Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Impact of Pandemic on vulnerable sections of the society
Context
- SC/ST and OBC have been impacted disproportionately by the pandemic as various social indicators shows vulnerabilities of this communities.
Impact of pandemic on education
- On the one hand, with policies mandating the promotion of students, promotion rates at the secondary school level rose significantly and repetition rates nosedived during the pandemic years (2020-21 and 2021-22).
- On the other, the inability to attend physical school and the lack of access to digital education caused a massive drop in learning levels after the COVID-19 outbreak.
- Increasing promotion rate: Notably, the promotion rate among Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students increased sharply after the outbreak. The promotion rate among Other Backward Classes (OBC) students continued to rise unabated.
- Repetition rate declining: The repetition rates too drastically came down in the pandemic years with some 1% students repeating their class across all communities. Notably, the gap in the repetition rate between SC/ST students and general category students declined greatly after the outbreak.
- Declining learning outcomes: While the promotion rate surged and the repetition rate declined, the marks scored by school students in National Achievement Survey (NAS) exams dropped significantly across classes and in most subjects.
- Disproportionate impact: There is a disproportionately greater impact on SC and ST students as their learning outcomes reduced the most while their promotion rates saw the highest degree of rise among all the communities.
Impact on livelihood of vulnerable sections of the society
- High job loss probability: The researchers found that compared to workers from upper castes, the probability of job loss was three times higher for those who are SC and two times higher for OBC workers.
- Comparatively higher unemployment: In December 2019, 39% of upper caste workers were employed and by April 2020, the percentage had dropped to 32%. The fall was more pronounced for SC workers, 44% of whom were employed in December 2019, but only 24% were employed in April 2020. For OBCs and STs the fall was from 40% to 26% and 48% to 33%, respectively.
- Poor education poor Opportunities: According to researchers, the upper castes are endowed with higher human capital, i.e. educational achievement, and are in jobs less vulnerable to pandemic disruption. What is surprising is that the impact on scheduled caste is three times worse. Not only has the pandemic exposed the pre-existing inequities but has amplified them.
How women are affected due to the pandemic?
- Effect on mental health: Women in low-caste women may be at a greater risk for worse mental health outcomes and higher perceived loneliness relative to high-caste women.
- Social exclusion and job losses: Prior research has found that low-caste women have been found to experience greater social exclusion greater job loss and greater barriers to healthcare and thus may experience both worse mental health and higher loneliness.
- Rising loneliness: Women in SC/ST and OBC groups will experience worse mental health, and higher perceived loneliness relative to women in the general caste group. We expect that this difference will be robust even when accounting for sociodemographic factors.
- Victims of systemic disadvantage: Women in general and women of weaker sections in particular, are victims of multiple systemic disadvantages, which exacerbated during the pandemic. Rural women, especially the female wage workers, endured greater socio-economic difficulties as their livelihood opportunities were abruptly halted by the lockdown.
- Visible gendered impact of pandemic: There is nothing natural in the gendered impact of pandemic, but the social norms and behaviour put them at greater risks due to unequal gender preference that is inbuilt in the social structure and culture.
Conclusion
- Pandemic have disproportionately affected the Indian society. Whether it is access to healthcare or vaccination SC, ST and OBC had a disadvantage. Lot of studies and research have assessed the caste specific impact of coronavirus and projected the dismal state of vulnerable groups. Government must look all these data while drafting the future policies for vulnerable communities.
Mains Question
Q. Analyze the learning outcome of SC/ST students after the pandemic. Assess the impact of pandemic on women belonging to SC, ST and OBC community.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pollution related facts
Mains level: Air and Water pollution, Impact on health and measures
Context
- More than 1,10,000 infants are likely to have been killed by air pollution in India in 2019, almost immediately after being born while long-term exposure to outdoor and household air pollution was estimated to be responsible for about 1.67 million annual deaths amongst the adult population in the country.
What is pollution?
- Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment. These harmful materials are called pollutants. Pollutants can be natural, such as volcanic ash. They can also be created by human activity, such as trash or runoff produced by factories. Pollutants damage the quality of air, water, and land.
- Demands for air purifiers: Demand for air purifiers has boomed. Recently, in Delhi, pollution-related curbs were lifted and schools opened, despite air quality continuing to be in the “very poor” category.
- Health related problems: For the majority of urban north Indians who can’t afford air purifiers, life continues amidst dust, cough and breathlessness.
- Children are most affected: Our children in urban localities are growing up with stunted lungs, amidst poverty.
- High percentage of respiratory problems: Eighty per cent of all families in Delhi are noted to be suffering respiratory ailments due to severe pollution.
How we can reduce the air pollution?
- Expand green cover across urban areas to reduce dust pollution: Ahmedabad’s municipal corporation, for instance, has experimented with urban forests, with the city’s 43rd urban forest inaugurated in June 2021 over 20,000 trees have been in 7,625 sq. metres. Chandigarh has about 1,800 parks. Close to 46 per cent of the city was classified as a green area in 2019.
- Use of Miyawaki technique: Civil society could also help in Chennai, the NGO Thuvakkam, with a volunteer force of 1,800, has been able to grow 25 Miyawaki forests, raising over 65,000 trees. Such plantations are now being replicated in other cities including Tuticorin, Vellore and Kanchipuram.
- Push for airshed management: With a focus on understanding meteorological, seasonal and geographic patterns for air quality across a large region. In the US, the passage of the Air Quality Act (1967) saw the state of California being divided into 35 districts which had similar geographic and meteorological conditions and pollution was regulated at the state level. This approach was successful in reducing emissions by 98 per cent from 2010 to 2019.
- Heavy penalty on polluting cars: Inspiration can also be taken from London’s air pollution revolution an Ultra-Low Emission zone has been established in Central London, with hefty daily fees on cars that emit more than 75g/km of pollution.
Water pollution in Indian cities
- Untreated water into freshwater bodies: 72 per cent of urban sewage is untreated in India’s urban freshwater bodies. The Central Pollution Control Board reckons that more than 50 per cent of 351 river stretches (on 323 rivers) are polluted. Over 4,000 septic trucks (with each truck having 5,000 litres of human waste) dispose of their waste in the Ganga every day. In Delhi, about 941 MLPD of raw sewage finds its way to the river, killing off fish and preventing rituals on the banks.
- Riverine Pollution: Riverine pollution causes due to raw sewage overflowing from sewage treatment plants, untreated waste from unauthorized colonies, industrial effluents, sewer water from authorized colonies and inter-state pollution.
- Water scarcity: More than 40 per cent of Indians are expected to face water scarcity by 2050 and close to 35 million will face annual coastal flooding with sea level rise.
- Lack of planning: Apathy prevails as of May 2021, only 16 Indian cities had disclosed their plans to tackle climate change to international institutions, with only eight having actual sustainability-related targets in their urban master plans. Only 43 per cent of all Indian cities surveyed actually sought to address climate change adaption as a topic in their master plans, while only five had a GHG emission reduction target.
Do you know this harsh reality?
- In India, nearly 7 lakh premature deaths are attributed to water pollution
- Globally, 1.5 million children under five years die each year as a result of water-related diseases.
How to fight water pollution?
- Improving sewage treatment plant capacity: ensuring linkages with the drainage network. Mangalore’s City Corporation (MCC) has wastewater treatment plants with end-user linkages. The MCC offered to supply treated water to such industrial end-users in the city’s special economic zone if the latter agreed to fund about 70 per cent of the operations and maintenance cost of the pumps and the sewage treatment plant.
- Developing a sanitation network: The problem of untreated waste and sewer water from unauthorized colonies can be solved by investing in a sewerage network. Consider the example of Alandur, a small suburb of Chennai in 2000, it had no underground sewage lines, with most houses dependent on septic tanks. In the late 1990s, the local municipality in partnership with local resident welfare associations conducted collection drives to gain deposits (ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500) for developing a sanitation network.
- Pump house: The project was launched with a push for creating a pump house, setting up over 5,650 manholes and providing sewerage connections to 23,700 households, a sewage treatment plant with a 12 MLD capacity was also set up. Going forward, many other municipalities in Tamil Nadu have sought to adopt this model.
- A systems-based approach should be adopted: along with a push for protecting “blue infra” areas places that act as natural sponges for absorbing surface runoff, allowing groundwater to be recharged. At the household level, we can encourage citizens to take up rainwater harvesting, urban roof terrace greening, urban roof water retention tanks and having a green corridor around residential buildings.
- Water permeable roads: Municipalities could be encouraged to make existing roads permeable with a push for green landscaping and rain gardens. At the city level and beyond, policymakers should push for “sponge cities” and incorporate disaster planning. A mindset shift, in citizenry and policymakers, is urgently needed.
Conclusion
- Urban planning and urban pollution are largely neglected in our governance model. Unplanned cities are facing the various problems. We must embrace the technology to fight the pollution in urban India.
Mains Question
How severe is the problem of Urban pollution? What steps can be taken to fight the urban pollution in India?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Groundwater in India
Mains level: Read the attached story
Groundwater extraction in India saw an 18-year decline, according to an assessment by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB).
What is Groundwater?
- Groundwater is the water found underground in the cracks and spaces in soil, sand and rock.
- It is stored in and moves slowly through geologic formations of soil, sand and rocks called aquifers.
- Aquifers are typically made up of gravel, sand, sandstone, or fractured rock, like limestone.
- Water can move through these materials because they have large connected spaces that make them permeable.
- Aquifers, hand-dug wells, and artesian wells are different types of sources of groundwater.
Declining trend of groundwater extraction
- The total annual groundwater recharge for the entire country is 437.6 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2022.
- However the extraction for entire country is only 239.16 bcm, according to the 2022 CGWB report.
- By comparison, an assessment in 2020 found that the annual groundwater recharge was 436 bcm and extraction 245 bcm.
- The 2022 assessment suggests that groundwater extraction is the lowest since 2004, when it was 231 bcm.
Implications of the CGWB report
- A detailed analysis of the assessment indicates increase in ground water recharge.
- This is mainly attributed to:
- Increase in recharge from canal seepage,
- Return flow of irrigation water and
- Recharges from water bodies/tanks & water conservation structures.
Significance of groundwater
- Groundwater supplies drinking water to a sizeable population in India and almost 99% of the rural population.
- It helps grow our food. 64% of groundwater is used for irrigation to grow crops.
- It is an important component in many industrial processes.
- It is a source of recharge for lakes, rivers, and wetlands.
Why discuss this?
- Depletion: People face serious water shortages because groundwater is used faster than it is naturally replenished.
- Contamination: In other areas groundwater is polluted by human activities.
Reasons for Depletion
- Increased demand for water for domestic, industrial and agricultural needs and limited surface water resources lead to the over-exploitation of groundwater resources.
- Limited storage facilities owing to the hard rock terrain, along with the added disadvantage of lack of rainfall, especially in central Indian states.
- Green Revolution enabled water-intensive crops to be grown in drought-prone/ water deficit regions, leading to over-extraction of groundwater.
- Frequent pumping of water from the ground without waiting for its replenishment leads to quick depletion.
- Subsidies on electricity and high MSP for water-intensive crops is also leading reasons for depletion.
- Inadequate regulation of groundwater laws encourages the exhaustion of groundwater resources without any penalty.
- Deforestation, unscientific methods of agriculture, chemical effluents from industries, and lack of sanitation also lead to pollution of groundwater, making it unusable.
- Natural causes include uneven rainfall and climate change that are hindering the process of groundwater recharge.
Impact of groundwater depletion
- Lowering of the water table: Groundwater depletion may lower the water table leading to difficulty in extracting groundwater for usage.
- Reduction of water in streams and lakes: A substantial amount of the water flowing in rivers comes from seepage of groundwater into the streambed. Depletion of groundwater levels may reduce water flow in such streams.
- Subsidence of land: Groundwater often provides support to the soil. When this balance is altered by taking out the water, the soil collapses, compacts, and drops leading to subsidence of land.
- Increased cost for water extraction: As the depleting groundwater levels lower the water table, the user has to delve deep to extract water. This will increase the cost of water extraction.
Regulation of Groundwater in India
(1) Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA)
- It has the mandate of regulating ground water development and management in the country.
- It is constituted under the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986.
- CGWA issues advisories, public notices and grant No Objection Certificates (NOC) for ground water withdrawal.
(2) National Aquifer Mapping and Management Programme (NAQUIM)
- The NAQUIM is an initiative of the Ministry of Jal Shakti for mapping and managing the entire aquifer systems in the country.
- It maintains the Hydrological Map of India.
(3) Atal Bhujal Yojana
- It is a Central Sector Scheme, for sustainable management of groundwater resources with community participation in water-stressed blocks.
Way Forward
- Routine survey: There should be regular assessment of groundwater levels to ensure that adequate data is available for formulating policies and devising new techniques.
- Assessment of land use pattern: Studies should be carried out to assess land use and the proportion of agricultural land falling under overt-exploited units.
- Changes in farming methods: To improve the water table in those areas where it is being overused, on-farm water management techniques and improved irrigation methods should be adopted.
- Reforms in power supply subsidies: The agricultural power-pricing structure needs to be revamped as the flat rate of electricity adversely affects the use of groundwater.
- Monitoring extraction: There should be a policy in place to monitor the excessive exploitation of groundwater resources to ensure long-term sustainability.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Read the attached story
Mains level: Delhi Air Pollution issue
As the situation becomes an annually recurring one in New Delhi and NCR, here’s a look at how far back it goes and what policies have been adopted by the Centre and Delhi’s elected governments to curb air pollution over the years.
Do you know?
In November 2016, in an event known as the Great Smog of Delhi, the air pollution spiked far beyond acceptable levels. This tagged New Delhi to be world’s most polluted city ever.
Causes of Poor Air Quality
- Motor vehicle emissions are one of the causes of poor air quality.
- Badarpur Thermal Power Station, a coal-fired power plant was another major source of air pollution in Delhi.
- The drift/mist emissions from the wet cooling towers are also a source of particulate matter as they are widely used in industry and other sectors for dissipating heat in cooling systems.
- Although Delhi is kerosene free and 90% of the households use LPG for cooking, the remaining 10% uses wood, crop residue, cow dung, and coal for cooking. (Census-India, 2011)
- Fires in Bhalswa landfill is a major reason for airborne particles in Delhi.
- Burning of effigies during Vijayadashami and bursting of firecrackers burning during Diwali is often accused by the left-wing activists to cause of Delhi’s poor air quality.
- Agricultural stubble burning in Haryana and Punjab, coupled with north-westerly winds also affects Delhi’s air quality since the 1980s when crops are being harvested.
Evolution of policies
(1) Recognition of the broader issue (1995)
- In March 1995, the Supreme Court, while hearing a plea by environmentalist and lawyer M.C. Mehta about Delhi’s polluting industries
- It noted that Delhi was the world’s fourth most polluted city in terms of concentration of suspended particulate matter (SPM) in the ambient atmosphere as per the WHO’s 1989 report.
(2) Identifying major pollutants (1996)
- The Court took note of two polluting factors — vehicles and industries.
- In 1996, the court ordered the closure and relocation of over 1,300 highly-polluting industries from Delhi’s residential areas beyond the National Capital Region (NCR) in a phased manner.
- In 1996, Mr. Mehta filed another public interest litigation (PIL) alleging that vehicular emissions were leading to air pollution and that it posed a public health hazard.
(3) Action plan by Delhi Govt. (1996)
- The Delhi government submitted an action plan to the apex court.
- The court recognised the need for technical assistance and advice in decision-making and implementation of its orders.
(4) Establishment of EPCA (1998)
- The Supreme Court asked the Environment Ministry to establish an authority for Delhi, leading to the creation of the Environmental Pollution Control Authority of Delhi NCR (EPCA) in 1998.
- The EPCA submitted its report containing a two-year action.
- The Court subsequently ordered the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus fleet, taxis, and autos to switch to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), and the phasing out of all pre-1990 autos.
- Coal-based power plants within Delhi were also converted to gas-based ones.
(5) National Air Quality Programme (NAMP)
- Around the same time, the Centre decided to establish a network of monitoring stations under the National Air Quality Programme (NAMP) to measure key pollutants.
- The NAMP monitors the four major pollutants as part of the AQI – sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, respirable particulate matter and fine particulate matter.
- It also checks wind speed and direction along with relative humidity and temperature.
How were air quality standards revised?
- The National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) were specified by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
- It identified pollutants like PM10 (particulate matter with a diameter exceeding 10 microns), sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were measured.
- The NAAQS were revised in 2009 to include 12 categories of pollutants including PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter under 2.5 microns
- Particulate Matter (PM) is primarily generated by fuel combustion from different sectors, including transport, energy, households, industry and agriculture.
Arriving finally at: Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP)
- According to the revised NAAQS, the acceptable annual limit for PM2.5 is 40 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3) and 60 ug/m3 for PM10.
- In the winter of 2016, Delhi witnessed one of its worst incidents of pollution-induced smog, with PM2.5 and PM10 levels reaching a whopping 999 ug/m3 in parts of Delhi on November 1.
- Subsequently, the Supreme Court in November 2016 told Delhi and NCR authorities to form a plan to deal with the air pollution.
- The MoEFCC in early 2017 came out with the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
Try this question from CS Mains 2015:
Q.Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata are the three megacities of the country but the air pollution is a much more serious problem in Delhi as compared to the other two. Why is this so?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chancellor
Mains level: States vs Governor at crossroads
In the latest escalation of its running battle with Governor, the Kerala government has decided to remove him as Chancellor of State universities, seeking to replace him with “renowned academic experts”.
Who is a Chancellor of a University?
- In India, almost all universities have a chancellor as their titular head whose function is largely ceremonial.
- The governor of the state, appointed as the union’s representative of state by the president, is the honorary chancellor of all State owned universities.
- The de facto head of any government university is the vice-chancellor.
- In private non-profit universities, normally the head of the foundation who has established the university is the chancellor of the university and is the head of the university.
Role of Governors in State Universities
- In most cases, the Governor of the state is the ex-officio chancellor of the universities in that state.
- Its powers and functions as the Chancellor are laid out in the statutes that govern the universities under a particular state government.
- Their role in appointing the Vice-Chancellors has often triggered disputes with the political executive.
What about Central Universities?
- Under the Central Universities Act, 2009, and other statutes, the President of India shall be the Visitor of a central university.
- With their role limited to presiding over convocations, Chancellors in central universities are titular heads, who are appointed by the President in his capacity as Visitor.
- The VCs too are appointed by the Visitor from panels of names picked by search and selection committees formed by the Union government.
- The Act adds that the President, as Visitor, shall have the right to authorize inspections of academic and non-academic aspects of the universities and also to institute inquiries.
What is Kerala attempting to do?
- Education comes under the Concurrent List.
- In an official statement, the Kerala Cabinet noted the M.M. Punchhi Commission had vouched against granting Governors the power of Chancellors.
- In many states, the elected governments have repeatedly accused the Governors of acting at the behest of the Centre on various subjects, including education.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pashmina Wool
Mains level: Not Much
Traders of Pashmina shawls are complaining that “obsolete testing methods” have resulted in many of their export consignments being flagged for the presence of ‘Shahtoosh’ guard hair, which is obtained from endangered Tibetan antelopes.
Shahtoosh, on the other hand, is the fine undercoat fibre obtained from the Tibetan Antelope, known locally as ‘Chiru’, a species living mainly in the northern parts of the Changthang Plateau in Tibet.
What is Pashmina?
- Pashmina is a fine type of cashmere wool. The textiles made from it were first woven in Kashmir.
- The wool comes from a number of different breeds of the cashmere goat; such as the changthangi or Kashmir pashmina goat from the Changthang Plateau in Tibet and part of the Ladakh region and few parts of Himachal Pradesh.
- Often shawls called shahmina are made from this material in Kashmir and Nepal; these shawls are hand spun and woven from the very fine cashmere fibre.
- Traditional producers of pashmina wool are people known as the Changpa.
- Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has published an Indian Standard for identification, marking and labelling of the already GI tagged Pashmina products to certify its purity.
About Pashmina goat
- The Changthangi or Pashmina goat is a special breed of goat indigenous to the high altitude regions of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir.
- They are raised for ultra-fine cashmere wool, known as Pashmina once woven. The Textiles are handspun and were first woven in Kashmir.
- The Changthangi goat grows a thick warn undercoat which is the source of Kashmir Pashmina wool – the world’s finest cashmere measuring between 12-15 microns in fiber thickness.
- These goats are generally domesticated and reared by nomadic communities called the Changpa in the Changthang region of Greater Ladakh.
- The Changthangi goats have revitalized the economy of Changthang, Leh and Ladakh region.
Try this PYQ:
Q.With reference to ‘Changpa’ community of India, consider the following statement:
- They live mainly in the State of Uttarakhand.
- They rear the Pashmina goats that yield fine wool.
- They are kept in the category of Scheduled Tribes.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Post your answers here.
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