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Nurses in Indian villages struggle to cope with pandemic-related pressures

Nurses in rural areas have been at the forefront of India's tough battle against the coronavirus pandemic. They are stepping up to the health challenge and filling in the gap left by a lack of doctors in many villages. Panagarh rural hospital is a major government health care facility in West Bengal state's Paschim Bardhaman district. On June 4, dozens of people were seen huddled together outside a section of the hospital to get tested for COVID-19. "People in these villages are very aware of COVID symptoms, especially after the recent wave of infections. They are by themselves turning up at the hospital to get tested," said Mridula Banerjee, a nurse at the hospital. The staff attending to patients at the rural hospital are mainly nurses. A lack of doctors has forced nursing staff to step up. "We are here for the patients more than the doctors themselves," said a nurse at the hospital, who asked not to be named. Nurses have played a key role in India's fight against COVID, filling in the gap left by a dismal doctor-patient ratio in hospitals nationwide. But female nurses in rural areas face unique barriers which impede their work, said Sunita Harkar Shalla, head of operations at the Child Heart Foundation, an NGO based in Delhi. "Usually there are no toilets or water in rural hospitals. Added to this is bad road connectivity, lack of internet, phone signals and safety measures, which deter female nurses from contributing effectively," she explained. Many nurses also face opposition from their families, she added. COVID affects mental health of nurses Arnab Halder, a nursing assistant at the hospital, is mainly responsible for administering oxygen to patients in the COVID ward and assisting doctors and nurses with stitches following a surgery. "When I joined this hospital in 2019, I used to weep when I saw blood. After this second wave of COVID infections, I don't feel anything when I see a dead body. I've gotten used to it," he said. Halder pointed out that the rural hospital has a five-bed isolation facility for COVID patients, but when cases become critical, patients are referred to a larger government hospital. He added that the hospital could save many lives because it procured oxygen from a local gurdwara, instead of relying on other channels. "We had as many as 20 COVID cases a day in April, and this trend lasted till the first week of May. Now, we have 3-4 cases a day," Halder said. The pandemic has left a deep impact on Halder's mental health. He is scared of contracting COVID. "The hospital has a staff of 30 people. At least six of us got COVID when cases shot up in May. I was working in the COVID isolation ward at that time and I also had to attend to my roommate as he had COVID. Each day, I prayed for my life, before coming to work," Halder explained. Halder's friend and roommate, Uday, who is responsible for conducting COVID tests at the hospital, recovered from the disease last week. "We [colleagues] were testing each other using the rapid antigen test, just for fun. My test result came positive, which meant I was asymptomatic. I isolated myself for 14 days and then came back to work. I keep wondering how many people I would have infected had I not taken the test," Uday said. Non-COVID services hit COVID-related facilities — for testing, vaccination and isolation — in the Panagarh rural hospital are confined to three different areas of the hospital. The non-COVID care section is relatively quiet. According to Mridula Banerjee, non-COVID facilities have been hit badly during the last two months. "Before COVID spread rapidly, it was normal for people to seek medical help for problems like diarrhea or typhoid. Once COVID cases shot up, people were too scared to come to the hospital and only came here when they couldn't handle the situation at home," she said. "The staff and hospital capacity were limited, so we triaged cases. For example, pregnant women were only admitted and treated when they were in the final stages of their pregnancy." Non-COVID sections of the hospital continue to see little footfall in June, even after a drop in COVID cases. The immunization room for babies is in a decrepit condition, while the bedsheets in wards haven't been changed for days. A man approaches Banerjee for medicines, without wearing a mask, and he is promptly denied service. "People follow COVID protocols when we make it clear that we won't help them otherwise. They leave us no choice but to be strict with them," said Banerjee. Health workers reduce burden on hospitals At the other end of the hospital, COVID inoculations are in full swing. The hospital has administered nearly 150 doses of Covaxin, a vaccine against COVID developed by the Indian pharma firm Bharat Biotech. Padma, a community health worker, is noting down details of each person and checking them against information she has received from the local administrative body. She said that the Panagarh hospital wasn't overburdened with cases because community health workers spent a considerable amount of time raising awareness of the virus. "We used tactics like scaring people with news about death and the long-lasting consequences of COVID. This helped us tackle issues like vaccine hesitancy in certain communities," she underlined. Hospitals in rural areas across India are currently burdened with a rising number of COVID cases. According to a report by the NGO Center for Science and Environment (CSE), 53% of fresh cases and 52% of new deaths from COVID in May were reported from rural areas. The report added that community health centers in rural India need 76% more doctors.

Villagers Concealed They Had Covid-19 For Fear Of Forced Vaccination, Quarantine'

As the second wave sweeps rural India, people haven't been disclosing their Covid-19 illness due to mistrust in the public health system and fear of forcible quarantine and vaccination, two doctors tell us, and suggest ways to counter misinformation and bridge the gaps in rural health infrastructure Mumbai: The number of Covid-19 cases is easing off across India but not as rapidly in rural as in urban India. Some numbers themselves are under a cloud, particularly in areas where the quality of reporting is not good. A recent Centre for Science and Environment report said that rural districts had seen almost 52% of Covid-19 deaths and 53% of new cases in May 2021, based on a sample study. It also said that community health centres in rural districts needed 76% more doctors, 56% more radiographers and 35% more lab technologists, which illustrates the nature and extent of the problem. To understand what India can do to improve hard and soft infrastructure in rural areas, we spoke with two doctors who have been working on some of these challenges. Rajani Bhat, consultant pulmonologist from Bengaluru, is a postgraduate from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and an American Board of Medicine-certified doctor in pulmonary diseases and critical care medicine. Pavitra Mohan, based in Udaipur, is co-founder of Basic Healthcare Services, a non-profit that has been working primarily in southern Rajasthan. He has an MBBS and MD from Delhi University and a master's in public health from the University of North Carolina. He has worked extensively in community-based primary health care and nutrition. Edited excerpts: Dr Mohan, as you look back over the past two months of the second Covid-19 wave, what can you tell us about the behaviour of the virus and people's response, particularly in rural India? PM: One thing is clear that the virus has spread much more rapidly in this wave compared to the past wave and there have been no divides between urban and rural, or rural and deep rural, or deep rural and tribal areas. The infection has spread in the [remotest] areas, which was not the case the last time. So in some ways, it is actually the first wave for the deep rural and tribal areas. Last year, there was no wave for them, it was largely restricted to urban areas. Some spread happened when the migrants started returning. After a month [of nationwide lockdown], when they were allowed to come back, there was a slight surge, but it was not really a wave, it was probably a small ripple. So for [deep rural areas], it is actually the first full-blown wave. The virus has spread much more and much deeper this time and has not followed any boundaries of urban, rural or tribal. The way people have responded to [the second wave] has been guided by a lot of fear and also a lot of mistrust of public healthcare systems. I think this led to a situation where the combination of fear and mistrust meant that people stayed indoors. They would not go out to access healthcare, and especially not from the public healthcare systems at all. They would seek care from whatever was available closer by, but avoided the public healthcare systems in general. This is the scene in areas that we work in. I've heard similar things from other people working in similar rural and tribal areas elsewhere. [Where did] the mistrust have its origin? I think, in general, there has been a mistrust of the public system for a long time in rural areas, partly guided by the fact that services, especially curative services, have not been responsive. Wherever there are strong public health systems, that is not the case. There is greater trust and that continued. The [mistrust] was further accentuated by the fact that last year when people, especially the migrants returning from the cities, were isolated and forcibly quarantined, that led to a fear of the government and public health systems in particular, and of the disease. [The fear was that] if you said you had Covid-19 or were found to have the disease, then you'll be shifted away. This was of course fueled by social media, news and reports of people dying and all kinds of myths and misconceptions also being propagated through social media. But its roots lay in the distrust and the fear of being isolated and quarantined. Also, this time, when vaccination started in January before the second wave began, coercion was used to promote vaccination among those who initially had vaccine hesitancy. [Hesitancy] is not uncommon when you're introducing a new vaccine, especially for adults. Vaccine hesitancy is common in all populations. But mistrust deepened because people were coerced and told that if they don't take a vaccine, your name would be removed from old age pension or from the public distribution system. That mistrust, coupled with fear, led to a situation where people stayed indoors. They feared disclosing anything about the disease, or going to a public health system, which in any case they had limited access or response to. That led to quite a bit of delay or absence of care-seeking. A lot of people continued to be indoors even when deaths happened. When they had started slipping, they would still want to stay where they were rather than going to a government hospital in a far-off city. There are of course structural issues which were always there, of distances, of not enough money to reach a large hospital. But it was added to by fear and distrust. So people could have gone to a public health system and gotten a bed or oxygen if they needed it, yet they did not go? PM: That's right. There are two scenarios here. One is people who had mild infections who did not really require to go to any [facility], but required support, advice and medication to manage Covid-19 at the household level, or in a setting where they could isolate themselves. Even accessing advice and support for home care is something that they resisted, because of the fear of being found out that they are Covid-19 positive and therefore being isolated and separated from the family. Even when frontline government health workers like ANMs or ASHAs would visit their homes, they would withdraw and not disclose [their illness] and would not want to even receive the medication or advice that was being given. In the second scenario, where people were moderately or severely ill and started slipping and could reach the hospital, the whole fear of going to a hospital was huge. I was in a debate where [people] were saying why is it that you did not see pictures of people in a hospital in rural areas asking for beds, or oxygen, etc. The reason is that they did not reach the hospitals and often would become severely ill [and] either recover or die at home. Dr Bhat, tell us about your experiences in this context and the Covid-19 toolkit or resources you're working on. RB: Dr Mohan has raised all the relevant points that come up in the challenges that we face in implementing science-based protocols, which are useful for the rural health set-up. There are so many challenges in terms of lack of infrastructure, manpower and training. Added to all that is the problem of mistrust and misinformation, which has been a huge problem not just in rural but also in urban areas. We've seen rumour-mongering and myths and fallacies spreading much faster than the solid scientific evidence that needs to be propagated better. In order to counter that, a group of us have come together to form the Swasth Community Science Alliance. It was born as an organic effort of clinicians and practitioners on the ground, along with physicians, scientists, health economists and people with experience in public health or global health. It is looking to address these challenges of how to help implement the best practices in rural areas where it is most useful. One challenge is that when we come up with evidence-based medicine practices, these are sometimes formulated in areas that have access to the best facilities. So, you put a cut-off point of say, [an oxygen] saturation level for which one must seek hospital attention. One has to keep in mind that there's a lag time in rural areas, where it might take six to eight hours to reach that medical attention. One has to adapt evidence-based guidelines and protocols to take the kind of time constraints that people have in rural areas into account. Then there are the kinds of instructions that are available. Is it a medium of instruction that's easily accessible to the ASHA and ANM workers who are embedded in the community, whom the people trust? What are the resources available? In response to the rising Covid-19 numbers in rural areas, we've seen a wonderful surge of support from community, corporates, nonprofits and charitable organisations coming to the aid of government health services, by providing material resources. You mentioned that India also lacks manpower and training. To that end, what we're looking to do is provide a suite of toolkits that are easy to understand and access for people in rural healthcare services. This is an alliance in the truest sense because we are guided by serious experienced practitioners on the ground like Dr Mohan. It's only based on the feedback of the challenges on the ground that we get from them that we are able to formulate certain training modules which can potentially help us to counter these problems. Can you illustrate the key communication areas that you're focusing on? Do these toolkits apply uniformly across India or are there other situations that you have to adapt to? RB: There are definitely some parts which are universal and adaptable to all parts of India. In the conversations that we've had with people practising on the ground, be it from Maharashtra, or Nagaland, or Tamil Nadu or Karnataka, some challenges and practices remain the same across the board. Our focus has always been on trying to make sure that we first eliminate any harmful practices. One challenge is that there's been a lot of different medications and polypharmacy that's been thrown at Covid-19. What we've learned over the past year is that the old gold standard practices, the best supportive practices for any viral illness, still hold true and that's something that the system is ready to deal with. It's just about removing misinformation and myths and enforcing what we can do and implement well with the people we have on the ground. In terms of challenges, they are universal, some are local, some degree of trust issues will be local, according to community practices. But that's where the partners on the ground come in and help us. We have toolkits that will help us provide home monitoring services, so an ASHA worker or community health volunteer should be able to help families in their communities be aware of what to watch out for, and build trust in order to ensure that monitoring continues and is relayed to the medical officer they report to. The idea being that Covid-19 is a disease where the majority of patients are asymptomatic or mild. So early on when their oxygen saturation is dropping and in moderate illness, even if the district hospitals are overloaded, there is potential for having Covid-19 treatment facilities that can provide oxygen and basic medications and still allow for a much better outcome for patients. It's really a sad state of affairs that we're seeing patients not seeking help because of fear and mistrust, as Dr Mohan pointed out. That's the part that we want to address. There is a large chunk of patients that we can help just by bridging that gap. Tell us one finding from your research or conversations with doctors across the country which surprised you and to which your toolkits or resources are responding. RB: One thing that surprised us is the fact that a lot of people think that complicated medications are essential. But we realise that [Covid-19 care] is really a lot about sticking to the basics. It's about good monitoring of vitals. It's about educating people about simple preventive practices, awareness about masking, early identification of symptoms, removing stigma and fear associated with the disease, doing symptom control with simple things like paracetamol for fever, simple practices like prone positioning for improving oxygen, these are the things that are really valuable. We know that it's only in certain patients whose oxygen levels are low that you need steroids. So we are making sure that that kind of information is available, where you tell people that you don't need these expensive medications, that it's a very small minority of patients who need it. The part that's been really important in our work has been to first propagate the do-no-harm practices, to not prescribe these drugs. And it's really been heartening to see the DGHS (Director General of Health Services) recommendations that have come out recently and are very supportive of the best practices that have stood the test of time over decades. Dr Mohan, you were saying that one of the reasons you're seeing a pushback against the entire health system is the attempt at coercion in vaccination. Assuming some of this is a legacy issue, how is this playing out now and affecting people adversely more than benefiting them? PM: As I said, there has been distrust and that led to a situation where people would not accept vaccination, thinking that it will harm them, that it is meant to harm them. It's not only the fear of the side effects, it's the fear that they are being proactively harmed. That's where one needs to start working. What we've seen while working with the communities and with families, honest communication about the vaccine, its origin, its value does start melting off [the mistrust]. The other problem, which we have to understand is different from urban India, was both in case of Covid-19 treatment and in vaccination. There are huge barriers for people in rural areas to access any service: barriers of distance, of denial, of cost. A simple example is that if you're bothered about vaccine wastage in a rural area where population density is small, and very few people want to now get themselves vaccinated, the denial of vaccination because of the fear of wastage is counterproductive. Secondly, at the moment, there are barriers of age, there are different ways in which people of 18 to 45 years, or 45 years-plus would get vaccinated. And therefore there are barriers that because you are younger, or you're older, you may not get the vaccine on a certain date. Third could be a barrier of distance, where the vaccine is available only at the primary health centre or in a remotely located sub-centre. So removing some of those barriers, making it freely available to everyone--not denying being the first principle--then [looking at] the wastage or the efficiency of the operations, is extremely critical. When you said coercion, I'm assuming it's only a threat, because no one is actually deleting people from the rolls or taking away public distribution system benefits. PM: So these are threats. But the problem is that coercion becomes the major way in which you can implement anything with the communities where there is initial resistance. As recently as a few days ago, cities in some other states that I know of said that if you don't get vaccinated, then you can't open a shop in a given market. These are official orders. So when coercion becomes a primary means, then there is further pushback because one says that 'if it is for my benefit, then let me decide'. And [because of the threat], it is also perceived as something that's not for one's benefit, it is something that somebody else wants you to get. India has been vaccinating against Covid-19 for almost six months now. Rajasthan, where you work and which has seen a relatively higher proportion of vaccinations, should be seeing the benefit of that. People who have been vaccinated, even if coerced into doing it, perhaps can see that they are either not getting infected or not getting seriously ill, or are they not able to perceive that? PM: That perception is slow to come. For example, if somebody has been vaccinated earlier, like health workers, then the pushback is that 'you received a different vaccine and what we are receiving is a different one'. Then there is the population density issue. The benefits of even childhood vaccination are not easy to see. Because if you vaccinate 1,000 people of which 10 were to develop the infection and [the vaccine] protected five in a given village, you have actually prevented five infections, which is not very visible in the short term. [Perception change] does require a longer-term, but that is the kind of honest communication that one needs to do. We have been successful in several cases where this honest communication was allowed and other barriers were removed, which led to an improvement in acceptance. But you have to speak that language, and not the language of it being for the public good or for some kind of intangible benefit. People do understand that. That's been our experience in several villages where we work. Dr Bhat, what's the scale of Covid-19 resources you're trying to roll out, how will it be distributed and how will you measure its working? What's your feedback mechanism going to be like? RB: At the moment, we're very happily surprised with the scale at which it's rolling out and the kind of interest that we've received from practitioners on the ground, from the community. We've had a tremendous response, whether it is from experienced organisations which have been involved in community health and primary health and rural areas for decades, as well as corporate social responsibility efforts that are partnering with certain aspirational districts looking to roll out these programs and certain organisations which are very closely enmeshed with government health services. The scale of the conversations that we're having goes anywhere between 1,000-1,800 ASHA workers to tens of thousands of community health volunteers in some situations. The idea being that if we can empower people with the right knowledge and information, these people can become change agents within their own communities. It's about distilling the scientific information and making it simple and easy to both absorb as well as share with other people. The success of an attempt like this will be in the fact that people will think it wasn't needed at all. It's when things are not dramatically bad and it seems like things are okay, that's when we know that we've really done a good job. But that's not enough, we would like to measure what's happening. So data monitoring and evaluation is built into our toolkit. We've tried to keep these documents very simple so it's part of the healthcare worker's daily routine process of being able to document. We've taken into account the fact that there may be limited literacy in some community health volunteers and workers. A simple thing like a photograph of a pulse oximeter on a finger can be taken and sent via a WhatsApp message and it's something that we could capture and be able to monitor. The goal is that the academic institutions we're partnering with, we have Prof Manoj Mohanan and his team at Duke University looking into this, will be able to give us a rather quick turnaround on what are the interventions that are working and what we might need to tweak. [What's also going to be] really useful is going to be the feedback from the partners on the ground. The doctors and medical officers along with the ASHA and ANM workers and their medical coordinators will be giving us feedback. The hope is that the feedback will help us to tweak the programme as needed as we go along. India does have new Covid-19 medical protocols finally. How do you see this rolling out? Do you see this having an impact at this point, because even while guidelines and protocols come in, they may not be transmitted or received effectively? RB: That challenge always remains with all guidelines and recommendations. But when we have guidelines that are evidence-backed as well as policy-backed, when we have academic institutions like Christian Medical College-Vellore and government institutions like the DGHS all coming together on the same page and saying this is what the evidence shows, this is what the best practices are after one year of learning about this new illness, that gives us greater strength in the voice that we take to medical practitioners on the ground. So if you are a doctor or a nurse who's practising in a rural setup and someone says 'but why aren't you giving me XYZ drug', you know you have the knowledge to back you to say 'that's potentially harmful'. That's the idea, that we want to try and take the message of first do-no-harm. We know that the injudicious use of antibiotics and steroids is harmful to patients. I think we have all suffered from the fact that there are certain drugs which were considered 'it can't really harm us that much'. But as much as we try to say that, 'oh, it's not going to harm us', it's taking away from a potentially beneficial practice that one might be able to provide. So instead of prescribing drugs that are not so useful, I would much rather have the community health worker focus on the importance of messaging about masking and vaccination. As Dr Mohan said, that's where we need to focus our energies more. It's about preventive strategies. And there's plenty of evidence and research coming out of neighbouring countries, for example Prof Mushfiq Mobarak's work from Bangladesh, which can inform our practices about how we build bridges to overcome that mistrust that exists in rural communities about the use of vaccines and masking. The Bangladesh study is about masking, adopting a certain community or a village, and incentivising them to wear masks, right? RB: Absolutely. It's not just enough to wear masks but that we use them appropriately. The messaging is really important, as Dr Mohan was saying. When you try to make it punitive, that's not quite the same thing as incentivising it as good for the community, for your family and for yourself. I think that messaging is very important for prevention strategies. Dr Mohan, as we look ahead to a potential third Covid-19 wave, what should we be gearing up for? We've talked about the soft side. Is there something on the hard side that we could do in the near term to be ready for a potential third wave, and in general? PM: How do we really prepare for something that seems inevitable, but what form it will take can't really be predicted? I think the first important thing is to not to have a sense of complacency, which seems to be setting in at this point of time, in many quarters. From a rural healthcare perspective, focus on many of the things that we needed to do that were barely coming together towards the end of the second wave. Because, unsurprisingly, our public health systems in rural areas have not been traditionally geared to managing emergencies, even minor emergencies in normal times. Covid-19, of course, was a huge emergency and the capacity of the public health facilities to manage such emergencies has been limited. Immediately, we do need to ramp that up, using the experience of the second wave. For example, use Covid-19 to ensure that we have the ability to manage respiratory emergencies like Covid-19, and others. Oxygen availability is one part of it, but having the right set of knowledge, skills, protocols and referral systems in place is so important, and if we don't do it now, we would be doing a similar goof-up in the third wave as we did in the second wave in many, many parts. In the second wave, it was excusable to some extent, especially for rural areas, because nobody really expected it till very late and traditionally, we do not have strong public facilities in rural areas. But the third wave would be inexcusable. Ramping up skills, standardised protocols, referral systems and staff in rural areas would be absolutely critical. Surveillance would be critical to ensure that we detect the third wave in a reasonable time. We did again goof that up overall, in that we did not pick up the emergence of the second wave in time. Finally, as I said, not being complacent and preparing for the worst could be really important from a public health point of view. One of the things we did end up doing by the end of the second wave was to have at least some places where oxygen is available in rural areas, within 30 to 50 kilometres. In the absence of referral, that is still too far. And we do need to equip our primary and community health centres closer to where people live, to be able to manage an emergency and an epidemic like Covid-19, and others. I think we have a short window, of about five to six months at the most, for preparing and putting all of this on the ground. Dr Bhat, how do we use the learnings from Covid-19 to look beyond Covid itself, so that we can strengthen our rural healthcare system? RB: [Thanks to the Covid-19 crisis], health has become dominant in the national consciousness. In terms of the kind of response that one gets from communities, in small urban clusters or in rural areas, people are conscious about the need to pay attention to their health, it is part of almost daily conversation now. There are a lot of government initiatives that have taken off, also of nonprofits, corporate social responsibility, who are rising together to build a supportive ecosystem for better health for all. The part that I find really promising is that it's not just physical health, there has been a greater conversation about mental health, there's been a greater conversation about palliative care. All these aspects of primary health or preventive health which were ignored or did not receive the attention that was due to them for the longest time, are now being spoken about in the mainstream. When was the last time that we had these kinds of discussions on national television about every aspect of health and well-being? Not just disease or when something goes wrong in the public health system, we're also talking about the preventive and maintenance aspect of health. That's one of the things that's come about. The other conversation that we hope to continue is with this Swasth Community Science Alliance, where we're building what's called a community of practice. The idea is to have experts like Dr Mohan, an initiative like ARMMAN on maternal and child health, connecting different initiatives and efforts from across the country, to learn and take best practices back to the communities that they're serving. So that is going to be the future. Now, while we are using this [alliance] to address the challenge of Covid-19, this is something that can serve every other potential health crisis, whether it's non-communicable diseases or new waves of infectious diseases or epidemics that may come along.

India has lost 90 percent of the area under its biodiversity hotspots, says CSE’s new statistical analysis

India has lost 90 per cent of the area under its biodiversity hotspots, says CSE’s new statistical analysis India has lost 90 percent of the area under its four biodiversity hotspots. The Indo-Burma hotspot is the worst hit — the extent of vegetation in the region has been reduced from 2,373,057 sq km to a mere 118,653 sq km, a loss of 95 percent. Twenty-five species have also gone extinct in these hotspots. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List monitors 1,212 animal species in India–the IUCN says over 12 percent of them are endangered. Of the 148 endangered species, 69 are mammals, 456 amphibians, and 23 reptiles. These ominous statistics have been brought to light in an e-publication released here on World Environment Day by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021, as the e-publication is titled, is an annual compendium of data and statistics on key issues of environment and development. Releasing the e-book, CSE director general Dr.Sunita Narain said: “There is drama in numbers, especially when these numbers give you a trend—are things getting better or worse. It is even more powerful when you can use the trend to understand the crisis, the challenge and the opportunity.” India’s forests could certainly use a better understanding of the crisis they are facing. Says Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth, “At a time when we are witnessing an alarming fall in the timber and non-timber forest produce services in Indian forests — implying overuse of resources — climatic cycles are combining with other factors to result in a dramatic rise in forest fire alerts. We must learn to connect the dots.” The CSE report points out that 16 states – including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand – have witnessed a significant rise in number of forest fire alerts. It says: “India has seen a drastic rise in forest fires since the start of 2021. As of May 1, the number of fire alerts recorded by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is 433,581. This is quite a jump, even though the official forest fire season of the country is from February to June. Forest fires are influenced by temperature and rainfall in the preceding monsoon. The year 2016, the hottest on record when India’s annual temperature rose 0.71oC over the annual average of 25oC, saw 541,135 forest fires — the most in a decade.” The report adds: “Rainfall during the 2015 monsoon was 765.8 mm, 14 per cent less than the normal 880 mm, as per the India Meteorological Department. In 2021, too, India sees unusually warm weather along with 8.7 per cent surplus rainfall last monsoon that leaves adequate humidity for fires to spread.” Says Dr. Narain about the publication: “In an age when the quality of data available to us is usually poor—it is either missing, unavailable publicly or of questionable quality—a collection like this can be immensely helpful, especially for journalists. Improving the quality of data can only happen when we use it for policy. Take the case of the ongoing pandemic. Just consider how we have suffered in this past year because we do not have sufficient or accurate data on tests, or the number of deaths, or serological surveys, or genomic sequencing of the variants. In each case, data would have been (and is) critical for policy making.” She adds: “Data collection is important—it is part of the art of governance—but it is equally important that entire data sets are shared and worked upon so that they can be critiqued and through this process used and improved upon.” Reported by Ms. Pratyusha Mukherjee, a Senior Journalist working for BBC and other media outlets, also a special contributor to IBG News. In her illustrated career she has covered many major events and achieved International Media Award for reporting.

India has lost 90 percent of the area under its biodiversity hotspots, says CSE’s new statistical analysis – Woxikon News

भारत ने अपनी जैव विविधता के तहत 90 प्रतिशत क्षेत्र खो दिया है हॉटस्पॉट, सीएसई के नए सांख्यिकीय विश्लेषण का कहना है भारत ने अपने चार जैव विविधता वाले हॉटस्पॉट के तहत 90 प्रतिशत क्षेत्र खो दिया है। इंडो-बर्मा हॉटस्पॉट सबसे ज्यादा प्रभावित है – इस क्षेत्र में वनस्पति की सीमा 2,373,057 वर्ग किमी से घटकर मात्र 118,653 वर्ग किमी रह गई है, जो 95 प्रतिशत की हानि है। इन हॉटस्पॉट्स में पच्चीस प्रजातियां भी विलुप्त हो चुकी हैं। इंटरनेशनल यूनियन फॉर कंजर्वेशन ऑफ नेचर (IUCN) की रेड लिस्ट भारत में 1,212 जानवरों की प्रजातियों की निगरानी करती है – IUCN का कहना है कि उनमें से 12 प्रतिशत से अधिक लुप्तप्राय हैं। 148 लुप्तप्राय प्रजातियों में से 69 स्तनधारी, 456 उभयचर और 23 सरीसृप हैं। सीएसईसीएसई सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड एनवायरनमेंट (सीएसई) द्वारा विश्व पर्यावरण दिवस पर यहां जारी एक ई-प्रकाशन में ये अशुभ आंकड़े सामने आए हैं। आंकड़ों में भारत के पर्यावरण की स्थिति 2021, जैसा कि ई-प्रकाशन का शीर्षक है, पर्यावरण और विकास के प्रमुख मुद्दों पर डेटा और आंकड़ों का एक वार्षिक संग्रह है। ई-बुक का विमोचन करते हुए, सीएसई की महानिदेशक डॉ. सुनीता नारायण ने कहा: “संख्याओं में नाटक है, खासकर जब ये संख्याएं आपको एक प्रवृत्ति देती हैं – क्या चीजें बेहतर या बदतर हो रही हैं। यह तब और भी अधिक शक्तिशाली होता है जब आप संकट, चुनौती और अवसर को समझने के लिए प्रवृत्ति का उपयोग कर सकते हैं। “ भारत के वन निश्चित रूप से उस संकट की बेहतर समझ का उपयोग कर सकते हैं जिसका वे सामना कर रहे हैं। डाउन टू अर्थ के प्रबंध संपादक रिचर्ड महापात्रा कहते हैं, “ऐसे समय में जब हम भारतीय जंगलों में लकड़ी और गैर-लकड़ी वन उपज सेवाओं में खतरनाक गिरावट देख रहे हैं – संसाधनों का अति प्रयोग – जलवायु चक्र परिणाम के लिए अन्य कारकों के साथ संयोजन कर रहे हैं। . जंगल में आग की चेतावनी में नाटकीय वृद्धि हुई है। हमें डॉट्स कनेक्ट करना सीखना चाहिए। ” सीएसई की रिपोर्ट बताती है कि ओडिशा, मध्य प्रदेश, छत्तीसगढ़ और उत्तराखंड सहित 16 राज्यों में जंगल में आग के अलर्ट की संख्या में उल्लेखनीय वृद्धि देखी गई है। यह कहता है: “भारत ने 2021 की शुरुआत से जंगल की आग में भारी वृद्धि देखी है। 1 मई तक, विजिबल इन्फ्रारेड इमेजिंग रेडियोमीटर सूट (VIIRS) द्वारा दर्ज की गई आग अलर्ट की संख्या 433,581 है। यह काफी उछाल है, भले ही देश का आधिकारिक जंगल की आग का मौसम फरवरी से जून तक हो। जंगल की आग पूर्ववर्ती मानसून में तापमान और वर्षा से प्रभावित होती है। वर्ष 2016, रिकॉर्ड पर सबसे गर्म वर्ष जब भारत का वार्षिक तापमान 0.71 . बढ़ाहेसी 25 . के वार्षिक औसत से अधिकहेसी, 541,135 जंगल की आग देखी – एक दशक में सबसे ज्यादा। “ रिपोर्ट में आगे कहा गया है: “भारत मौसम विज्ञान विभाग के अनुसार, 2015 के मानसून के दौरान बारिश 765.8 मिमी थी, जो सामान्य 880 मिमी से 14 प्रतिशत कम थी। २०२१ में भी, भारत में पिछले मानसून में ८.७ प्रतिशत अधिशेष वर्षा के साथ असामान्य रूप से गर्म मौसम देखा जाता है जो आग को फैलने के लिए पर्याप्त नमी छोड़ देता है। “ प्रकाशन के बारे में डॉ. नारायण कहते हैं: “ऐसे युग में जब हमारे पास उपलब्ध डेटा की गुणवत्ता आमतौर पर खराब होती है – यह या तो गायब है, सार्वजनिक रूप से अनुपलब्ध है या संदिग्ध गुणवत्ता का है – इस तरह का संग्रह बेहद मददगार हो सकता है, खासकर पत्रकारों के लिए। डेटा की गुणवत्ता में सुधार तभी हो सकता है जब हम इसे नीति के लिए उपयोग करते हैं। चल रही महामारी का ही मामला लें। ज़रा सोचिए कि हमने इस पिछले एक साल में कैसा नुकसान उठाया है क्योंकि हमारे पास परीक्षणों, या मौतों की संख्या, या सीरोलॉजिकल सर्वेक्षण, या वेरिएंट की जीनोमिक अनुक्रमण पर पर्याप्त या सटीक डेटा नहीं है। प्रत्येक मामले में, डेटा नीति निर्माण के लिए महत्वपूर्ण (और है) होता। “ वह आगे कहती हैं: “डेटा संग्रह महत्वपूर्ण है – यह शासन की कला का हिस्सा है – लेकिन यह उतना ही महत्वपूर्ण है कि पूरे डेटा सेट को साझा किया जाता है और उन पर काम किया जाता है ताकि उनकी आलोचना की जा सके और इस प्रक्रिया के माध्यम से उपयोग और सुधार किया जा सके।”

India has lost 90pc of the area under its biodiversity hotspots: CSE

| June 9, 2021 India has lost 90 percent of the area under its four biodiversity hotspots where twenty five species have gone extinct. The Indo-Burma hotspot is the worst hit -- the extent of vegetation in the region has been reduced from 2,373,057 sq km to a mere 118,653 sq km, a loss of 95 percent, says Centre for Science and Environment’s (CSE’s) new statistical analysis on Tuesday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List monitors 1,212 animal species in India – the IUCN says over 12 percent of them are endangered. Of the 148 endangered species, 69 are mammals, 456 amphibians and 23 reptiles. These ominous statistics have been brought to light in an e-publication released here on World Environment Day by CSE. State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021, as the e-publication is titled, is an annual compendium of data and statistics on key issues of environment and development. Releasing the e-book, CSE Director General Sunita Narain said, “There is drama in numbers, especially when these numbers give you a trend—are things getting better or worse. It is even more powerful when you can use the trend to understand the crisis, the challenge and the opportunity.” The CSE report points out that 16 states, including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, have witnessed a significant rise in number of forest fire alerts. It says: “India has seen a drastic rise in forest fires since the start of 2021. As of May 1, the number of fire alerts recorded by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is 433,581.”

India lost 90 per cent area under biodiversity hotspots, says CSEs new statistical analysis

India lost 90 per cent area under biodiversity hotspots, says CSEs new statistical analysis More than 12 per cent of Indias IUCN Red List animal species are endangered. There has been a huge jump in forest fires this year. New Delhi, June 8, 2021: India has lost 90 per cent of the area under its four biodiversity hotspots. The Indo-Burma hotspot is the worst hit – the extent of vegetation in the region has been reduced from 2,373,057 sq km to a mere 118,653 sq km, a loss of 95 per cent. Twenty five species have also gone extinct in these hotspots. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List monitors 1,212 animal species in India – the IUCN says over 12 per cent of them are endangered. Of the 148 endangered species, 69 are mammals, 456 amphibians and 23 reptiles. These ominous statistics have been brought to light in an e-publication released here on World Environment Day by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021, as the e-publication is titled, is an annual compendium of data and statistics on key issues of environment and development. Releasing the e-book, CSE Director General Sunita Narain said: “There is drama in numbers, especially when these numbers give you a trend—are things getting better or worse. It is even more powerful when you can use the trend to understand the crisis, the challenge and the opportunity.” India’s forests could certainly use a better understanding of the crisis they are facing. Says Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth, “At a time when we are witnessing an alarming fall in the timber and non-timber forest produce services in Indian forests -- implying overuse of resources -- climatic cycles are combining with other factors to result in a dramatic rise in forest fire alerts. We must learn to connect the dots.” The CSE report points out that 16 states – including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand – have witnessed a significant rise in number of forest fire alerts. It says: “India has seen a drastic rise in forest fires since the start of 2021. As of May 1, the number of fire alerts recorded by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is 433,581. This is quite a jump, even though the official forest fire season of the country is from February to June. Forest fires are influenced by temperature and rainfall in the preceding monsoon. The year 2016, the hottest on record when India’s annual temperature rose 0.71oC over the annual average of 25oC, saw 541,135 forest fires -- the most in a decade.” The report adds: “Rainfall during the 2015 monsoon was 765.8 mm, 14 per cent less than the normal 880 mm, as per the India Meteorological Department. In 2021, too, India sees unusually warm weather along with 8.7 per cent surplus rainfall last monsoon that leaves adequate humidity for fires to spread.” Says Narain about the publication: “In an age when the quality of data available to us is usually poor—it is either missing, unavailable publicly or of questionable quality—a collection like this can be immensely helpful, especially for journalists. Improving the quality of data can only happen when we use it for policy. Take the case of the ongoing pandemic. Just consider how we have suffered in this past year because we do not have sufficient or accurate data on tests, or the number of deaths, or serological surveys, or genomic sequencing of the variants. In each case, data would have been (and is) critical for policy making.” She adds: “Data collection is important—it is part of the art of governance—but it is equally important that entire data sets are shared and worked upon so that they can be critiqued and through this process used and improved upon.”

Poor People Are at Greater Risk During Pandemics. Climate Change Exacerbates the Problem

Preventing the next pandemic will require not only investment into infectious disease prevention and management, but a tectonic shift in our policies for global development more broadly. We are as strong as our weakest link, and the findings of the TIME survey must be understood through this perspective. Despite supporting the broad goal of zeroing out emissions, the experts polled said specific land use and climate change efforts such as modifying food habits and protecting ecosystems were relatively less important. In some ways, that makes sense, as they do seem distant in the desperate urgency of the moment. In this time of crisis, we naturally prioritize things that can be done quickly—from scaling up vaccine supply to supply chain logistics. But none of this will endure without policies that focus on providing for all; equity in health services and surveillance systems that will work for the rich and the poor. And that’s where land use and climate change become essential. We know today that climate change impacts are making the poor even poorer—increasing frequency of extreme weather events destroy livestock and property and the investment made to improve development by governments, forces people to migrate and makes the world more insecure. We also know that current food systems that depend on intensive animal farming practices require extensive use of natural resources—from forests that need to be cut to make space for livestock farms to feed that is grown using valuable land and scarce water resources. That not only puts the livelihood of many around the world at risk, but also, research has shown, increases the spread of infectious diseases. Meanwhile, the lack of clean water or sanitation for all is compromising our ability to manage infectious diseases. Air pollution because of continued use of dirty coal and biofuels is impairing lung functions—putting people in heavily polluted areas at higher risk for severe symptoms of infections like COVID-19. Diabetes—a food and lifestyle disease—is adding to the cost of health care and making COVID-19 treatment more expensive and difficult. I could go on. But the fact is that we cannot ignore these connections just because we find them unfeasible in the short term. We need to move from the pragmatic to the idealist world. The fact is that without equity in health care, we will not prevent the next pandemic. It is the same for climate change. This is why we must look at the opportunities we have now that cut across both climate change and public health. If we invest in the livelihoods of the poor by planting trees and securing local food systems we build resilience—while also combating climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide in the natural systems. These sorts of win-win scenarios happen when we put the poor at the center of the solution. It may come at a higher cost than cheap carbon offsets, but builds local economies that will work to reverse migration and have the strength to manage health for all. The bottom-line is that preventing the next pandemic needs us to secure a world that is less divided, less angry and less insecure. Nothing less will do.

REEL to set up vehicle recycling facilities

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (REEL) on Monday said it will be setting up a network of ‘end of life’ vehicle recycling facilities across the country. These facilities will deploy automated technologies towards dismantling, depolluting and shredding to maximise recycling and resource recovery. In the first phase, recycling facilities will be developed near Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. In the next phase, the network will expand to over 25 locations across India. The company also intends to partner with leading automotive companies in both the passenger and the commercial vehicles segments as part of this initiative. As per industry estimates, by 2025, India is expected to have over two crore vehicles nearing the end of their lives. These, along with other unfit vehicles, if not recycled and managed sustainably, can cause significant pollution and environmental damage, said a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Fivefold rise in farmer protests since 2017: CSE

Bathinda: Farmer protests in India have registered an almost five-fold increase since 2017. Just a year before the target of doubling farmers’ income, India recorded 165 major protests across 22 states/UTs in 2020, up from only 34 major protests witnessed in 15 states in 2017. In 2020, 96 protests were related to economic/farm policies (including against three contentious farm laws), 38 related to procurement, fair price of crops, four to farm infrastructure, 17 against land acquisition, seven related to insurance and loan waivers, three for other reasons, says the statistical data analysed by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). CSE has also analysed that as per National Crime Record Bureau(NCRB) every day 28 cultivators and farm labourers committed suicide in the country in 2019 as 5,957 farmers and 4324 labourers committed suicides. Now situation has come to such a pass that in 52 per cent of the country’s districts, the population of farm labourers has outstripped that of farmers and cultivators. Bihar, Kerala and Puducherry have more farm labourers than farmers in all their districts. While studying the statistics, CSE points that the country is sitting atop a massive time-bomb of agrarian crisis and disquiet. CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “The numbers point towards a trend. The trend points towards impending crisis, and the challenge ahead. In the case of agriculture and land, things seem to be certainly on the downslide”. “This is evident all the more when you see the condition of land records and their maintenance in the country,” says Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth. “Our analysis shows that 14 states in India have witnessed a deterioration in the quality of their land records.” Narain said, “At a time when the quality of data available is usually poor — it is either missing, unavailable publicly or of questionable quality but the correct data like this can be immensely helpful. Improving the quality of data can only happen when we use it for policy. Just consider how we have suffered in this past year due to Covid pandemic because we do not have sufficient or accurate data on tests, or the number of deaths, or serological surveys, or genomic sequencing of the variants.”

E-buses to replace diesel-run fleet to curb rising air pollution levels

Telegraph |Calcutta | June 8, 2021 According to senior officials of West Bengal Transport Corporation, electric vehicles are both cost effective and helpful in reducing automobile emission The fleet of diesel-powered government buses in Calcutta will be replaced by electric buses to curb the rising levels of air pollution, transport minister Firhad Hakim said on Monday. “From now on we will focus on electric buses to battle the rising levels of pollution in Calcutta. The replacement will be carried out in phases,” Hakim said. A little over 1,200 government buses ply in and around Calcutta and all of them are oil guzzlers, transport department officials said. Last year, the state government had replaced 75 of them with electric vehicles, which are powered by rechargeable lithium ion batteries. To begin with, 400 buses will be replaced by electric buses and the remaining fleet of nearly 800 buses will be replaced subsequently in phases. Growing levels of air pollution in the city remains one of the biggest causes of concern for residents. Calcutta had suffered its worst air pollution in two years in the first week of December 2020, a study by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) revealed. Senior officials of the West Bengal Transport Corporation said electric buses were cost effective and would help reduce automobile emission considerably. “The cumulative cost of running non-AC buses is around Rs 35 a kilometre and close to Rs 50 for an AC-bus. For an electric bus, it is around Rs 12 a kilometre,” said an official. “We have set up a separate cell in the transport department to look into the challenges for charging batteries....,” said Hakim. Hakim said apart from converting buses, the government has decided that while offering new permits to autorickshaws preference would be given to those who would opt for either CNG or electric autorickshaws. Fresh permits would be issued to autorickshaw operators on the fringes where urbanisation was taking place particularly along the proposed Metro rail routes.

देश में बढ़ता जा रहा है अन्नदाता का गुस्सा, बीते 3 साल में 5 गुना बढ़ गए किसान आंदोलन, सीएसई के आंकड़ों से हुआ खुलासा

देश का पेट भरने वाले अन्नदाता किसानों का गुस्सा बढ़ता जा रहा है। बीते करीब एक साल से किसान विवादित कृषि कानूनों के खिलाफ आंदोलन कर रहे हैं, वहीं सीएसई के एक अध्ययन में सामने आया है कि बीते तीन साल में किसान आंदोलन में 5 गुना बढ़ोत्तरी हुई है। केंद्र की मोदी सरकार ने भले ही अपने सात साल के शासन की उपलब्धियां गिनाने वाले दस्तावेज में किसानों की समृद्धि को देश की समृद्धि का मंत्र बताया हो, लेकिन हकीकत यह है कि बीते तीन साल के दौरान किसानों के आंदोलन में 5 गुना बढ़ोत्तरी हुई है। यह दावा सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड इन्वायरेंमेंट (सीएसई) ने किया है। सीएसई द्वारा जारी आंकड़ों के मुताबिक 2017 के दौरान भारत के 15 राज्यों में किसानों के कुल 34 आंदोलन दर्ज हुए थे, जबकि अब यह 22 राज्यों और केंद्र शासित प्रदेशों में फैलकर इनकी संख्या 165 पहुंच गई है। सीएसई का कहना है कि देश में हर दिन 28 खेतिहर मजदूर और किसान आत्महत्या करते हैं। अकेले 2019 में ही 5,957 किसानों ने आत्महत्या की है। वहीं 4,324 खेतिहर मजदूरों ने भी जान दी है। सीएसई का कहना है कि, “भारत में किसानों से ज्यादा खेतिहर मजदूर हैं जिससे देश के कृषि क्षेत्र की बदहाली का पता चलता है।” सीएसई ने कहा है कि “भारत कृषि संकट और किसानों की नाराजगी के एक बहुत बड़े टाइम बम पर बैठा है और समय धीरे-धीरे खत्म हो रहा है।” सीएसई की डायरेक्टर जनरल सुनीता नारायण ने कहा है कि, “आंकड़ों में एक नाटकीयता दिखती है, इन आंकड़ों से एक ट्रेंड का पता चलता है कि हालात कितने खराब होते जा रहे हैं। अगर इन आंकड़ों को और रुझान को संकट को समझने के लिए इस्तेमाल करते हैं तो इसका फायदा मिल सकता है। इसमें अवसर और चुनौती दोनों ही हैं।” सुनीता नारायण ने आगे कहा कि, “आंकड़े जमा करना महत्वपूर्ण है, और यह शासन का हिस्सा है, लेकिन इसके साथ ही यह भी महत्वपूर्ण है कि इन आंकड़ों को साझा किया जाए और काम किया जाए ताकि संकट को संभालने और हालात को बेहतर बनाने का काम हो सके।” वहीं सीएसई द्वारा प्रकाशित पत्रिका डाउन टू अर्थ के प्रबंध संपादक रिचर्ड महापात्र ने कहा कि, “अगर आप जमीनों के रिकॉर्ड की हालात देखेंगे तो स्थिति और साफ हो जाएगी कि किस तरह इनका रखरखाव हो रहा है।” उन्होंने कहा कि उनके विश्लेषण में सामने आया है कि देश के कम से कम 14 राज्यों में जमीनों के रिकॉर्ड्स की हालत धीरे-धीरे खस्ता होती जा रही है।

Harmful ingredients in bread

Bread sales have increased during the pandemic in Bangladesh. The market for bread was growing at 12 per cent by the year since 2014. Bangladesh Auto Biscuit and Bread Manufacturers Association’s data suggests that annual sale of bread increased by 20 per cent in 2020 when coronavirus hit the country. However, some study reports find that quality of the bread has not improved despite the increased sales. For long, chemicals hazardous to health, including unsaturated fat, artificial colours and sweetener sodium cyclamate, have been used as the ingredients in bread and other bakery products. A study, published on 24 May in an international science journal Food Science and Nutrition, says that most of the bread marketed across Bangladesh contain another hazardous additive, potassium bromate. A team of three teachers from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and North South University initiated the study. The researchers conducted laboratory tests on 21 bread samples collected from four districts. Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) permits 5 milligram potassium bromate maximum in 1 kilogram of bread. The study finds excessive potassium bromate in 67 per cent of the bread samples. The additive is applied to make the bread rise and easy to shape. Many countries in the world have already banned use of this chemical agent in food manufacturing. BSTI director (license) Md Sajjadul Bari told Prothom Alo that BSTI cancels license of a bread factory and fines it with Tk 100 thousand (one lakh) for using excessive potassium bromate. “Actually BSTI examines bread samples before renewal of the license. So far, we have not traced excessive potassium bromate in any bread brand registered with BSTI. We will take legal action if there is any violation of law,” Sajjadul said. Bangladesh, along with the global community, has observed World Food Safety Day today, Monday. Although the government did not host any event, several non-government organisations held virtual seminars to mark the day. The research team collected bread samples from Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Rampura, Kalabagan, Keraniganj, Siddheswari, Purana Paltan, Dhanmandi of Dhaka; Narayanganj, Jhenaidah and Mymensingh districts. The samples were tested at the BUET lab. Member of the research team, Abu Bin Imran, also a chemistry teacher at BUET, told Prothom Alo, “Bread is popular food among all people. This food needs to be safe. Quality of bread is strictly maintained in most of the countries. Persistence of the cancerous potassium bromate in breads now has become a concern in Bangladesh.” The study report says that bakers in the developed countries use particular yeast to make bread the bread rise. The expensive yeast is mixed with flour and the dough kept to rise for few hours. Previously in Bangladesh, India and some other countries, bakers used baking soda to make the bread rise. The bakers, however, started adding potassium bromate to the dough since 1990s. The toxic agent is cheap and effective to make soft and give it a nice colour. Professor of food technology and rural industries at the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Md Abdul Alim, also a member of Bangladesh Food Safety Authority, told Prothom Alo, “We have found persistence of potassium bromate and unsaturated fat in breads and other bakery products. A strict law will be enacted to control use of such hazardous chemicals in the popular food like bread.” In last two decades, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and other developed countries banned use of potassium bromate in baking bread. In 2016, private-run Centre for Science and Environment in India found presence of potassium bromate in breads of 25 popular brands. Later, the Indian government intensified surveillance over the bread factories. A Nigerian research organisation has also found that 82 per cent of the country’s bread factories use potassium bromate. The Bangladeshi research team has recommended that the BSTI monitor the bakeries in regular basis to check use of potassium bromate and fine the law violators. Therefore, they suggested the bakers to use Vitamin C powder, egg, sauces and other organic agents as the best alternative to potassium bromate. Talking about the issue, Dhaka University’s food and nutrition science professor Nizamul Hoque Bhuiyan told Prothom Alo that use of hazardous chemicals in baking bread is a serious crime. “This crime goes on unabated thanks to some greedy officials of BSTI and bakery owners. The government must be strict in this regard,” he said.

Population of farm labourers is higher than that of cultivators in over half of India’s districts: Report

NEW DELHI: Farmer protests in India have registered an almost five-fold increase since 2017, said the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in its new report that also factored in the ongoing protests against the three central farm laws around Delhi borders. The report also shows that the population of farm labourers has outstripped that of cultivators in 52% of the country’s districts. The number of major farm protests increased from 34 across 15 states in 2017 to 165 protests across 22 states and Union Territories in 2021, the CSE’s compendium of statistics on key issues of development shows. Farmer protests’ figures, mainly compiled from different media reports till May, show that the majority of the protests in 2020 and 2021 were directly or indirectly related to the ongoing agitation demanding repeal of the three central farm laws and pressing for legal guarantee to procurement at minimum support price (MSP). Issues on farm laws and MSP had led to 12 pan-India protests and multiple smaller standalone protests in different states ever since the farmers of Punjab and Haryana launched their current agitation in June last year. The other farmer protests in different states were related to farm infrastructure, crop insurance, loan waiver, fertilizer, land acquisition and irrigation (water-sharing disputes). Besides Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the other states which saw farmers’ protests during 2020-21 (up to May) include Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Kerala and others. The CSE e-report ‘State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021’, released on World Environment Day last week, also compiled other key data on farmers which may help policymakers guide their intervention in the farm sector. Sourcing the data from publicly available reports, the compendium shows that India has more farm labourers than the landholder cultivators, noting that the population of farm labourers has outstripped that of cultivators in 52% of the country’s districts. Two states – Bihar and Kerala - and UT of Puducherry have, in fact, more farm labourers than landholder cultivators in all their districts. The report shows that the population of farm labourers was quite high compared to that of cultivators in percentage term in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Odisha. The CSE also analysed the land records data and said Odisha, Maharashtra and 12 other states have seen a deterioration in the quality of their land records in 2020-21. “The performance of 10 other states/UTs have remained unchanged since 2019-20,” it said while referring to states’ performance in terms of digitisation, map, survey, registration process and land use records among others.

Delhi NCR Pollution: 2021 की शुरुआत ही नहीं, बल्कि वसंत ऋतु भी खासी प्रदूषित रही

नई दिल्ली [संजीव गुप्ता]। 2021 की शुरुआत ही नहीं, बल्कि वसंत ऋतु भी खासी प्रदूषित रही है। वर्ष के शुरुआती तीन माह 2019 के बाद से सर्वाधिक प्रदूषित रहे। यह सामने आया है सेंटर फार साइंस एंड एन्वायरनमेंट (सीएसई) के एक अध्ययन में। यह अध्ययन बताता है कि इस बार के लॉकडाउन ने दिल्ली-एनसीआर की वायु गुणवत्ता में सुधार तो किया है, लेकिन पिछले साल की तरह प्रभावी ढंग से नहीं। वजह, 2021 के प्रतिबंध छोटे और कम कड़े होना। इस साल दिल्ली में प्रतिबंध छह अप्रैल को Night Curfew और सप्ताहांत के लॉकडाउन के रूप में शुरू हुए, जिसमें 19 अप्रैल को पूर्ण लॉकडाउन लगाया गया था। आंशिक-लॉकडाउन लागू करने से पीएम 2.5 प्रदूषण स्तर 20 फीसद तक कम हो गया। पूर्ण लॉकडाउन ने इस औसत को 12 फीसद और नीचे ला दिया। दूसरी तरफ 2020 में आंशिक लॉकडाउन 12 मार्च को, 25 मार्च को पूर्ण लॉकडाउन के साथ शुरू हुआ, जिसे 18 मई से चरणबद्ध तरीके से हटा लिया गया। आंशिक लॉकडाउन पीएम 2.5 के स्तर को 20 फीसद तक नीचे लाया, लेकिन पूर्ण लॉकडाउन ने इसे 35 फीसद कम कर दिया। 18 मई से प्रतिबंध हटाने पर पीएम 2.5 के स्तर में 28 फीसद की वृद्धि हुई।सीएसई ने यह भी कहा कि 2020 और 2021 में लाकडाउन ग्रीष्मकाल 2019 की गर्मियों की तुलना में 25 से 40 फीसद स्वच्छ रहा है। 2021 के वसंत (जनवरी-मार्च) ने 2019 के बाद से सीजन के लिए उच्चतम प्रदूषण स्तर दर्ज किया है। आमतौर पर पीएम 2.5 के स्तर में एक बड़ी वजह मौसमी चक्र होता है। सर्दी सबसे अधिक प्रदूषित होती है और मानसून का मौसम सबसे साफ होता है। वसंत (जनवरी से मार्च) दो चरम सीमाओं के बीच एक संक्रमणकालीन अवधि के रूप में कार्य करता है।पीएम 2.5 के स्तर में एक महत्वपूर्ण गिरावट तब होती है जब मौसम गर्म होता है और वसंत के दौरान हवा तेज हो जाती है। 2018 की सर्दियों और 2019 के वसंत के बीच 26 फीसद की गिरावट आई थी। बता दें कि 2020 में प्रदूषण नियंत्रण उपायों के कारण और मार्च 2020 में आंशिक लाकडाउन लागू होने के कारण यह गिरावट बढ़कर 36 फीसद हो गई। इस साल प्रदूषण जारी नहीं रहा, मौसमी गिरावट 18 फीसद तक सीमित रही। वास्तव में इस साल वसंत 2020 की तुलना में 31 फीसद और 2019 की तुलना में आठ फीसद अधिक प्रदूषण था। अध्ययन ने यह भी दिखाया कि इस फरवरी-मार्च में वायु गुणवत्ता के मामले में 27 दिन बहुत खराब श्रेणी वाले थे जबकि 2020 में 17 और 2019 में 12 दिन थे। वायु गुणवत्ता मानक को पूरा करने वाले दिनों ने भी इस वसंत ऋतु को केवल दो तक गिरा दिया। वर्ष 2020 में 16 और 2019 में छह दिन थे जब मानक पूरा हुआ। मौसम विभाग के सभी वायु गुणवत्ता निगरानी स्टेशन आफलाइन\Bदिल्ली में मौसम विज्ञान विभाग (आइएमडी) के आठ वायु गुणवत्ता निगरानी स्टेशनों (एक्यूएमएस) में से किसी ने भी पिछले दो महीनों में केंद्रीय सर्वर को डेटा नहीं दिया है। सीएसई के मुताबिक भले ही दिल्ली का निगरानी नेटवर्क 2020 के अंत तक 40 स्टेशनों तक बढ़ गया हो, लेकिन सक्रिय स्टेशनों की संख्या 32 रह गई है। वजह, मौसम विभाग के सभी स्टेशन ऑफलाइन हो गए हैं। बुराड़ी क्रॉ¨सग पर आइएमडी का स्टेशन पिछले साल दिसंबर से आफलाइन है जबकि आयानगर, सीआरआरआइ मथुरा रोड, आइजीआइ एयरपोर्ट, लोधी रोड, नॉर्थ कैंपस डीयू और पूसा स्टेशन 10 मार्च को ऑफलाइन हो गए थे। सीएसई के मुताबिक आइएमडी के दो अन्य स्टेशन - ग्वाल पहाड़ी, गुरुग्राम और नोएडा सेक्टर 62 भी आफलाइन हो गए हैं। मालूम हो कि दिल्ली में 40 एक्यूएमएस में से 24 दिल्ली प्रदूषण नियंत्रण समिति के हैं, छह सीपीसीबी के हैं और दो भारतीय मौसम विज्ञान संस्थान, पुणे के हैं।

Editorial: Two views

The Centre must work in tandem with the worse-off states to help them meet the goals and bridge yawning gaps The slide continues. The State of India’s Environment 2021 report, which assessed 17 crucial Sustainable Development Goals for 193 countries, has found that India has slipped two places to occupy a pitiful rank of 117 this year. The SDGs were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to serve as a universal call to action for governments, big businesses and civil society in order to ensure the protection of the planet and provide a life of dignity for all people by the year, 2030. These targets not only recognize that forward movement in one area affects outcomes in others — be they social, economic or environmental sustainability — but also serve as important parameters for assessing the progress made by nations on each of these fronts. Curiously, it appears that appraisals of the same subject need not correspond with one another. For instance, the State of India’s Environment report says that India’s poor performance can be largely attributed to worsening hunger and food security (SDG 2), gender inequality (SDG 5) and the failure to build resilient infrastructure, among other lapses. Strangely, while acknowledging the deficiencies in some of these areas, the third edition of the Niti Aayog’s 2020-21 index on India’s progress on its SDGs speaks, a wee bit cheerfully, of the strides taken in such areas as health, clean energy and urban development. But naysayers have reason to believe that there is more than what meets the eye in this analysis. For example, the Niti Aayog’s register has spotted an improvement in the SDG on inequality over 2019. This perhaps has been possible on account of a shift in methodological goalposts that arguably led to the elimination of several key economic indicators, such as the Gini coefficient that measures the distribution of income, and the growth rate for per capita household expenditure among 40 per cent of rural and urban populations. The dropping of these parameters is likely to provide a skewed picture of wealth inequality in India at a time when such disparities are rising owing to the pandemic. There are, admittedly, points of convergence between the two reports. Among these are the uneven performances of different states on similar parameters. Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have been the consistent performers, with Bihar and Jharkhand bringing up the rear. These stark disparities point to large gaps in governance and investments and the anomalies must be addressed. As such, the unfavourable performances of a handful of states could impede the progress and even the future of India’s federal architecture. The Centre must work in tandem with the worse-off states to help them meet the goals and bridge these yawning gaps.