Are Indians and India One Or Not?
NOT IN MY NAME: INDIA- THE NATIONALISM DOES CRY
http://www.thekhalsa.org/
Jayshree Sengupta
Get serious about cleaning up our environment:
NOT IN MY NAME: INDIA- THE NATIONALISM DOES CRY
Forwarded by: Balbir Singh Sooch
“Death by Breath: Swachh Bharat should include Swachh air” The Indian EXPRESS
Out of breath: Holy smoke! Air pollution has reached alarming levels in India.
1. But very important is today such as pollution. It could become the main factor deterring FDI from coming to India.
2. All over India, there is problem of environmental degradation and garbage disposal problems.
3. “Death by Breath: Swachh Bharat should include Swachh air” The Indian EXPRESS
4. Some years ago, a correspondent from The New York Times wrote an article on Delhi’s pollution and why he was so glad to be leaving Delhi. His son was suffering from bronchial problems and he was not able to live the life he wanted, so he left New Delhi. At that time, Delhi’s pollution level was not as bad as it is today.
5. Despite the ban on crackers, the air quality has become ‘very poor’ in Delhi and nearby areas. Traffic policemen have been given masks to prevent them from having lung diseases.
6. FOR most people today, the ‘quality of life’ is very important. It includes environmental purity of air, water and the city’s sanitation. If the air quality is so poor that people have to wear masks and children cannot play outdoors, no matter how rich the country is, people — especially foreign investors — will leave.
7. But when interested investors come to negotiate deals from now on, they will breathe the toxic air and drink water from bottles even in five-star hotels and they will begin to think twice about investing in India.
8. They will be put off by the traffic snarls and the open garbage within a few miles of all the major airports of Indian cities.
9. Even if they gloss over these problems and may not notice them in their short sojourn, the personnel coming to India to set up plants will experience the foul air as their children will have constant health problems and they will have to live in isolated enclaves with air-purifiers.
10. India is generating 1,00,000 metric tonnes of garbage every day — a huge amount of solid waste. One can see mountains of garbage near Delhi in Gazipur, which recently collapsed due to gas implosion, killing a few people. Solid waste management will be a monumental problem in the future. Stink from rotting garbage is a very off-putting factor for tourists and potential foreign investors.
11. In the Capital every day, photographs of uncollected garbage lying on the streets appear in newspapers. These depots of solid waste breed diseases which we are all subject to; we are living with the threat of dengue, viral fever and stomach ailments on a daily basis. This is not the case of people living in other emerging economies where people live, by and large, healthy lives. Also, like in advanced countries, we are experiencing stress in big doses living in India.
12. Where is all the solid waste being dumped? Often, in water bodies and the result is that our seas, lakes and rivers are so polluted that it has crossed danger levels, killing fish and other aquatic creatures.
13. Water pollution is really serious. It is such a contrast to developed countries where you can see clean rivers and lakes and drink water from the tap.
14. The culprits are the cash-strapped urban local bodies which dump raw sewage into rivers and factories are dumping industrial waste into rivers with abandon.
15. It is awful to see the Yamuna being reduced to a drain which stinks to high heavens in the summer.
16. The same is the case with the Ganges. Huge amounts of money poured into the cleaning of the Ganges have not yielded significant results in improving the quality of water.
17. China, with a much faster economic growth in the past, is facing more or less the same problems, but is combatting environmental pollution on a war footing. It has chosen to slow down its GDP growth and clean its environment. Shouldn’t we do the same?
http://www.tribuneindia.com/
Out of breath: Holy smoke! Air pollution has reached alarming levels in India.
Are Indians and India One Or Not?
http://www.thekhalsa.org/