Daily Current Affairs

14^th OCTOBER 2020

QUESTION BANK

(1 Question)

Answer questions in 150-250 words each. Content of the answer is more important than its length.

Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your answers.

GS II: SOCIAL- HEALTH

Q1. ‘Although much has been achieved in the field of food security, more remains to be done.’ Discuss the statement with special reference to India.

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-road-to-zero-hunger-by-2030/article32865528.ece/amp/

Ans.

• Food is the essence of life and the bedrock of our cultures and communities. It can be a powerful means to bring people together to grow, nourish and sustain the planet. There is much to be done in the field of global food security. While we can all be proud of the progress we have made — for instance, agricultural productivity has improved significantly in recent decades — yet sadly, more than two billion people globally still lack access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve zero hunger by 2030, or to meet global nutrition targets.
• India has gone from being a net importer to a net exporter of food grains. This strength has been evident through the pandemic. Central and State governments were able to distribute around 23 million tonnes from India’s large domestic food grain reserves in three months (April to June) through the Public Distribution System, providing much-needed emergency assistance to families around the country. The government also successfully mobilised food rations for 820 million people from April to November 2020, including finding alternate solutions to provide food rations to 90 million schoolchildren. Throughout the national lockdown imposed in March 2020, there were efforts to remove bottlenecks in the food supply chain due to restrictions on movements, and to ensure that agricultural activities weren’t disrupted. Thanks to these measures, agriculture grew at 3.4% during the first quarter this financial year and the area cultivated this kharif exceeded 110 million hectares. This is a major achievement.
• There is a multi-dimensionality of India’s food challenges — not least those centred around malnutrition and climate change. Even as malnutrition in India has notably declined over the past decade, the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey 2016-18 revealed that over 40 million children are chronically malnourished, and more than half of Indian women aged 15-49 years are anaemic. Initiatives such as the Integrated Child Development Services — which provides cooked meals and take-home rations to 100 million children under the age of six, as well as to pregnant and lactating mothers — and the mid-day meal programme, are however stellar examples of how the government is working to fix these challenges.
• Climate change continues to be a real and potent threat to agrobiodiversity, which will impact everything from productivity to livelihoods across food and farm systems. Though India is dealing innovatively with climate change — for example, through the development of drought and flood tolerant seed varieties, weather-based agricultural advisories, promotion of millets, and small-scale irrigation — this year, we saw how climate-related shocks made it difficult for farmers to deal with pest and locust attacks, as well as floods and cyclones. Intensified food production systems with excessive use of chemicals and unsustainable farming practices cause soil degradation, fast depletion of groundwater table and rapid loss of agro-biodiversity. These challenges multiply with an increase in fragmentation of landholdings. In India, more than 86% farmers have less than two hectares of land contributing around 60% of the total food grain production and over half the country’s fruits and vegetables.
• All this points to two undeniable imperatives: the way we produce food must change through agroecology and sustainable production practices in agriculture and allied sectors; and second, we must stop the waste — one-third of the food we produce is wasted. The FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organization), IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) and WFP (The World Food Programme) — are committed to working with government, civil society, farmers’ organisations and the private sector to build sustainable food systems.
• A food systemis a framework that includes every aspect of feeding and nourishing people: from growing, harvesting and processing to packaging, transporting, marketing and consuming food. To be sustainable, a food system must provide enough nutritious food for all without compromising feeding future generations.
• Everybody — governments, the private sector, civil society and local communities — has a role to play in transforming our food systems so they can withstand increasing volatility and climate shocks, deliver affordable and sustainable healthy diets for all, and provide decent livelihoods for food chain workers. We must all work in concert to make sure that our food systems nourish a growing population and sustain the planet, together.

19^th OCTOBER 2020

QUESTION BANK

(1 Question)

Answer questions in 150-250 words each. Content of the answer is more important than its length.

Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your answers.

GS III: ENVIRONMENT

Q1. Discuss the inception and significance of the National Green Tribunal in India.

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-hues-in-the-green-tribunals-resilient-journey/article32887

Ans.

• October 18, 2020 marked the 10th anniversary of the National Green Tribunal, or NGT. Few ministries can boast of as varied, diverse, and challenging a mandate as the Ministry of Environment and Forests. It has an all-encompassing scope, which covers forests, wildlife, environment, climate change and coastal protection.
• The sheer number and complexity of cases on environment related subjects, with several more being added every week, led the Supreme Court of India to designate a special Bench to handle these matters. This Bench, which met every Friday to deliberate on these and many other matters, came to be known fittingly as the ‘Forest Bench’. And this was to say nothing of the numerous matters that were filed and pending hearings in the various High Courts. Given the time constraints of the top court and the High Courts, some cases had been pending for decades and in turn, spawning other linked matters which further delayed the process.
• Parliament had passed laws related to the establishment of a National Environment Tribunal (1995) and a National Environment Appellate Authority (1997). The Authority was intended to act primarily as a forum for challenges to environmental clearances while the Tribunal could award limited amounts of compensation in cases of environmental damage to life or property.
• It was clear that the enforcement, protection, and adjudication of environmental laws required a specialised and dedicated body. A tribunal, staffed with judges and environmental experts, would need to be empowered to hear these issues so that the burden on the High Courts and the Supreme Court could be reduced. The quality of time spent on these issues could also be increased as, unlike the Supreme Court, the tribunal could have benches in various States, thereby increasing access to all citizens. Thus, the idea for the ‘NGT’ was born.
• This was not the first time that the idea had been mooted. In judgments such as M.C. Mehta & Anr. Etc vs Union Of India & Ors. Etc (1986), the then Chief Justice of India, Justice P.N. Bhagwati, had suggested “to the Government of India that since cases involving issues of environmental pollution, ecological destructions and conflicts over national resources are increasingly coming up for adjudication and these cases involve assessment and evolution of scientific and technical data, it might be desirable to set up Environmental Courts on the regional basis with one professional Judge and two experts drawn from the Ecological Sciences Research Group keeping in view the nature of the case and the expertise required for its adjudication. There would of course be a right of appeal to this Court from the decision of the Environment Court”.
• These observations were recalled in 1999 by the Supreme Court in the landmark case of A.P. Pollution Control Board vs Prof. M.V. Nayudu (Retd.) which added its own emphasis on the need for a court that was “a combination of a Judge and Technical Experts” with an appeal to the Supreme Court from the Environmental Court.
• Since its inception, the NGT has, apart from creating a new breed of legal practitioners, protected vast acres of forest land, halted polluting construction activities in metros and smaller towns. It has penalised errant officials who have turned a blind eye towards enforcing the laws, and held large corporate entities to account. It has protected the rights of tribal communities and ensured the enforcement of the “polluter pays” principle in letter and spirit. In this endeavour it has been assisted by brilliant practitioners, many of whom are young counsels, passionate and dedicated towards protecting the environment.
• The rules (though not the Rule making power) were ultimately suspended by the Supreme Court. But key challenges remain: the NGT must focus less on governance issues and more on adjudication. Benches have to expand manifold. Vacancies have to be filled quickly. In its next decade, the NGT must continue to remain a proactive ‘inconvenience’ to all those who, while pontificating grandiloquently on the need for environmental protection, take actions that make economic growth ecologically unsustainable.