Air pollution killed 81k in Delhi & Mumbai, cost Rs 70,000cr in 2015'

Vinamrata Borwankar

Mumbai:





Air pollution contributed to a total of 80,665 premature deaths of adults over 30 years in Mumbai and Delhi in 2015, a two-fold jump from 1995, according to a new study at the Indian Institute of Technology , Bombay . In economic terms, air pollution cost the two cities $10.66 billion (approximately Rs 70,000 crore) in 2015, or about 0.71% of the country's gross domestic product.
The study has said the impact on health and productivity as a result of exposure to pollution and the consequ ent burden of respiratory ailments rose with every passing decade.
Researchers calculated impact using data on PM 10 (fine particulate matter mea suring 10 microns), population and death rates.
With its higher pollution levels, Delhi recorded more premature deaths due to ingestion of PM10 from vehicle exhaust, construction dust and other industrial processes. Casualties went up from 19,716 in 1995 to 48,651 in 2015.
In Mumbai, the compara tive figure rose from 19,291 to 32,014 in 20 years. Air pollution was also re sponsible for 23 million cases of restricted activity days (RAD) -either less productive days or days off work for individuals -in the commercial capital in 2015.The worsening quality of air in the city also led to 64,037 emergency room visits in 2015 by those stricken by respiratory ailments, up by 35.4% from 1995. In comparison, in Delhi, there were 29 million cases of RAD and 0.12 million emergency room visits in 2015.
The study's lead author, Kamal Jyoti Maji, said the impact of air pollution on health and productivity was evident in that the increase in cases and cost after 2005 was in line with the overall trend in pollution.
Pollution also cost the two cities as much as $10.66 billion in 2015, or about 0.71% of the country's GDP, a cost that's almost doubled since 1995.
The economic cost of PM10 exposure rose by around 60% in Mumbai from $2.68 million in 1995 to $4.26 billion in 2015.Cost to Delhi jumped by 135% in the same period to hit $6.39 billion, the study found.
One measure of health and longevity is called “disabilityadjusted life years“ (DALY), representing years lost due to various illness. This measure for illnesses caused by air pollution doubled in Delhi between 1995 and 2015 from 0.34 million to 0.75 million DALY. In Mumbai, that number rose from 0.34 million to 0.51million DALYs in the same period. To keep to current health outcomes in 2030, PM10 levels would have to decline by 44% in Mumbai and 67% in Delhi, the study said.
These estimates are likely to be an undercount of actual costs, mortality and morbidity , said the researchers, since the study looked only at the impact of PM10 and to a lesser extent PM2.5. The IIT study was published recently in the Environmental Science and Pollution Research Journal, and authored by research scholar Maji, IIT Bombay professor Anil Dikshit and Ashok Deshpande from the Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing, USA. In India, air pollution causes over half a million premature deaths annually and 20 million DALYs, according to WHO.

Source: Times of India, 19/01-2017

Urbanisation has not led to hotter summer days for many Indian cities 

Contrary to common notion, a “majority” of 84 cities across India, particularly those in central India and Gangetic Basin, have lower daytime temperature from March to May compared with the surrounding non-urban areas (taken as 1 km radius of the city). Cities with heavily built-up areas and concrete structures are supposed to have higher temperature than non-urban regions due to urban heat island effect.
The results published on January 9 in the journal Scientific Reports based on a 13-year land surface temperature record from satellite sensors is not in agreement with the general understanding of urban climate and surface urban heat island effect in tropical cities. The results once again highlight the importance of increasing the vegetation cover in cities to effectively mitigate the urban heat island effect.
A study by a team of researchers led by Prof. Subimal Ghosh from the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Bombay has shown that while cities have lower daytime temperature than surrounding non-urban areas from March to May, it is the reverse during nights. During night time, the cities, particularly those in the Gangetic Basin, were hotter than non-urban areas.
“This is prominent in cities that are located in the arid region. We didn’t see this in coastal cities as they are not in the arid region,” says Prof. Ghosh, the
The relatively high vegetation cover leading to higher evapo-transpiration compared with nearby non-urban areas is the main reason why cities are relatively cooler than the adjacent non-urban areas during the day in summer. While the cities have more trees, the non-urban areas are mostly crop lands and are barren during the summer months. The absence of evapo-transpiration during night and the heat contained in the concrete structures increases the night time temperature in the cities during March to May.
Since cities tend to have lower daytime temperature during March to May, the intensity of heat-waves will be lower in the cities compared with non-urban areas. “This is prominent in cities that are located in the arid region. We didn’t see this in coastal cities as they are not in the arid region,” says Prof. Ghosh.

During winter (December to February) crops that grow in the non-urban areas result in increased vegetation cover and more evaporative cooling leading lower temperature than in the cities. Also, there is increased biomass burning for cooking and heating in the cities during winter leading to increased emission of black carbon. “The black carbon emission increases the air temperature which may have a feedback to land surface temperature. But this has to be investigated further,” says Prof. Ghosh.

Source: The Hindu, 9-01-2017

Teaching peace to humanity 

 

Why education is more than a way of being — it is an art of becoming

What is the priority of pedagogy for peace in the 21st century? Do we teach cultures and philosophies of peace at schools and universities around the world only to start new wars and conflicts? Is education for peace still a top priority in universities and colleges? And finally, does education help us to live a peaceful life and to bring peace around the world? These questions need to be in our awareness on a daily basis. Only then can we treat people, nature and most life itself in a more empathic manner.
In this light, education by definition is an ethical enterprise. In other words, education is more than a way of being; it is an art of becoming. It is not only a process of nurturing the human soul, as the ancient Greeks understood it through the notion of paideia, meaning the acquisition and transmission of excellence, but also what philosopher Bertrand Russell defines as “a certain outlook on life and the world.” The ancient Greeks understood paideia as the essence of culture and communication in a good society. The aim of paideia, Aristotle argues in Politics, is to enable members of a community to decide the political organisation of society. Therefore, we need to assess the paideic dimension of peacebuilding. This describes the ethical and spiritual foundations of tin or among societies.

Not just about security

As such, peacebuilding is not only about the security-sector reform of a society emerging from conflict; it is the medium- to long-term process of educating humanity with a special focus on the importance of promoting peace. In other words, in a world truly concerned about the happiness of future generations, peace and the process of taming violence in and among societies are continual, concrete, and the daily results of education as a learning process. In this process, the importance of autonomy and the nobility of spirit, which are primarily intellectual virtues, cannot be underestimated. Therefore, the main concern of education is to engender a certain character in human beings and to teach them the nobility of spirit and the moral common ground of actions. If that is the case, the aim of education is not solely an academic pursuit; it is a pursuit of moral wisdom.
Immanuel Kant, in his Lecture Notes on Pedagogy, says the aim of education “must be the moralisation of man”. The educational theory advocated by him is closely related to his belief in the moral progress of humanity which is a self-articulated and self-realised process of attaining intellectual maturity. However, Kant considers this self-educating process of humanity as a slow and gradual cosmopolitan process. “Our only hope,” affirms Kant, “is that each generation, provided with the knowledge of the foregoing one, is able, more and he process of rebuilding peace o bring about an education which shall develop man’s natural gifts in their due proportion and relation to their end, and thus advance the whole human race toward its destiny.”
There was a time when education was the highest task of human culture. However, in today’s world we have become dulled to what it means to be fully cultured or well-educated. Our modern world is without a vision of human society encompassing these two experiences. Likewise, peace, as a dominant idea for moral education in the past, has gradually experienced its isolation in the two fields of politics and international relations. As a consequence, the peacekeepers of today are diplomats and soldiers. Moreover, the peace education promoted today by institutions such as UNESCO and the UN General Assembly is far from being sufficient to prepare the future generations against war and violence.
As a matter of fact, teachers and educators teach values such as fairness, compassion, truth and freedom to Others, but they also confront these values while transmitting them in classrooms. Furthermore, every form of value education is the foundation for mutual evaluation of moral and social principles. To transmit moral, political and social values from one generation to another is not an ideological process. Schools and universitiSocialist German Workers’ Party. While Tagore invites us to consider the nature of education through a conscious relationship with nature and creativity, and as a path to bridge the gap between the educated and those who have not been educated, Nazi officers like Adolf Eichmann carried out mass murders while never permitting their consciousness to rise above the level of following rules and obeying orders.

Looking for moral leadership

Building peace and transcending regional and global conflicts cannot be left entirely to the action and volition of political leaders. What is necessary herewith is not political governance, but moral leadership. Moreover, moral leadership cannot prevail by instrumental reason, namely, to work with the elements as means to an end. What we need here is a massive pedagogical enterprise as a mode of “cultivation” of humanity. The effort to peacebuilding is, therefore, accompanied with a freedom from prejudice, exclusion and domination. An essential part of a definition and practice of a culture of peace is through education of non-violence that develops the quest for mutual understanding. This raises questions concerning the value of civic upbringing, as an individual process and as a process that a community goes through. Here education is not about learning facts, but to cultivate one’s judgment in order to be able to distinguish between the mediocre and the spiritually noble. If this is how things are in the context of the political, then education is not about repeating and imitating the already inherited values that are collectively accepted, but also es are not supposed to be ideological institutions where individuals learn to become loyal and obedient. Here resides the difference between Tagore’s Santiniketan and Hitler’s National If this is how things are in the context of the political, then education is not about repeating and imitating the already inherited values that are collectively accepted, but also about being able to create new values and norms in an autonomous way. It is certainly not ideological, but philosophical since it is exploration of constantly new questionings and a reactivation of the process of thinking. Such a process is an effective strategy for peacebuilding in today’s world where pedagogy for peace is not something that is currently articulated and practised by the mainstream politicians, practitioners and researchers of international relations.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is Director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace, Jindal Global University, Sonipat.

Source: The Hindu, 6-01-2017

ICAI CA final 2016: Meet exam topper Eti Agarwal from Lucknow

Lucknow girl Eti Agarwal (24) has emerged as the topper of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), which declared the results of CA final examination held in November 2016 on Tuesday.
“Ever since the results were announced, my cell phone has been buzzing with calls from friends and relatives. It is so heartening to score the number one position in the exam,” said Eti.
The daughter of a chartered accountant, Eti’s aim in life is simple: Bag a challenging position at an organisation that will properly utilise her professional skills, enhance her knowledge enough to adapt to the organisational culture, and become an effective individual in every sphere of life.
A Bharatnatyam dancer, Eti had secured the All India Rank 1 at the IPCE in November 2013. Prior to that, she had topped the ISC examination 2011 from Lucknow’s prestigious La Martiniere Girls College (LMGC). She enjoys creative activities such as painting.
LMGC vice-principal Aashrita Dass said: “We knew that whatever she touches in life will turn gold. She is our darling ex-pupil, and I’m very happy for her. By topping in an unconventional examination like ICAI, she has proven that girls can do wonders in all spheres of life.”
Eti is now eagerly awaiting the results of the Company Secretary Professional 2016 examination, expected to be announced in February. While her elder sister is an engineer with an online shopping portal, her younger brother is a class 11 student at the La Martiniere College, Lucknow.

Source: Hindustan Times, 18-01-2017

 

Enjoy the Effort





We don't always get what we want. Some of us are happy with what we get, and others remain dissatisfied. Still others keep trying. Which approach would be the right one? I will recommend another approach. You can have a desire. Put in your best effort to fulfil it.But make sure you enjoy the effort rather than its fruits. Celebrate the march towards the destination. If the destination is reached, we will be happy .Even if it is not reached, nobody can take away the sense of thrill at having run the race, the delicious fatigue felt along the whole body . My happiness is derived not from reaching a goal, but from the struggle I wage as part of my attempt at reaching it. Suppose I feel I will be happy only if you give me a thundering ovation when I conclude my lecture. That means I am not fully enjoying my teaching, rather, my mind is set on a particular goal. That very concern may prevent me from giving my best to my teaching and, thus, act as a barrier to my attaining the goal.
Playing football is one kind of joy , winning is another kind.The problem is, we identify joy exclusively with winning. Classical musicians are so absorbed in their performance that for all practical purposes, they are unmindful of the audience, the applause at climactic point, or the money they will receive from the organisers at the end.
What they enjoy is their involvement in bringing their art alive, not the end-result in the form of ovation or payment. So, enjoy the process. Enjoy the travel. Enjoy the endeavour.

World's first floating city on the horizon?

DAILY MIRROR & AGENCIES





Experiment At Sea In French Polynesia To Allow People To Try Things That Haven't Been Tried Before

A non-profit thinktank is spearheading a project to build the world's first floating city in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. According to ABC, the government of French Polynesia has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the US-based The Seasteading Institute, and they hope construction work will begin in 2019. According to a news release issued by the institute, the legislation to be worked out under the MoU would allow its Floating Island Project its own “special governing framework, creating an innovative special economic zone“.
Seasteading is a concept that involves building permanent dwellings at sea.
The institute hopes to build autonomous floating cities around the world where, ac cording to its website, “residents and entrepreneurs (are) free to operate their own lives and businesses“. Randolph Hencken, executive director of the institute, said: “What we're interested in is societal choice and having a location where we can try things that haven't been tried before.“
The Seasteading Institute has spent the past five years trying to work out how to build “permanent, innovative communities floating at sea“.While it had initially envisaged the floating cities in international waters, to begin with, the institute has settled for territorial waters. “I don't think it will be that dramatically radical in the first renditions... We were looking for sheltered waters, we don't want to be out in the open ocean -it's technologically possible but economically outrageous to afford,“ Hencken added. Among the institute's motives, it says, is to build societies that respect nature and are based on sustainable energy sources as well as infrastructure that seeks to tackle climate change.
French Polynesia, a collection of 118 islands in the southern Pacific, is at risk from rising sea levels.
“They (French Polynesia) also have very stable institutions so we're able to work with a government that wants us there, that we have respect for and they have respect for us,“ Hencken said. The MoU, the BBC reported, “outlines objectives the institute must meet to get possible go-ahead for its first seastead community, off the island of Tahiti“.
The MoU will lead to further studies about the economic and environmental impact of the scheme, plus investigations into the legal implications of a floating city .Hencken is hopeful the government of French Polynesia will support his firm's efforts: “We are confident there will be both a direct and an indirect benefit for them economically ,“ he added. The pilot project, according to the institute, is expected to cost between $10 million and $50 million.

Source: Times of India, 18-01-2017

Service Is The Highest Form Of Self-Expression





With elections round the corner, we, the people, are witnessing not only the familiar and seasonal vote bank politicking and pre-election freebies, but also public leadership reeking of self-aggrandisement, inflated ego and recklessness.These are so far removed from Gandhiji's precepts and his leading the Civil Disobedience Movement during the Independence struggle as `Chief Servant of the Nation'. Political leaders like Nehru, Radhakrishnan, Rajendra Prasad, Ambedkar and Lal Bahadur Shastri were public servants first. We have business leaders who are role models, like Azim Premji of Wipro and Narayana Murthy of Infosys. Spiritual icons like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Maulana Wahiddudin Khan and others like them are working to bring disparate groups together and get them to live in harmony.
Those of noble intentions from the past like Florence Nightingale who nursed soldiers during the Crimean war; Anne Sullivan, who mentored Helen Keller into becoming one of the most influential people in history and Albert Schweitzer, with his philosophy of `Reverence for Life', cannot be easily forgotten.
Increasingly, though, we find that those who hold public office do not care much for accountability or selfless service. Even in a democracy like India, those who get elected to high offices let power go to their heads and they forget why they are there in the first place.
Today , self-promotion and sycophancy of those in governance have become hurdles to true empowerment of the people. While we live in a politico cultural milieu in which individuality and fearless self-expression, personal growth and development are important aspects, there is the danger of not being able to take these forward to a larger constituency to include all people and not just individuals or select communities. To be able to promote common good, we need to revisit the values of selflessness and compassion that will only promote greater democratic expressions.
At first sight this might appear strange. Does not self-expression mean that we reach the heights in our career through ruthless competition and self-promotion, in any which way possible? Education then becomes a key to personality growth and self-development that manifests in relentless promotion of self. But what is missing is self-expression that flows from self-giving.But it is the highest form of self-expression. It may in volve some amount of sacrifice, but the final outcome can only bring benefit to all, including oneself.
Many good people sometimes rather depressingly feel that all they do and say are mere drops in the ocean, when surrounded by such a sea of misery and despair. But, deep down, they know they are following a call, taking forward a divine inspiration and intervention in their own lives and that of others. If they treat the work they do and the help they give to others as a divine calling, it becomes a form of self-expression that is divine.
Aid workers to this day go to zones of conflict and war to give humanitarian assistance ­ not for ulterior motives but to save lives. Sometimes, they even put themselves in the line of fire, extending a helping hand to those in need, hoping for the best. But service is more than just a humanitarian call. It is a divine call. That is why the prayer of St Francis of Assisi: “Master, grant that i might never seek so much to be served as to serve“ is the highest form of prayer.