“There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all”- Robert Orben (Comedy Writer)

The above quote is so true for the city of Delhi. The pollution level has breached the highest mark in recent times and the Delhi has notoriously become the most polluted city in the world. As per the Supreme Court, 8 people die prematurely every day due to air pollution in Delhi. There is a high possibility that these people belong to the lower and middle class as they are more affected by pollution and do not have the wherewithal to save themselves with the help of various technological and other solutions. These residents of Delhi who generally do not own cars, bear the brunt of the toxic air. As per one study[i], levels of suspended particulate are generally higher in the low neighborhoods of Delhi. The poor people also spend more time outdoors where they come in direct contact with hazardous air.

The affluent households are not that much affected by the toxic air due to the use of air-conditioning, air purifiers, better nutrition, and adequate greenery in the surroundings. Not only this, children in the region are the most vulnerable due to the harmful impact of air pollution. One in every third child has reduced lung function and a high propensity for increased pulmonary hemorrhage. On the face of it, three toddlers moved to the Supreme Court to demand the “Right to breath fresh air” under the “Right to life” under Article 21. In fact, the right to breathe fresh air is a human right. This public health emergency needs to be solved on a war footing. Otherwise, it will reach to a stage of unspeakable damage as our children are our future and so-called ‘demographic dividend’ and if they are not healthy and sound, the country will not progress in the future.

Various studies have been conducted to understand the causes of air pollution in Delhi. Almost all of the reports including the recent Economic Survey released by the Government of India have been vocal about vehicular emissions as one of the main causes of pollution. Delhi has seen the uncontrollable growth of personal cars in recent decades. As per NTPDC report, Delhi comprises 1.4% of the Indian population but accounts for more than 7% of all motor vehicles in the country. As per the recent Economic Survey, vehicular emissions are responsible for 30% of pollution in Delhi. Therefore, there is a need to promote public transportation by providing more quality buses, extending the metro lines to more areas, improve last-mile connectivity by providing eco-friendly solutions- bike sharing, e-rickshaws, rent the cycle, charging higher parking fees, congestion charges to discourage usage of cars, promoting the idea of car-pooling and most importantly encouraging the buying of electric vehicles by providing more incentives, less interest rate on loans to buy electric vehicles, involving the private sector to create charging infrastructure under CSR activities and seriously formulating a policy for the 100% electrification of the public transportation system.

The problem of stubble burning is also needed to be tackled with cooperation between the Centre and States. Farmers need to be given subsidies to buy Turbo Happy Seeder(THS) machines and there is also a need to look for innovative eco-friendly and sustainable solutions to convert the crop residue into useful manure.

Despite all these measures, there is a need to mobilize all the stakeholders and take the help of civil society to take innovative steps to deal with the problem of toxic air. The Government of the day can’t be omnipresent. Therefore, citizens of Delhi-NCR need to become vigilant to persuade each other not to burn garbage, adopt the habit of car-pooling, plant more trees, take measures in their region for protecting the environment, etc. In fact, corporate sectors and various other offices can also start some new ideas to deal with the problem of air pollution. For instance, corporates in Gurgaon have started one day of the week as a car-free day[ii] which has proved to be successful in reducing the pollution level.

Not only this, there is a need to start a sensitization campaign among the citizens of Delhi towards the value of fresh air and its harmful impact on health. The Ministry of Environment and Health and the Delhi government started the Clean Air Campaign[iii] this February to sensitize the Delhiites towards the quality of air and as per the various reports, it was found that it turned out to be successful. There is a need to take more steps like this.

The pollution in the Delhi-NCR region is not only a public health emergency but also a case of environmental injustice where and poor and our future generations especially the small children are bearing the brunt of toxic air. The most ironical that in most cases these people haven’t contributed towards the deteriorating quality of the air. On the face of it, this is high time that authorities take heed of this injustice and take strong actions to provide fresh air for all the citizens of Delhi-NCR.

[i] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1100060X

[ii] http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/car-free-day-corporates-plan-ways-to-decongest-gurgaon-roads/

[iii] http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/clean-air-campaign-from-feb-10/article22432825.ece

Indian constitutional forefathers have adopted the parliamentary form of democracy after India became an independent country in 1947. India as a nation of teeming millions has also taken a bold step of adopting universal adult suffrage when experts were debating about India’s survival as a nation. This one ‘right to vote’ given to Indians shows the faith of our constitutional forefathers in the capacity of Indian voters when India was poor third world country with low literacy and abysmal development and growth in the economy. This faith is still visible in India’s election processes, as Indian general election is the largest event management exercise on earth during peace times.

The Constitution of India came into force on January 26, 1950. The first general elections to Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies were held simultaneously in 1951-1952. In fact, this practice of simultaneous elections continued till 1967 when due to premature dissolution of State Legislative Assemblies the cycle of the synchronized elections got disrupted. In 1970, the fourth Lok Sabha got dissolved prematurely. And fifth Lok Sabha term was extended till 1977 due to emergency provisions under Article 352 of the Constitution of India. Since then the dissolution of the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies is the order of the day due to the fragmented political system, the emergence of regional parties and indiscriminate use of the power under Article 356 which gives power to the President to declare President’s rule in any state on various grounds. Though after the Supreme Court Judgement in S. R. Bommai vs. Union of India case, the arbitrary use of the Article has come down. The Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Lok Sabha was dissolved before the end of the term of their respective Lok Sabha. Due to this, the cycle of simultaneous elections got disrupted in the Indian polity for last 48 years.

Simultaneous elections mean a restructuring of the Indian election cycle in a manner that the General Elections for the House of people and the Assembly elections for State Legislative Assemblies are conducted simultaneously. In such condition, voters will cast their vote on a single day and at the same time for electing the members of Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.

Recently, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for the debate to conduct simultaneous elections at various platforms. In fact, the President of India Ram Nath Kovind in his first address to parliament this year advocated for simultaneous elections and remarked that a sustained debate is required on the subject of simultaneous elections. Election Commission, Law Commission of India, NITI Aayog and Parliamentary Standing Committee has favored the conduct of simultaneous elections of the House of the people and the State Assemblies. The analysis from the NITI Aayog report and the discussion conducted on the MyGov website provides enough evidence to conduct simultaneous to improve governance process and reduce the election fatigue in the country.

WHY DO WE NEED SIMULTANEOUS ELECTIONS? 

India is a world’s largest democracy in the world due to its electoral size as well as subcontinental dimensions.  It is the largest peacetime mobilization of the people in the world. Commenting on the size and scale of Indian elections, the Strategic Plan 2016-2025 published by Election commission of India mentions,

“The magnitude and complexity of the Indian election can be estimated from the fact that the Indian elections are not only the largest exercise in logistics in the world but are also considered as one of the most credible elections in the world. India, in fact, accounts for the largest share of electors in any country, exceeding the total number of electors in the entire American continent, or even that of the entire African continent or that of all the European nations put together”.It shows the complexity of election process. However, the independent election commission along with other organizations are doing the humongous job of conducting the election process in free and fair manner. Despite that, Indian election process is fart with a number of challenges. The scope of this paper is to focus on the challenges created by the frequent elections and their overall impact on the polity, economy, and society of the country.

If we take the example of the period March 2014 to May 2016, then as per the Election Commission data, there were 15 State Assembly elections were conducted along with the elections for the 16^th Lok Sabha. If we add the elections conducted in the third tier of the Government i.e. the Panchayati Raj Institutions and Municipalities, bye-elections, the number of elections conducted in one year will increase substantially. To manage this situation and reduce the burden on the exchequer, the idea of simultaneous elections was propounded by various political parties as well as the reports of various institutions. 170^th Report of the Law Commission of India headed by Justice B. P. Jeevan Reddy, “the holding of a separate election to a Legislative Assembly should be an exception and not the rule. The rule ought to be one election once in five years for Lok Sabha and all the Legislative Assemblies”. In December 2015, the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Department of Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has also supported the idea and given an alternative of holding the elections in two phases. It stated that elections to some Legislative Assemblies could be held during the midterm of the Lok Sabha and elections to the remaining assemblies could be held with the end of the Lok Sabha term. It has also given recommendations for fixing the schedule of the bye-elections.

NITI Aayog report has analyzed the whole issue extensively and recommended for holding simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies. The recent India Action Plan- Three Year Action Agenda (2017-2020) also supported the idea of synchronized two-phase elections from the 2024 election to the Lok Sabha.

In fact, Election Commission of India also supported the conduct of simultaneous elections on various platforms. President of India has also supported the idea of simultaneous elections and said, “With some election or the other throughout the year, normal activities of the government come to a standstill because of the code of conduct. This is an idea the political leadership should think of. If political parties collectively think, we can change it… The Election Commission can also put in their idea and efforts on holding the polls together and that will be highly beneficial”. After this debate, Government of India has come out with five questions on the MyGov website to ascertain the views of the public and create a debate and discussion on this idea in public forum. People have aired their views freely in support of conducting simultaneous elections. In fact, they have narrated their ordeals of suffering due to deadlock in administration at the time of elections as well as disturbances of noise pollution, traffic jams etc. on the website. It can be seen as the anecdotal evidence to prove that the substantial number of people are in favor of conducting simultaneous elections.

Therefore, there is need to understand the profound implication of the frequent elections happening in our country. It can be seen on the below points:

1. Impact on the Political and Administrative functioning of the government: Whenever any elections are conducted in our country, Election Commission enforces the Model Code of Conduct(MCC) to maintain a free and fair environment for the election process. It is imposed from the date of announcement of the election schedule by the Election Commission and is in force till the whole election process is completed. During this period parties in power as well as other political parties are not allowed to announce welfare schemes or development projects throughout India if it is a General Election. In fact, even during the Assembly election, the Central Government can’t take any decision related to that particular state.

               The Parliamentary Standing Committee has articulated this problem stating that, “…The imposition of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) puts on hold the entire development program and activities of the Union and State Governments in the poll-bound State. It even affects the normal governance. Frequent elections lead to the imposition of MCC over prolonged periods of time. This often leads to policy paralysis and governance deficit”. If we just take the year of 2014, the governance activities were suspended around 7months. If we assume that number of the average period of operation of Model Code of Conduct as 2 months during the State Assembly elections, the analysis in the below graph shows that at least for four months every year, the government functioning, as well as development works, will be suspended due the imposition of Model Code of Conduct.  

2. Economic and financial impact of the frequent elections: Fighting elections and conducting elections create huge expenditure not only on the government machinery but also for all the political parties and their candidates. The management and the conduct of the elections create a severe strain on the economic and fiscal budget of the Government of India as well as the various state governments. In fact, this is also the reason behind the generation of black money and corruption. Dr. S. Y. Qureshi in one conference remarked, “…. elections have become the root cause of corruption in the country”. He further mentioned that “…. after winning elections, the politician-bureaucrat nexus indulges in “recovering the investment” and that is where corruption begins”. As per the news report, the expenditure on the General elections 2014 was the highest ever around 3500 cr.  Therefore, conducting simultaneous elections will help in saving the precious tax money and increase the fiscal space which can be used for the development activities.
3. The social impact of the frequent elections: Frequent elections disrupt the normal life of common citizens as can be ascertained from the responses on the MyGov website. Since normal functioning of the government is on standstill and officials are busy in the management of elections, normal people wait for the completion of the election process to take forward their essential activities. School teachers are deployed for the election duty which impacts the quality and quantity of the education provided to the children. Not only this, frequent elections perpetuate the feeling of casteism, communalism, and religious biases.

Therefore, there is a strong basis and need to synchronize the elections of Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.

CRITICISM AND COUNTER ARGUMENTS

The idea of simultaneous elections is also criticized by various political parties, constitutional experts as well as various other stakeholders. The key criticism can be seen in the following points:

• There are various logistic and operational challenges present in conducting the simultaneous elections in India because of its sheer number of electorates and sub-continental size and diversity of Indian polity. It is very difficult to comment on the capacity and capability of institutions which manage the election process in India. If they are still successful in doing it, they will be successful in the coming future. Regarding operational challenges implementing this idea presently, there is need to create consensus among all political parties to debate and come out the feasible proposals and subsequent constitutional amendments.
• Some think-tanks and experts like Indira Jaisingh are of the view that not all voters are highly educated. They do not know whether they are voting for the Assembly or Parliament. It is not as simple as it seems. Indian voter is very matured and credible which can be seen in the track record of India’s voting pattern since the First General Election. In fact, the voting behavior depends on a range of parameters like incumbency, anti-incumbency, narrative dominance, political leadership, local and regional issues and other factors of caste, religion etc.
• Another strong criticism is that simultaneous elections would benefit national parties at the cost of state/regional parties in case of a “national wave in favor of large national parties”.This can’t be proved after seeing the General election of 2014 when there was a wave in favor of BJP government, despite that Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim voters chose for regional parties in their respective states with more percentage of votes.
• There is also a criticism that the simultaneous elections will weaken the federal structure in the country between Centre and States. However, it is premature to talk about this because the spirit of federalism has not come from anywhere rather the Constitution of India provides enough grounds for the principle of federalism in the Indian polity.

Successful experiments of Simultaneous Elections

South Africa held elections simultaneously for every five years for national and provincial legislatures and held municipal elections every two years. Sweden also held an election to its national legislature(Riksdag) and provincial legislature(landing) and local bodies(Kommunfullmaktige) on the fixed date on the second Sunday of September every four years. The UK also passed a Fixed Term Parliament Act, 2011 to provide a sense of stability and predictability to the British Parliament and its tenure. It will provide some stability in the electoral process. In fact, the Parliamentary Standing Committee praises this experiment as a novel experiment which needs to be looked on.  In fact, the US election, though it is a presidential system, works in proper fixed term form which creates stability in the functioning of the democracy of their country. There is no doubt these countries have a good track record in their democratic process except some hiccups as well as human development parameters.

Therefore, India should also synchronize the assembly and general elections to make our democratic process more stable and vibrant.

Indian democracy celebrates the festival of elections every year with a number of elections. Elections are the symbol of a vibrant democracy. However, the frequent elections create disturbances not only in the administration and political system but also in the normal life of the people of India.  In fact, in the last 30 years, there has not been a single year without an election in our country. It leads to a number of unavoidable consequences which creates problems for the long-term growth and development of the country.  In fact, India is on the cusp of change because of its huge demographic dividend[i] in the form of a window of opportunity. The governance processes also need to be transformed radically to satisfy the expectations of the youth in the country. To bring about rapid transformation[ii], India needs to bring about huge structural changes in the economy and public policy of the country. Frequent elections not only impose restrictions on the functioning of the governance process but also saps the energy and risk-taking capabilities of the government. Therefore, it is imperative to evolve a solution to stop these frequent elections cycle and move towards a stable system of simultaneous elections[iii].

[i] https://ritambharachaitanya.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/demographic-dividend-or-demographic-disaster/

[ii] http://www.narendramodi.in/pm-s-speech-on-the-occasion-of-transforming-india-lecture-513478

[iii] https://swarajyamag.com/politics/holding-elections-simultaneously-the-what-why-and-how

References:

Justice B. P. Jeevan Reddy, 1999, ‘170^th Report on the reform of Electoral Laws by Law Commission of India’.

Sarkaria Commission Report on Centre-State Relations (1988)

Supreme Court Judgement on S. R. Bomai vs. Union of India (1994)

Justice A. P. Shah, March 2015, ‘255^th Report on the Electoral Reforms by Law Commission of India’.

Dr. E. M. Sudarshan Natchippan, December 2016, ‘79^th Report on Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies by the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law, and Justice.

Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai, ‘Analysis of Simultaneous Elections: What, Why and How’ by NITI Aayog.

Standing Committee Report Summary by PRS Legislative Research.

‘India Votes- The General Elections 2014’ by the Election Commission of India.

 Priyanka Chaturvedi, 2016, ‘Idea good, but is it practical?’, Observer Research Foundation.

Hemant Sarin, 2016, ‘Simultaneous Elections to the Parliament and State Assemblies’, Live law.

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, 2016, ‘Constitutional Experts decry Modi’s call to Simultaneous Polls to Parliament and State Assemblies’, The Wire.

Venkaiah Naidu, 2016, ‘Breaking out of Election Mode’, The Hindu.

Jagdeep S. Chhokar and Sanjay Kumar, 2016, ‘The case against simultaneous polls’, The Hindu.

Kanishka Singh, 2017, ‘Merits and Demerits of simultaneous elections’, The Indian Express.

Dr. S. Y. Qureshi, 2016, ‘Holding Lok Sabha and Assembly polls together are desirable but not feasible’, The Quint.

The year 2016 was the warmest year since the late 19^th century and it was the hottest of three record-breaking years in a row. The year 2017 is also the hottest year on record without an El Nino boost. It is a matter of serious concern that even after taking all efforts and following commitments under the Paris Agreement, it will be very difficult to limit the warming of the climate by 2^oCelsius. In fact, as per one report[i] “Turn Down the Heat” of the World Bank, without any action, we could be seeing warming by 4^oC above pre-Industrial levels. As per the Climate Action Tracker, under the baseline scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, global temperature is expected to reach 4.1^oC-4.8^oC above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Increasing global temperatures will exacerbate the melting of ices in Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems which will trigger catastrophic impact in terms of sea-level rise, intense storms, floods, etc. In fact, the adverse impact of climate change and Global warming is inevitable and we don’t have to wait for coming years to see their consequences. Low-lying delta regions and coastal areas are vulnerable to these changes. In fact, more than a tenth of humanity resides in vulnerable regions of the world that are within 10 meters of today’s sea level. It is also known as Low Elevation Coastal Zone(LECZ). Almost half of Bangladesh lies in the LECZ and it will be severely affected rising sea-level. On the face of it, it is high time to realize the importance of ‘climate change adaptation’ and work towards building resilience in the society.

Mitigation vs. Adaptation debate

Climate mitigation is any action taken to permanently eliminate or reduce the long-term risk and hazards of climate change to human life and property. Mitigation has become the dominant narrative in the world popularized by the international organizations who are slowly waking up to the issue of climate change adaptation. Mitigation strategies became the dominant narrative because of two reasons. First is the belief in human capability in the age of technology. We almost believed that we can change the environment or stop the changes happening around us. Second is the belief that development process cannot be stopped not only because of belief in the ideology of capitalism and its spreading impact and interlinkages through globalization but also the abject poverty and deprivations in other parts of the world, where these people need to be provided with basic necessities. In fact, even in the problem of climate change, countries are looking for opportunities for growth in the areas of renewables, technology, infrastructure etc. Here is the main problem where we want to focus on only the “cause” and not the “effect”.

 However slowly, the idea of adaptation is gaining ground due to the severe impact of climate changes in terms of various disasters in not only developing countries but also in developed countries. As per the IPCC 2001 report[ii], Adaptation is the adjustments in ecological, social or economic systems in response to actual or expected stimuli and their effects or impacts. It refers to the changes in processes, practices, and structures to moderate potential damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change. In the simple language, adaptation calls for ‘natural resource management’, ‘strengthening food security’, ‘development of social and human capital’ and ‘strengthening institutional systems’. Due to the realization of the value of adaptation, the focus is now shifting towards the bottom-up approach and understanding the vulnerability of various regions and the people to prepare them to cope with the adverse impacts of the climate change. As per the Stern Review[iii] 2006, climate change may displace 200 million people by the middle of the century. Many islands[iv] like Tuvalu, Micronesia in western Pacific Ocean and Maldives, Kiribati in the Indian Ocean are already facing the brunt of climate change. This is high time to mainstream the vulnerability approach and adaptation in the development process to address the emerging challenges.

Why Adaptation?

Adaptation is more effective in solving the problems of climate change because of various reasons. First and foremost, no matter how much we will try to mitigate the impact of climate change, a certain degree of heating is inevitable due to historical emissions. It is very much visible in every country of the world with recurrent extreme-weather events. The second reason is that adaptation measures will give results immediately and in a very short period of time in comparison to mitigation measures which will take decades to show the results. For instance, countries started taking actions to stop the enlargement of the ozone hole in the decade of 1990s. But as per the report[v], the ozone layer is expected to return to normal levels by 2050 which is really a long time when many of us will not be alive. The third reason is that these measures can be applied at regional or local level by empowering the local community and their effectiveness is not dependent on actions of others. It is based on a decentralized and bottom-up approach which gives confidence to the local people to deal with their challenges. However, there are various challenges and hurdles in accepting and mainstreaming the adaptation process.

Challenges/Hurdles

• It requires changing the mindset of the people who are at the helm to accept the adaptation process and empower the local community. However, sometimes a local community will also be reluctant to leave the vulnerable areas due to their livelihood sources like fishing, as well as attachment to their land and houses.
• Another challenge is finance. We need a lot of finance to relocate and provide basic necessities to the vulnerable communities. The finance is also required to protect the natural resources. The irony is that those countries and the people who are most threatened due to climate change do not have the wherewithal to finance their adaptation processes and activities. Transfer of finance and technology from the developed countries to developing countries has become difficult because of the opposition from various quarters and the election of climate skeptics as the leader of western countries.
• Adaptation needs to adopted as per the requirement of the region and the people. It is a very complex process because of huge diversity and complexity of the issue and even the adaptation processes and measures need to be modified as per the changing circumstances. This whole thing makes it very challenging to implement in a diverse setting like India or all over the world.

What needs to be done?

There is no need to tell the urgency of the problem again as I discussed in the introduction part of this article. It needs to be tackled on war-footing and the whole processes of adaptation in the form of “Protect-Aware-Accommodate-Retreat-Empower” must be mainstreamed in the development process. Protect the vulnerable communities, make them aware about the looming crisis, accommodate the vulnerable people to safer areas, retreat from the disaster-prone areas and most importantly empower the local communities to make them capable enough to deal with the upcoming challenges of climate change. Not only this, the government should take into account the views of other stakeholders like Coastal Alliance to frame its policies. The work done by various organizations need to implement in other areas of the country. Since the sea has no boundary naturally and the disaster will never ask before coming to any country. Therefore, the countries should come forward to tackle the problem by creating a joint action plan, sharing of knowledge and technologies, developing the capacity of the people and learning from the successes and failures of different adaptation strategies.

Conclusion

India is a signatory to not only the Paris Agreement 2015 but also agreed to the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). SDGs cannot be achieved without climate change adaptation. If India does want to ‘leave anyone behind’ and committed to achieving the goal of development in harmony with nature, they must take actions to reduce the impact of the crisis and build the resilience in the society to handle the upcoming crisis.

[i] http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climatechange/publication/turn-down-the-heat

[ii] https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/

[iii] http://mudancasclimaticas.cptec.inpe.br/~rmclima/pdfs/destaques/sternreview_report_complete.pdf

[iv] http://www.businessinsider.com/islands-threatened-by-climate-change-2012-10?IR=T/#solomon-islands-6

[v]https://www.epa.gov/ozone-layer-protection/frequently-asked-questions-about-ozone-layer

Climate Change as a change in climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity. In this era of Anthropocene, human beings are altering the climate to achieve the futile goal of high consumption and exploitation. That is why, Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Earth has enough resources to meet people’s needs, but will never have enough to satisfy people’s greed”. After the Industrial Revolution in England in sixteen centuries, the countries have started exploiting the natural resources to create wealth. After some centuries, there was a realization among the leaders, writers, scientists etc., that we had altered the processes of environment for our own peril. In this context, earth summit was called to solve the problem of climate change in 1992. Since then, various summits happened. The Paris Climate Agreement is the result of the Conference of Parties(COP-21). It was signed by 195 countries of the world in December 2015. It aims at keeping the rise in global temperatures well below 2 degree Celsius. It sets a roadmap for all the nations in the world to take actions against climate change in the post-2020. It is very different than the earlier agreement of Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997 because it differentiated between developed and developing countries on the basis of their commitments to tackle the issue of climate change.

Important provisions of the Paris Agreement-

• The principle of CBDR-RC (Common but Differentiated Responsibilities-Respective capabilities) was recognized across all the important pillars of the agreement.
• It also acknowledged the idea of “right to development” of developing countries.
• The Paris agreement is an outcome of ‘bottom-up approach’ through which countries are encouraged to submit their “NDC-Nationally Determined Contributions”.
• It also includes adaptation and mitigation measures.
• It also mandates that developed countries provide financial resources to developing countries.
• The agreement includes a transparent framework for both action and support.

India’s INDC and other initiatives-

• India will propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation.
• India will reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35 % of the 2005 level by 2030.
• India will achieve 40% of electrical power from non-fossil fuel based energy resources.
• India will enhance its carbon sink by planting trees.
• India will try to mobilize finance as well as work for capacity building and technology transfer.
• India has launched an International Solar Mission which would be a coalition of solar rich countries for the development of solar energy.
• India has launched various initiatives in the area of renewable energy to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Hurdles in the implementation of the Paris Agreement- 

There are various hurdles in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Election of climate change skeptic and denier as US president has posed an imminent threat to the implementation of the agreement. Recently, Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. In fact, this can create a huge problem because the USA is the highest per capita emitter of carbon-di-oxide. It will not only encourage other countries to do so but also hamper the financing and technology transfer mechanism to solve the problem of climate change. The USA has always been acting in its self-interest since it became the Super Power. It also reduces the stature of the USA as a benign power. There will be massive domestic pressure to address the problem of Climate Change from the people of their own country.  The developing countries, which are more vulnerable to climate change do not have enough capacity and know how to solve the problem of climate change. They need finance and technology to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Another hurdle is related to transparency and review mechanism. UNFCC does not have the wherewithal to have a close eye on every single country regarding the implementation of their nationally determined contributions. There is need to make the processes more robust and transparent.

Criticism of the Paris Climate Agreement- Environmental activists, academicians and others have criticised the agreement as too late and too little. As per World Meteorological Organization, 2016 was the warmest year ever. In fact, Naomi Klein says that Paris Agreement is politically ambitious but scientifically catastrophic. It will not be enough to check the increase in global temperatures.

The most scathing criticism of the agreement comes from Amitav Ghosh, writer, who says that this agreement is a kind of impossible goal that merely facilitates a neo-liberal order to enrich itself via business opportunities in renewables. In fact, radical ecology says that capitalist modernity, commodification, and materialism are the main reasons behind the climate change. Until and unless people will not move towards moderation, self-poverty as propounded by Gandhiji and the idea of “sustainable development”, the problem cannot be solved. Because this earth exists not only for Homo Sapiens and their coming generations but also for plants and animals. Mahatma Gandhi also said that humans should act as ‘trustees’ to the natural resources and use them wisely as it is our moral responsibility to provide healthy planet to our future generations.

Please see the link for more information:

http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php

http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/economic-survey-reflects-india-s-climate-change-commitments-117013101072_1.html

The realization towards climate change and environment started around the 1960s and 1970s when Rachel Carson published her famous book “The Silent Spring” in 1962 and the report “The limits to growth” was published. Since then activism towards the problems of environmental degradation and climate change emerged in a big manner. However, the issue of Climate Change is more complex and controversial because of its claim of historical responsibility as well as the push towards limiting the growth of consumerism which is the dominant narrative of the world.

Action against Climate Change started from the issue of “Ozone Depletion” when countries came forward to sign the Montreal Protocol in 1987. However, the issue of ozone depletion and the comprehensive idea of climate change are very different. The issue of climate change became contentious because there was skepticism towards its acceptance and availability of scientific evidence. There was conflicting evidence provided for climate change even by the scientific community. However, the efforts towards building a consensus around the narrative of climate change started from the report of Brutland Commission Report- “Our Common Future” which came out in 1987 and also provided the concept of “sustainable development”. Subsequently, the Rio Earth Summit held in 1992. It means that efforts towards combating Climate Change started long before but it took a long time to make it a dominant narrative of the time.

The documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” by Mr. Al Gore, which came in May 2006 was not a single event in his life. He started his activism towards Climate Change much before when he lost a Presidential election against George W. Bush in 2002. When this documentary came, people started seeing the disastrous consequences of climate change in various forms like Hurricanes, Droughts, Floods, Heat waves etc. This documentary brought the issue of climate change on a public forum. Before that, the issue of climate change was the topic of discussion in the scientific community or people who are involved in dealing with the issue. He vividly pictured all the havoc which is happening on the earth due to climate change through various pictures, videos, and a picture of a dramatic increasing trend in temperature.

Even he got a lot of flak from various organizations as well as political parties, there has been consistent realization towards the problem of climate change. It can be seen in terms of Stern Review coming in 2006. There might be no correlation between the two but this documentary created a lot of awareness among the people of the developed world. It can also be seen in the exponential growth of renewable energy in the field of Solar, Wind, Nuclear etc. It can also be seen in terms of the signing of Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. One more interesting thing is that the US who consistently did not sign the agreement has increased it’s renewable energy capacity. However, the sad thing is that temperature is still rising, glaciers are still melting, sea level is still rising and engulfing low-lying areas and petty politicians like Mr. Trump still denying the climate change.

However, the problem is not about signing the Paris Climate Agreement but there is a lack of realization of the idea of “limits to growth”. We don’t want to accept that ‘we have one earth’ and we want to go to Mars to settle a colony there. In fact, here I remember the quote of Gandhiji, he says,

“Earth has enough to satisfy everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed”.

Please see this link to watch this documentary

As per the Census 2011, India’s working age population (15-64 years) is 63.4% of the total population. It is projected that India will be the youngest nation in the world by 2020. India will have an enormous “youth bulge” in the form of “demographic dividend” which provides a golden opportunity for the Indian economy to harness this for increasing growth and productivity of the economy. The growth rate of the labour force will continue to be higher than that of the population until 2021. It was found that every fast-growing economy has accelerated as it underwent a “demographic transition”. Not only this, there are two kinds of demographic trends happening in India. One is that peninsular states have stabilized their populations and northern states are having very young population.

While this demographic dividend provides great opportunities, it also poses various challenges. If these challenges were not tackled at the appropriate time, demographic dividend will turn into “demographic disaster”.

Challenges in harnessing demographic dividend-

• Education- The young people need to be provided with a holistic education where they get the quality education as well life skills. However, the situation on the ground is alarming. As per the ASER report, there is a sharp decline in the quality of education. Children are not able to read and do simple mathematics. The rote learning is prevalent. India spends less than 3% of its GDP on Education. As per one government report, only 79% teachers are professionally qualified to teach in schools.
• Skill Development- Employability is one of the biggest issues in our country. Students do not have adequate skills to work. As per the Labour Bureau Report 2014, the current size of India’s formally skilled workforce is only 2%. In South Korea, 96% and in Japan, 80% workforce is skilled. There is a lack of infrastructure for skill development. Workforce needs skills to get decent employment.
• Health- It is one of the most important requirements because a healthy person can only deliver results at workplace. But the irony of the situation is that India spends less than 2% of GDP on Health. Our primary health infrastructure is crumbling and a large section of rural India still defecates in the open. Children are malnourished and stunted.
• Employment opportunities- India has notoriously gone through the process of “jobless growth”. Indian economy is not able to generate adequate employment for the people of the country. It is dominated by informal sectors. People are mostly self-employed. Indian economy is not creating jobs at a mass level for unskilled and semi-skilled people.
• Discrimination against some sections of the society- Indian society still discriminates various sections of society. It is not only hampering the development process but also creates various hurdles in economic development. The Labour Force Participation Rate of Women(LFPR) of women is very low in both urban and rural areas. Various weaker sections of the society do not get enough opportunities for education and skill development. Child labour is prevalent in the country, which is not only hampering the future generations but also the present adult population.

What needs to be done?

India must create a sustainable ecosystem for education and skill development. Recently launched National Policy of Education is a step in the right direction. However, various anomalies related to the quality of education, teacher training etc. need to be resolved at war footing. Skill India Mission launched by the government to create a job ready and skilled workforce needs to streamline in the education curriculum. It should be made compulsory for every student to learn some skills during school time.

We need to realize the fact that only healthy young population of the country can prove to be a good worker. India has a ‘serious hunger problem’ as per the Global Hunger Index. Swachh Bharat Mission, Mission Indradhaush, Janani Suraksha Yojana, Maternity Benefit Bill 2017, National Health Policy 2017 have good intentions and provisions but they need hundred percent implementation to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend.

Indian Economy needs to focus on manufacturing sectors as well as those sectors which are labor intensive like textile, leather, tourism, agriculture and allied activities to create a large number of jobs. In this context, Make in India and various labour reforms should be given priority.

There is also need to change the mindset of the people to change their attitude towards other sections of the society. There is need to increase the labour force participation of women.

Demographic deadlines are looming towards the country and the economy. India must take adequate steps to reap the benefits of demographic dividend otherwise it will turn out into a demographic disaster.

Please Find useful links here:

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/newsDisplay.aspx?newsID=454215

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/demographic-dividend-at-its-peak/article5102093.ece

http://www.prb.org/Multimedia/Video/2013/demographic-dividend-engage.aspx