India’s forest cover up by 5,871 sq km

Of the 5,871 sq km increase in the forest cover of India, West Bengal accounts for nearly 64 per cent of this rise, reveals the latest report of Forest Survey of India.

A study conducted by the Forest Survey of India that was recently published points out that West Bengal’s forest cover has increased by 3,810 sq km, which is followed by Odisha where increase in forest cover has been 1,444 km and Kerala where the increase has been about 622 sq km.

Commenting on the increase in forest cover in West Bengal, Principle Chief Conservator of Forest, West Bengal, Azam Zaidi told The Hindu that along with other steps the State’s joint forest management, which involves the participation of the local people, is one of the reasons for the increase.

“Increase in the forest cover of the State is mainly due to coppice growth (dense growth of small tress) and afforestation inside the forests, growth of commercial plantations and shade trees in tea gardens,” the FSI report states.

West Bengal, a state with high population density, has only 18.93 percent forest cover.

Depletion in north-east

Interestingly States from northeast like Nagaland, Arunanchal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur, whose forest cover comprises over 75 percent of the State’s area, have shown a decrease in forest cover. “The current assessment shows a decrease in forest cover to the extent of 627 sq km in the north eastern region. The main reason for this is attributed to the biotic pressure and shifting cultivation in the region,” the report says.

In Andhra Pradesh, a State with 16.77 percent of its area covered by forest, there has been a decrease of 273 km of forest area. While the forest cover has decreased by 176 sq km in Madhya Pradesh and 53 km in Chhattishgarh, it has increased by 496 sq km in Jharkhand and 446 sq km in Bihar.

The Satellite based remote sensing data that has been used for estimating the change in forest cover has shown that that there has been an increase of 31 sq km of ‘very dense’ forest cover compared to the last assessment carried two years ago. It has also revealed that ‘moderately dense’ forest has decreased by 1,991 sq km while ‘open forests’ have increased by 7,891 sq km, putting the overall increase at 5,871 sq km.

Keywords: forest cover, West Bengal forest cover, Forest Survey of India

Few women Ministers

ust 39 of the 568 Ministers in State govts are women

When no women joined Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal in taking the oath of office on Saturday, Delhi joined the ranks of seven other States with no women Ministers. In the rest of the States too, women representation in the Ministries is low, and often restricted to certain portfolios.

With all State Assemblies put together, 360 of the country’s 4,120 MLAs — or nine per cent — are women, The Hindu’s analysis of data compiled by Bhanupriya Rao, an open data campaigner and Right to Information activist, shows. However, just 39 of the 568 Ministers in State governments, or less than seven per cent, are women. Fewer still are Cabinet Ministers.

Two States and one Union Territory — Nagaland, Mizoram and Puducherry — have no women MLAs. Four additional States — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Punjab — have women MLAs, but no women Ministers. Nearly 12 per cent of Punjab’s Assembly comprises women, while Telangana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh hav“Delhi has a particular problem, which is that it can have only six Ministers apart from the Chief Minister,” a senior AAP member told The Hindu. The party is, however, aware of the criticism that it did not make any of its six women MLAs a Minister. “In a five-year term, Cabinet berths will rotate. There are also many posts for which appointments have to be made,” the AAP member said.

Some States make a special effort to get women into ministerial positions, the data shows. Meghalaya, ruled by the Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance, has just four women MLAs, but three of them were made Ministers. In BJP-ruled Goa and Congress-led Kerala, the only woman MLA from the ruling party was given a ministerial berth.e close to 10 per cent women MLAs, yet none of these States have a woman Minister.

What portfolios do women who are made Ministers get? Just three women have been handed the Home Ministry — BJP’s Anandiben Patel in Gujarat, Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Congress’s Roshan Wajri in Meghalaya. Two of these three women leaders are Chief Ministers of their State. Only two women leaders in the country handle the Finance Ministry — BJP’s Vasundhara Raje, who is also the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, and the Congress’s Indira Hridayesh in Uttarakhand.

The Women and Child Development Ministry and Social Welfare are the most common portfolios given to women Ministers.

“Yes, we do have a low number of women legislators, but we have a significant number of women in positions of political power,” BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said.

Criticising the AAP, Shobha Oza, Congress spokesperson and president of the All India Mahila Congress, however, admitted that all parties needed to do better for women’s representation.

Govt to launch soil health card plan on Feb 19

Vishwa Mohan

New Delhi:





Scheme Aims To Educate Farmers To Help Boost Yield

A centrally-sponsored nationwide `soil health card' scheme will be finally rolled out from Suratgarh in Ganganagar district of Rajasthan on February 19.The card, carrying cropwise recommendations of nutrientsfertilizers required for farms of different soil types, will make it possible for farmers to improve productivity through judicious use of inputs.
Such cards will be issued to 14 crore farm holdings across the country in three years. The move will help farmers identify the “health of the soil“ which will go a long way in improving productivity through judicious use of fertilizers and water.
The scheme will be launched by PM Modi in the presence of agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh.
The agriculture ministry has already formulated a national `Mission' to provide 3 crore cards to farmers in 2015, 5.50 crore cards next year and remaining 5.50 crore in 2017.
A digital system is being de veloped so that local agriculture science centres across the country can keep details of `soil test' results. Soil samples will be collected even from small tracts of farm land in remote villages.
The system will, eventually , allow farmers to download the `soil health card' using `unique number' allotted to each soil sample. In that case, change of ownership of the particular farm land will not create any problem in getting such cards or getting them updated.
Though a few states including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana had successfully begun distributing such cards a couple of years ago, most of them did not make it operational beyond the villages around various agricultural universities. The Centre's fresh move will make the scheme universal.
Since collecting `soil samples' and uploadingupdating the test results will be a mammoth exercise, the Centre has written to states urging them to take the help of students of agriculture universities for the task.
“All soil samples will be tested in various soil testing labs. Experts will then analyze the strength and weaknesses of the soil and suggest measures to deal with it. The result and suggestion will be displayed in the cards,“ said an official.

Government plans to digitally literate one crore people in next five years 

Central government is devising a slew of initiatives, primarily, weaved around digital literacy and electronic delivery of services to inculcate efficiency in governance within the ambit of PM Narendra Modi’s mega Digital India plan.

RS Sharma, secretary at the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) during a Digital India Summit while referring to the need of digital signature said, “Online on-demand digital signature is being developed, which has a very transformational architecture. The day is not far when every Indian will have a digital identity and a mobile connection linked to it.” He further added that the department is modifying software and systems to accommodate to developing technological scenario, where, digital certificates can be stored and shared online to bring an ease of work and eliminate paperwork.

In attaining Digital India campaign, Digital literacy too is one of the biggest challenges and to overcome this deficiency, the government has come out with an idea to make at least one family member, digitally, literate. According to National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) Managing Director Ashwini Kumar Sharma, the government has plan to make 1 crore people digitally literate in five years while aiming to train 10 lakh individuals by the end of this year. The government has already begin a 20-hour basic learning course and another such programme for the ESDM (Electronic System Design Manufacturing) sector with a goal to train 4.5-lakh youth in five years is under way.

During the summit, telecom and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad spoke about the various measures taken by the government in offering business friendly environment for industries to utilise opportunities created by Digital India initiative. Prasad further said that Digital India rests on three pillars involving architecture and utility, delivery of government services and digital empowerment of people, and with the mega initiative that aims to bridge the digital divide. However, he emphasised on the need of local language for content delivery.

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Feb 13 2015 : Mirror (Mumbai)

Arun Ferreira writes to TISS claiming cops meddled to have his reading cancelled

MMB





Institute director denies conspiracy theory, says students didn't book venue in advance

Civil rights activist Arun Ferreira has al leged the police interfered to have his book reading, scheduled for Wednes day at the Tata Institute of Social Sci ences (TISS) deferred indefinitely. He was due to recite excerpts from his work, “Colours of the Cage“, which describes his four and a half years in prison, awaiting trial in 11 cases of Naxalism and sedition. Ferreira was acquitted of these charges in 2014.On Thursday, Ferreira addressed a caustic letter to Prof S Parsuraman, the Director of TISS, asking him to institute an inquiry into the incident and ensure that it is not repeated.
Campus authorities denied the police interceded and maintained that the event had been called off because permission had not been sought in advance. “The book reading had to be cancelled because the Students' Union had failed to book the venue in advance,“ said Parsuraman.
According to Ferreira, he received 30 minutes' notice that the reading had been called off.“I was on my way there when I got a call and was told it was to be indefinitely postponed,“ said Ferreira. “When I reached the campus, students revealed to me that intelligence department officers, either from the Intelligence Bureau or the state intelligence department, had pressured them into cancelling the talk.“
The activist charged that the authorities were meddling in the affairs of an educational institution. “How can the police interfere this way?
Will they tomorrow decide the syllabus for all the courses in addition to deciding who can talk and who can't?“ he fumed, adding that he had delivered lectures in universities across the country without facing harassment in the past.
A representative of the Union confirmed that the event had been rescheduled to March but refused to comment on the reason behind the abrupt change in plan. A section of students alleged that three intelligence officers visited the campus on Wednesday and demanded that the talk be cancelled.
Others bemoaned what they described was the suppression of thought. “This is not the first time that the college has tried to stifle free speech in the case of controversial political topics. If the campus security or the police are allowed to block programmes then what is the meaning of freedom of speech in an academic space?“ a research scholar said.
Another student added, “All political lectures on TISS are monitored by the police and campus security. Previously, when we had invited speakers like Telugu poet Varavara Rao to deliver a talk in the campus, the venue was swarmed by plainclothes policemen who videotaped the proceedings and kept a watch on all the students attending.“
Ferreira, who has been employed by TISS as a research scholar in the past, had delivered a talk on campus in 2012 ­ he spoke of his “torture in jail“ when he was a “political prisoner“. TISS alumni who had organised that lecture alleged that the police visited the campus on that occasion as well.
The Trombay police, who hold jurisdiction over the TISS campus, denied they had anything to do with the talk being rescheduled. “It was the college's internal decision to call off the lecture as the students did not have prior permission,“ said senior police inspector Ansar Pirjade.

Coconut oil can can help lower blood pressure

Kounteya Sinha

London:





The humble coconut oil has now been found to be a giant slayer of hypertension.A new experiment performed on rats shows the potential for combining coconut oil and exercise to successfully reduce hypertension. Coconut oil is one of the few foods that can be classified as a “superfood“. Its unique combination of fatty acids can have profound positive effects on health, including fat loss, better brain function and many other remarkable benefits.
Researchers working at the Federal University of Paraiba in Brazil set out to test the hypothesis that a combination of daily coconut oil intake and exercise training would restore baroreflex sensitivity and reduce oxidative stress, resulting in reduction in blood pressure (BP).
Their experiments were performed on spontaneously hypertensive rats. They found that both coconut oil and exercise training were able to reduce weight gain compared to rats given saline and not exposed to the exercise training protocol along the five weeks of study. Either coconut oil supplementation or exercise training was shown to reduce BP . However, only coconut oil and exercise training combined were able to bring the pressure back to normotensive values.The reduction in BP caused by the combination of coconut oil and exercise training might be explained by the improvement of the reduced baroreflex sensitivity and by reduction in oxidative stress in the serum, heart and aorta.
“This is an important finding as coconut oil is currently being considered a popular superfood and it is being consumed by athletes and the general population who seek a healthy lifestyle,“ explained Dr Valdir de Andrade Braga, co-author of the study .

Job satisfaction just 5%, laments top SC judge

Abhinav Garg

New Delhi





The senior-most judge in the Supreme Court after the Chief Justice of India has a job satisfaction of “maybe 5 %“.Justice T S Thakur on Thursday made the startling revelation before a packed audience of international experts in mediation who are in the capital to attend a conference on the alternate dispute resolution system.
“Today I am in the Supreme Court, which is the most powerful court in the country . If you ask me how much my job satisfaction is, I would answer maybe 5%. That is because 95% of what I do doesn't give me satisfaction.SC is not meant for anticipato ry bails or to decide if a promotion of a head clerk should have been done by the government on time. It is for larger issues. But we are busy reading SLP files on anticipatory bail or if a person who dishonoured a cheque of Rs 4,000 should be sent to jail,“ Justice Thakur lamented. He was addressing the Asia Pacific In ternational Mediation Summit where mediators will discuss how to make mediation a better way of settling disputes than filing cases.
Addressing members of the American Bar Association and Association of Indian Mediators, Justice Thakur explained his remark. “There is any number of matters pending in Constitutional courts.Issues that impact lives of a large number of citizens and must be decided by us, but we are unable to attend to them.Mediation, if successfully done, will help the entire system get galvanized. The tentacles of appeal and further appeal can then be removed from court, freeing us up for dealing with core Constitutional issues,“ he pointed out.