Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Climate Change

COP 15 or 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference concluded with a mere "Accord". COP 15 was an attempt to plan a strategy to oppose the climate change. But heads of 193 countries failed to achieve it. Developed countries especially United States of America, not supporting any legal agreement and poor developing countries demanding more and more from developed ones, consesus was hardly achievable.

There is nothing wrong in USA's stand on this issue. Any type of legal binding would mean a lot of investment for US(being most polluted nation) and with just signs of recovery, US economy might not be able to stand another blow. If more and more people are getting jobless in any country, then government of that country is bound to invest in job creation and not in a way that will further deteriorate the situation.

For India also, investing beyond some limit doesn't make any sense. As consequences of climate change will take some years, what about thousands of people, who die every year due to poverty, lack of health care facilities and due to other reasons. Firstly India need to solve these problems or may be solving problems side-by-side, but there must be a Well Defined Priority List with deadlines. And prime problems like- Corruption, Lack of quality education, poverty etc. should top this list.

So, to tackle with a monster of "Climate Change", we are planning to oppose this change with some carbon emission cuts. But will it sufficient? What if Climate Change is not due to increase in green house gases? What if it is a natural process? Are prepared for it, I guess NO!

Hence we must have a plan B. This plan should be not laid empathizes on opposing change, but on adapting yourself . Adaptation, that all the living beings had been doing for centuries. With latest technology, it might be possible to find a shortcut for adaptation(as it is a time consuming process).

To be on safer side, we must have both Plan A and Plan B running successfully side-by-side. And one very important thing- Never left everything or important things on Government or someone else. Do it yourself. Contribute by reducing wastage of energy by using public transport system as much as possible, using energy efficient hybrid vehicles, using renewable resources of energy. If you Act Now, then only it will possible to tackle this problem.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Small is beautiful...

With formation of a new state  Telangana one question came to my mind is-- Are Smaller states are more efficient as compared to bigger states?

India is second most populated country in the world. Some of it's states are bigger than most countries.  The population of cities like Mumbai and Kolkata is exceeded by only 35 countries. There are hardly half a dozen countries with more people than Uttar Pradesh.  The US, with a third of our population, has 50 states.  Then why India is still accomodating it's huge population in 28 states? Answer may be political desires of various parties. 


Due to large population in one state, it become very difficult for administration to provide uniform growth. Result is some areas get developed and some remains backward, which again result to conflict between these people and demand for a separate state. 

So is making smaller states a solution? NO. 


States should be formed such that there is balance between population and revenues.  Every state should have approximately same ratio of population to revenues to expenditure. However making smaller states alone, can't guarantee growth. The will power to do something is missing in our leaders and administration.


So I can conclude that smaller states certainly make it easy for administration, but they must need to work harder for so called "Inclusive Growth" of India