Global Warming

   Global Warming

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation. The global average air temperature near the Earth's surface raised 0.74 ± 0.18°C during the last 100 years. The delay in reaching equilibrium is a result of the large heat capacity of the oceans. Increasing global temperatures will cause sea level to rise, and is expected to increase the intensity of extreme weather events and to change the amount and pattern of precipitation.

Other effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, trade routes, glacier retreat, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors. Remaining scientific uncertainties include the amount of warming expected in the future, and how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. There is ongoing political and public debate worldwide regarding what, if any, action should be taken to reduce or reverse future warming or to adapt to its expected consequences.

Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The term "global warming" is a specific example of the broader term climate change, which can also refer to global cooling. In common usage, the term refers to recent warming and implies a human influence. The detailed causes of the recent warming remain an active field of research, but the scientific consensus identifies elevated levels of greenhouse gases due to human activity as the main influence.

This attribution is clearest for the most recent 50 years, for which the most detailed data are available. None of the effects of forcing are instantaneous. Climatic studies indicate that even if greenhouse gases were stabilized at 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.5°C would still occur. The effects of forcing agents on the climate are complicated by various feedback processes. Since water vapor itself acts as a greenhouse gas, this cause still more warming; the warming causes more water vapor to be evaporated, and so forth until a new dynamic equilibrium concentration of water vapor is reached with a much larger greenhouse effect than that due to CO, alone

Changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation may result in flooding and drought. There may also be changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme warming like changes in rainfall patterns, increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, are being attributed in part to global warming. While changes are expected for overall patterns, intensity, and frequencies, it is difficult to attribute specific events to global warming.

Other expected effects include water scarcity in some regions and increased precipitation in others, changes in mountain snow pack, and adverse health effects from warmer temperatures. Increasing deaths, displacements, and economic losses projected due to extreme weather attributed to global warming may be exacerbated by growing population densities in affected areas. One study predicts 18% to 35% animal and plant species would be extinct by 2050, based on future climate projections however, few mechanistic studies have documented extinctions due to recent climate change.

It is for us to now take extreme measures to protect nature, if we have to ensure our future generations live a good and safe life. Avoiding pollution increment and carbon dioxide emissions can help in the cause. We must all work together for a better world to stay in.

e-Governance Initiatives in India

   e-Governance Initiatives in India

The government in India has been continuously endeavoring to provide citizen services in a better manner. There have been several successful initiatives and many noteworthy projects have undertaken in various states of India.

The present work tries to study the various e-government projects across India with a view to explore the nature of implementation of these projects, and benefits from them to citizens. Some of the successful initiatives are: Gyandoot, e-seva, SETU and SUDA. Th first such project to gain prominence is Gyandoot in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Gyandoot, arguabl has more services under its ambit than other projects.

Gyandoot is an intranet connecting rural cyber cafes catering to the needs of citizens. The present scope of the project is limited to land records and the immediate needs of the citizens that can be fulfilled at local government level.

The success of the Gyandoot project is due to: Single window facility for the citizens to avail the information, Empowered of citizens, a model for public-private partnership in providing the e-governance service to the citizen and for facilitating entrepreneurship among the rural mass through ownership of the information kiosks

To develop the area in a well-planned manner, SUDA was formed in Jan, 1978 under Gujarat Tow Planning and Urban Development Act - 1976, which covers Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and 72 km area of 148 villages surrounding SMC.

To provide public amenities like water supply and underground drainage to the areas under SUDA jurisdiction, SUDA has assigned the experts a task to prepare repo on such works. Under the Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976, SUDA needs t revise its development plans every decade.

In order to follow this, SUDA reviewed the future requirement of 2011 and prepared a revised development plan and presented it to the government on Feb, 29, 199 for its approval. SUDA is involved in overall development of Surat. Thus SUDA plays an important role the overall future development. E-Sewa is the first major initiative in the country to employ information technology as a tool to improve services for citizens. The Andhra Pradesh government launched the e sewa programme to provide integrated services to citizens of the state.

The e-sewa center is a one-stop shop for more than 30 government-to-consumer (G2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) services. Fran payment of electricity, water and telephone bills to the issue of birth and death certificates, permits is licenses, reservation of bus tickets and receipt of passport applications, the e-sewa centers offer a wide range of services under one roof.

Internet services like Internet-enabled electronic payments, downloading of forms and government orders and filing of applications on the Web are also offered.

The e-sewa centers function seven days week. E-sewa is an extension and renamed version of "Twin Cities Network Services Project" (TWINS; which was launched in November 1999 to focus on the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

SETU (meaning "Bridge" in local language) or the Citizen Facilitation Centre has been set up by government of Maharashtra in the city of Aurangabad (population 1 million approx) as a one-stop service centre for citizens who have to visit government offices for certificates, permits, authentication, affidavit and other services.

The Centre attempts, through the use of ICT, to reduce the visit of citizens from office to another and prevent the functioning of touts, while providing greater transparency, accessibly and efficiency to the procedures in decision making.

Key stakeholders are the general public, especially farmers, laborers, small entrepreneurs and students who require certificates and permits. Other stakeholders are the NGOs, and government officials. SETU can be adjudged a partial success at present.

The Centre has been successful in introducing transparency into official procedures, and in increasing the efficiency of the delivery mechanism for completed applications. However, the constraint is in preparing a complete application, since it requires the support of many documents that are issued by other offices at lower (sub-district or block or village) level and these offices still have the old procedures. It is not possible to comment on the efficacy of SETU since only the top end of the process chain has been impacted.

In the state of Kerala in South India, FRIENDS (Fast, Reliable, Instant, and Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services) centers provide a one-stop, front-end, IT-enabled payment counter facility for the government payments to be made by citizens. FRIENDS is a front-end solution now i.e., it is a counter automation as opposed to a process improvement project, since the back-end computerization is yet to be completed.

The counters are equipped to handle approximately 1,000 types of payments due to public sector departments/agencies viz., utility payments for electricity and water, revenue taxes, license fees, motor vehicle taxes, university fees, etc.

The project can be considered successful, considering the direct and indirect benefits and win-win situation provided to both government and citizens.

The front-end first approach has been proven as a method of providing the services to citizens without waiting for the complete chain to be complete. However, this will not be real e-governance if the internal systems are structured to make the system smooth.

Seen in this light, FRIENDS is not a complete success as e-governance project since it is not yet addressing the governance issues.

Global Energy Crisis

   Global Energy Crisis

The growth of human being has travelled a long journey. It was the greatest achievement of primitive man when he discovered fire with the help of a stone. With this human history moved very fast.

Later on a number discoveries and inventions were made which changed human life completely. Energy is such a great invention which made our life more and more comfortable. It has become most needed necessity for us. It has created a crisis also.

In the industrially advanced world of today, the demand for energy is increasing day by day. We have machines and factories, we have buses, cars, trains and planes, we have ships and sub marines.

Energy is needed to run them. But this is not all. Man is hankering for a cosy and comfortable life. Hence he has become a little but lazy. He does not like even to wind his watch. So, energy is being used for running clocks and watches, typewriters, shaving razors and many more things. It seems as if everything will be paralysed if there is no energy.

Wood, later on coal was the first source of energy then came oil and passing through the stage of atomic energy, man is now looking forward to solar energy.

We are naturally anxious to think about our future because we know the bitter truth that a day will ultimately come when we have no more coal or oil. It will mean energy crisis, for which we ourselves are responsible. People who have made careful calculation feel that at present level of exploitation, the coal deposit will last till 2080 and it is also true that poor quality coal with the carbon content of 40 percent only, is not condusive for electricity generation.

It is also very difficult to harness the uneven distribution of coal. Hence man is on look out for other sources of energy. Our present hope seems to rest on nuclear power Nuclear energy can be obtained both through fusion and fusion processes. An enormous amount of energy is released from small quantity of fuel in both these processes. But we

Must be aware of the fact that nuclear power is full of risks the use of nuclear energy gives rise to pollutants and hence pollutes our environment. Infact the pollution caused by the use of nuclear energy from fission process is much more damaging than the pollution caused by burning forssil fuels. The dangerous nuclear radiations can damage and cause irreparable damage to cells and in some cases even lead to death.

The world is thus faced with serious energy crisis. The condition of India is no better. With growing population the demand for energy is increasing day by day. Since India has limited coal and oil reserve and power generation from coal and oil is also very costly, therefore the government is taking steps to supply energy for non-commercial purposes from various sources such as bio-gas.

Scientists all over the world are trying to meet the challenge. They are trying to harness solar, water, and air reserves. Hydro-electric power is cheaper, so are air mills. Solar energy too has bright hopes for man. However it is very expensive to establish the necessary infrastructure for tapping solar energy. Giant discs are made to concentrate the sunlight on the thermal generators which use this sunlight to produce energy. Thus all possible efforts will have to make to save us from total darkness.

Global Oil Crisis

In today's world, mineral oil has a very important place in the industrial development. Highly industrialised countries have greater need for oil. The distribution of oil is highly uneven. About 50 - 60% of the world's oil deposits are in southwest and Southeast Asian countries. They are the world's largest producers but low exporters of oil. The increasing demand has led to rise in oil prices affecting the economy and industrial development of the developing countries. Countries like USA, Russia, etc. have large deposits of oil, but they import oil to conserve their own resources. These countries have tried their best to gain monopoly over the purchase of oil. This has created tension in international politics. The importance of oil is both in times of war (Arab-Israel conflict) and peace. Of all the sources of power like coal, water/hydel power, nuclear energy, mineral oil is still the cheapest and can be easily transported. It is the only fuel used in aeroplanes (ATF). Thus, the energy crisis is due to-

(i) Increased consumption of oil.

(ii) It is non-replenishable, exhaust able.

(iii) It is indispensable.

(iv) Other resources of power cannot replace it in certain fields like aeroplanes.

(v) Atomic energy is not fully developed.

If a proper substitute is not found, the economic and social structure of modern life will come to a standstill.

Cyber Security

   Cyber Security

Importance:

There is one important nuance in the treatment of cyberspace as a fifth potential theatre of war along with land, sea, air and space. The use of cyberspace depends on physical facilities like undersea cables, microwave and optical fiber networks telecom exchanges, routers, data servers, and so on. Protecting or attacking these is in the domain of the traditional arms of the military. Cyberspace as an independent theatre of war is about attacks that compromise the capability to use these facilities. The defence of cyberspace necessarily involves the forging of effective partnerships between the public organizations charged with ensuring the security of cyberspace and those who manage the use of this space by myriad users like government departments, banks, infrastructure, manufacturing and service enterprises and individual citizens.

Need:

In view of the rapidly growing threats to national security in cyberspace there is urgent need for the government to adopt a cyber security policy. The government should immediately adopt such a policy so that urgent actions in a coordinated fashion can be taken to defend India’s economy and society against cyber attacks. Cyber security policy will necessarily be an evolving document in view of the changing nature of cyber vulnerabilities, risks and threats. The government will need to review the document periodically. Cyber security should be regarded as an integral component of national security. Urgent attention should be given to the issues of cyber crime, cyber terrorism, cyber warfare.

Impact of a single cyber attack:

1. Mobiles, landlines, Defence networks shut down or behaving erratic, causing panic.

2. Communication, remote sensing and surveillance satellites are thrown out of gear. TV and other transmissions are disrupted, spreading alarm.

3.  Systems controlling power grid collapse affecting road and rail traffic tremendously, resulting in accidents and blackouts.

4.  The international air traffic control (ATC) system, based on communication networks and the Internet starts malfunctioning, resulting in air collisions of aircrafts.

5. Explosions and devastating fires in major oil refineries with extensive damage and loss of life. Pipelines are ruptured and oil flow is disrupted.

6. Data thefts, destructions and clogging paralyze the financial systems. Millions of transactions are distorted. Banks cut off the systems from the Internet. ATM machines across the country hang.

7. Health and civic services, dependent heavily on the Internet, collapse. Data in respect of emergency facilities are not available. Coupled with power and communication failures, the situation in hospitals is close to breaking point.

8. The safety systems of chemical plants, governed by computer systems, fail. Lethal clouds of noxious gases billow, creating panic and deaths.

9. Talking about the defence forces, there is complete dislocation due to failure of Communication and GPS systems.

Impact on the image of India:

It would expose India as weak and unprepared, unsafe to live in, an unreliable business partner and vulnerable in every sense of the word. India’s credibility as a country would be affected without a shot having been fired in anger. It is difficult to imagine a greater national humiliation.

Helplessness:

There would be no one to blame When investigated, these attacks will appear to have come from all over the globe as also servers within the country. Much as India would like to retaliate, there would be nobody who could be definitely identified. Even if identified, it could be denied.

Reforms: 

1. A Cyber Coordination Centre should be established at the operational level, staffed by personnel from the relevant operational agencies. This centre would serve as a clearing-house, assessing information arriving in real time and assigning responsibilities to the agencies concerned, as and when required.

2.  There is need to place special emphasis on building adequate technical capabilities in cryptology, digital signatures, testing for malware in embedded systems, operating systems, fabrication of specialized chips for defence and intelligence functions, search engines, artificial intelligence, routers, new materials etc. Cyber security should be mandatory in computer science curriculum and even separate programmes on cyber security should be contemplated, this will attract dedicated talents for the same.

3. The impact of the emergence of new social networking media, and convergence of technologies on society including business, economy, national security should be studied with the help of relevant experts, including political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and law enforcement experts.

4. Government should promote R&D in private industry through active government support for industry-led research projects in the areas of security. Establish enabling mechanisms to facilitate this.

5. Talking about the defence forces, raise a Cyber Command and build up offensive capabilities. Create a pool of trained people such as Cyber Battalions who can provide “surge capacity” to bolster the country’s resources during critical periods or in the event of hostilities.

Dealing with India-Pakistan prisoners

   Dealing with India-Pakistan prisoners

Nothing could be more repulsive in modern day diplomacy than a country arresting civilian nationals of another country and then cynically using them as bargaining chips in bilateral issues. Yet India and Pakistan have followed this egregious practice for decades. They have kept hundreds of people from the other side in their jails, releasing them only when it suits one or both governments, irrespective of when an individual prisoner completed his sentence. Some of these hapless cross-border prisoners end up spending as long as two decades in jail for offences such as smuggling, overstaying their visa, or crossing the border illegally. Almost all of them are poor; at the time of their arrest, some are not even aware of committing an offence. Clearly, the fishermen who regularly get arrested in the Arabian Sea for crossing the international boundary line do so only for livelihood reasons. An Ajmal Amir Kasab, caught while committing a terrorist offence, is rare on either side. In recent years, responding to the outrage among activists at this blatant violation of human rights, the two governments have made some attempts to tackle the “prisoners' issue,” as it is now known, but it is way down on their list of priorities. Fortunately, the judiciary in both countries has emerged as a counter-force on behalf of the prisoners. Commendably, the judges have taken non-nationalist positions and assessed the issue purely in terms of the universality of human rights. A few months ago, the Supreme Court of India ordered the release of a group of Pakistanis held in Indian jails well after they had completed their sentence. An intervention by the Pakistan Supreme Court last week led to the release of 442 Indian fishermen.

New Delhi responded by announcing the release of 31 Pakistani prisoners. But beyond implementing the court's orders, both governments must wake up to the need for a mechanism that can ensure humane treatment of a person from the other side who has been charged with committing an offence. The objective must be to send such people back as soon as possible, especially when the offences are minor. At present, there is a reluctance even to inform the other side of an arrest or grant the detainee access to a diplomatic representative of his country. The poor shape of bilateral relations cannot be an excuse for the present shabby treatment of these people. As a country that calls itself the world's largest democracy, India must take the lead in setting up a fast-track process for dealing with Pakistani prisoners without waiting to work it out reciprocally with Pakistan.

Communal Riots

   Communal Riots

Introduction: It is the violent public disturbance of the peace by a group of anti- social people who are generally motivated by religious sentiments.

Who gets affected: Manslaughter of the common man, irrespective of his religion and caste is troubled the most, lots of government and private infrastructure like industry, buses, trains and shops gets damaged, Businessmen suffer a huge loss because of the market being shut, and communication gets disrupted.

Who is responsible: It is generally a rage created by anti-social elements for their own vested interest, in order to gain public sympathy they first trigger a spark among people by rallies, hate speeches and then later come for their rescue, so that their public image gets better.

Why it happens: India is a diverse country which many religions and ethnic communities, where inequality among the people is millennium old practice which cannot be solved in a day but the useless rebellion’s attitude takes birth in a fraction of a second for the pseudo unity of a particular religion which in no way will support the people when they need them badly, as it is purely a political gimmick of anti-social elements.

One of the important observation is, Communal violence generally happens when there is a serious issue going on in the country, and the people facing the scrutiny and wrath of people creates a game plan to divert the short term memory of the people of India by hitting their homes so that they don’t find time to ponder over the problems of the countries, so that the culprits stay in peace.

Why it is uncontrollable: The State Forces does not have effective men force who are operational in nature, their incompetency against these problems is one of the main reasons, without deploying the Rapid Action Force, the riot controlling force of CRPF, the violence continues. One of the important reasons is the inability of the force to distinguish between the culprits and innocent, it is tough because India being such a populous country, it becomes a cumbersome task for tracing and nabbing the real mobs.

Government Reforms: After the mayhem of Muzaffarnagar, Government is finally planning to talk about “Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill” that aims to protect minorities against targeted attacks, because the government felt that there are many inadequacies in existing laws to deal with communal clashes, also the caste based rallies have been banned, deployment of High Definition CCTVs in sensitive areas have done some respite to nab the society spoilsports.

Citizen’s Reforms: The main problem arises from our mindset, in spite of being educated there are people who support these religious beliefs, they treat other’s religion or caste as a meagre and their to be superior and above all, taking pride in calling himself from an ‘X’ caste or religion but not proud to be called as an Indian, until and unless we refrain from adhering to this century old practices, these communal riots will not end, right from primary classes the moral and value system of an individual has to be made strong to treat all like a normal human beings irrespective of the caste and religion he belongs to, this thought process will only build the foundation of One and Whole India, where there will be single religion and caste known as “Indian-ism”.

BRICS Summit :- 2013

   BRICS Summit :- 2013

The  2013 BRICS summit was the fifth annual BRICS summit, an international relations conference attended by the head of states or heads of government of the five member states Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The summit was held in Durban, South Africa in 2013.[1] This completed the first cycle of BRICS summits.

A declaration at the end of 2012 BRICS summit read that: "Brazil, Russia, India and China thank South Africa for the proposal to host the 5th summit in 2013. They intend to provide multifaceted support for it. The BRICS leaders are expected to discuss the establishment of a new development bank. According to Mikhail Margelov they will seek agreement on the amount of starting capital.

Attending delegations

The heads of state/heads of government of the five countries are expected to participate in the summit.

  Dilma Rousseff President of Brazil   Vladimir Putin President of Russia

  Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India   Xi Jinping President of China

  Jacob Zuma (host) President of South Africa

China's Xi Jingping made this the first summit of his presidency.

Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh became the only head of state or head of government to attend all BRICS summits, held so far.

Discussions

The summit commenced on 26 March at 17:30 GMT. Amongst the important issues being discussed was the creation of the development bank, in follow up from the previous summit. It sought to create an infrastructure-focused bank. The disputes over the bank were in regards to what it would do and how it would provide an equitable return on the initial investment of about US$100bn

Reactions

Host President Jacob Zuma said of the summit that it could address South Africa's economic problems, such as high unemployment. He added: "BRICS provides an opportunity for South Africa to promote its competitiveness. It is an opportunity to move further in our drive to promote economic growth and confront the challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment that afflicts our country."

Daniel Twining of the German Marshall Fund said: "Ironically it may be the cleavages within the BRICS grouping that more accurately hint at the future of the global order: tensions between China and Brazil on trade, India on security, and Russia on status highlight the difficulty Beijing will have in staking its claim to global leadership.The media suggested the bank was way to bypass the IMF and the World Bank.