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View: India and the elusive demographic dividend

India has long been touted as the next big economic growth story after China. One of the primary reasons for that has been its young population. The hope has remained that as the young Indian population enters the working age, it will lead to higher economic growth demographic dividend. The window began in 2018 when the working age population began to grow larger than its dependent population – children aged 14 years or below and people above 65 years of age. It is expected to last for 37 years until 2055. But will India manage to gain through this bulging working population? The link between population changes and economic growth has been a long-standing curiosity. It can be traced back to Thomas Malthus’ infamous treatise from 1798 where he argued that human population had a tendency to outstrip all possible means of subsistence, which keeps the world eternally trapped in poverty. Thus, human population and economic growth were tied in a zero-sum game limited by the availability of food. This observation was true in the world around Malthus as it was constrained by the fixed resources for growing food and slow technological progress. But recent history has proved Malthus wrong. Since the end of the Second World War, global population has more than doubled and the per capita GDP of the world has risen by over five times. The rapid technological progress in the post-Malthusian world has made population an asset rather than a burden. Many Asian economies — including Japan, South Korea, and China — were able to benefit from the rise in their working population. This has been possible in the modern world due to fall in fertility rates through contraceptive usage and increase in life expectancy through scientific advancements in modern medicine. And these Asian economies managed to engage their population in productive employment, which enabled sustained periods of high growth. So, the expectations from India have been immense to reap similar demographic dividends. But the mere existence of technology in the modern world is not sufficient to overcome the Malthusian trap. There are two further prerequisites: ample availability of productive employment and the capability to make use of available technologies. India is lacking on both fronts. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, unemployment levels in India had hit a 45-year high. As of 2017-18, only half of the people in the working age were actually working. In 2004-05, the same proportion was 63.7 per cent. Moreover, the troubled scenario of education and skills is evident from the Pratham surveys that are released each year. In 2018, it showed that just half of the children in the 5th standard could read a text from the 2nd standard. The pandemic has worsened the situation. The latest State of India’s Environment report released by the Centre for Science and Environment finds that an astounding 375 million children may suffer long-lasting impacts due to the pandemic including being underweight and stunted, which will lead to losses in education and economic productivity. Government programmes like mid-day meal schemes, which encouraged school enrolment have taken a hit during the pandemic. Even those students who managed to remain enrolled have face difficulties in accessing education due to the vast digital divides across income groups. As this ‘pandemic generation’ joins the workforce in an economy that is failing to provide adequate employment opportunities to its current strength, India’s chances of levering upon its demographic dividend are soon becoming obscure. There is little to no hope that things will be any different moving forward. The possibility of India falling into a ‘middle-income trap’ are higher than the chances of reaping a demographic dividend. Countries fall into a ‘middle-income trap’ because they easily escape abject poverty in early stages of development through simple mobilization of labour and capital. But once these gains are made, a different level of institutional quality is required. As the economy matures, the need for complex contracts, smooth enforcement, and effective regulation are needed. If institutional capacity is weak to enable these processes, growth stalls.

Is there a link between Covid-19 and climate change?

Dear Editor, The recent Covid-19 surge in India intrigued me to think if climate change contributed to the pandemic. To concur with my curious mind, Time magazine published an article on the same subject. Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director of Research and Advocacy at Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi expressed that impact of the pandemic can be higher in polluted regions where peoples’ lungs have already been weakened due to long term exposure to polluted air, hence making major Indian cities vulnerable. Another paper published in the journal, Cardiovascular Research, found that chronic exposure to particulate matter – a type of pollution that results from a mix of chemicals from sources like smokestacks and fires – is likely linked to some 15% of global COVID-19 deaths. Although particulate matter does not just come from fossil fuels, the study’s authors found that more than 50% of air pollution-linked COVID-19 deaths are specifically connected to fossil-fuel use. Therefore, metropolises experienced rapid spread of virus than suburbs of India. Nature is an integral facet of the human body and has everything to contribute to our wellbeing. People in cities crave for the fresh breath of the countryside. This might sound like nature excursion but there is much truth that the human body is connected to nature. The air and food that we consume determine our health as well. As we thank nature for the fresh air from Guyana’s rich oxygen-laden rainforest, we must make every effort to preserve and protect same to continue to breathe and eat healthy.

India's capital chokes on 'severe' smog

New Delhi was blanketed in noxious haze Friday as air pollution levels in parts of the city soared to "severe" levels, hours after US President Donald Trump described the air in the vast nation as "filthy". Smoke from agricultural burning, vehicle fumes and industrial emissions -- combined with cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds that trap pollutants over the city -- turns air in the Indian capital into a toxic soup every winter. The air quality index at Delhi's 36 pollution monitoring sites -- which monitors tiny PM2.5 and PM10 particles that get into the bloodstream and vital organs -- was between 282 and 446, pushing levels into the "severe" category, the Central Pollution Control Board said. The "good" category is between 0-50, the government's environmental watchdog added. A "significant increase in stubble fire count" to 1,213 in Haryana and Punjab states was the highest of this season and made up 17 percent of Delhi's PM2.5 levels, the state-run System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research added Friday. "Further deterioration of (air quality) is expected for the two days," SAFAR said. This season's burning started earlier because of advanced sowing and harvesting by farmers amid fears of labour shortages during the coronavirus pandemic, officials said. The worsening conditions came as Trump complained that action on climate change was unfair to the US. "Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia, look at India -- it's filthy. The air is filthy," Trump said at his presidential debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden. Scientists warned this year's pollution season would make Delhi's 20 million residents more vulnerable to the coronavirus. "Air pollution increases the risk of noncommunicable diseases -- the same underlying conditions that make people more likely to experience severe illness or death from Covid-19," epidemiologist Sumi Mehta from global non-profit Vital Strategies told AFP. Healthcare systems, stretched by the pandemic, could be further stressed by more hospitalisations from pollution-related illnesses, researchers added. "There are serious worries that during winter when higher air pollution levels in any case worsens respiratory illness and increases hospitalisation, the vulnerability to Covid-19 may be further enhanced," Anumita Roy Chowdhury of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment told AFP. The chief medical officer of Gurugram city near New Delhi, Virender Yadav, told The Times of India Thursday some recovering Covid-19 patients were experiencing a reoccurence of respiratory conditions triggered by the heightened air pollution.

Fossil Fuels, Climate Change and India's COVID-19 Crisis

The surge of COVID-19 cases and the humanitarian crisis now unfolding in India has shocked the world and led to a search for an explanation of how the situation got so bad so fast. Scientists are investigating several factors including new variants and public health officials have pointed to underinvestment in the country’s health system. Undoubtedly, the causes are varied, and as I watched the numbers surge, I began to wonder whether it’s worth considering the role air pollution may be playing. Since the early days of the pandemic, researchers have understood that exposure to polluted air makes people more vulnerable to COVID-19, and India’s megalopolises are among the most polluted in the world. “We understand that the impact of pandemic can be higher in polluted regions where people’s lungs have already been weakened due to long term exposures,” says Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi. “That makes Indian cities vulnerable.” There’s been some research on air pollution and COVID-19 in India specifically, but it’s probably first worth looking at the bigger picture. A slew of studies have shown direct links between exposure to air pollution and vulnerability to COVID-19. One paper published in December in the journal Cardiovascular Research found that chronic exposure to particulate matter—a type of pollution that results from a mix of chemicals that come from sources like smokestacks and fires—is likely linked to some 15% of global COVID-19 deaths. Particulate matter doesn’t just come from fossil fuels, but the study’s authors found that more than 50% of air pollution-linked COVID-19 deaths are specifically connected to fossil-fuel use. A seemingly endless stack of studies has shown the causal links that explain this: extended exposure to air pollution contributes to a range of ailments—from asthma to diabetes—that are risk factors for COVID-19. The research in India is still in early stages, but scientists have already begun to evaluate the local connection. A preliminary study out of Malaviya National Institute of Technology in Jaipur, India found a correlation between COVID-19 cases and air pollution and climatic conditions—like wind and humidity—in Delhi. Another preliminary paper from the World Bank relying on data from India found that a “1 percent increase in long-term exposure to [particulate matter] leads to an increase in COVID-19 deaths by 5.7 percentage points.” The study suggested a range of “urgent” interventions from promoting cleaner fuel sources to reducing pollution in the transportation system that would complement more obvious public health measures like vaccination and mask wearing. “A scientific consensus seems to be emerging that improving air quality may play an important role in overcoming or at least reducing the impacts of the pandemic,” the authors of the World Bank paper wrote. “Research implies that pollution must be limited as much as possible when lockdowns are lifted.” This dynamic is important to understand not only because it helps explain one factor that has worsened the pandemic, but also because it offers a lens into so-called “climate co-benefits”—a key consideration that helps make the case for urgent action on climate change. That term refers to the positive effects beyond carbon dioxide emissions reduction that result from tackling climate change. Co-benefits range from improved soil health (resulting from agricultural practices that reduce carbon emissions) to improved energy security (as a positive outcome of expanding renewable energy sources and reducing reliance on fossil fuel imports). But perhaps no co-benefit is more significant—and more urgent—on a global level than the clean air that results from nixing fossil fuels. In India, for example, chronic exposure to air pollution causes the premature death of more than a million people each year. Hundreds of thousands more are similarly affected in China. Even in the U.S., which has relatively strict environmental standards, more than 100,000 people have been estimated to die prematurely due to particulate matter air pollution every year, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And, in the U.S. and around the world, the burden falls disproportionately on low-income communities of color. Policymakers and scientists have had many a thorny debate about the best ways to account for those co-benefits, but on a purely human level it’s another example of how tackling climate change would save lives—not just 30 years in the future but right now.

Odisha diverts DMF funds to urban areas as mining-affected communities suffer

Odisha is one of the mineral-rich states and has billions of rupees collected under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds which according to the law are to be used for the welfare of the mining-affected communities. -- Instead, the DMF funds are either being used for works that have nothing to do with the welfare of mining-affected communities like the creation of a stadium or diverted for urban areas. -- Experts note that Odisha has more than Rs. 110 billion under the DMF funds but they are yet to find their way to the mining-affected communities. During the latest budget Session of Odisha’s Legislative Assembly, the Odisha government’s Cabinet in March 2021 approved several proposals but the one that raised eyebrows was to use the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds, meant for the mining-affected community in the Sundergarh district, for construction of an international stadium in Rourkela town. The proposed international stadium has been envisioned to host the Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023. This misuse of the DMF funds is not a one-off incident, but there have been many similar trends over the years. In 2017, in the Jharsuguda district, the district administration sanctioned works related to the power supply to the Jharsuguda airport with an investment of more than Rs. 20 crore (Rs. 200 million) squeezed from the DMF funds. In another mining district of Keonjhar, the district administration in 2019-20 sanctioned works for a handball stadium, and invested around Rs 500,000 for a patient facilitation centre for Cuttack-based medical college which is around 200 kilometres away from Keonjhar. In January 2020, the administration of the Sundergarh district bought 25 cars with the DMF funds for them to be used as patrolling vans by the police in Rourkela city, a non-mining affected area. Earlier, even integrated traffic management was sponsored with the DMF funds. In the same district, the DMF funds were also used to construct the boundary walls of the Circuit House. The list of instances where the DMF funds were used for works that had nothing to do with the welfare of the mining-affected communities goes on. This, experts warn, is worrisome because this comes at a time when the state’s own people living in the mining-affected areas are crying for attention and seeking help for basic amenities in their areas after living in poor and vulnerable conditions for decades. This is important because according to the Union Coal and Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi, Odisha has seen the highest collection of Rs. 11,984 crore (RS. 119.84 billion) as DMF collections from the miners operating in the state since the inception of funds in 2015. The Odisha government recently told the state Assembly that the DMF collections in the state are rising in the state. While it was Rs. 395.44 crore (Rs. 3.95 billion) in 2015-2019, in 2019-20 the total annual collections stood at Rs. 3,079.20 crore (Rs. 30.79 billion). Though Odisha has a significant amount of the DMF funds what is probably lacking is the provision of transparency related to their use. For instance, Rule 16 of the Odisha DMF Rules talks about sharing the annual report of the DMF trust on its website but hardly any annual reports have been uploaded online for several years. Odisha’s DMF Rules mandates the usage of 60 percent of the funds in priority areas while 40 percent of them could be used in non-priority areas. The non-priority areas included investments in physical infrastructure, irrigation, energy and watershed development, afforestation and others. Queries sent to P.K. Jena, who is the Odisha government’s secretary for the planning and convergence department, regarding the diversion of DMF funds for other purposes remained unanswered. Pranav Sachdeva, a lawyer with the Supreme Court who has handled many mining cases in the apex court emphasised that Odisha and many states have attempted to dilute the very concept of the DMF funds by diverting it to areas other than the mining-affected areas. “As mining firms grow, the local community impacted by mining does not get any benefit from the money collected … in fact the local environment is impacted too. But the governments often diverts these important resources away from the vulnerable community. They try to use the DMF funds for works where ideally budgetary allocations should have been used. These funds were planned for the upliftment of the affected community for their health, education, livelihood and others and many portions land in urban areas,” he said. The pollution mess in the mining-affected areas of Odisha According to the 2011 Census, about 1.62 million people (50 percent) in the Sundergarh district belong to Scheduled Tribes and many live in rural areas. This area is adjacent to the Chhattisgarh border and known for coal mining and other minerals for decades. But what is consistently ignored is the plight of the communities impacted by mining. For instance, Naresh Meher, a resident of Ratanpur village in Gopalpur panchayat in Sundergarh district, said that people in his village are living in pathetic conditions due to mining taking place about 10 kilometres away. He said that the levels of air pollution, water pollution and sound pollution have taken a huge toll on his village. “Around 3,000 trucks cross our village every day. Thick levels of dust often engulf our standing crops while polluted water is discharged from the handpumps. Several of the citizens here live with skin diseases, cancer and other diseases triggered by mining activities,” said Meher, who himself is tuberculosis (TB) patient. But this is not the end of their poor fate as his village is now listed to be taken away for mining. Social activist Suru Mishra from Sundergarh said that in the Hemgiri block in the district, a stretch of 25 kilometres of road connects the mining centres of Sundergarh with Chhattisgarh and passes through several villages but even then the roads are in extremely bad shape. “You cannot walk on that road. Only trucks and heavy vehicles run on that road. There are very big potholes and the whole stretch gets waterlogged making it very difficult for the local communities to commute or for kids to use that to go to schools,” Mishra told Mongabay-India. Both, Meher and Mishra, said that these areas and many other mining-affected areas need government attention to improve their standards of lives. They also said that the Hemgiri Community Health Centre (CHC) is still deprived of a digital X-ray facility and ultrasound facility and other medical facilities but the government has spent several portions of the DMF funds in boosting the District Headquarter Hospital (DHH), which is in an urban area. The provision of DMF funds – to be collected from miners – were introduced in January 2015 by the government of India through an amendment in the country’s mining laws for all districts affected by mining-related operations. In the Talcher region of the Angul district, the villagers living in areas close to the coal mining and coal washery units are left to suffer from the discharge of untreated water directly into the farmlands of the village. Similarly, in the Bansapal and Joda blocks of the Keonjhar district, the villagers are facing the crisis of polluted groundwater, a result of mining activities. This has also forced many women to walk for miles every day to fetch drinking water. How Odisha’s DMF funds are being diverted for other purposes? Experts working on the issue of mining in Odisha and other states claim that the DMF funds are now easily diverted for other priority areas and urban areas despite it being illegal and mining-affected communities crying for help. Sankar Prasad Pani, a lawyer with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) said, “In districts like Keonjhar, the salaries of doctors are now being paid through the DMF funds which should ideally be coming from the state’s budgetary allocations.” “Collectors find the DMF funds sometimes hard to dispense and thus divert it for numerous urban-centric works. But they are not annual budget funds, they can be accumulated and do not lapse. They can be used when needed. The need is to make priority-based plans to aid the mining-affected people,” he said. Ramesh Agarwal, a leading Indian environmentalist based in Raigarh in Chhattisgarh said, “The rules of DMF have been framed in such a way that the district collector gets the power to sanction the DMF funds with the approval of the local DMF committee. In many states, we have seen diversion of the funds to other areas which is not going to affect the mining hit communities,” A study conducted by the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on the usage of DMF funds in different mining districts of Odisha found that despite lower social and health indicators the allocation of DMF funds on the issue of livelihood and other areas had not been much, say for example in Sundergarh district. “In Sundergarh, one of Odisha’s top mining districts, a negligible Rs. 3 crore (Rs. 30 million) has been provided for child development out of the district’s Rs. 745 crore (Rs. 7.45 billion) sanctions. This is at a time when under five Mortality Rate in rural areas of the district is as high as 67, and nearly 50 percent of the children below this age are victims of stunted growth,” the report said. Srestha Banerjee, Programme Head, International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST), who played a key role in producing the CSE report, said the constitution of the DMF committee in the districts is one of the main problems. “The DMF Committee in the districts have been formed in such a way that the local politicians including the parliamentarians and legislators exert more power in the decision making on the spending of the DMF funds in their areas. The mining laws permit the administration to use part of the DMF funds for administration works, but when the mining hit communities need attention for their upliftment and diversion of these funds to urban areas and for other similar works sounds less logical,” Banerjee told Mongabay-India. She said that livelihood and income generation of the rural poor population living in the mining-affected areas need to get a priority under the DMF fund allocations. She also demanded that the DMF funds should be spent based on priority areas rather than in a haphazard manner as it is happening presently in many mining districts of Odisha.

Fossil Fuels, Climate Change and India’s COVID-19 Crisis

The surge of COVID-19 cases and the humanitarian disaster now unfolding in India has shocked the world and led to a seek for an evidence of how the state of affairs acquired so dangerous so quick. Scientists are investigating a number of components together with new variants and public well being officers have pointed to underinvestment within the nation’s well being system. Undoubtedly, the causes are assorted, and as I watched the numbers surge, I started to wonder if it’s price contemplating the function air air pollution could also be taking part in. Since the early days of the pandemic, researchers have understood that publicity to polluted air makes individuals extra susceptible to COVID-19, and India’s megalopolises are among the many most polluted on this planet. “We perceive that the affect of pandemic might be increased in polluted areas the place individuals’s lungs have already been weakened on account of long run exposures,” says Anumita Roychowdhury, govt director of analysis and advocacy at Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi. “That makes Indian cities susceptible.” There’s been some analysis on air air pollution and COVID-19 in India particularly, however it’s in all probability first price wanting on the larger image. A slew of research have proven direct hyperlinks between publicity to air air pollution and vulnerability to COVID-19. One paper printed in December within the journal Cardiovascular Research discovered that persistent publicity to particulate matter—a kind of air pollution that outcomes from a mixture of chemical compounds that come from sources like smokestacks and fires—is probably going linked to some 15% of world COVID-19 deaths. Particulate matter doesn’t simply come from fossil fuels, however the examine’s authors discovered that greater than 50% of air pollution-linked COVID-19 deaths are particularly related to fossil-fuel use. A seemingly infinite stack of research has proven the causal hyperlinks that designate this: prolonged publicity to air air pollution contributes to a variety of illnesses—from bronchial asthma to diabetes—which can be danger components for COVID-19. The analysis in India remains to be in early levels, however scientists have already begun to judge the native connection. A preliminary study out of Malaviya National Institute of Technology in Jaipur, India discovered a correlation between COVID-19 circumstances and air air pollution and weather conditions—like wind and humidity—in Delhi. Another preliminary paper from the World Bank counting on information from India discovered {that a} “1 p.c enhance in long-term publicity to [particulate matter] results in a rise in COVID-19 deaths by 5.7 share factors.” The examine prompt a variety of “urgent” interventions from selling cleaner gas sources to lowering air pollution within the transportation system that will complement extra apparent public well being measures like vaccination and masks sporting. “A scientific consensus appears to be rising that enhancing air high quality might play an essential function in overcoming or at the least lowering the impacts of the pandemic,” the authors of the World Bank paper wrote. “Research implies that air pollution have to be restricted as a lot as attainable when lockdowns are lifted.” This dynamic is essential to know not solely as a result of it helps clarify one issue that has worsened the pandemic, but in addition as a result of it gives a lens into so-called “local weather co-benefits”—a key consideration that helps make the case for pressing motion on local weather change. That time period refers back to the constructive results past carbon dioxide emissions discount that consequence from tackling local weather change. Co-benefits vary from improved soil well being (ensuing from agricultural practices that scale back carbon emissions) to improved vitality safety (as a constructive consequence of increasing renewable vitality sources and lowering reliance on fossil gas imports). But maybe no co-benefit is extra vital—and extra pressing—on a world degree than the clear air that outcomes from nixing fossil fuels. In India, for instance, persistent publicity to air air pollution causes the untimely dying of greater than one million individuals annually. Hundreds of hundreds extra are equally affected in China. Even within the U.S., which has comparatively strict environmental requirements, greater than 100,000 individuals have been estimated to die prematurely on account of particulate matter air air pollution yearly, in accordance with research printed within the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And, within the U.S. and all over the world, the burden falls disproportionately on low-income communities of coloration. Policymakers and scientists have had many a thorny debate about one of the best methods to account for these co-benefits, however on a purely human degree it’s one other instance of how tackling local weather change would save lives—not simply 30 years sooner or later however proper now.

राष्ट्रीय स्तरीय ग्रामीण पत्रकारिता प्रशिक्षण में बिकास ने लिया भाग

रायपुर (वीएनएस)। युवा पत्रकार बिकास के शर्मा ने भारत सरकार के ग्रामीण विकास मंत्रालय के अधीन शोध और शैक्षणिक संस्था नेशनल इंस्टिट्यूट ऑफ़ रूरल डेवलपमेंट एंड पंचायती राज हैदराबाद से आयोजित ‘ग्रामीण विकास के मुद्दे और पत्रकारिता’ विषय पर सप्ताहव्यापी प्रशिक्षण कार्यशाला में भाग लिया। कार्यक्रम संयोजक डॉ आकांक्षा शुक्ला ने बताया कि 26 अप्रैल से 2 मई तक आयोजित उक्त कार्यक्रम का आयोजन संस्थान के हैदराबाद स्थित कैंपस में होना था। किन्तु कोरोना महामारी की दूसरी लहर को देखते हुए विडियो कॉन्फ़्रेंसिंग से प्रशिक्षण सफलतापूर्वक संपन्न हुआ। श्री शर्मा के अलावा देशभर से आई 480 प्रविष्टियों में से कुल 23 प्रतिभागियों का चयन किया गया। जिसमें पत्रकार, सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता, मीडिया और ग्रामीण विकास के मुद्दों पर काम कर रहे शोधार्थियों ने भाग लिया और ग्रामीण विकास के मुद्दे जैसे कि डिजिटल इंडिया, मनरेगा, पंचायती राज संस्थाओं एवं स्थानीय निकायों की कार्यशैलियों, महिला शिशु स्वास्थ्य सहित कोरोना काल के दौर में पत्रकारों के समक्ष चुनौतियां सहित दो दर्जन विषयों पर विशेषज्ञों ने और प्रतिभागियों ने अपनी राय रखी। कोरोना की लहर ख़त्म होते ही सभी प्रतिभागियों को हैदराबाद बुलाकर प्रमाणपत्र और स्मृति चिन्ह सम्मान स्वरूप भेंट किया जायेगा। गौरतलब हो कि माखनलाल चतुर्वेदी राष्ट्रीय पत्रकारिता विश्वविद्यालय भोपाल से जनसंचार में स्नातकोत्तर श्री शर्मा को पूर्व में इंटरनेशनल सेंटर फॉर जर्नलिस्ट अमरीका, सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड एनवायरनमेंट नई दिल्ली की फ़ेलोशिप सहित अन्य उपलब्धियां मिल चुकी हैं।

Chronic Life Style Disease Cancer Diabetes Others

Chronic diseases represent long term non communicable medical conditions that are generally progressive. the contribution of most of the major non communicable disease groups to the total disease burden has increased all over india since 1990, including cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, asthma, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health and neurological disorders, cancers. Results: the life expectancy free of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer at age 50 was 23.7 years (95% confidence interval 22.6 to 24.7) for women who adopted no low risk lifestyle factors, in contrast to 34.4 years (33.1 to 35.5) for women who adopted four or five low risk factors. at age 50, the life expectancy free of any of these. As people live longer, a greater number will suffer and die from a chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes. many factors, including gender, race, personality traits, social ties and cognitive habits, influence how they fare. Addiction is a chronic disease similar to other chronic diseases such as type ii diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. human studies of addictive behaviors have clearly implicated both environmental and genetic influences, as well as interactions between the two. Noncommunicable diseases (ncds), also known as chronic diseases, are not passed from person to person. they are of long duration and generally slow progression. the four main types of noncommunicable diseases are cardiovascular diseases (like heart attacks and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes. Chronic diseases have significant health and economic costs in the united states. preventing chronic diseases, or managing symptoms when prevention is not possible, can reduce these costs. alzheimer’s disease, a type of dementia, is an irreversible, progressive brain disease that affects about 5.7. Lifestyle diseases can be defined as diseases linked with ones lifestyle. lifestyle diseases are non communicable diseases.they are caused by lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating, alcohol, substance use disorders and smoking tobacco, which can lead to heart disease, stroke, obesity, type ii diabetes and lung cancer. 4 healthy lifestyle factors help ward off chronic disease. diet, exercise, low body mass index and not smoking can reduce the incidence of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer duke med health news . doctor highlights the power of lifestyle & diet in combating diabetes & cardiovascular disease, cancer and other lifestyle related chronic diseases is the topic watch doctor unmesh korde guide you on the preventive measures one can adopt to save from the lifestyle diseases full interview lifestyle can have a huge impact on preventing and managing the chronic disease that are the leading causes of death and disability, be they heart disease, this lifestyle correction approach is beneficial for a large number of chronic lifestyle diseases including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, a disease associated with the way a person or group of people live their life, the in appropriate lifestyle lead to increases the chances of a person attacked by risk factors are things that increase the chance that a person will develop a certain disease. lots of these are lifestyle choices that we make everyday. learn the the better approach to preventing chronic diseases harnesses high level evidence based strategies, resources, and tools. better focuses on those chronic katerina maximova received training in chronic disease epidemiology at mcgill university and has been involved in primary prevention of chronic disease a new report from the centre for science and environment shows that lifestyle diseases or non communicable diseases are responsible for more than 61 percent.

Time to Take On the Increasing Air Pollution in Indian Cities

The World Air Quality Report released on March 17 places New Delhi as the world’s most polluted capital for the third year in a row. 14 of the 15 most polluted cities in the world are in India, while China, Pakistan and Bangladesh have only two each. This is not the first study on rising air pollution in Indian cities. Every year one or the other international organisation releases a report on the hazardous air here, but instead of making efforts to reduce the pollution, an even more urgent concern given the pandemic, the Indian and state governments avoid it every time by making excuses. On April 28 an international team of scientists from the UK, Belgium, Jamaica and India released their findings on rising air pollution in a number of cities in India, including Delhi. The study used observations from satellite instruments to estimate trends in a range of air pollutants between 2005 and 2018. According to the study, the amount of PM2.5 and nitrogen oxide particles, both hazardous to health, has been steadily increasing in Delhi and Kanpur, while these pollutants have been declining in London and Birmingham over the same period, reflecting the success of policies targeting sources that emit these pollutants. The study also found formaldehyde among the air pollutants, which scientists had never mentioned in the earlier studies. The presence of formaldehyde in the air in Delhi, Kanpur, London, and Birmingham took them by surprise. According to researchers, formaldehyde emissions in London and Birmingham come from personal care and cleaning products and a range of other household sources, while in India it comes from vehicles as well. Increasing air pollution adversely affects the health of all kinds of flora and fauna including human beings. According to the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative, 1.7 million people died in India due to air pollution during 2019. A 2020 report by Greenpeace Southeast Asia estimates 54,000 people died of airborne diseases in Delhi alone last year. Air pollution killed 25,000 people in Mumbai, 12,000 in Bangalore, 11,000 in Hyderabad and 11,000 in Chennai. The worst effects of air pollution are on children's health. According to a study by researchers from AIIMS, Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital and Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, increasing levels of air pollution increase the likelihood of lung and respiratory diseases in children 3 to 5 years old by 21 to 28 per cent. Air pollution causes premature death of the urban poor. According to a recent report released by the University of Birmingham, more than 46,000 poor people in Delhi often sleep on the sidewalks after the day’s work due to the lack of public accommodation and inflation of rent. Many also work in the most polluted places like industries, thermal plants, construction sites due to which they die prematurely because of exposure to toxic air. Despite so many deaths, curtailed or unhealthy lives spent in suffering, our Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had made a statement in 2019 that no research shows that Indians die from air pollution. Maria Neira, director of the World Health Organization, responded to Javadekar's statement at a meeting in Madrid, quoting it satirically at the 25th COP conference, saying how good it would be if Indians were not affected by air pollution, but alas! this is not the truth. Air pollution also affects the economy of each country. The Greenpeace Southeast Asia analysis found that of 28 cities around the world Delhi suffered the most economic losses from air pollution at Rs.58,895 crore in 2020, Mumbai has lost about 26,000 crore, Bangalore 12,000 crore, Hyderabad 11,000 crore and Chennai Rs.10,000 crore. Air pollution also comes at a heavy cost to society. People are forced to spend millions of rupees treating lung and respiratory diseases as well as heart and skin diseases. Many people lose their relatives and friends to them, which is a never ending social loss. The main causes of air pollution in Delhi are the increasing number of vehicles and industries, construction work, burning garbage dumps, thermal plants, dust on the roads, burning of crop residues in the northern states, the annual winter fires and fumes, and firecrackers during Diwali. Our governments need to take four measures to reduce air pollution here. First they should enforce a ban on the use of firecrackers on religious occasions or weddings and take legal action against violators. Second, the Union government should provide machinery to farmers at affordable rates to protect Delhi from crop residue smoke pollution, and help Punjab, Haryana and other states to adopt a cropping pattern suitable to their agro-climatic conditions. Third, it should enact serious and strict enforcement of environmental laws to reduce pollution from sources such as industries, power plants, construction sites, garbage dumps, brick kilns, etc. located in Delhi. At the time of first lockdown Covid-19 the government was forced to shut down industries and private vehicles, leaving the skies clear. While farmers in Punjab and Haryana were still harvesting their crops and burning crop residues, this didn’t increase air pollution levels at the time. Therefore, the state and union governments should take legal action against industries that do not comply with environmental regulations. The rules set by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2015 should be strictly enforced on coal-fired thermal plants that emit large amounts of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and PM10 and PM2.5 particles into the atmosphere on a daily basis. Owners of these thermal plants made a writ petition to the Supreme Court to relax these environmental regulations in 2015 and they were granted relief till 2022. According to a report by the Center for Science and Environment, currently only 2 out of 12 thermal plants meet environmental regulations. Such laxity on the part of the government is responsible for the rapid pollution of Delhi's environment, and the deaths and sickness of large numbers of people. Governments and businesses should also use modern technology to deal with the piles of garbage. Strict adherence to environment friendly rules should also be enforced on construction sites. Our governments also have a large role to play in making public transport more efficient, which will reduce the number of private vehicles on the roads. In the medium term, the use of coal and other fossil fuels for power generation should be stopped completely so that Delhi and other cities in India can be free from air pollution, an invisible poison that is devouring thousands of lives every day.

Odisha diverts DMF funds to urban areas as mining-affected communities suffer

Odisha is one of the mineral-rich states and has billions of rupees collected under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds which according to the law are to be used for the welfare of the mining-affected communities. Instead, the DMF funds are either being used for works that have nothing to do with the welfare of mining-affected communities like the creation of a stadium or diverted for urban areas. Experts note that Odisha has more than Rs. 110 billion under the DMF funds but they are yet to find their way to the mining-affected communities. During the latest budget Session of Odisha’s Legislative Assembly, the Odisha government’s Cabinet in March 2021 approved several proposals but the one that raised eyebrows was to use the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds, meant for the mining-affected community in the Sundergarh district, for construction of an international stadium in Rourkela town. The proposed international stadium has been envisioned to host the Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023. This misuse of the DMF funds is not a one-off incident, but there have been many similar trends over the years. In 2017, in the Jharsuguda district, the district administration sanctioned works related to the power supply to the Jharsuguda airport with an investment of more than Rs. 20 crore (Rs. 200 million) squeezed from the DMF funds. In another mining district of Keonjhar, the district administration in 2019-20 sanctioned works for a handball stadium, and invested around Rs 500,000 for a patient facilitation centre for Cuttack-based medical college which is around 200 kilometres away from Keonjhar. In January 2020, the administration of the Sundergarh district bought 25 cars with the DMF funds for them to be used as patrolling vans by the police in Rourkela city, a non-mining affected area. Earlier, even integrated traffic management was sponsored with the DMF funds. In the same district, the DMF funds were also used to construct the boundary walls of the Circuit House. The list of instances where the DMF funds were used for works that had nothing to do with the welfare of the mining-affected communities goes on. This, experts warn, is worrisome because this comes at a time when the state’s own people living in the mining-affected areas are crying for attention and seeking help for basic amenities in their areas after living in poor and vulnerable conditions for decades. This is important because according to the Union Coal and Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi, Odisha has seen the highest collection of Rs. 11,984 crore (RS. 119.84 billion) as DMF collections from the miners operating in the state since the inception of funds in 2015. The Odisha government recently told the state Assembly that the DMF collections in the state are rising in the state. While it was Rs. 395.44 crore (Rs. 3.95 billion) in 2015-2019, in 2019-20 the total annual collections stood at Rs. 3,079.20 crore (Rs. 30.79 billion). Though Odisha has a significant amount of the DMF funds what is probably lacking is the provision of transparency related to their use. For instance, Rule 16 of the Odisha DMF Rules talks about sharing the annual report of the DMF trust on its website but hardly any annual reports have been uploaded online for several years. Odisha’s DMF Rules mandates the usage of 60 percent of the funds in priority areas while 40 percent of them could be used in non-priority areas. The non-priority areas included investments in physical infrastructure, irrigation, energy and watershed development, afforestation and others. Queries sent to P.K. Jena, who is the Odisha government’s secretary for the planning and convergence department, regarding the diversion of DMF funds for other purposes remained unanswered. Pranav Sachdeva, a lawyer with the Supreme Court who has handled many mining cases in the apex court emphasised that Odisha and many states have attempted to dilute the very concept of the DMF funds by diverting it to areas other than the mining-affected areas. “As mining firms grow, the local community impacted by mining does not get any benefit from the money collected … in fact the local environment is impacted too. But the governments often diverts these important resources away from the vulnerable community. They try to use the DMF funds for works where ideally budgetary allocations should have been used. These funds were planned for the upliftment of the affected community for their health, education, livelihood and others and many portions land in urban areas,” he said. The pollution mess in the mining-affected areas of Odisha According to the 2011 Census, about 1.62 million people (50 percent) in the Sundergarh district belong to Scheduled Tribes and many live in rural areas. This area is adjacent to the Chhattisgarh border and known for coal mining and other minerals for decades. But what is consistently ignored is the plight of the communities impacted by mining. For instance, Naresh Meher, a resident of Ratanpur village in Gopalpur panchayat in Sundergarh district, said that people in his village are living in pathetic conditions due to mining taking place about 10 kilometres away. He said that the levels of air pollution, water pollution and sound pollution have taken a huge toll on his village. “Around 3,000 trucks cross our village every day. Thick levels of dust often engulf our standing crops while polluted water is discharged from the handpumps. Several of the citizens here live with skin diseases, cancer and other diseases triggered by mining activities,” said Meher, who himself is tuberculosis (TB) patient. But this is not the end of their poor fate as his village is now listed to be taken away for mining. Social activist Suru Mishra from Sundergarh said that in the Hemgiri block in the district, a stretch of 25 kilometres of road connects the mining centres of Sundergarh with Chhattisgarh and passes through several villages but even then the roads are in extremely bad shape. “You cannot walk on that road. Only trucks and heavy vehicles run on that road. There are very big potholes and the whole stretch gets waterlogged making it very difficult for the local communities to commute or for kids to use that to go to schools,” Mishra told Mongabay-India. Both, Meher and Mishra, said that these areas and many other mining-affected areas need government attention to improve their standards of lives. They also said that the Hemgiri Community Health Centre (CHC) is still deprived of a digital X-ray facility and ultrasound facility and other medical facilities but the government has spent several portions of the DMF funds in boosting the District Headquarter Hospital (DHH), which is in an urban area. The provision of DMF funds – to be collected from miners – were introduced in January 2015 by the government of India through an amendment in the country’s mining laws for all districts affected by mining-related operations. In the Talcher region of the Angul district, the villagers living in areas close to the coal mining and coal washery units are left to suffer from the discharge of untreated water directly into the farmlands of the village. Similarly, in the Bansapal and Joda blocks of the Keonjhar district, the villagers are facing the crisis of polluted groundwater, a result of mining activities. This has also forced many women to walk for miles every day to fetch drinking water. How Odisha’s DMF funds are being diverted for other purposes? Experts working on the issue of mining in Odisha and other states claim that the DMF funds are now easily diverted for other priority areas and urban areas despite it being illegal and mining-affected communities crying for help. Sankar Prasad Pani, a lawyer with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) said, “In districts like Keonjhar, the salaries of doctors are now being paid through the DMF funds which should ideally be coming from the state’s budgetary allocations.” “Collectors find the DMF funds sometimes hard to dispense and thus divert it for numerous urban-centric works. But they are not annual budget funds, they can be accumulated and do not lapse. They can be used when needed. The need is to make priority-based plans to aid the mining-affected people,” he said. Ramesh Agarwal, a leading Indian environmentalist based in Raigarh in Chhattisgarh said, “The rules of DMF have been framed in such a way that the district collector gets the power to sanction the DMF funds with the approval of the local DMF committee. In many states, we have seen diversion of the funds to other areas which is not going to affect the mining hit communities,” A study conducted by the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on the usage of DMF funds in different mining districts of Odisha found that despite lower social and health indicators the allocation of DMF funds on the issue of livelihood and other areas had not been much, say for example in Sundergarh district. “In Sundergarh, one of Odisha’s top mining districts, a negligible Rs. 3 crore (Rs. 30 million) has been provided for child development out of the district’s Rs. 745 crore (Rs. 7.45 billion) sanctions. This is at a time when under five Mortality Rate in rural areas of the district is as high as 67, and nearly 50 percent of the children below this age are victims of stunted growth,” the report said. Srestha Banerjee, Programme Head, International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST), who played a key role in producing the CSE report, said the constitution of the DMF committee in the districts is one of the main problems. “The DMF Committee in the districts have been formed in such a way that the local politicians including the parliamentarians and legislators exert more power in the decision making on the spending of the DMF funds in their areas. The mining laws permit the administration to use part of the DMF funds for administration works, but when the mining hit communities need attention for their upliftment and diversion of these funds to urban areas and for other similar works sounds less logical,” Banerjee told Mongabay-India. She said that livelihood and income generation of the rural poor population living in the mining-affected areas need to get a priority under the DMF fund allocations. She also demanded that the DMF funds should be spent based on priority areas rather than in a haphazard manner as it is happening presently in many mining districts of Odisha.

Will Trump S America Crash Earth S Climate Darrin Qualman

Will trump’s america crash earth’s climate? this year’s report, entitled annual energy outlook 2018, with projections to 2050 forecasts a nightmare scenario of increasing fossil fuel use, increasing emissions, lackluster adoption of renewable energy options, and a failure to shift to electric vehicles, even by mid century. Will trump’s america crash earth’s climate? us energy consumption by fuel, 1990 to 2050 darrin qualman, the name of this blog, graphic descriptions, at the. Darrin qualman worked as director of research for the national farmers union from 1996 to 2010. will trump’s america crash earth’s climate?. Darrin qualman is a writer, researcher, and speaker who lives on a farm near saskatoon, saskatchewan. posted on february 13, 2018 may 8, 2018 will trump’s america crash earth’s climate?. These two questions are the focus of a new report written by darrin qualman in collaboration with the national farmers union (nfu). the report is entitled tackling the farm crisis and the climate crisis: a transformative strategy for canadian farms and food systems and it’s available from the nfu website . The proposed climate “solutions” of the green new deal and the biden administration’s climate and energy executive orders is a threat to u.s. national security as the plan would only serve to shrink u.s. energy production and increase our dependence on middle eastern oil and force us to rely on energy from other potentially hostile nations, which could increase the odds of future wars. Breaking news and analysis on politics, business, world national news, entertainment more. in depth dc, virginia, maryland news coverage including traffic, weather, crime, education, restaurant. Qualman said there is "massive change coming" to canada's prairies, which will be "incredibly destructive." "it's not going too far to say that if we made that happen, parts of the prairies wouldn. a lot has happened since donald trump became president. here is one presidential term, as told through climate change. #climate #president #climatechange president trump withdraws from the paris climate accord, making the u.s. one of three nations on earth to not participate in the deal. watch full episodes of the references learn more: july 2016 is hottest on record: climate.nasa.gov news 2479 nasa analysis finds july 2016 is warmest on record noaa's state of in his editorial new rule, bill encourages president trump to become an eco warrior and take up the fight against climate change. connect with real time according to a report from the national bureau of economic research, there might be a correlation between sea level rise and risk in the housing and mortgage sign up for an annual curiositystream subscription and also get a free nebula subscription (the new streaming platform built by creators) here: national farmers union director of climate crisis policy and action, darrin qualman speaks to region 1 members about farming and climate change. today we're going to talk about climate change which is when there is a change in the average weather patterns in a region over a long period of time these join centre for science and environment (cse) for a discussion on the us election results and what it may mean for climate negotiations and action in the near us president donald trump has downplayed the climate change threat and suggest that global warming will reverse on its own. trump was responding to

Delhi battling dual crises of pollution and coronavirus

NEW DELHI: India’s capital is reeling from the double impact of the coronavirus and severe air pollution, New Delhi’s chief minister warned on Thursday, as the megacity reported a record jump in cases and its worst smog in a year. With fears growing about rising infections, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also banned firecrackers from being used this month during Diwali, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar. The air quality index — measuring the tiny particles which enter the bloodstream and vital organs — was at its most dangerous since last November, according to the state-run System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR). The toxic haze blanketing Delhi, which regularly turns the city of 20 million people into the world’s most-polluted, came as officials late on Wednesday reported a new daily-high of 6,842 virus infections in the capital. And the filthy air is actually driving more cases of COVID-19, Kejriwal told an online briefing. “The corona situation is worsening because of pollution,” he said, echoing medical analysis which says existing illnesses caused by poor air quality could make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said: “Some global studies have already shown how the effect of the pandemic is higher in more polluted regions.” And Santosh Harish, at the Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, said: “Evidence from previous related infections and emerging research suggest that pollution exposure could increase severity of the infection, and the transmission of the virus.” MORE CROP BURNING Kejriwal blamed the choking smoke on agricultural burning, saying regional state governments were not helping farmers to find alternative ways to clear their fields. “We will come together to celebrate Diwali without crackers. If we burst crackers, we are affecting the lives of our family and our children,” he added. The cracker frenzy usually turns Delhi’s grey winter skies into a putrid yellow. Every winter, Delhi is blanketed by haze from a build-up of vehicle fumes, industrial emissions and smoke from agricultural fires in regions around the capital. — AFP

This IITM start-up's solar-powered device can turn plastic waste, PPE into usable furnace oil

Plastic waste is a serious problem in India. According to the Central Pollution Control Board, a total of 3.3 million metric tonnes of plastic waste is generated every year. The Centre for Science and Environment states that India's plastic waste generation is growing at an alarming rate every year. As such, it is impertinent that a method should be developed to either recycle these large quantities of plastic waste or at least dispose of them in an eco-friendly manner. It was with this intention that a team of women scientists from IIT Madras, all professors, post-docs or research scholars, which included civil engineering professor Indumathi M Nambi, participated in the Carbon Zero Challenge in 2017 to pitch their business idea related to controlling plastic waste. Soon after, they founded Samudhyoga Waste Chakra, which is now incubated at the institute's incubation cell and is using a patent-pending technology of decentralised, solar-powered pyrolysis to tackle up to 250 kg of plastic daily. To address water scarcity, the start-up has launched Ecofert, through which they collect urine from the urinals at the IIT Madras campus and treat it to isolate nitrogen and phosphorus. The rest of the urine is electrochemically treated and used for gardening and fertilisation of the campus Today, Samudhyoga Waste Chakra is run by several post-doc researchers and PhD students of IIT Madras with Sriram Narasimhan as the Director. "The pyrolysis device has been optimised for the last two years to ensure that maximum amount of plastic waste can be processed at any given point of time," says Sriram. "We have used various types of plastics — from FMCG, municipal waste and biomedical waste — and even realised that the device can also process PPE kits, the disposal of which is now of paramount importance," he adds. So how does the machine work? "The waste plastic, in the presence of catalysts, is heated up to a temperature of 400°C. The plastic breaks down and is finally converted into usable furnace oil, a hydrocarbon liquid with a lot of energy, equivalent to diesel," explains Sriram. If it's scaled up, Sriram says, it can necessarily be operated simultaneously at different locations for different types of plastics to ensure that it generates optimal output of the diesel-like oil. "The first unit will soon be installed at one of the Greater Chennai Corporation's locations. We are also in talks with corporations of Mumbai and Pune for installing this unit in multiple locations," says Sriram. Since the machine can be installed in multiple locations, this can significant reduce building and transportation cost too, explains Sriram.

Envisioning India: India's Environmental Challenges and the Impact of COVID

This session with India’s leading environmentalist Sunita Narain will highlight findings of the State of India’s Environment 2021 the most comprehensive report on India’s environment produced by 60 notable experts in the subject in India by the Down To Earth magazine at the Centre for Science and the Environment. It has three special sections: an assessment of the pandemic and its impacts a year after, a data analysis of how India’s states are faring on environment and development parameters, and a tribute to the decade of biodiversity. This event is co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University.

Microbes – the Spades of Industrial Wastewater Treatment

“It is the Microbes who will have the last laugh”. Louis Pasteur had this vision way back in the 1850s, 80 years before the Spanish flu epidemic and these words have stood true in each and every pandemic since then, including the current pandemic. It is currently an undeniable fact that it is the Microbes that are having the last laugh as they are the ones who are a major Cause and Cure in this pandemic too. The word ‘microbe’ itself is very paradoxical in nature since Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first discovered them in the 1670s. While Louis Pasteur blamed them for food spoilage with the introduction of ‘pasteurisation’, to the 1870s when Robert Koch busted them for causing diseases such as tuberculosis, Cholera, Anthrax etc. While various discoveries have occurred around the world, our own country ‘India’ should not be forgotten, where discussion about microbe’s dates back to the 6th century BC, where they are mentioned in Jain scriptures by Lord Mahavira himself calling them ‘Nigodas’, to our current situation where Indians rely heavily on microbes for food too, from our yogurts to cottage cheese to pickles and whatnot. But the great irony lies with the fact that these same microbes still require much greater attention, especially in Industrial wastewater treatment. India is one of the top industrial wastewater producers, still requires a large-scale up gradation in technology. Industrial Waste Water Treatment Current Scenario (Global): Industrial Wastewater is now being recognized as a potential resource for economic and social benefits. A growing movement to reduce wastewater and treat the wastewater before discharge has been brought about by environmental and societal pressures. A wastewater study estimates that a 49.0m3/yr per capita of wastewater is produced annually with industrial wastewater treatment estimated at around 188.1×10m3/yr. Estimated wastewater that is discharged into the environment is 171.3×109 m3 /yr with it flowing directly into the environment without any previous treatment. Collection rates of wastewater are estimated at 63%. 52% of this collected wastewater is treated, out of which 84% undergoes industrial wastewater treatment. The highest collection rates of 88% and treatment rates of 86% are found in Western Europe with the lowest collection and treatment rates of 31% and 16% respectively found in South Asia. Rates of collection of industrial wastewater treatment have been seen to reduce with the income level of an area from high, upper level, upper-middle, lower-middle and to low-income level classifications. Industrial Wastewater Treatment Current Scenario (India): Currently, India’s capacity to treat its industrial wastewater is at 37% with approximately 22,963 million litres per day (MLD). India also faces a requirement to treat a daily sewage generation of approximately 61,754 MLD according to the 2015 report of the Central Pollution Control Board. The cost of setting up Industrial wastewater treatment plants and restructuring the sewerage systems has been identified as one of the major challenges faced in India. The Centre for Science and Environment estimates setting up and building costs for an industrial wastewater treatment plant at Rs. 1 crore/million litres of wastewater. Apart from these one of the biggest issues is the current mentality and lack of awareness and stringent measures of strictness from the government. Although CPCB and NGT are now on their toes and have become much more intolerant when it comes to water quality, the biggest slack is in the awareness of the proper treatment process for a particular type of industry. Though there is a significant increase in the investment for industrial wastewater treatment and a huge number of increases in companies providing such solutions but still industry-specific and problem-oriented solutions are way too far to reach. When we focus on industries with an effluent substrate where biological processes should control the majority of the treatment part, people are still beating around the bush due to lack of proper guidance, unawareness, orthodox thinking like all microbes are pathogens only, and reluctance. For proper hardware to work a strong software is needed, and for industrial wastewater treatment, the ETP/STP plants are the hardware and the microbes are the software. Microbes have always been underrated in terms of wastewater, but they are spades in it cause right from saving your money in expensive machinery to maintaining the health of your system, along with giving you smooth operations for ETP they give you everything.