current affairs 0n 11th dec

Anti-dengue vaccine brings hope

At a time when India is struggling with rising number of dengue cases with each passing year, the Mexican government has approved the world’s first anti-dengue vaccine which is designed to protect people in the 9-45 age group from nine to 45 years from all four subtypes of the virus.

Called Dengvaxia, the vaccine has been developed by France-based Sanofi Pasteur and is the result of an extensive clinical development programme running for almost two decades.

“Today, with this first marketing authorisation of Dengvaxia, we have achieved our goal of making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease,” said Olivier Brandicourt, Sanofi’s managing director and CEO said on Wednesday. “This is a historic milestone for our company, for the global public health community and, most importantly, for half the world’s population who lives at risk of dengue,” he added

Kerala to be declared first digital State

Kerala is expected to be declared the first digital State in the country shortly, on the strength of its digital infrastructure and e-governance initiatives. Discussions are on to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make the declaration, Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson said here on Thursday.

Delivering the inaugural address at the Knowledge Sharing Summit organised by the Kerala State IT Mission and Computer Society of India, he said the State had succeeded in leveraging ICT for economic growth and making government services affordable and accessible for the masses. Bridging the digital divide is our priority, he said.

Mr. Thomson highlighted several initiatives under the Digital Kerala programme. Principal Secretary, IT , P.H. Kuriansaid the high mobile and Internet penetration and the increasing use of smart phones had hastened the evolution of Kerala as a digital society.

Supreme Court upholds Haryana panchayat law

It disqualifiesilliterate people from contesting polls

In what may be a precedent preventing illiterate persons from participating in grass roots democracy, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Haryana State law mandating that only those having “minimum” educational qualifications will be eligible to contest panchayat elections in the State.

The other grounds for disqualification from contesting polls under the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 are failure to pay arrears to any primary agriculture co-operative society or agriculture co-operative banks, failure to pay electricity bill arrears and not having a functional toilet at home.

The “minimum” education required for eligibility to contest in a panchayat election is completion of matriculation in case of general candidates; completion of Class 8 for a woman candidate or a candidate belonging to Scheduled Caste; and completion of Class 5 pass for a Scheduled Caste woman candidate contesting for the post of ‘Panch’.

The law leaves 68 per cent of the Scheduled Caste women and 41 per cent of the Scheduled Caste men in Haryana ineligible to contest panchayat elections. The judgment may become a rallying point for other States also to amend their laws in the same fashion.

The verdict by a Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre agrees that the Haryana law creates “two classes of voters,” that is, “those who are qualified by virtue of their educational accomplishment to contest the elections to the panchayats and those who are not.”

But Justice Chelameswar, who authored the verdict, reasons there is nothing “irrational or illegal or unconnected” if the law prescribes minimum educational qualification for candidates. Simply put, the court feels that basic education would “enable the candidates to effectively discharge duties of the panchayat.”

“It is only education which gives a human being the power to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, prescription of an educational qualification is not irrelevant for better administration ,” Justice Chelameswar reasoned.

The court completely agreed with Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi’s submissions during the hearings that the law was meant to elect “model representatives for local self government for better administrative efficiency.”

The apex court failed to find any merit in the argument of three women candidates, spurned by Haryana’s new poll law and who moved the Supreme Court, that “people do not choose to be illiterate.”

Those with minimum educational qualification alone can contest polls

Why high-speed rail is viable

Given that it is a low-energy, low-emission mode of transportation that can reduce costs significantly, India should not miss the opportunity to develop high-speed rail

t has been reported that Japan has offered to finance the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail (HSR) corridor, estimated to cost about Rs 90,000 crore, at an interest rate of less than one per cent. Whenever any news item on HSR appears, questions revolving around whether India really needs HSR are raised. Without cogent and coherent answers to these questions, it will be impossible for HSR projects to gain larger acceptance. This article attempts to consolidate the doubts generally raised about HSR in India and provide comprehensive explanations.

The first question is: Why should we develop HSR when air travel exists for faster travel between cities? India's transport demand will triple or quadruple in the next three decades, and given that the negative externalities in terms of energy consumption and emissions are high for air travel, it is a great opportunity for India to go for low-energy and low-emission modes such as HSR. HSR is comparable with air travel in terms of end-to-end travel time for most inter-city trips of distances up to 600 km in case of HSR and 1,300 km in case of super-HSR such as maglev. In addition, India can also claim carbon credits for resorting to low-carbon transport - without losing on travel time. Thus, HSR is a better option in terms of energy efficiency, carbon footprint and inter-city travel time than air travel.

The second question is: Why can't we upgrade railway lines to provide semi-HSR, such as the one proposed for the Delhi-Agra link, with a maximum speed of 160 km per hour? Our existing railway lines are used by different trains of different speeds, due to variances in the capacity of locomotives and stoppages for passenger trains. This cannot practicably be changed. Operating a few trains at 160 kmph might showcase our ability but it would further reduce the throughput of our railway tracks due to huge differentials in speed. To meet India's rail transport demand, there should be three sets of double tracks: the first one for conventional trains, the second for freight trains, and the third for HSR in the high-traffic-density corridors such as Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) and its diagonals. Ignoring this ground reality would escalate our internal and external costs of transport. This is evident from the fact that in the absence of sufficient rail capacity, both passenger and freight business has moved to road transport - and this trend would continue unabated.

The third question: Is India at the state of economic development where it could build HSR? The rule of thumb for the timing of investment is that in the first year of construction of HSR, the country's real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) has to be at least $5,000. As reported by the World Bank, India's real per capita GDP at PPP was $5,244 in 2014. So India has reached the economic level where it is appropriate to time investment into HSR. Moreover, there has been continuous upward mobility in terms of demanding more comfortable and faster travel across all sections of society in India.

The preliminary work in terms of preparation of detailed project report and the tendering process may take about two years, the land acquisition may take about two years more and the actual construction, testing and commissioning may take another five years. So the first HSR train would not be ready earlier than 2024. Given the current growth rate, the average per capita real income would be at least 50 per cent more in 2024 than what it is in 2015. This would ensure willingness and affordability to pay for faster travel with comfort. HSR is the best bet to meet this requirement.

The fourth question is: Why should the government splurge on HSR when there are other pressing needs, including developing conventional rail infrastructure and social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals? HSR has been planned on GQ and its diagonal routes of North-South and East-West corridors (NSEW), which are high-density corridors for both passenger and freight traffic. Indian Railways has planned HSR only on these high-demand routes. The government has no intention of developing HSR using its own funds - it would remain the facilitator in the execution of the project. As and when the corridors become financially viable, they would be taken up for HSR execution either with 100 per cent foreign direct investment or through public-private partnerships, or some other format where the government funding would be nil. Thus the question of splurging taxpayer's money on HSR projects does not arise at all.

The fifth question is: How do we handle land requirement and fencing of HSR lines? According to the International Union of Railways, to construct one kilometre of HSR (two lines), 3.2 hectares per km is required, whereas to construct a six-lane highway, 9.3 hectares per km is required. Given the difficulties associated with land acquisition in India for infrastructure projects and the compensation being introduced with the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the lower land requirement of HSR for a transport corridor with higher passenger carrying capacity is a boon. The cost of about Rs 165 crore per km for HSR includes underground and elevated tracks in congested urban areas as well as provisions for fencing, centralised safety monitoring and other safety-related costs, among other things.

HSR would also reduce our crude oil import and dependency, energy consumption, carbon emissions and pollution and increase the overall supply of rail transport. By diverting people from travelling by road, HSR would also reduce road accidents. It would be a great loss to the country as a whole, if the construction of HSR is delayed indefinitely.

NGT bans plastics from Gomukh to Haridwar

In a push to one of Narendra Modi-led government’s top campaigns, the country’s green tribunal has said there would be a complete ban on procurement, storage and use of plastics along the stretch of Ganga from Uttarakhand’s Gomukh to Haridwar. The tribunal said the ban would be in force from February, but did not spell out any penalty.

The government had allocated  Rs 20,000 crore for its Clean Ganga Mission over five years.

The ban means restriction on use of plastic bottles, including beverage bottles and plastic wrappings of some of the top companies. None of the companies was available for comment.

“Production per se is unlikely to be affected, but companies will have to invest more in pollution control mechanisms. While cost of fresh investment will have to be taken on the profit and loss account, the producers of environment saving equipment will see a growth in business. What starts in Uttarakhand today will be sooner or later extended to other states, too, like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal, which have similar challenges and huge industries along the river,” said D R Dogra, chief executive and managing director of Care Ratings.

The industries that have to invest in pollution control measures include chemicals, dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, leather, handicrafts, engineering, textiles and power. "While most of those that will be affected would be smaller companies that have not built structures for waste disposal till now, the larger ones would have to invest more in such processes. Further, if units are shut, the labour employed could face consequences. However, one would expect that most units would comply or seek an extension until such time that they are compliant,” Dogra added.

PUSH TO GANGA REJUVENATION

Use of plastics of any thickness, including carry bags, plates and allied items, banned from Feb The ban means restrictions on the use of plastic bottles, including beverage bottles and plastic wrappings of some of the top companies Production is unlikely to be affected, but firms will have to invest more in pollution control mechanisms Panel divides cleaning work into different segments, the first segment being Gomukh to Haridwar Other segments are Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to UP border, UP border of Jharkhand & from there to Bay of Bengal

The panel divided the cleaning work of Ganga into different segments — Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to UP border, UP border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal. “There shall be a complete prohibition on use of plastic, including carry bags, plates, glasses, spoons, packages and allied items, in all cities falling on the river Ganga and its tributaries in Gomukh to Haridwar. Under no circumstances, plastic carry bags of any thickness would be permitted,” a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said.

The NGT also spelt out a series of other pollution control measures in the area. Corporate analysts said the NGT's orders are significant, as the country gets ready to meet global pollution control norms.

NGT ORDERS BENEFIT DELHI

NGT on Thursday fixed the penalties for persistent defaulters of crop residue burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh While small landholders having less than two acres of land will have to pay Rs 2500, medium landholders having between two to five acres will have to pay Rs 5,000. Those owning over five acres will have to pay Rs 15,000 per incident of crop burning towards environment compensation State governments to provide machinery free of cost to the farmers having less than two acres of land, to farmers having medium land owners at a cost of Rs 5,000 and for the large land holding farmers at Rs 15,000 NGT also directed Delhi authorities in Delhi to ensure strict adherence to guidelines on noise pollution, special restrictions on noise pollution which are currently in place in Palam and other areas, to be extended to other areas as well NGT ordered Delhi government to increase the strength of the forest department and procure better equipments to prevent illegal felling of trees in the national capital

The tribunal, which did not pass any order with regard to nine hydro-power projects in Uttarakhand as the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, said all the projects would build their own sewage treatment plants and make them operational within three months. JSW Group had taken over few of these hydro power projects from Jaypee group for Rs 9,700 crore and it will have to invest in pollution control equipment.

Besides the plastics ban, the NGT also prohibited throwing of any municipal waste, construction and demolition wastes into Ganga and its tributaries, while announcing that violators will have to pay an environmental compensation at the rate of Rs 5,000 per incident.

The green bench held that all the seriously polluting industries, which are operating without consent from Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board, shall be closed immediately.

On the issue of mining on the river bed, the tribunal said it shall be carried on in a highly regulated manner and under strict supervision.

“No mechanised river bed mining would be permitted. No mechanical excavators would be permitted to operate on the river bed,”it said.

Measures taken by the Government for gender equality/socio-economic development/empowerment of women

Measures taken by the Government for gender equality/socio-economic development/empowerment of women

According to the National Sample Survey Report (2011-12), the workforce participation rates of male is 54.4% and female is 21.9%. As per the India Country Report, 2015 by Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation on the Millennium Development Goals, the percentage share of females in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector during 2011-12 increased to 19.3% which is higher than 18.6% reported during 2009-10 by National Sample Survey Organisation.

Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner and Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation are involved in collection and dissemination of data covering wide range of issues that affect women’s empowerment. The report titled “Women and Men in India – 2015” by Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Government of India highlights the status of women covering health, education, work and decision making along with social obstacles in women’s empowerment.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development is administering following schemes for gender equality/socio-economic development/empowerment of women:

i. Swadhar and Short Stay Homes to provide relief and rehabilitation to destitute women and women in distress.

ii. Working Women Hostels for ensuring safe accommodation for working women away from their place of residence.

iii. Support to Training and Employment Program for Women (STEP) to ensure sustainable employment and income generation for marginalised and asset-less rural and urban poor women across the country.

iv. Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) to provide micro-finance services to bring about the socio-economic upliftment of poor women.

v. National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) to strengthen the overall processes that promote all-round Development of Women

vi. Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for Children of Working Mothers (including single mother) to provide day care facilities for running a crèche of 25 children in the age group 0-6 years from families having monthly income of less than Rs 12,000.

vii. One Stop Centre to provide integrated support and assistance to women affected by violence.

viii. Scheme for Universalisation of Women Helpline intended to provide 24 hours immediate and emergency response to women affected by violence.

ix. Sabla Scheme for holistic development of adolescent girls in the age group of 11-18 years.

x. In order to strengthen the process of gender budgeting the Ministry of Women and Child Development has been undertaking various capacity building measures for the officials of the State Governments by organising training programs/workshops regularly.

In order to improve employability a separate Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has been created.

Equal Remuneration Act, 1973 provides for payment of equal remuneration to men and women workers for the same work of similar nature without any discrimination. In order to ensure social security to the workers including women in the unorganised sector, the Government has enacted the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act 2008.

The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 regulates employment of women in certain establishments for a certain period (12 weeks) before and after childbirth and provides for maternity and other benefits.

Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) Scheme is being implemented as Conditional Maternity Benefit for pregnant and lactating women to improve health and nutrition status to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives to pregnant and nursing mothers to partly compensate wage loss both prior to and after delivery.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 has been enacted, which covers all women, irrespective of their age or employment status and protect them against sexual harassment at all workplaces both in public and private sector, whether organised or unorganised.

- See more at: http://samvegias.com/measures-taken-government-gender-equalitysocio-economic-developmentempowerment-women/#sthash.9di6a7f5.dpuf

The same old script of India-Pakistan ties

Even if the ties seem to be on an upswing, the process can derail anytime

As a young British diplomat, Sir Harold George Nicolson participated in the Paris Peace Conference (1919) held in the aftermath of the World War I. Giving an account of the conference in his book Peacemaking 1919, Nicolson writes: “I learnt from this erratic but brilliant statesman [David Lloyd George] that apparent opportunism is not always irreconcilable with vision… that volatility of method is not always indicative of volatility of intentions.” Lloyd George served as the prime minister of the UK between 1916 and 1922. The current National Democratic Alliance government would require a diplomat-wordsmith like Nicolson to justify the spate of flip-flops on Pakistan.

To be fair, confusion over the Pakistan policy has not been a monopoly of the current government. All the previous governments in recent memory have been equally, if not more, clueless in dealing with India’s most difficult neighbour. The dialogue held between Ajit Doval and Lt General (retd) Naseer Janjua—the national security advisers (NSA) of India and Pakistan respectively—accompanied by the foreign secretaries on 6 December in Bangkok has capped the latest round of the same old game involving recurrent phases of engagement and disengagement.

The NSA-level dialogue was preceded by a “pull aside” meeting between prime ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Paris climate change summit. Sushma Swaraj, the minister of external affairs, is on a trip to Islamabad to attend the Heart of Asia conference, which focuses on regional cooperation with a strong emphasis on stability in Afghanistan. The Bangkok talks were intended to resume the bilateral engagement in order to pave the way for Modi’s participation in the 19th Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in 2016.

The constraints that led to the cancellation of NSA-level dialogue in August were overcome by a mix of improvisations and compromises. The August dialogue was called off because Pakistan was not ready to honour India’s twin conditions of a) no meddling by the Hurriyat, a Kashmir-based organization with a separatist agenda, and b) restriction of the NSA-level talks to terrorism alone (leaving out Kashmir). The former was made clear to Pakistan through the cancellation of foreign secretary talks in August 2014 following the meeting between Hurriyat leaders and Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s high commissioner to India. The latter was enshrined in the joint statement released after the two prime ministers met in Ufa, Russia, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit held in July this year. There was also a third issue. The Pakistan Army was not confident about pitting Sartaj Aziz, the former NSA of Pakistan who is an economist by training, to face Doval, a career intelligence officer with a sterling reputation.

The venue of Bangkok helped Pakistan avoid the political compulsions of meeting the Hurriyat leaders. India yielded—and this simply cannot be stated differently—on Kashmir. New Delhi realized—after the experience of Ufa—that avoiding Kashmir in any joint statement is politically untenable for the Pakistani establishment. The third issue was resolved by replacing Aziz with Janjua as the NSA.

It is being claimed by many that the ‘Bangkok process’ was decided in the brief meeting held between Modi and Sharif in Paris. This is highly unlikely because the only Sharif who takes these decisions in Pakistan is Raheel Sharif, the Chief of Army Staff. Moreover, the resumption of NSA-level dialogue had been on the cards since the appointment of Janjua—believed to be close to Raheel Sharif.

With the initial hurdles now overcome, it will not be surprising to see the resumption of the composite dialogue process—the template for full-fledged bilateral talks—in due course of time. Aziz, who retains his role as foreign affairs adviser to prime minister Sharif, has said that he will explore such possibilities in his meeting with Swaraj on her Islamabad trip.

Even though things may seem to be on an upswing, the process can derail anytime. It is unrealistic to expect Pakistan to withdraw support to anti-India terrorists in the near future or to expedite the 26/11 trials. The lack of clarity over the objectives on the Indian side does not help either. The government should achieve some results quickly or else hire a Nicolson to offer better explanations than the verbal jugglery on display by the current lot of spokespersons.

Will the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan help address issues of terrorism?

- See more at: http://samvegias.com/2230-2/#sthash.nQzN0ryG.dpuf

The economics of demographic shifts

Ageing strikes at the very roots of the welfare state and the social contracts on which democracy rests

There is a growing sense, in the wake of the recent global financial crisis, that mainstream macroeconomic frameworks are inadequate in explaining the real world. Arguably, the forces of globalization, the neglect of financial markets and demographic change have undermined these frameworks.

Of these, demographic transition is perhaps the most profoundly underestimated force. Ageing strikes at the very roots of the welfare state and the social contracts on which social democracy rests. This has recently begun in advanced economies. It is just a matter of a few decades before its impact is felt across the globe.

Human history can be broadly divided into five demographic stages. In the beginning, human populations were sparsely distributed during the hunting and gathering phase that lasted right up to the end of the last ice age around 10,000 BC. Population densities never exceeded 1-2 persons per square mile. Survival was a full-time profession for everybody. There was no such thing as division of labour or economic growth. This began during the second stage with the Neolithic Revolution and the discovery of agriculture that facilitated the generation of a ‘surplus’ over and above what was required for daily survival.

The origins of social stratification, urbanization, civilization, the State and empires can all be traced to the Neolithic Revolution. Technological change, its dissemination, and consequently productivity shifts, were however slow where progress was measured in centuries.

Aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) therefore grew at very low rates over an extended period, with the standard of living improving very slowly over time. Economic growth was more a function of population increase than productivity growth. Birth rates were high, as were death rates. This resulted in a large, young, dependent population that consumed but did not contribute to economic activity. The constraints on economic growth were therefore on the supply rather than demand side. War, famine and pestilence led to periodic sharp declines in both population and output, followed by long periods of slow recovery. This pattern persisted right up to the 17th century.

The third stage began in the 18th century with the Industrial Revolution. A continuing technological revolution facilitated rapid population growth through rapid upward shifts in human productivity. This was made possible by a sharp fall in death rates on account of improvements in public health, with the birth rate adjusting only slowly. A virtuous cycle of rapid supply and demand growth ensured that both aggregate and per capita GDP, and with it standards of living, grew at unprecedented rates.

Extant macroeconomic theories are the product of this third stage. They now need to adjust to the next two stages where birth rates first approach replacement rate, leading to a levelling off of population growth, and then fall below the replacement rate.

Humans are the only species where prosperity beyond a certain point leads to demographic decline rather than to rapid, unsustainable expansion of the species. Several European countries and Japan have entered the fourth stage, characterized by declines in aggregate GDP growth. The slow recovery from the global financial crisis must be seen not simply as a balance-sheet recession, but also through the prism of ageing.

Beyond the fourth stage lies a possible fifth stage, where productivity growth may be inadequate to prevent negative aggregate GDP growth, although per capita GDP may well continue to grow at robust rates. A shrinking working population leads to a large dependent population, this time aged instead of young, that consumes but has traditionally contributed little to economic activity. In a closed economy, this would lead to lower growth because of problems on both the supply and demand sides. While these constraints can be substantially mitigated in an open, globalized economy, attempts to overcome demand constraints through leveraged consumption are not sustainable in the long run. Indeed, this was one of the underlying causes of the recent global financial crisis.

The peculiarity of the fourth and fifth stages is that hourly productivity per worker does not decline because of the continuing technological revolution. However aggregate production, the production possibility frontier, may decline.

The ageing process works itself through the economic system in surprising ways. The likely impact on fiscal policy is widely acknowledged. Social contracts underlying the welfare state may need to change, retirement ages pushed back, and the healthcare system shift from curative to preventive with greater onus placed on individuals for their own health outcomes.

The impact on financial markets, monetary policy and on inequality however needs fuller consideration going forward.

It is possible that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg called ‘savings glut’ that tends to keep the cost of capital and interest rates low. Workers need to save more and more for retirement, as a shrinking tax base weakens the State’s fiscal capacity. With trend growth declining, and savings rising, central banks may be constrained to keep interest rates low.

There has been much talk about rising inequality, such as that centred around the influential work of Thomas Piketty, on account of the increasing returns to capital relative to labour in a globalizing world. But as the world ages, and the number of workers falls, the returns to labour would rise as the proportion of those buying assets (workers) shrinks and that of sellers (retirees) increase. Would this then reverse the current trend of relative returns to capital and labour? What would this imply for income inequality and tax policies going forward?

- See more at: http://samvegias.com/economics-demographic-shifts/#sthash.nCHVWws8.dpuf

The unsustainable growth

Development happens when society successfully organizes resources to achieve the common good in a sustainable manner

Many years ago, work had to be stopped one afternoon, at one of the spanking new facilities of the IT (information technology) firm that I was associated with. There was no water in the campus, and 3,000 people certainly could not work without water. There was no civil water supply to that area, so the water was sourced from the campus borewells and by buying from water suppliers. During summer, borewells would run dry, so most of the water was bought. The vendors had stopped supplying water since that morning.

Our desperate investigation revealed that there was blockade by the local community near the sources of water. The conflict was on the most fundamental of issues—the water suppliers were sucking the sources dry and everything was at stake for the community. While they did reach a commercial settlement, it was fragile, given that those water sources were absolutely integral to the life and livelihood of that community.

Arising from a deep commitment to environmental sustainability, we were using water responsibly. For example, we reused a lot of our water discharge, were doing maximal rainwater harvesting, our per capita water consumption was reducing every year. But that incident told us how inadequate our perspective was. It triggered our efforts to trace all the water that we used right to its source, and to try and understand the issues along the entire source-to-use path. What we discovered left us much better informed and therefore much better prepared to make sure that there is no disruption of operations because of water. At the same time, it has left us feeling quite helpless. This is a multi-billion dollar, globally successful corporation, which felt quite helpless. Let me narrate a specific case to explain this.

A source-to-use mapping of water for the facility on Sarjapur Road in Bengaluru brought the following things to light. Seventy percent was sourced from suppliers who purchased the water mostly from farmers in about a 30-km radius. The borewells in their farms had turned into an additional source of income. Not just us, but most of this part of the city was buying water from those sources. No surprise that the water table in those areas was dropping rapidly, reducing the water availability for the local community. This led to tensions within the community, which continues unabated even today.

It was clear that we were entangled in a web of problems of water, like everyone else near and in the city. Gradually, a community group of business organizations, residents associations, non-government organizations and academic institutions was formed, to attempt to deal with the complex set of issues involved. One of the first attempts was to map and monitor the aquifers of Bengaluru. This was upon learning that while the city was 60% dependent on ground water drawn from the aquifers, no one had a clue about what these underground reservoirs of water were like, i.e. location, amount of water, rate of depletion and recharge.

This project will take years to complete. In the meanwhile, the exploding metropolis continues to suck away at its ground water, completely dependent on it, and yet without the foggiest notion of how long it can last. This is worse than wanton mismanagement of the cities’ most important common property resource. The helplessness that I talked about arises from the collective inability of the interested group to change anything at the fundamentals of these issues. And there are other burning issues on water, such as vanishing lakes and the inequity in access to water.

The tragic flooding in Chennai last week reminded me of this whole experience of ours. If you look at the satellite pictures of Chennai from the late 1990s to today, you can see the reason for the floods. The earlier pictures will show a continuous arc of ponds, lakes and wetlands, across Chennai. These have completely vanished by now, vanquished by construction. The water from the heavy rain has merely found its natural place, which we are calling flooding. The Chennai floods and the experience that I have narrated merely emphasize the fundamental importance of common property resources and public goods. As does the air quality issue in Delhi.

These crises in Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and other cities are not due to “too much development”, but just the opposite. Development happens only when a society successfully organizes people and resources to achieve the common good in a sustainable manner. The failure to protect our land, water, forests, air and public spaces from overuse and destruction is a brewing crisis that is likely to result in even greater calamities in the future. A key part of the problem is our inability as a society to act sensibly and collectively. This failure infects our attempts at educating our children, providing healthcare to the needy and protecting the environment.

In the rush to get rich quick at any cost, we jeopardize ourselves and future generations. The independence movement was marked by great sacrifice and the ability to act collectively towards a common purpose. We need something similar all over again.

- See more at: http://samvegias.com/the-unsustainable-growth/#sthash.Cz6xnaLv.dpuf