India is facing one of its major and most serious water crisis.
After two consecutive years of weak monsoons, 330 million people — a quarter of the country’s population — are affected by a severe drought. With nearly 50 per cent of India grappling with drought-like conditions, the situation has been particularly grim this year in western and southern states that received below average rainfall.
According to the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) report released by the Niti Aayog in 2018, 21 major cities (Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and others) are racing to reach zero groundwater levels by 2020, affecting access for 100 million people.
However, 12 per cent of India’s population is already living the ‘Day Zero’ scenario, thanks to excessive groundwater pumping, an inefficient and wasteful water management system and years of deficient rains. The CWMI report also states that by 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual six per cent loss in the country’s GDP.
The Union government recently formed a new Jal Shakti (water) ministry, which aims at tackling water issues with a holistic and integrated perspective on the subject. The ministry has announced an ambitious plan to provide piped water connections to every household in India by 2024.
The ministry has set a tough target at a time when hundreds of millions don’t have access to clean water. Aiming at laying huge pipeline networks for water supply means that yet again, we are giving more preference to infrastructure. Also, the moot questions are: what will happen if there is no water to supply? What will happen to all the wastewater that gets generated?
This indicates that there is a clear disconnect between water, society and economy. Currently, we are interested in laying large networks, constructing huge storage dams, fetching water from 150 kilometres and above, which involves a huge carbon footprint.
We are valuing land more than water, neglecting our local water bodies, which have either gone dry or encroached. Also, in many Indian cities, water is not properly distributed. Some areas of mega cities like Delhi and Mumbai are privileged to get more that than the standard municipal water norm of 150 litres per capita per day (lpcd) while other areas get 40-50 lpcd.
Aggravating the problem is that the water being supplied currently is of drinking water standards.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that an individual requires around 25 litres of water daily for meeting his/her basic hygiene and food needs. The rest is used for non-potable purposes like mopping and cleaning. This indicates that for most of the non-potable uses, a quality lower than drinking water is required. Thus, for economic efficiency and environmental sustainability, water must be treated and supplied according to usage.
To top this, are issues of leakage losses, water pricing and metering of water. Lack of proper maintenance of existing infrastructure causes further losses of almost 40 per cent of piped water in urban areas. The road ahead
Looking at the current situation, there is a need for a paradigm shift. We urgently require a transition from this ‘supply-and-supply-more water’ provision to measures which lead towards improving water use efficiency, reducing leakages, recharging/restoring local waterbodies as well as applying for higher tariffs and ownership by various stakeholders.
A recovery-based closed loop system is the need of the hour.
It is time to go back and start using our traditional practice of rainwater harvesting — catching water where it falls. Presently, India captures only eight per cent of its annual rainfall, among the lowest in the world.
Another aspect is the treatment and reuse of wastewater. About 80 per cent of the water that reaches households, leaves as waste and pollutes our waterbodies and environment. There is a huge potential in reusing and recycling this treated wastewater at least for non-potable purposes, which is cost effective.
All this leads to the fact that we need to promote a decentralised approach, with a key focus on water conservation, source sustainability, storage and reuse wherever possible.
It is important to understand that managing the water situation is not the job of only engineers but all stakeholders including hydrogeologists, economists, planners and most importantly, communities themselves.
Emphasis on behavioural change is not getting enough attention because it is nuanced and complex. But locals/citizens/ communities have a huge part to play. By keeping in check our own usage and actions, we can contribute.
As for our decision-makers, they need to re-think: Are we being sold dreams or realities? Mahreen Matto is Programme Manager, Water Management at the Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi
A Niti Aayog report released last year predicts Day Zero for 21 Indian cities by next year. Day Zero refers to the day when a place is likely to have no drinking water of its own.
About half of India is facing drinking water crisis as monsoon got delayed and arrived without a brimming bucket
A Niti Aayog report released last year predicts Day Zero for 21 Indian cities by next year
The government has created a new Jal Shakti ministry to deal with drinking water crisis
About half of India is facing drinking water crisis with Chennai and Bengaluru bearing the brunt as monsoon got delayed and arrived without a brimming bucket. A Niti Aayog report released last year predicts Day Zero for 21 Indian cities by next year. Day Zero refers to the day when a place is likely to have no drinking water of its own.
According to the Niti Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index (CWMI), Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad are among the most susceptible. The government has created a new Jal Shakti ministry to deal with drinking water crisis.
But why a water-surplus country is facing water crisis today? Over-exploitation of groundwater
India is the biggest user of groundwater. It extracts more groundwater than China and the US the next two biggest pullers of groundwater – combined. Groundwater meets more than half of total requirement of clean water in the country.
In 2015, the standing committee on water resources found that groundwater forms the largest share of India’s agriculture and drinking water supply.
About 89 per cent of groundwater extracted in India is used for irrigation making it the highest category user in the country. Household use comes second with 9 per cent share of the extracted groundwater followed by industry that uses only two per cent of it.
Overall, 50 per cent of urban water requirement and 85 per cent of rural domestic water need are fulfilled by groundwater.
This kind of use has caused a reduction in groundwater levels in India by 61 per cent between 2007 and 2017, according to report by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), presented in the Lok Sabha last year.
The report prepared under the ministry of water resources cited rising population, rapid urbanisation, industrialisation and inadequate rainfall as reasons for sharp decline in groundwater volume in the country.
According to another study by a team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, and Athabasca University of Canada, Indians use an estimated 230 km3 of groundwater per year – over a quarter of the global total.
Based on their study of 3,907 wells across states, they found that northern India lost more groundwater than eastern parts during 2005-13 (8.5 km3/year to 5 km3/year). Unequal distribution and availability
It is estimated that while 81 per cent of all households have access to 40 litres of water per day through some source, about 18 to 20 per cent of rural households in India have connections for piped water supply. This has created mismatch in water availability and supply.
According to the Composite Water Management Index of the Niti Aayog, 75 per cent of households do not have drinking water on premise and about 84 per cent rural households do not have piped water access.
Water is not properly distributed where it is supplied through pipes. Mega cities like Delhi and Mumbai get more that than the standard municipal water norm of 150 litres per capita per day (LPCD) while others get 40-50 LPCD.
The World Health Organisation prescribes 25 litres of water for one person a day to meet all basic hygiene and food needs. Extra available water, according to the WHO estimates, is used for non-potable purposes like mopping and cleaning.
Jal Shakti ministry mandated to deal with water issues including drinking water availability with a holistic and integrated approach. It has already set an ambitious task to provide piped water connections to every household in India by 2024. This is likely to regulate drinking water usage.
It will have another challenge, however, to plug leakage of piped water in urban areas. It is estimated that around 40 per cent of piped water in India is lost to leakage. Wastage of water
Arithmetically, India is still water surplus and receives enough annual rainfall to meet the need of over one billion plus people. According to the Central Water Commission, India needs a maximum of 3,000 billion cubic metres of water a year while it receives 4,000 billion cubic metres of rain.
But the problem is India captures only eight per cent of its annual rainfall – among the lowest in the world. The traditional modes of water capturing in ponds have been lost to the demands of rising population and liberal implementation of town planning rules.
India has been also poor in treatment and re-use of household wastewater. About 80 per cent of the water reaching households in India are drained out as waste flow through sewage to pollute other water bodies including rivers and also land.
On the other side of the spectrum is Israel, a country that is located in desert and has learnt to deal with water crisis situation.
Israel treats 100 per cent of its used water and recycles 94 per cent of it back to households. More than half of irrigation in Israel is done using reused water. Law regulating groundwater
It is a curious case but the Easement Act of 1882 that gives every landowner the right to collect and dispose groundwater and surface water within his/her own limits is still in operation. This law makes regulation of water usage by a person on his/her land.
Further, water falls under state list of the Constitution meaning only the state governments can frame a regulatory law. In 2011, the central government published a Model Bill for ground water management for the states.
But not all the states have passed a matching legislation which endorses the doctrine that resources meant for public use cannot be converted into private ownership. And, finally, loss of wetlands, water bodies
Almost every single city and village in the country has lost its wetlands, water bodies and even rivers to encroachment to meet the needs of rising population.
Chennai that is facing acute water shortage had nearly two dozen water bodies and wetlands but most of them are out of use today. A recent assessment found that only nine of them could be reclaimed as water bodies.
A survey by the Wildlife Institute of India reveals that the country has lost 70 80 per cent of fresh water marshes and lakes in the Gangetic flood plains, the biggest river plain the in the country.
The Standing Committee on Water Resources, which submitted its report to Parliament in December 2015, found that while 92 per cent of the districts in the country had safe level of groundwater development in 1995, it came down to 71 per cent in 2011.
On the other hand, the percentage of districts with overexploited state of groundwater level increased from 3 in 1995 to 15 in 2011. The water security has only worsened since then.
More than piped water connections to all rural households by 2024, the imperative is adequate and safe drinking water supply and institutional mechanisms to ensure that
In 2018, the Niti Aayog declared that India was staring at the worst water crisis in its history with 600 million people facing high-to-extreme water stress and about 200,000 people dying every year due to inadequate access to safe water. As many as 75 per cent households lacked supply of water in their premises.
It warned that the crisis would worsen with demand outstripping availability by a factor of two by 2030, which would lead to 6 per cent loss of India’s GDP. A 2018 World Bank report also said there was a direct link between the availability of water and poverty, quoting a study in India which estimated poverty rates to be higher by 9-10 per cent in districts where groundwater tables were below 8 metre.
A year after the alarming Niti Aayog report, the Central government has announced a new Ministry of Jal Shakti for an integrated approach to water conservation and management with the aim of providing piped water to every rural home by 2024.
This is a marked departure from its 2017 mission of providing tap water on a sustained basis in every household by 2030 and that of the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) of 2009 which promised to provide safe and adequate water…to every rural person on a sustainable basis by 2017. Past experience: Lack of planning and delivery mechanisms
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) did a performance audit of the NRDWP and observed (in 2018 report) that lack of necessary focus and prioritisation keeping in view the deliverables that were to be achieved by 2017 resulted in their non-achievement.
The report said the overall coverage of rural habitations increased only by 8 per cent at 40 litre per capita per day (lpcd) and 5.5 per cent at 55 lpcd after incurring expenditure of Rs 81,168 crore during 2012-17. Portable piped water could be provided to 18.4 per cent rural households (against a target of 50 per cent) and household connections to 16.8 per cent (against a target of 35 per cent).
One of the critical observations of the CAG was that 4.67 lakh habitations (17.26 lakh total habitations ) had slipped from fully covered’ by provision of safe drinking water to partially covered’. The reasons being excessive extraction of ground water, inadequacy of efforts to address quality related aspects, lack of sustainability of water sources and inadequate/non-maintenance of water supply schemes.
As much 98 per cent of water-related schemes, including piped water schemes, continue to be based on ground water with little attention being paid to use surface water. The ground water is depleting fast. The Central Ground Water Board data shows water levels fell in 61 per cent of wells in the country between 2007 and 2017.
The Niti Aayog too, in its 2018 report, drew attention to a growing national ground water crisis with 60 per cent states performing poorly in recharging aquifer. The low performers are the northern states of UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and others with a population of 600 million people. Contaminated water is another worry as it affects three-fourth of the population, contributing 20 per cent of the country’s disease burden.
More than half of India’s districts are threatened by ground water depletion or contamination, said a 2019 World Bank report.
As for the CAG report on NRDW, it blamed the programme’s failure to lack of planning and delivery frameworks.
It said, 21 states did not frame water security plans and the annual action plans of the states did not bother about stakeholder and community participation. Institutions critical to planning, execution or coordination, like the National Drinking Water and Sanitation Council, State Water and Sanitation Mission, State Technical Agency, Source Finding Committee, Block Resource Centres etc. were either not set up, remained dormant or did not perform their assigned functions.
Water is a state subject and the NRDWP is a centrally sponsored scheme funded by both centre and states. Primacy to water harvesting, adequate and safe water supply
Chennai is a classic case of mismanagement of water resources. Taps have gone dry here, and other parts of Tamil Nadu, as it faces one of the worst summers this year. While this is not new, Chennai has also witnessed catastrophic flooding due to heavy rain in 1943, 1976, 1985, 1998, 2002, 2005 and 2015. Among other things, a CAG report of 2017 found laxities in planning and water management, including failure to harvest rainwater, for its predicament.
Going by the CAG’s findings on the 2009 NRDWP and the Niti Aayog’s 2018 report on water crisis a similar fate may befall for the entire country if the priorities go wrong.
The NRDWP’s objectives and goals were to provide adequate and safe drinking water on a sustainable basis, to achieve which the CAG advocated institutional frameworks for planning and delivery and water security plans and annual action plans prepared with community participation to ensure that schemes are aligned to community requirements and ensure optimum and sustainable utilisation of water resources.
The National Water Policy of 2012 and other Central government policies from time to time have put a premium on rain water harvesting, conservation of water, judicious use of ground water and efforts to recharge of aquifer, among others, to augmenting availability of adequate water. Reliable and adequate data
The key to overcoming the impending water crisis is adequate and reliable data, which remains a big challenge. The Niti Aayog says data systems related to water in the country are limited in their coverage, robustness and efficiency. While detailed data is not available for domestic and industrial use, the data that is available can be of inferior quality, inconsistent and unreliable due to outmoded methodologies in data collection.
The task for the Ministry of Jal Shakti is, therefore, cut out: a collection of reliable data, putting a premium on ensuring adequate and safe drinking water and institutional mechanisms to achieve those goals.
While unemployment remains high in both urban and rural India, job hunting is a bigger challenge for the young and the educated, notes CSE’s State of the Environment in Figures
India’s rate of unemployment doubled in the past two years, according to the State of India’s Environment (SoE) In Figures, 2019. This has particularly affected young graduates.
According to the report, the unemployment rate has gone up from four per cent to 7.6 in the last two years (May 2017-April 2019). The unemployment rate in April 2019 was the highest in two years. The rate for rural areas in this month was also the highest in this period.
SoE in figures was released by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on World Environment Day. The data for it has been provided by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), New Delhi.
Young Indians (aged 15-24 years) constitute nearly a fifth of India’s total population, according to the country’s 2011 Census. By 2020, they are predicted to make up a third of the country’s population.
The report notes that the youth (between 20-24 years), who constitute around 40 per cent of India’s labour force, have an unemployment rate of 32 per cent.
The unemployment rate among the educated is even worse. The rate among people with at least a graduate degree was 13.17 per cent in September-December 2018, up from 10.39 per cent in May-August 2017. The Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18 released by National Sample Survey Office too shows that unemployment rate increased with education level.
According to SoE in Figures, 2017, a major cause for high unemployment rates in India is the lack of skills required for jobs that are available. This is worrying because India is a young country — home to 20 per cent of the world’s young population — and a major portion of this young workforce, though educated, is unskilled.
Official figures validate this. The Union Ministry Of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship says 4.69 per cent of India’s total workforce is formally skilled, as against 52 per cent in the United States, 68 per cent in the United Kingdom, 75 per cent in Germany, 80 per cent in Japan and 96 per cent in South Korea.
So why do young, educated Indians have poor job skills? One reason is that India has a limited number of quality institutes in spite of growth in the number of higher education providers. A ray of hope
The World Bank recently estimated that India needs to create 8.1 million jobs a year to maintain its employment rate, which has been declining.
Given India’s demographic dividend and urgency to create jobs, the manufacturing sector could prove to be a large employer that provides decent income opportunities.
For example, rapid modernisation of the food processing sector could be one way of increasing its export potential as well as improving employment elasticity-to-growth and investment in it.
With a rise in per capita income, domestic demand for processed food would also rise, making the sector a viable option for pushing manufacturing growth and employment.
Removing structural bottlenecks to the manufacturing sector is key to promoting job creation in more productive and better-paid activities, according to an OECD report on economic outlook released in May 2019.
The International Labour Organization predicts India will have 18.9 million jobless people in 2019. Even as India’s economy is projected to grow 7.5 per cent by 2020, will this growth translate into jobs?
Santosh Kumar Gangwar, who took charge as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Labour and Employment in the newly elected government, has a tough job ahead.
The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) states that the unemployment rate (UR) in both rural and urban India is at its highest since 1972.
The unemployment rates among men and women in both rural and urban groups, are also the highest ever. The increase in the UR is more than three times among rural men and more than double among rural women according to the usual status since 2011-12.
In urban areas, the UR among men is more than twice and has increased twice among women since 2011-12. It is to be noted that the UR between 1972 and 2012 was almost static or did not have many differences (See Table 1). Besides, the UR rose sharply among youth of ages between 15-29 years and those who got better education.
The measurement of unemployment is based on the Usual status and Current Weekly status. The Usual Status (ps+ss) approach to measuring unemployment uses a reference period of 365 days i.e. one year preceding the date of the survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) for measuring unemployment.
The Current Weekly Status (CWS) approach to measuring unemployment uses seven days preceding the date of survey as the reference period. A person is considered to be employed if he or she pursues any one or more gainful activities for at least one hour on any day of the reference week.
The Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation had constituted PLFS under the chairmanship of Amitabh Kundu. The data was collected by NSSO from July 2017 to June 2018. The survey was spread over 12,773 first-stage sampling units (7,014 villages and 5,759 urban blocks) covering 1,02,113 households (56,108 in rural areas and 46,005 in urban areas) and enumerating 4,33,339 persons (2,46,809 in rural areas and 1,86,530 in urban areas).
The unemployment rates in urban areas are higher than those in rural areas. In rural areas, the UR is 5.3 per cent, whereas in urban areas, the UR is 7.8 per cent according to the usual status. The overall unemployment rate is 6.1 per cent in India according to the usual status. According to CWS, the rural employment rate is 8.5 per cent whereas the urban rate is 9.6 per cent. The overall unemployment rate is 8.9 per cent.
In urban areas, the unemployment rates for females are higher than those for males. Table 1: Unemployment rate (in per cent) according to the usual status and current weekly status from 1972-73 to 2017-18
Table 2: Unemployment rate (in per cent) among youth (15 to 29 years) in usual status during 2004-05, 2009-10, 2011-12 and 2017-18
The unemployment rate among youth between 15 and 29 years has risen sharply since 2011-12. Among rural males and females, the UR is almost three times since 2011-12, whereas among urban males and females, this rate is more than double.
The UR has also sharply increased among those who are more educated. Since 2011-12, the UR among rural males has increased by almost three times, from 1.7 per cent to 5.7 per cent. Those who have higher degree of education and those who are completely not-literate have witnessed almost the same level of unemployment.
Interestingly, unemployment among rural not-literate females has reduced and among urban females, the number of those who are literate up to primary-level jobs, is the same as 2011-12. (See table below) Table 3: Unemployment rates (in per cent) according to usual status for the persons of age 15 years and above with different educational attainments during 2004-05, 2009-10, 2011-12 and 2017-18
Among social groups, the highest UR is among the ‘General’ or ‘Others’ category — 6.7 per cent. This groups is followed by Schedule Castes (6.3 per cent), Other Backward Classes (6 per cent) and Scheduled Tribes (4.3 per cent).
Among religious groups, Christians have the highest UR in both urban and rural areas. In rural areas, Christians have a UR of 7.4 per cent, Muslims have a UR of 6.5 per cent, Sikhs 6.3 per cent and Hindus 5.2 per cent.
In urban areas, Christians have a UR of 11 per cent, Sikhs 9.1 per cent, followed by Muslims 8.5 per cent and Hindus 7.6 per cent.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bt-brinjal-turns-out-to-be-different-genetically-modified-variety/story-N3TdpnulTU0TYnEq4DV3HM.html?fbclid=IwAR3xEebLJCodVkvjkXYjRdVy3yE9yFJOzFedwt-FrQiN5td-RprcQ0-sm1E
Issue of GM brinjal in haryana is becoming more murky and scary. Tests show that (if we have to beleave the department and NBPGR) the samples are genetically modified but doesn’t contain Cry1Ac but has other promoters and other sequences..which brings us the question..what is this?
there seems to be two possibilities
a. there were 5-6 events which are tried by various public institutions like delhi university, Odisha University of Agril and technology, Indian Institution of Horticulture research, Tamil nadu agril university, National research centre for plant biotechnology at IARI and Indian Institute of vegetable research tried different events..whether any of those went to field knowingly or unknowingly? this could be from the research farms or someone sold it to a private company which is illegally doing this. not many private companies have invested in this area as far as data we compiled..i may be wrong….
b. other situation is the event either the mahyco event or anyone of the above escaped into. nature and getting spread multiplied on its own. the broken elements if the gene event may be more damaging, less damaging ..even donno what is. ..what a scary thing?
whether it stopped with brinjal, or also made in roads into okra, paddy, maize, and other 33 crops where genetic engineering is experimented on.
given this…it’s high time we take stock of situation and put biosafety systems in place. things seems to have deteriorated further than 2009 when a moratorium was imposed on bt brinjal by @jayaramramesh.
Current EU regulations forbid human exposure to pesticides that are classified as mutagenic, carcinogenic, reprotoxic (toxic for reproduction), persistent or capable of disrupting endocrine systems. By virtue of these and other protective measures EU regulations are considered the gold standard in public protection.
However, experts who are closely linked to industry (or are part of anti-regulation pressure groups) have taken control of the EU’s new Science Advice Mechanism (SAM). These experts have contributed to a report commissioned to reevaluate the EU’s authorisation of pesticides. The report, called “EU authorisation processes of Plant Protection Products”, and published in late 2018, recommends dramatically weakening the EU regulatory system. Especially notable is the adoption of many ideas previously proposed by the chemical industry. For example, the EU currently deems the acceptable level of public exposure to mutagenic pesticides (those that damage DNA) to be zero. The new report recommends scrapping this standard of protection.
ILSI-Europe Headquarters, Brussels (Photo Credit: PAN Europe)
The history of the new SAM report is that it was requested by EU Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis. Its purpose was to determine how to act in cases of so-called ‘diverging views’; that is, when media and public interest groups get involved. The request follows a series of major controversies over EU regulatory decision-making. One such controversy was over the herbicide Glyphosate. A “European Citizens Initiative” delivered more than a million signatures to the EU Commission asking for a ban on Glyphosate. Several cities banned Glyphosate. Even a dairy company banned the use of Glyphosate by their farmers.
With this pressure from all over Europe, the EU Commission had difficulty reaching a decision since many EU member states (Bulgaria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland and the U.K) opposed a ban. Ultimately, a very unusual 5-years extension for glyphosate was agreed but soon the discussion will start again.
Issues with neonicotinoids have also pushed the EU Commission into a corner. Neonicotinoid insecticides are linked by much research to ‘bee colony collapse’ and, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature “represent a worldwide threat to biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services” (Goulson, 2013; IUCN 2017). This again placed the EU Commission in the crossfire since many EU member states and their ministries of agriculture wished to keep neonicotionids on the market. Waves of scientific publications and media attention about dying bees and empty beehives forced the EU Commission to finally ban them. Nevertheless, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Lithuania still resist the ban by using derogations.
A third big controversy has been endocrine disruption. Public concern about hormone-mimicking chemicals forced politicians in 2009 to address endocrine disruption concerns in the regulations and ban endocrine disrupting pesticides. An enormous lobbying effort from industry, the US chamber of commerce, EU Directorate General (DG) Enterprise, and EU DG Growth, tried to stop the implementation of the new rules, especially during the TTIP trade negotiations with the US. EU DG Environment was isolated and in the end DG SANTE (health) was found willing to do the dirty work of undermining the rules. Again, waves of bad publicity from the public and scientists harmed the credibility of the EU Commission. This debate too is far from over.
Conflicted science advice
The SAM report is important since it will soon be used by the EU Commission as an input for its ‘REFIT’ programme to evaluate pesticide regulation. This is a programme that the chemical industry sees as a major opportunity for a regulatory roll-back.
Some of the experts invited to help SAM and listed on the SAM website, however, are not independent. Instead, they have strong links to the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). ILSI is a worldwide network, a federation of non-profits funded by many industries, including the pesticide industry, and which provides expertise in regulatory issues.
ILSI global includes over 400 company members and ILSI Europe includes 88. Among them are every pesticide multinational.
Sourcewatch writes of ILSI that: “The interests of food, pharmaceutical, tobacco, energy, and other industries have become even more entwined. They have learned to cooperate (rather than blaming each other for the cancer epidemic) and they now form coalitions to fight health and environmental regulations.
“It is notable that [ILSI members] generally employ the same lawyers, lobbyists and PR companies, and use essentially the same tactics”.
ILSI has a negligible public profile, and claims not to be a lobby group, but is very active behind the scenes in obtaining seats for ILSI-associated scientists on regulatory panels such as that of the EU Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and international organisations like WHO, the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN, and the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) of the WHO. Experts generally do not disclose their links to ILSI and pretend to be independent academic scientists.
A recent example of ILSI members successfully getting seats on an EFSA-panel concerned the risk assessment idea of a Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC). This idea assumes chemicals are safe at low doses without (expensive) testing. It has been an important goal of the chemical industry to establish TTCs in European and other jurisdictions.
PAN Europe has analysed the process of developing guideline for the TTC at the European Food safety Authority EFSA. We discovered that the chair of the EFSA working group was Sue Barlow, who worked for ILSI and the cigarette industry. She had volunteered to be chair of the EFSA working group. From this position she installed an ILSI network. This EFSA working group then more-or-less copy-pasted the ILSI proposal, making it into an EFSA opinion.
ILSI has been imposing its ideas on many other current EU risk assessment methods too, intending to weaken protections and ease access of pesticides to the market. Thus a PAN Europe survey showed that out of 12 EU pesticide risk assessment methods analysed, 8 were designed and promoted by ILSI. Industry is being allowed, under the radar, to “write its own rules”.
The conflicted scientists
In the case of the SAM, a prime example of these conflicts is UK professor Alan Boobis who is listed on the SAM website as a contributor to the SAM report. Alan Boobis has been active in ILSI for decades. Until January 2018 he was the chair of its Board of Trustees. Due to his conflicts of interest Boobis was disbarred from a new expert panel convened by EFSA in 2012.
French professor Dominique Parent-Massin is mentioned alongside Boobis as working on the SAM report. Prof. Parent-Massin has previously worked with ILSI member, Ajinomoto – the world’s biggest Aspartame producer.
Also listed on the SAM website is Joergen Schlundt, former Director of the Danish National Food Institute. Schlundt is also a former ILSI board member .
All three are listed on the SAM-website as contributors to the report, or as providers of evidence through another report written by a new network called Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), or as being part of a ‘sounding board’ and fact-checking process. Despite these counter-indications the SAM website states that “The Commission found that none of the interests declared constituted a conflict of interest.”
Another expert used by the SAM is German professor Daniel Dietrich, editor-in-chief of the journal Chemico-Biological Interactions. With a group of editors of journals of pharmacology and toxicology he has been very vocal in trying to stop the regulation and banning of endocrine disrupting pesticides (in EU Regulation 1107/2009). Dietrich published editorials in several scientific journals that triggered highly critical responses from other scientists, such as members of the ‘Endocrine Society’. Ties between the Dietrich group of authors and industry were exposed by Le Monde journalist Stéphane Horel who found 17 out of the 18 experts of Mr. Dietrich’s group have past or current ties to industry. The Dietrich group has been prolific, publishing articles like ‘Endocrine disruption: Fact or urban legend?’ that disputes the health risks of endocrine disruption (Nohynek et al., 2013). Even after former EU science advisor Anne Glover achieved a consensus between opposing groups that toxicological thresholds below which chemicals are safe (see TTC above) were unproven, Dietrich and his group (along with Alan Boobis) still claimed their opponents used “pseudoscience” (Dietrich et al., 2016). Dietrich also opposed the EU ban of bee-harming neonicotinoids, and both Dietrich and Boobis criticized the IARC-report asserting the genotoxicityof Glyphosate.
Conflicts in EU science advice
The EU has mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest from derailing its scientific decisions. The SAM website currently presents ‘Declarations of Interest’ (DoI) for its members including for Boobis, Parent-Massin, Dietrich, and Schlundt. But one might wonder if procedures to report conflicts of interest are functioning. DoI’s were not available online when the SAM-report was published (in June 2018). One was even not signed until considerably after publication, in August 2018.
The efforts of ILSI have so far been effective. Several of its campaigning targets are included in an important “SAPEA evidence review report“. SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) is a new body set up by European science academies. This evidence review is intended to feed into the SAM report and featured many of the conflicted scientists above. SAPEA’s report promotes many industry objectives, such as the use of ‘historical control data’. The great importance of this is that, since many potential historical controls exist, their use makes it much easier to ascribe toxic effects observed in animal testing as being simply noise and therefore irrelevant.
Another industry goal is to promote inexpensive (in vitro) ‘mode-of-action assessment’ in preference to expensive adverse outcome testing. A third is to drop the obligation for chronic mouse testing.
The aims of PAN Europe and the Endocrine Society, on the other hand, are: 1) to recognise the reality of ‘low dose effects’ which are currently not tested at all for pesticides; 2) the recognition that chemicals may cause non-linear toxicity responses over a wide range of doses. These are called ‘non-monotonic dose-effect responses’ (whereas regulators presently acknowledge only linear dose-response curves of toxicity and even dismiss effects entirely if they are not linear); 3) mandatory testing for endocrine disruption; 4) to dispute the current regulatory assumption that chemicals have safe thresholds. All are missing from the SAPEA report.
In a further blow to precaution, the SAM report proposes to change EU rules by exchanging the acceptable level of citizen protection from “do not have any harmful effects on humans” for an undefined level, that of “acceptable risk”. This is the change of regulation that would make human harm legal, since it would stop the EU’s much-detested-by-industry ‘hazard approach’ that aims to avoid any exposure of humans to classified (mutagenic, carcinogenic, reprotoxic (toxic for reproduction), persistent and endocrine disrupting) pesticides.
SAM proposes that the EU should re-examine this ‘hazard approach’, which has been under attack by industry for many years; and so it seems that SAM might prove to be the instrument by which industry finally achieves successes for which they have campaigned so long.
The EU has shown itself sensitive to public pressure. What is now needed is for that pressure to be redoubled.
“It was during the 2018 floods that we got a call from a farmer in Adilabad. The caller didn’t need any help for himself but said that his neighbour has been sitting in a corner of his field since morning with a bottle of pesticide in his hand. The depressed farmer had lost his entire crop during the Adilabad floods that lashed the district that year. The farmer later called us, crying. We immediately sent our field coordinator to the village and counselled him. His land was stuck in certain legal issues and with the help of the district collector, we made sure the legal tangles were resolved in a week’s time,” Shruthi narrates one of the many incidents where Kisan Mitra, a distress helpline, has saved a life.
Shruthi, who heads the team of counsellors at Kisan Mitra, is among the many volunteers in the organisation who are lending a helping hand to the distressed farmers of Telangana. Kisan Mitra, a non-profit organisation, is a rural distress helpline that acts as an intermediary between the government and farmers.
Set up in 2017, the helpline strives to provide financial security to farmers and makes sure entitlements reach their pockets on time. Apart from securing an economically stable future for the farmers, the volunteers at Kisan Mitra also provide counselling to farmers who are on the verge of suicide and handle distress calls from farmers who are depressed and need a ray of hope in their lives.
Why are the farmers distressed?
Telangana is one of the states worst hit by the agrarian crisis. Thousands of farmers have killed themselves since the inception of Telangana and the state stands second when it comes to farmer suicides in the country. So what exactly is worrying the farmers in the state?
Harsha, one of the founder members of the organisation, tells TNM that it’s the lack of proper implementation of schemes that is drowning the farmers in the state under massive debts.
“Kisan Mitra was floated as a subsidiary of the Centre of Sustainable Agriculture after a number of farmer organisations brought to our notice the farmer distress in the rural parts of Telangana. So over the years, what Kisan Mitra has been able to gauge from its activities is that there is no dearth in the monetary schemes for farmers introduced by the government but there definitely is a lack of interest on the government’s side to ensure proper implementation,” says Harsha.
He goes on to add, “For example, a cotton farmer is entitled to a sum of Rs 30,000 per acre from the government. But the vicious cycle of debt begins when the farmer fails to get the amount on time. For him to continue work on the fields, he borrows money from money lenders at exorbitant interest rates. Some farmers will also submit their land deeds as mortgage. By the time the government money reaches him, he might have already paid multiple installments of the interest money.”
And this is where organisations like Kisan Mitra come into the picture.
“We ensure that the entitlements from the government reach the farmers on time. For this, we begin with creating awareness on what the government schemes are, what are the viable means of investment and also insurance, about which most farmers have least knowledge about,” Harsha explains. Calling for help still a stigma
Of the hundreds of calls that Kisan Mitra receives in a day, most are distress calls made by men. But Shruthi, who heads the counselling team, says there’s a long way to go before men feel that it’s all right to talk about mental health and not give in to the societal pressure of proving one’s hyper-masculinity.
“To begin with, none of the farmers suffer from any psychological issues. It’s various factors joined together that drives a farmer to suicide. In rural areas, mental health is still a taboo to be discussed. It was only last year that a farmer killed himself after suffering from extensive crop loss. His wife knew of his mental condition but was threatened to not to talk about it to anyone. One day, as he got a cue that his wife was meeting the village head for some financial help, he consumed poison and ended his life. Such is the stigma associated with mental health in our country,” Shruthi shares.
And for the same reason, Kisan Mitra conducts awareness programmes not just for male farmers, but also for women who are in a better position to advise and counsel their husbands.
Shruthi, who was working as a psychologist in Hyderabad, left the job and joined the Kisan Mitra team in 2018.
“It’s mostly the small income farmers who fall into huge debts. While many maybe at the verge of suicide, some may also be just seeking solutions to their problems. For farmers who need immediate counselling, we send our field coordinators to help them. If we think a particular farmer needs monetary help, we make arrangements to ensure he is eligible to some sort of monetary scheme under the government. This may not be a direct government intervention but an alternate mechanism where we ensure that the farmer has enough money to buy food or is able to send his kids to school,” Shruthi explains.
Kisan Mitra currently operates out of three districts – Vikarabad, Mancherial and Adilabad. While its field volunteers are limited to these areas, it receives calls and provides counselling to farmers from across the state. Of the 9000 plus calls that Kisan Mitra has received till date, Harsha says they have been able to resolve over 5000 cases and the rest are still pending for some level of intervention from the government.
The organisation also has its presence on WhatsApp, where it tries to disseminate more information on organic farming and provides knowledge on best farming practices.
“We also visit hospitals and meet farmers who have survived suicide attempts. There are many reasons that can lead a man to desperation. Kisan Mitra is currently trying to zero in on these triggers and help victims cope with them,” Shruthi adds.
Global warming has caused the Indian economy to be 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been, according to a Stanford study which shows how Earth’s temperature changes have increased inequalities.
While the impacts of temperature may seem small from year to year, they can yield dramatic gains or losses over time.
Global warming has caused the Indian economy to be 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been, according to a Stanford study which shows how Earth’s temperature changes have increased inequalities. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that growing concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere since 1960s have enriched cool countries like Norway and Sweden, while dragging down economic growth in warm countries such as India and Nigeria. “Our results show that most of the poorest countries on Earth are considerably poorer than they would have been without global warming,” said climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, from Stanford University in the US.
“At the same time, the majority of rich countries are richer than they would have been,” Diffenbaugh said in a statement. The study from 1961 to 2010, global warming decreased the wealth per person in the world’s poorest countries by 17 to 30 per cent. Meanwhile, the gap between the group of nations with the highest and lowest economic output per person is now approximately 25 per cent larger than it would have been without climate change.
While the impacts of temperature may seem small from year to year, they can yield dramatic gains or losses over time. “This is like a savings account, where small differences in the interest rate will generate large differences in the account balance over 30 or 50 years,” said Diffenbaugh.
After accumulating decades of small effects from warming, India’s economy is now 31 per cent smaller than it would have been in the absence of global warming, he said. Although economic inequality between countries has decreased in recent decades, the research suggests the gap would have narrowed faster without global warming. The study builds on previous research in the team analysed 50 years of annual temperature and GDP measurements for 165 countries to estimate the effects of temperature fluctuations on economic growth. They demonstrated that growth during warmer than average years has accelerated in cool nations and slowed in warm nations.
“The historical data clearly show that crops are more productive, people are healthier and we are more productive at work when temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold,” said Marshall Burke, a Stanford assistant professor of Earth system science. “This means that in cold countries, a little bit of warming can help. The opposite is true in places that are already hot,” said Burke.
Researchers combined data from more than 20 climate models developed by research centres around the world. Using the climate models to isolate how much each country has already warmed due to human-caused climate change, the researchers were able to determine what each country’s economic output might have been had temperatures not warmed. “For most countries, whether global warming has helped or hurt economic growth is pretty certain,” said Burke.
Tropical countries, in particular, tend to have temperatures far outside the ideal for economic growth. “There’s essentially no uncertainty that they’ve been harmed,” he said. It’s less clear how warming has influenced growth in countries in the middle latitudes, including the US, China and Japan. For these and other temperate-climate nations, the analysis reveals economic impacts of less than 10 per cent.
Among all the tribes the group that gets mostly affected are women and children. Tribal women with poor intake of protein and energy are likely to give birth to a Low Birth Weight infant.
Among the tribal population of Chhattisgarh, high levels of malnutrition — with women and children the most affected — is a major challenge they face, besides those of poor literacy and lack of empowerment. The nutritional and health issues of tribal women and children can be addressed by giving them iron and folic supplements, supplying them with fortified food and through deworming, besides other interventions.
India has a total of 104,545,716 scheduled tribes which constitute 8.6% of the total population (Census, 2011). There are around 700 different state-specific Scheduled Tribes. Of these 700 tribes, 75 are identified as Primitive Tribes Groups (PTG) due to their pre-agriculture level of technology, stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and subsistence level of economy. Chhattisgarh has 7,822,902 Scheduled Tribe population. Of this 3,873,191 are males, 3,949,711 are females and 15.3% comprise the child population. The literacy rate among Schedule Tribe population in Chhattisgarh is 59.09%, and sex ratio is 1020. Gond, Bhunjia, Baiga, Bisonhorn Maria, Parghi, Muria, Halba, Bhatra, Parja, Dhurvaa, Muriya, Dandami Mariya, Dorla, Dhanwar, Kol, Korwa, Rajgond, Kawar, Bhaiyana, Binjwar, Savra, Manji, Bhayna, Kamar, Munda and Abujmaria are some of the prominent tribes of Chhattisgarh.
The heterogeneity among the tribes is quite distinct with each tribe being quite different from the other in terms of language and dialect, customs, cultural practices and life style. Despite this diversity, tribal communities do have similarities, though broad generic ones. They are known to dwell in compact areas, follow a community way of living, in harmony with nature, and have a uniqueness of culture, distinctive customs, traditions and beliefs which are simple, direct and non-acquisitive by nature. The tribal population because of their peculiar way of living do face challenges. The major issues are – poor literacy rates, slow pace of development, lack of empowerment and high levels of malnutrition driven by communicable disease, limited livelihood opportunities, high dependency on land and forest produce, improper infrastructure in remote areas.
All these issues in some way or the other affect the health and well-being of tribes. Among all the tribes the group that gets mostly affected are women and children. Tribal women with poor intake of protein and energy are likely to give birth to a Low Birth Weight infant. Although malnutrition is prevalent among all segments of the population, poor nutrition among females begins at infancy and continues throughout life time. Status of Health and Malnutrition among Tribes in Chhattisgarh:
Malnutrition has necessarily to be approached from a life cycle perspective. An underweight, anaemic pregnant teen mother has to contend with early pregnancy, inadequate spacing between successive births and poor prenatal nutrition and healthcare. The resulting low birth weight baby faces poor healthcare, hygiene and nutrition practices and develops into a stunted and underweight adolescent. This pattern is replicated over subsequent generations of mothers.
If a child’s dietary intake of protein, carbohydrates, fat and micro-nutrients is inadequate, she/he suffers from malnutrition, adversely affecting his/her health and increasing his/her susceptibility to disease. Equally critical are the underlying determinants that operate at the household level– food security, nurture-care for the mother and child and a healthy environment, including safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, shelter and accessible healthcare. Ultimately, whether these basic rights are available or not to individuals and households depends on the social and economic arrangement that determines access to resources and the ability to effectively use these resources.
As per the National Family Health Survey 4, every district in Chhattisgarh has wasting levels higher than 15 percent (rated as very high). Rajnandgaon district has the lowest level of wasting (17.2 percent) and Bastar has the highest (33.9 percent). The health scenario of tribes presents a mosaic of various communicable and non-communicable diseases in consonance with socio-economic beliefs and practices in the state. The widespread poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, absence of safe drinking water and sanitary conditions, poor maternal and child health services, focused coverage of national health and nutritional services, etc. are the major contributing factors for the dismal health and nutrition among tribal communities.
The above gets authenticated by key health and nutrition indicators as below :
S.No
Indicator
Value (NFHS-4)
1
Neo-natal Mortality Rate (NMR)
48.3
2
Post Neonatal Mortality (PNM)
17.5
3
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)
65.8
4
Under Five Mortality
80
5
% women who had full ante-natal care
18
6
% Institutional Delivery
69.9
7
% children with diarrhoea given food as usual
29.1
8
Underweight children
43.8
9
Stunting (-2 standard deviations SD)
42.2
10
Stunting (-3SD)
19.2
11
Wasting (-2SD)
26.0
12
Wasting (-3SD)
10
13
% of Children Breastfed (BF) within 1 hour of birth
46.7
14
Exclusive BF
5.4
15
Anemia status among Children
26.4
The status of health and nutrition indicators among tribes of the state are poor due to multiple factors which are discussed below.
These can be seen as challenges for further strive :- Real Time Data: The fundamental problem lies in the non-availability of ongoing real-time data on the nutrition status of individual children pertaining to stunting, wasting and being underweight. Effective action under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) to tackle child malnutrition requires reaching out to every child, monitoring her/his growth pattern systematically on a monthly basis from birth to the age of five, and ensuring attention from both the ICDS and the public health machinery to their nutrition and health needs at the project level and below. Poverty Issue: The Lancet, one of the most authentic medical journals, has come out with a daily dietary recommendation of 2,500 calories from various food items fulfilling caloric requirements, as well as ingredients essential for growth of different body parts and mental faculties. An estimation of the cost of this daily diet based on the present day prices of food items comes to approximately Rs 130 per person per day. For a family of 5 members this comes to Rs 650 per day or Rs 19,500 per month. This is impossible to meet in the present day economic structure of tribal predominant regions. The minimum wage in India as recommended by the expert Committee, in the name of national minimum wages, ranges from Rs 8,892 to Rs 11,622 per month meant for the unskilled worker. This is unachievable in the tribal region.
The tribal economy can be classified on the basis of their economic pursuits in the following way: 1. Foragers, 2. Pastoral, 3. Handicraft makers, 4. Agriculturists, 5. Shifting hill cultivators, 6. Labourers, 7. Business pursuits. All these professions are directly or indirectly dependent on land. The tribals, due to their poor literacy rates, lack of understanding of the social and judiciary structure, and their inherent shyness remain in the background. The ancient methods of cultivation, lack of use of modern methods, loss of productivity of land, adversely affects their condition, and pushes them into poverty. Social Issue: Due to the traditional socio-economic practices being adopted by tribals they have limited employment and livelihood opportunities. The difficult living conditions, and hard-to-reach terrain pose problems in the supply chain management of government- supported schemes like Public Distribution System (PDS), ICDS, health care. It also hinders exploring and teaching new livelihood skills to the tribal. Health Issue: Healthcare is a major problem in the far-flung isolated tribal areas. Lack of food security, sanitation and safe drinking water, poor nutrition and high poverty levels aggravate the poor health status of the tribal. The problem of malnutrition is multi-dimensional and inter-generational in nature. Limited health institutions in vulnerable areas and the tribal’s lack of trust in the modern system of medicine creates problems in service delivery. Societal Issue: Babies born to undernourished tribal mothers face a high risk of restricted foetal growth and death. Those who survive are likely to be stunted with a high probability of transmitting their poor nutrition status to their next generation. The status of girls/women within the household, their agency and decision-making abilities, especially with respect to their reproductive rights, are important factors which merit a closer look. Facing intra-household deprivations due to their sex and abject poverty, these young girls often forego necessary nutrition, care and rest during their pregnancy period, delivering low birth weight babies. For these babies, the cycle of malnutrition has already begun. Policy Issues: While food is an essential component, food-based solutions are not sufficient by themselves. Children may receive a diet which is both adequate in quantity (calories) and quality (nutrients). However, if they are already weakened by ill-health and disease, they will be unable to absorb sufficient nutrients from their food. Unfortunately, our singlehanded approach towards addressing under-nutrition has been through food provision.
Second, there is enough scientific evidence indicating the importance of the first 1,000 days (roughly translating to about 2 years) of a child’s life. It is estimated that about 80% of the brain development takes place during this time. However, children start coming to the Anganwadi Centres (our primary intervention in this area) after they are 3 years old. By then, precious time is lost and it is already too late. In fact, there is limited contact between the child and the system (barring routine immunization by the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) and visits by the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) worker in case the child is visibly sick) till the child attains 3 years of age. Thus convergence of schemes and bringing them under one umbrella require deep thought and practice in tribal areas. Implementation Issue: Considering the multi-dimensional nature of malnutrition, convergence is the key. However, an analysis of the three biggest programmes in this area – ICDS, POSHAN and National Health Mission (NHM) – showed that there were only 39 common high-burden districts among them (NITI Aayog, 2017). The number is likely to be less if we consider the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Such lack of geographic convergence results in substantial loss of resources as well as sub-optimal results. Convergence and coordination among the frontline workers, especially those delivering health and nutrition services is the key. This, in turn, needs to be supported and supervised by a strong monitoring mechanism. The capacities of the frontline worker to deliver on the field needs to be enhanced. While all the programmes have in-built components of Social and Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC), counselling and health and nutrition related education, these are generally neglected and receive less priority, mainly due to their intangible nature. Following are the points that can be envisioned for intervention :
Nutrition and Health issues of tribal inhabitants can be immediately addressed by targeting six different beneficiary groups through six different interventions (Iron and Folic Acid supplementation, deworming, intensified Behavioural Change Communication, testing and treatment at the point of care, mandatory fortification and addressing non-nutritional causes of anemia) by leveraging six re-vamped institutional mechanisms. Undoubtedly good health is an essential ingredient for better scope of literacy and livelihood.
Improving nutrition and health for women and children requires investment to be made in changing the determinants of poor nutrition and health, using a variety of policy instruments and other efforts. Such policy efforts could be merging of similar schemes and programmes targeting the same beneficiary or redesigning with larger pool of funds and better monitoring structures.
Purchasing capacity of people in remote tribal region needs to increase to eradicate and erase malnutrition and health issues in the tribal region. All health, nutrition, livelihood and development schemes have to be dovetailed and converged under a single umbrella to focus on overall development and welfare of tribal inhabitants.
(Sajid Memon, Joint Project Coordinator, Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Chhattisgarh, belongs to the state civil services of 1998 batch. He has 15 years’ experience of working in externally aided nutrition projects and dovetailing of Information Technology with Nutrition and Health.)
Photo: Getty Images
The Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18 released by National Sample Survey Office too shows that unemployment rate increased with education level.
While the impacts of temperature may seem small from year to year, they can yield dramatic gains or losses over time.
