growth, development and garbage

Lately there have been many questions that have been bothering me. I wonder why we have to rely on someone else to come and clean up our mess after I read the story of the Garbage Girl. Don't get me wrong, it's great someone is making an effort but are we so fundamentally socially backward that we cannot even insist on basic civic sense? I wonder why we don't have in place a system of municipal waste collection that actually works - this is infrastructure at its most basic. We are the civilization that invented the zero and consequently are one of the biggest players in the IT field. We have a space program that a lot of developed nations can be proud of. We have a culture and history that is unparalleled.

But we also have so many social problems - poverty, malnourishment, the highest rates of maternal death, female infanticide, a garbage problem threatening to mask all our accomplishments. In the eyes of the world, we are still seen as a filthy country in many aspects. When are we to get rid of this image?

Behind the glitz and growth of new malls, multiplexes, supermarkets and all the trappings of the west the real India is being swallowed up in piles of garbage. All of our resources are stretched, our cities are choking with pollution, drowning in filth with not enough water or electricity for the burgeoning population. Do we not deserve more? I'm tired of trying to find a reason for the way things are - corruption, government, politics etc can only get us so far. What about individual accountability? What about you standing up to say that you don't like the way things are and doing something to change it? The father of this great nation, based our independence on the power of singular change... and things went rapidly downhill from there.

I remember reading a chapter in biology in school entitled 'growth and development' and remember thinking that they are two entirely different things that are so easily confused. The understanding of 'growth' and 'development' is not just a study of semantics but there are entire philosophies, economic policies and government principles involved in the distinction. India is sadly an example of growth without development.

This country needs to be built from ground-up. All we are currently focusing on is embellishments whilst nations like China and even Brazil are focusing on grass-roots development. They have similar problems as us, so why aren't we at least trying?

For India to take its rightful place in the world, we must invest in infrastructure, education and focus on growing holistically, sustainably. The kind of imbalanced growth we are seeing will only lead to more social problems and eventual economic collapse. The center cannot hold. The center will not hold. I wonder how long we are going to try to drive this horse with a broken cart until the wheel gives way to complete irreparability... and then what?

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake - Rabindranath Tagore

india - stats

India is rapidly climbing the ladder as a country in severe eco-crisis. We may boast all we want about per capita carbon emissions being among the lowest in the world, but the national aggregate is among the top. This is another reason why population must be controlled within the country. Rapid urbanization and the growth of mega-cities is putting enormous pressure on natural resources. With 33% of the population of India living in cities, India's Urban National Policy is jarringly inadequate. 45% of the land is degraded and ground-water supplies are diminishing rapidly. Particulate air pollution is on the rise on cities hitting 110 million people causing public health damage costs in 2004 of about $3 billion.

India has overtaken Japan as the world's fourth-largest emitter of carbon with emissions one-quarter those of US and China. More than 60% of that comes from the energy sector. Forests soak up 11% of emissions and it has been indicated that the government is taking efforts to increase forest cover to combat climate change. This is also to ensure the protection of biodiversity however, 10% of plants and animals on the subcontinent are threatened with extinction. This includes species like the black-faced langur found in Nilgiris, Nilgiri Tahr and the lion-tailed macaque which are endemic to India.

India's carbon emissions are about 1.6 billion tons per year (2005) and are set to rise to 6.5 billion tons by 2030. This figure can be cut by 2.8 billion tons with improvements to infrastructure, agriculture and investment in renewable energy. In the lead up to the Copenhagen Conference in December, India has announced that it plans to tackle climate change with renewal energy and other cleantech advances but will not commit to binding emissions reductions. A recent report however, calculates that the cost of roughly halving carbon emissions growth by 2030 is $1.1 trillion which translates to about 2.3% of GDP which will be spent mostly on alternate energy.

The rich vs. poor is still the primary issue even to the lead up to COP15 with India and China arguing against emission cuts and Russia stating that will agree to emission targets only if the US does. This will be followed up on another post... so watch this space.

future of RTD

The Right to Development (RTD), a concept that emerged in the 1970s, is one of the most debated and contentious issues in international relations. RTD builds on the rights based approach to development, seeking to integrate the norms and principles of human rights with policies and plans to promote development. Despite its importance for the world’s poor and dispossessed, a great deal of definitional confusion still surrounds the concept.

The future of RTD depend on the extent to which governments are willing to address the political and practical obstacles to its implementation. The political obstacles appear in the tone and substance of the deliberations as well as the decisions of the Commission and General Assembly. It is up to those governments that take the RTD seriously to shift the discourse away from posturing and towards specific programs and mechanisms that will assist governments in meeting their obligations in this area.

The most important obstacle to implementing the RTD is the practical one, because of the lack of incentives to modify the formal policies of the international agencies and national governments and to incorporate meaningful approaches to this right in the practice of development. Human rights are claims of entitlement that arise as of right and are independent of external justification; they are "self evident" and fundamental to any human being living a dignified, healthy and productive and rewarding life.

Human rights are not some abstract, inchoate 'good'; they are defined, particular claims listed in international instruments such as the [U.N.'s] Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the major covenants and conventions. Like the fundamental rights guaranteed by any Constitution, these rights are inalienable; they cannot be transferred, forfeited, or waived; they cannot be lost by having been usurped, or by one's failure to exercise or assert them.

Sustainable development acts as a reconciling principle between economic development and environmental protection. Just as economic development is an inalienable right of States' self-determination; environmental protection is an erga omnes (in relation to everyone) obligation of all States for the benefit of the global commons that all share. The principle of sustainable development is thus a part of modern international law by reason not only of its inescapable logical necessity, but also by reason of its wide and general acceptance by the global community, and not just by developing countries.