Development and environment

In the first flush of Independence, the top-most priority of the nation was bringing the light of knowledge and prom.se of two square meals a day to the ignorant and the starving millions of India. It was necessary to provide water for drinking and irrigation as well as electricity to run the engines of development. Ambitious schemes of hydroelectric power and irrigation dams were launched to obtain affordable power and irrigation for the masses. In the process, the mountainous and forest regions underwent massive upheavals to give way to underground tunnels, huge water reservoirs and long roads.While a very large number of people benefited from the irrigation, drinking water and electricity, substantial population of hill and tribal people, who drew their sustenance from their immediate hilly and forest environment, were displaced and underwent considerable hardship. The arrangements made for their rehabilitation came a cropper because of bureaucratic apathy and red-tapism. Many of these dams, constructed in ecologically fragile areas caused considerable damage to the soil and also created salinity and ravines. Moved by the pitiable plight of the hill and tribal people, some people took up their cause.They launched movements for protecting the interests of these vulnerable people and by implication the cause of protection of the environment .Two of the better known movements are 'Chipko Andolan' - preventing cutting of forest trees - and the Narmada Bachao Andolan - the movement to save the people living in the valley of river Narmada. from displacement due to the construction of a massive dam.While the first three decades after independence have been characterised by an unrelenting demand for expansion of irrigation facilities, water supply, chemical fertilizers and electricity for developing agriculture, industry and thereby the general living standards of the masses, the last two decade have witnessed a growing stridency on the part of environmentalists seeking preservation of the flora and fauna and the protection of the ecologically fragile habitations of the hill and tribal people of the mountainous and forest regions.The protagonists of development can naturally depend on the political support and the pressure group of industry and business selling machines and material needed for lining the irrigation channels, energising the tubewells and improving the productivity of agriculture, the environmentalists derive their strength from the poor hill and tribal folk living in a symbiotic relationship with their immediate environment and to some extent from the unorganised and silent citizenry frightened by the hazy but certain prospects of environmental degradation due to denudation of hills, erosion of land and salinity of river basins. In india, the environmental issues have assumed an urgency following the entry in the field of environment - movements of the celebrities like Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize winner, whose recent book The Great Common Good has generated great concern among the intelligentsia of the country.The 'Development Versus Environment' controversy has caught the popular imagination because nobody can remain completely untouched by either the economic development or its environmental implications. Closure of hundreds of industrial units in Delhi by the order of the Supreme Court has been lauded by the white collar workers of Delhi as they may be saved to some extent from the atmospheric pollution caused by the industrial units. It has, however, cast a long shadow of fear, anxiety and uncertainty on the lives of thousands of people who had so long been deriving their sustenance from this industry and attendant business. Government plans for relocation of these industrial units in another area have come a cropper. Very few people are inclined to accept an uncertain future in another place and some of them still nurse the hope that the political parties may be able to ward off their shifting.The most spectacular and dramatic battle between the votaries of the Environment and the government is being fought in the areas affected by the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The high watermark of this drama was witnessed when the police tried to arrest the Environment activist leader Medha Patkar standing in the knee water deep water submerging the area affected by the Dam in Madhya Pradesh in the summer of 1999. She was, at the time leading a big group of Dam-affected people who had refused to shift from their land to the land provided by the government for the rehabilitation of the displaced persons.The group seemed convinced that their displacement will destroy them physically and mentally as they were ill-expected to ensure for themselves a living in their proposed habitat. Their main support, cattle, cannot be sustained by the infertile and arid land of the proposed settlement. The protagonists of development reel out statistics of alternative land sites made available to displaced persons as also of the monetary compensation paid to the displaced persons so as to enable them to take up self-employment The specialised government agencies set up to help the displaced persons are reputed to be seized of their problems and are ready to redress their grievances. Few, however, would buy this argument. Public dealings with the government agencies hardly inspire any confidence.The displaced persons, who are generally resourceless, would not be able to grease the palms of petty officials for getting their work done. They have legitimate fear of being left high and dry once they leave their original habitat. It is a common experience that the beneficiaries of irrigation, water supply and power made available by construction of dams live in areas quite far away from the dam sites and have not to suffer any of the inconveniences that fall to the lot of the displaced persons. The occupational alternatives appear all right on project reports but their realisation in actual practice is rare and is generally fraught with uncertainties Environmentalists are not opposed to development per-se.They, however, oppose development at any cost. They favor sustainable development, which according to them can be achieved only by preservation and protection of ecological balance, the conservation of forests and the water bodies and the preservation of the flora and the fauna of the country. India is very rich in bio-diversity, which is its potential strength. Environmentalists want it to be preserved. Millions of plant and animal species of the Indian sub-continent should be zealously preserved and protected against extinction. Hybridization may increase the productivity of foodgrains in the short run. It should, however, be monitored and chocked if it is likely to lead to long term fall in overall productivity of soil.There are occasional reports in the press of large-scale poisoning of the fish in rivers like the Gomti due to large quantities of effluents discharged in the river by sugar mills and distilleries. The water of the Ganges has been polluted near industrial cities and become unfit for human consumption. Here, development has directly led to environmental degradation. The central and the state governments have now set up pollution control boards and the new industrial units cannot be set up without getting clearance from the Pollution Control Board. Still, many entrepreneurs are able to bribe and hoodwink the Pollution Control Board and defy the government regulations on reducing the pollution. Administrators with polluted morals cannot prevent development agents from polluting the environment. Environmentalis' suspicion of the whole gamut of development therefore appears to be well founded.Increased use of pesticides has introduced certain toxins in the fruits, vegetables and foodgrain. These toxins cause many a disease of the liver and intestinal tract. Many countries are now opting for vector control of pests rather than killing them through chemical pesticides. Similarly, the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers are dissuading many well off farmers to discontinue the use of chemical fertilises and to opt for bio-fertilizers. Bio-tea is gaining in popularity in many parts of the world. Progressively more area is bought under cultivation of Bio-tea in the Eastern India. Bio- tea is also being exported. Bhopal Gas Tragedy, which was caused by a leak of poisonous methyl-isocyanide gas, was a great environmental disaster caused by unrestrained industrialisation. Even after 15 years of the disaster, the victims of the disaster are yet to be rehabilitated.The greed of the man of business is unbounded and blind. It has often led to total neglect of environment or public safety. It has led to a conviction among many people that development per-se is undesirable and disruptive of environment.Since the atmosphere and environment are not divided according to the national boundaries but are common to the entire global community, only international, united efforts can impact the global warming and ozone layer depletion. Those countries who are contributing more to the environmental degradation have to make greater efforts and exercise greater abnegation in their consumption-patterns to reduce the rate of pollution.The rich countries like the U.S.A have not been able to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, the largest contributor to the environmental pollution. It is quite unrealistic on the part of these rich countries of the Northern Hemisphere to expect the poor and highly populated countries of the Third World to substantially adopt the high cost alternative sources of energy like the solar and the wind energy. Unless the North largely shares the cost of renewable sources of energy for the entire world, there is no realistic scenario of any tolerable level of pollution in the foreseeable future and the rich of the advanced nations will also have to suffer the environmental disasters like the HeatWave in the U.S.A. in 1998 which killed hundreds of American citizens.

Essay on Women Empowerment in IndiabyPuja MondalEssayEssay on Women Empowerment in India!The subject of empowerment of women has becoming a burning issue all over the world including India since last few decades. Many agencies of United Nations in their reports have emphasized that gender issue is to be given utmost priority. It is held that women now cannot be asked to wait for any more for equality.Inequalities between men and women and discrimination against women have also been age-old issues all over the world. Thus, womens quest for equality with man is a universal phenomenon. What exists for men is demanded by women?They have demanded equality with men in matters of education, employment, inheritance, marriage, politics and recently in the field of religion also to serve as cleric (in Hinduism and Islam). Women want to have for themselves the same strategies of change which menfolk have had over the centuries such as equal pay for equal work. Their quest for equality has given birth to the formation of many womens associations and launching of movements.The position and status of women all over the world has risen incredibly in the 20th century. We find that it has been very low in 18th and 19th centuries in India and elsewhere when they were treated like objects that can be bought and sold. For a long time women in India remained within the four walls of their household. Their dependence on menfolk was total.A long struggle going back over a century has brought women the property rights, voting rights, an equality in civil rights before the law in matters of marriage and employment (in India women had not to struggle for voting rights as we find in other countries).In addition to the above rights, in India, the customs of purdha (veil system), female infanticide, child marriage, sati system (self-immolation by the women with their husbands), dowry system and the state of permanent widowhood were either totally removed or checked to an appreciable extent after independence through legislative measures.Two Acts have also been enacted to emancipate women in India. These are: Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 and the Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act, 2006. The Domestic Violence Act recognizes that abuse be physical as well as mental.Anything that makes a woman feel inferior and takes away her self-respect is abuse. Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act can be beneficial in preventing the abuse of institution of marriage and hindering social justice especially in relation to women.It would help the innumerable women in the country who get abandoned by their husbands and have no means of proving their marital status. It would also help check child marriages, bigamy and polygamy, enable women to seek maintenance and custody of their children and widows can claim inheritance rights. The Act is applicable on all women irrespective of caste, creed or religion. It would truly empower Indian women to exercise their rights.To what extent legislative measures have been able to raise the status of women in India? Are women now feel empowered in the sense that they are being equally treated by men in all spheres of life and are able to express ones true feminine urges and energies? These are the important questions to be investigated with regard to womens empowerment in India.We all know that girls are now doing better at school than boys. The annual results of Secondary and Higher Secondary Board examinations reveal this fact. More women are getting degrees than men, and are filling most new jobs in every field.There was a time when womens education was not a priority even among the elite. Since the last quarter of the 20th century and more so after the opening up of die economy, post-1991, a growing number of women have been entering into the economic field, seeking paid work (remunerative jobs) outside the family.Women are playing bigger and bigger role in economic field: as workers, consumers, entrepreneurs, managers andINVESTORS. According to a report of The Economist, Women and the World Economy, in 1950, only one-third of American women of working age had a paid job.Today, two-thirds do, and women make up almost half of Americans workforce. In fact, almost everywhere, including India, more women are employed, though their share is still very low. Manufacturing work, traditionally a male preserve, has declined, while jobs in services have expanded, reducing the demand for manual labour and putting the sexes on equal footing.We can now see women in almost every field: architecture, lawyers, financial services, engineering, medical and IT jobs. They have also entered service occupations such as a nurse, a beautician, a sales worker, a waitress, etc.They are increasingly and gradually seen marching into domains which were previously reserved for males (police, drivers army, pilots, chartered accountants, commandos). In spite of their increasing number in every field, women still remain perhaps the worlds most underutilized resources. Many are still excluded from paid work and many do not make best use of their skills.The rapid pace of economic development has increased the demand for educated female labour force almost in all fields. Women are earning as much as their husbands do, their employment nonetheless adds substantially to family and gives family an economic advantage over the family with only one breadwinner.This new phenomenon has also given economic power in the hands of women for which they were earlier totally dependent on males. Economically independent women feel more confident about their personal lives.Hence, they are taking more personal decisions, for instance, about their further education, marriage, etc. More and more women want freedom of work and control their own reproduction, freedom of mobility and freedom to define ones own style of life. It is contended that freedom leads to greater openness, generosity and tolerance.This new pattern of working wives and mothers has affected the status of women in many ways. Womens monetary independence leads them to the way to empowerment. Sociologist Robert Blood (1965) observes, Employment emancipates women from domination by their husbands and secondarily, raises their daughters from inferiority to their brothers (Blood and Wolfe, 1965). In brief, economic independence of women is changing their overall equations, perspective and outlook.Economic independence of women has also affected the gender relationships. New forms of gender relationships (live-in relationship are challenging the long-rooted conception of marriages as a permanent arrangement between families and communities.In traditional marriages the relationships were hierarchical and authoritarian. The modem conjugal relationships are based on freedom and desire rather than convention. Peoples attitudes about marriage are also changing.Educated women now feel that there is more to life than marriage. They can get most of the things they want (income, status, identity) without marriage, while they find it harder to find a suitable accomplished mate. This is why their marriage is delayed.With increasing literacy among women in India, their entry into many types of work, formerly the preserve of men, women can now look upon the bearing and raising of their children not as a lifes work in itself but as an episode. It women have started taking mens work, it could be said that men have taken over womens.Young fathers could be seen wash up and making beds, caring of the young and doing many other domestic works. The division of labour between sexes has changed somewhat. They do similar work and share both household activities and tastes. Women wear trousers, jeans, suits and put on ties.The facts about working wives suggest a basic change in Indian family. The traditional (nuclear) household, in which the husband works and the wife remains at home to care for the children, though still a dominant pattern, is changing gradually but steadily.A new pattern is emerging in which both partners work outside the home but do not share equally in housework and child care as we see in Western families. In India, the paternalistic attitude of the male has not undergone much change.In spite of such drawbacks and hurdles that still prevail, Indian women (especially educated) are no longer hesitant or apologetic about claiming a share and visibility within the family, at work, in public places, and in the public discourse.