about conflicts among different States in India over river waters. Of the 20 major river systems, 14 are already water-stressed; 75% of the population lives in water-stressed regions, a third of whom live in water-scarce areas. Climate change, the demands of rising population and the need for agriculture to keep pace, and increases rate of urbanization and industrialization will exacerbate water stress. According to the Constitution of India, water is a State subject and not that of the Union, except for regulation of inter-State rivers.

Key to ensuring balance between competing demands of various stakeholders is a basin-based approach to allocate water amongst constituent regions and States. Allocating fair share of water to them requires assessments based on objective criteria, such as specificities of the river basin, size of dependent population, existing water use and demand efficiency of use, projected future use etc. while ensuring the environmental needs of the river and aquifers.

More than half of Indian women and almost a quarter of Indian men of working age suffer from anemia. According to studies, they are anywhere from 5-15% less productive than they could be, as a result thereof. Indian also has the largest tuberculosis burden in the world, costing 170 million workdays to the country annually. But what is just as important as lost productivity now is lost potential in the future.

It is becoming increasingly clear that on many measures of cognitive ability, malnourished Indian children perform two or three times worse than their adequately nourished peers. For an economy that will be more dependent on highly skilled workers, this poses a significant challenge. And it is one that really should be addressed given India's demographic outlook.

In India, a majority of farmers are marginal and small, less educated and possess low adaptive capabilities to climate change, perhaps because of credit and other constraints. So, one cannot expect autonomous adaptation to climate change. Even if it was possible, it would not be sufficient to offset losses from climate change.

To deal with this, adaptation to climate change is paramount, alongside a fast mitigation response. Another solution is to have a planned or policy-driven adaptation, which would required the government to come up with policy recommendations.

Perception is a necessary pre-requisite for adaptation. Whether farmers a readapting agricultural practices to climate change depends on whether they perceive it or not. However, this is not always enough for adaptation. It is important how a farmer perceives the risks associated with climate change.

The emissions humans put into the atmosphere now will affect the climate in the middle of the century and onwards. Technological change, meanwhile, could make a future transition away from fossil fuels cheap or it might not, leaving the world with a terrible choice between sharply reducing emissions at huge cost or suffering through the effects of unabated warming. Businesses that do not hedge against the threat of uncertain outcomes fail. The world cannot afford such recklessness on climate change.

Environmental problems cause health problems. Substantial changes in lifestyle can reduce environmental or health problems, but this idea appears almost impossible to adopt. With environmental problems, individual efforts can be perceived as having a negligible effect and therefore lead to inertia.

With health, on the other hand, individual choices can make the difference between life and death, literally. And yet barring a few, there seems to be the same collective lethargy towards making their choices.

Many people are not eating the right food. For some, it is simply a decision to stick with food they enjoy but which is not too healthy. This is leading to an increase in non-communicable diseases. This in turn leads to major burden on our health-care systems that have the potential to derail the economic progress which is essential for the poor to improve their lives.

For others, it is about limited access to nutritious food or a lack affordability, leading to monotonous diets that do not provide the daily nutrients for them to develop fully. Part of the reason nutrition is under threat worldwide is that our food systems are not properly responding to nutritional needs. Some where along that long road from farm to fork, there are serious detours taking place.

To tackle the problem of pollution in cities, policy makers think that drastic actions like temporary use of odd-even number scheme for vehicles, closing schools, factories, construction activities, and banning the use of certain type of vehicles are a way forward. Even then the air is not clean.

Vehicles more than 15 years old comprise one percent of the total; and taking them off the road will not make any difference. Banning certain fuels and car types arbitrarily is not proper. Diesel engines produce more PM 2.5 and less CO₂, than petrol or CNG engines. On the other hand, both diesel and CNG engines produce more NO, than petrol engines.

No one has measured the amount of NO, that CNG engines are emitting. Arbitrary bans on vehicles that have passed mandated fitness tests and periodic pollution tests are unfair. What is needed is the scientific and reliable information about the source of pollutants on a continuing basis and the technologies that will work to reduce pollution from them.

Good corporate governance structures encourage companies to provide accountability and control. A fundamental, reason why corporate governance has moved onto the economic and political agenda worldwide has been the rapid growth in international capital markets.

Effective corporate governance enhances access to external financing by firms, leading to greater investment, higher growth and employment. Investors look to place their funds where the standards of disclosure, of timely and accurate financial reporting, and of equal treatment to all stakeholders are met.

Elephants are landscape architects, creating clearings in the forest, preventing overgrowth of certain plant species and allowing space for the regeneration of others, which in turn provide sustenance to other herbivorous animals.

Elephants eat plants, fruits and seeds, propagating the seeds when they defecate in other places as they travel. Elephant dung provides nourishment to plants and animals and acts as a breeding ground for insects. In times of drought, they access water by digging holes which benefits other wildlife.