MY KIND OF LOVE NEVER FADES

Even in the darkest of the times the love I have for you will grow in many different shades, 

Because honey my kind of love never fades. 

Even if my eyes see you for the 6945329th times my cheeks will definitely glow each of the times, 

Because honey my kind of love only shines. 

Even if my mood swings are at the peak or even if your life is going through many highs and lows, 

Honey I'll keep loving you because my kind of love only grows. 

Ever felt those butterflies every time you see a person? How it it possible? Like it's the same person I saw a minute ago and again how can it feel the same and even more? Like how can I still have a big smile on my face and how on this earth is possible that I am still blushing? 

OH! This is beautiful, purely beautiful. Do you feel the same? And tell me what if the person you like doesn't feel the same for you? Will you be hurt? Well I won't be, because honey my kind of love is mine only, no one can love the same way I do! 

May be I like the fact that it's one sided! Because I've heard that it gets complicated by the going time! Do you like that? Complications in your love? No, right1 High five. It's beautiful if its simple and sorted. 

Me going to a cafe, he sitting in a bench visible to me. He is busy with his friends laughing, playing and enjoying and ME? Me busy looking at him. Me just smiling and blushing and ya sorted! And then at home, when I suddenly miss him I take out my phone look at his profile, look at his eyes, his lips, his cheeks, his hair and tadaa I'm smiling again. 

Do you feel the need of texting him? I know it must be really exciting talking to a person you love, even I'd jump off my bed if my phone rings and it's his text!

But you know what I feel, sometimes its okay if you don't talk to him, sometimes its okay if he isn't in love with you! Because love doesn't need two of us, love is pure and infinite and Just ONE is enough to love! 

That's my short One sided love story! What's yours? Comment down your love angle! 

And yes, if you are reading Dear Mystery, I love you. 

AIR POLLUTION AND INDIA

Air pollution has an effect not just on health but also it disrupts the functioning of a country. It reduces overall productivity and decreases the supply of labour. It all translates into elevated health expenditure due to rise in morbidities. 

According to study India suffered an estimated economic loss of 36.8 billion USD due to air pollution in 2019. Premature deaths due to air pollution caused a loss of 28.8 billion USD. 

The state-wise variation in economic loss ranged from 0.67% to 2.15% of the GDP. The low per-capita GDP states incurred the maximum loss. The worst-affected states were Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. The national capital, Delhi, bore the highway per-capita economic loss due to air pollution, followed by its neighbour state of Haryana. Thus, we can infer that the impact of air pollution is more evident in north India.

Deaths

In 2019, air pollution was responsible for around 1.67 million deaths in India. This number is equivalent to 17.8% of the total deaths in the country. Out of those, 0.98 million deaths are attributable to ambient particulate pollution, while household pollution caused 0.61 million deaths.

Positive 

Going by the figures, there has been a 64.2% decline in the death rate due to household air pollution between the years 1990 and 2019. India has been instrumental in taking state- and national-level initiatives to ameliorate household air pollution. The Indian government launched Unnat Chulha Abhiyan in June 2014, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in May 2016, and National Infrastructure Pipeline Project that has contributed to this decline. 

Negative

However, there is a 115.3% elevation in the death rate attributable to ambient particulate pollution and a 139.2% rise in those attributable to ambient ozone pollution in the same period. 

      {International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW)}              

However, in January 2019, the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Program (NCAP), a five-year action plan to curb air pollution, build a pan-India air quality monitoring network, and improve citizen awareness. The program focuses on 102 polluted Indian cities and aims to reduce PM2.5 levels by 20-30% over the next five years. The analysis conducted by researchers from IIASA and CEEW however suggests that NCAP needs to be backed by a legal mandate to ensure successful ground-level implementation of emission control measures. In the long-term, NCAP also needs to be scaled-up significantly to ensure that rapid economic growth and meeting NAAQs are aligned. 

The significance of the research also lies in the fact that are the people aware about the problem of air pollution and the policies formulated by the government for controlling air pollution. 

A public perception study designed to find out the level of awareness. The comprehensive survey revealed that while awareness of the adverse effects of air pollution is very high, most people seem to think that they need to do nothing at the individual level. This perception needs to be addressed. It is only when people make this a priority issue will politicians wake up and take action,” said Debi Goenka of Conservation Action Trust

A survey conducted by the Lung Care Foundation showed that there was massive unawareness regarding air pollution among public in the national capital region (NCR). It also found that people were unaware about government initiatives and necessary precautions taken to control high levels of pollution. 

The failure of the Indian government in mitigating air pollution is caused because of many reasons like limited budgetary allocations, limited planning abilities at local level, lack of focus and year long commitment, lack of coordinated effort of federal government and local authorities, too little and too late actions, weak local and regional capacities, inability to put check, corrupt governance, lack of use of scientific methods, unchecked and illegal mining, lax enforcement of rules and also lack of accountability. 

That is why despite of so many policies and initiatives the problem of air pollution in India still persists. And India still is one among the most polluted countries in the world. 

The needs as per the study include strong leadership, ambitious actions and strengthening local and regional capacities. The central and state governments must do more to align air quality, climate change, and sustainable development goals in a resource efficient manner. 

The study aims at how India has addressed the situation, on ground implementation of policy actions, need of the hour, learnings from the world, citizen and government links, how the policies failed to prove their worth and also the role of the people. 

Air Pollution and Policy actions

Air pollution is the fifth largest killer in the country, according to Global Burden of Disease. Urban air quality data according to the World Health Organization (WHO) reconfirms that India appears among the group of countries with highest particulate matter (PM) levels. Of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, 13 are in India, says the database. Delhi is among the most polluted cities in the world today. The rising trends in population growth and the consequent effects on air quality are evident in the Indian scenario. Over the years, there has been a massive-scale expansion in industries, population density, anthropogenic activities, and the increased use of automobiles has degraded the air quality in India.  

WHY POLICY ACTIONS? 

1) Major Global health challenge to which children are particularly vulnerable. 

2) To reduce air pollution emmisions and exposure to pollution, action is needed at local, national and international levels. 

3) The actions can contribute to achieving multiple other Sustainable Development Goals, including climate change mitigation. 

 

SIGNIFICANCE OF RESEARCH

Air pollution and climate change are closely linked because many of the sources of Green house Gases responsible for climate change are also major sources of air pollution. CLEAN AIR IS A HUMAN RIGHT AND A NECESSARY PRE CONDITION FOR ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE AS WELL AS ACHIEVING MANY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS.

The continuous degradation of ambient air quality in the urban centres of India demands effective measures to curb air pollution. Though various policy measures are being introduced by the Government of India (GoI) to reduce the vehicular and industrial emissions, the extent to which these measures are implemented is questionable. The lack of infrastructural facilities, inadequacy of financial resources to implement advanced infrastructural innovations, difficulty in relocation of the industries from the urban centres even after mandatory court decisions, and above all, the behavioural patterns among people in accepting the green solutions are some of the crucial impediments on the road to environmental protection that our country seems to be struggling to overcome today. 

In developing countries the implementation of the policies for mitigation of air becomes difficult because initially laws are weak or not applied, secondly the vehicle emission standards are less stringent and coal power stations more prevalent lastly increasing Informal settlements. 

Air pollution problems reflect governance failure because cities transpotation, infrastructure has not kept pace with their growing population. 

The research aims to look into the scope of air pollution, reasons behind the policy failure, initiatives taken by the government, problems in the grounds of air pollution, policies and models of foreign countries and how the citizens and government both being the stakeholders play their respective roles for mitigation of air pollution. The research is for a social impact to look into the awareness among the citizens about the plans, policies and innovations made by the government. 

Everyone has the RIGHT TO BREATHE CLEAN AIR but does everyone care about the air? This research aims to look how we being the citizens pledge to control air pollution. 

Poverty and Inequality

In this blog, I tried putting my views over the relationship between Poverty and Inequality

Question?

Are they same?

Is poverty a consequence of inequality? 

Is inequality a consequence of poverty? 

Will development help to remove them? 

Or removing them will lead to development

Is this a dilema where an economy should look upon?

Development

Development is a multi dimensional concept which involves an overall growth of the social, cultural, economical and political sectors of the economy through which the quality of life of nation, communities or individual would be improved.

Talking about development, the Capability approach of Amartya Sen plays an important role. Here he talks about development to be referred through a person (not an economy) reflecting a progress (not in terms of income or availabitlity of resources) but in terms of capabilities and freedoms. Technically a development which ensures that opportunities are available to each person.

Also, a development which ensures that every section of the society is benefitted. This doesn't mean, the development to be equal because an equal development defines a process where there is inequality in terms of yield distribution. A rich person may get affected negatively while distributing resources and income equally. It should be kept in mind that while expanding the capabilities of some persons, the freedom of any other person should not be impacted negatively.  

Poverty

A poor lacks not only income but also education, health, justice, credit and opportunitues. Thus poverty is not only about a person being under a defined Below Poverty Line. Poverty is a DEPRIVATION of capabilities which limits freedom to achieve something. A multi dimensional approach to poverty describes that poverty is capability failure where the people lack the capability to enjoy key 'beings and doings' that are basic to human life.

Inequality

Inequality is not only in terms of unequal distribution of income but also access to resources and services, access to personal liberty and dignity. The goal while tackling this issue should not be focused only to ensure equal distribution of income but to equalise the opportunities people have to practice their freedoms and not the outcomes people obtain.

Now the question arises what are the causes of inequality and poverty. Are they linked directly to each other? A poor lacks education, health, justice because of the unequal distribution of income and access to resources. A person lacks equal opportunities to education and health, liberty and dignity because of poverty. So is income it's all about? Or is it that if the resources and services like education and health are made available to people equally would ensure a rise in their income levels and pull them out of poverty? 

Is that a human and economic development would lead to a decline of poverty and inequality OR a removal of poverty and inequality would ensure development? Is this the area where the policy makers are confused? What is the priority?

Inequality can not be only income based, it can be gender based, religion based, caste, creed, colour based. So, inequality does not only leads to poverty but also has various impacts like biaseness, tensions and conflicts, violence etc.

Government is to ensure the well being of every citizen of the country. It is important to ensure that no citizen in the country is deprived of basic necessities of living.

Therefore, the main aim should be the removal of poverty. Subsidies, employment generation programmes, affordable and quality education and health services, reservation, safe environment for living are the programmes which contributes in the removal of poverty. They ensure that the citizens are not deprived of capabilities which limits their freedom of ability to enjoy the beings and doings.

A person ensured employment and pulled out from the circle of poverty is economically empowered and thus less subjugated to social inequalities. Is this enough? Certainly yes certainly not. Inequality in justice, raising, freedom has a strong impact on the person's livelihood. Here, empowerment and awareness plays an important role. 

Poverty for me is at individual level and inequality at a community level.

A person deprived from basic necessities loses his/her faith from themselves because of the loss of dignity, trust and livelihood. Thus to strengthen the whole economy, starting from individual level is important. This can be done by incetivising them through employment and financial stableness. And it helps the person to build him/herself strongly. Once the self trust and strength grows, simultaneously the role comes of awareness and empowerment. The community now needs to accept, acknowledge and respect every section of the society and avoid inequalities.

So, this is to be concluded by noting that development, poverty and inequality goes hand to hand. The all three are the consequences and causes of each other. 

By starting the process of removing poverty, the issue of inequality is to be addressed and this leads to development. As well as ensuring development both in terms of social and economical would ensure availability of resources to address the issue of poverty and inequality consecutively. 

Thank you for reading this blog. In this blog I tried my best to put forward my ideas over poverty and inequality, if you have liked it please do comment down and also if you have some points in your minds clicking over this topic do post them in the comment section. 

 

The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care andRehabilitation) Act, 2021.

ISSUE:
Human Trafficking

July 30 is the United Nations World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

Why in News:
A Bill is introduced to the Cabinet which if passed by both the houses of the Parliament may become and Act.

Title:
The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and
Rehabilitation) Act, 2021.

What is the Bill:
A BILL to prevent and counter trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to provide for care, protection, and rehabilitation to the victims, while respecting their rights, and creating a supportive legal, economic and social environment for them, and also to ensure prosecution of
offenders, and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

Past: 

In the year 2018, a similar bill was introduced but was not approved as it received a lot of opposition. The new draft has some additions making it different from the earlier one.

EXTENT
(1) It shall extend to whole of India, and it applies to-
(a) all citizens of India within and outside India;
(b) persons who commit offences under this Act beyond India against Indian citizens or affecting the interests of Indian citizens or of India;
(c) persons on any ship or aircraft registered in India wherever it may be or
carrying Indian citizens wherever they may be;
(d) a foreign national or a stateless person who has his or her residence in India at
the time of commission of offence under this Act.
(3) This Act shall apply to every offence of trafficking in persons with crossborder implications.

Extending the scope of the bill to every Indian who is becoming a victim of trafficking ensure inclusive and safe environment to every individual of the country, which is very important.
In some Bollywood movies, (which generally lacked logical concepts) many scenes have been depicted showing the practice of trafficking in and outside the country awestrucked me that in real such thing happens not only with immature and young children but also with the adults who are educated enough to decide their good and bad. In search of livelihoods, home, love, marriage, passion they become a victim of this henious crime.

WHAT ACTUALLY IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?
According to me, it is an immoral act of taking the advantage of the weak and disadvantaged section of the society by captivating and making them to leave their home places and making them engaged in the activities which hurt them physically, mentally and emotionally.

Reasons behind Human Trafficking:
1) Need of cheap labour
2) Economic crisis
3) Absence of parental care
4) Loss of livelihoods
5) SOCIAL MEDIA

and many more. 

My favorite is social media. Yes, it may sound a bit controversial of having likes and dislikes in such a theme. But social media is my favorite because I am a youngster, who is a part of social media wasting my time surfing through the memes and chatting. Social media is for a bigger purpose which we the majority of the youth isn't understanding. The very significant source of human trafficking is Socila media. Shiny advertisements attracting children, women and the youth can be fake. Talking to strangers has now become a trend where these individuals are trapped once they leave their houses to meet them up. Isn't it so reckless? Are we actually utilising the resources effectively? Not being aware, using it for crimes, is it for what the apps are made? Here, is where the school and education plays an important role for awareness. Well let's stick to the topic.

What role does the International Organisations play in this area: Here are some initiatives.
Blue Heart Campaign: The Blue Heart Campaign is an international anti-trafficking program started by the UNODC.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is responsible for implementing the protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000 as a part of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime. It offers practical help to states with drafting laws, creating comprehensive national anti-trafficking strategies, and assisting with resources to implement them.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is a non-binding declaration that establishes the right of every human to live with dignity and prohibits slavery.

India do have many laws for protecting the citizens of it's country from trafficking. They can be listed as:
Article 23 (1) in the constitution of India prohibits trafficking in human beings and forced labour.
The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA) penalizes trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.
India also prohibits bonded and forced labour through the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976, Child Labour (Prohibition and Abolition) Act 1986, and Juvenile Justice Act.
Sections 366(A) and 372 of the Indian Penal Code, prohibits kidnapping and selling minors into prostitution respectively.
Apart from this, the Factories Act, 1948 guaranteed the protection of rights of workers.
Section 370 of Indian Penal Code: Whoever, knowingly or having reason to believe that a minor has been trafficked, engages such minor for sexual exploitation in any manner, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years, but which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.

So we now know, that the country has its laws and rules in the area of protecting the dignity of the citizens. Then why are the humans still trafficked? It is because of the inefficient implementation policy, lack of adaptive co managment, unawareness in the society, lack of technology to trap and record the cyber crime activities efficiently, lack of bottom top approach, illiteracy, lack of severinity of the punishments in case of offences, interference in the judicial activities, lack of access to psychological counselling etc. etc. etc.

This doesn't mean that India is not responding to such issues efficiently, it is responding but with the low rate in proportion to the rate at which such crimes are increasing and encouraging.

By going through these points, some stakeholders can be listed as follows:
1) NGO
2) Childline Helpline
3) Media
4) Factory/ Industry Owners
5) Police
6) School
7) Society
8) Anti Human Trafficking Units
9) Counsellors
10) Judiciary
11) Government

This reflects that every individual of the society is responsible to the crime of Human Trafficking. If we unite, if we are aware, isn't there a possibility of the decline of such practices.  

By understanding the ineficiency of the laws some solutions could be added in the formulation of the bills or drafts. They can be:
1) Proper staffing and funding of such institutions
2) Community based awareness ad vigilance activities
3) incentivising education and creating safe employment opportunities
4) increasing punishment for offences
5) attention to be paid to the challenges prosecutors and judges face in trafficking cases
6) Proper case management
7) Availability of affordable and qualitative psychological counselling

Significance of bill: 

As noted the bill is extended to every citizen of India including the transgender community, or any other person.
Also, cases such as forced labour, in which people lured with jobs end up in other countries where their passports and documentation is taken away and they are made to work, will also be covered by this new bill.
The bill also introduces a strict punishment in respective cases. Like imprisonment for 7 years minimum or life imprisonment in cases of death of the victim or any severe injury being caused to the victim. The bill also talks about death sentence and penalty upto 30 lakhs. Any property or asset brought by the amount gained by trafficking is subjected to be taken away from the criminal.

Thus, the security of the citizens is very important. The bill is being introduced to the Cabinet and then will be presented in the Parliament.

What is the growth of local government in India?

Self governing village communities existed in India since the earliest in the form of sabhas. These communities later took the form of panchayat which dealed issues at village level. 

 Pre independence era

In modern times before independence, local government bodies were created after 1882 during the viceroy period of Lord Rippon. Now these local bodies were called local boards, due to slow progress of these bodies after long period, village ppanchayatswere established in a number of provinces. 

After some time when the Constitution making was in process the subject of local government was assigned to the states. It was also mentioned in DPSPs. 

Post independence era 

After independence, Community Development Programme (1952) came in existence which sought to promote people's participation in local government. In this program the three tier system of local government was recommended in rural areas of some states. Gujarat, Maharashtra adopted elected system of local bodies but in many states local bodies were not powerful. They were very much dependent on the state and central government for the financial assistance. Later after 1987, a throughout review of functioning of local government institution was initiated in 1989. In 1989, P. K. Thungan Committee recommended Constitutional establishment of local bodies with enlistment of their functions along with their funds.

After 1989, Central government introduced two Constitutional Amendment popularly known as the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, the rural local government with 29 subjects and the urban local government with 18 subjects respectively. 

OPERATION BLUE STAR

Have you ever experienced this? When you bring a person who would support you and help you to rise but then that person only becomes uncontrollable? 😂 Funny right? 

This exactly happened with Congress. 

In 1977 elections, Congress party led by Indira  Gandhi got defeated in Punjab and Akali Dal formed the government under the leadership of Prakash Singh Badal. Congress in order to restore power decided to bring prominent faces who would help them to rise again. 

Prakash Singh Badal

Gyani Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi, two Congress leaders chose Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. 

So how did it affect Congress so badly that it proved to be the worst nightmare for Congress itself?

Let's get into this.... 

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was the fourteenth jathedar or leader of the prominent orthodox Sikh religious institution Damdani Taksal. He gained national attention after his involvement in the 1978 Sikh Nirankari clash. 

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale

Soon, Bhindranwale rose to be the leader of the Sikh militancy group. Bhindranwale joined hands with Akali Dal and launched Dharam Yuddha Morcha in 1982 to fulfill their demands of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. This was to make Punjab, a semi autonomous and a federal state of India. 

This way, Congress realised that Bhindranwale now, could not be controlled and his actions would effect their functioning. In 1983, to evade arrest, Bhindranwale occupied and fortified Akali Takht and made the Harminder Sahib complex, the holy shrine of Sikhs called Golden Temple as their headquarters. It is said that he had a strong backing of Major General Shabeg Khan and Amrik Singh. 

Golden Temple

The militant group was there in the temple with arms and ammunitions. They were getting regular supply of weapons which came to be known when one day, a truck loaded with food for langar was inspected randomly and large number of weapons were found. 

Two school of thoughts

1) It was said that these supplies were coming from Pakistan who was trying to threaten the internal security in India. 

2) Other was the Operation Kontakt which was sent by Russia. It is said that Russia, through this operation was trying to spread false information to Indira Gandhi, that Pakistan is behind all the supplies of weapons to the members of Pro Khalistani movement. And this worked, as Indira Gandhi believed and launched Operation Blue Star. 

After various rounds of negotiations, which proved to be futile, Operation Blue Star was launched on 1 June, 1984 in the Harminder Sahib complex in Amritsar. 

[According to General SK Sinha, Indira Gandhi had been considering the Operation for more than 18 months prior, authorizing army preparation for it long before any insurgents were in the complex.]

The operation led to 83 deaths and left 249 injured. According to the government high civilian casualties were attributed to militants using pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields. However, the Indian Army had allowed thousands of pilgrims and protestors to enter the temple complex and prevented them from leaving after imposing a curfew on the same day. 

The military actions in the temple complex was criticized by Sikhs worldwide, who interpreted it as an assault on the Sikh religion. They call the operation as the Teesra Ghallughara (Holocaust). 

Five months after Operation Blue Star, on 31 October, 1984 Indira Gandhi was assassinated in an act of revenge by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. 

Indira Gandhi