The late 20th century and the current 21st century has played an important role in every country’s life. Now every country is focusing towards developing their own economy by becoming self reliant. India’s Atmanirbhar Bharat is an initiative which eyes make India a reliant country in every sphere. Apart from this, many countries in the world are focusing on encouraging their economy to adopt a capitalist mindset, as capitalism promotes inflow and distribution of cash at every income level, however it doesn’t ensure equitable distribution of wealth. In fact, reports have suggested that income inequality have surged over the period of last 50 years, which saw huge industrialization. One more striking point of this rapid phase of industrialization is that, it has destroyed the environment, in fact, it has depleted the natural resources around the world and still nobody is thinking about it. In fact, many people don’t even know what environment is all about. Even the mainstream media is unwilling to put up such content. The national dailies don’t even dedicate columns for this category. According to a report published by VladisChern/Shutterstock.com the Earth’s average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. This might seem like a very small change, this small change affects the ecological system of our planet. In fact, scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities. Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. The polar ice caps and glaciers have started melting at a very alarming level. The world only has 3 % of fresh water currently and most of the water resources are in a depleting stage. However, many Climate Change summits have taken place around the world which have aimed to make Earth a better planet. It has also focused on bring down the carbon footprints. Similarly India has also taken many steps in tackling climate change. For instance the government in 2008 launched National Action Plan on Climate Change . It aimed to identify measures that simultaneously advance country’s development in fighting cimate change. Another instrumental mission known as Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission aimed to make India a global solar power in the history. Until now India has installed 8.42 million sq. metres of solar thermal collectors. Even in terms of water conservation India launched National Water Mission to minimise wastage and ensure equitable distribution of this natural resource. Around 190 crores were allocated in budgets sessions from 2012-2017 for this plan. Due to implementation 1082 ground water morning wells were created. In addition to promote the idea of sustainable agriculture National Mission for sustainable agriculture was found to transform agriculture into an ecologically sustainable climate resilient production system. It eyed to adopt an area based approach development and conservation of natural resources. Due to implementation of this scheme india 5.4 million metric tonnes of agricultural storage capacity. In addition, it developed 11000 hectares of degraded land.
But even after the implementation of all such schemes India fares poorly in protecting it’s natural resources. Reports, suggest that ground water is in a state of depletion . In fact, in world’s top 10 polluted cities India has 6 cities namely Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida ,Gurgaon, Gtreater Noida and Bandhwari which is not a good sign. The population is also increasing at an alarming level which can only be stopped if population control measures are taken seriously. India’s water bodies are also polluting at an alarming level . Ganga action plan has worked a bit to improve the situation but still a lot needs to be done. Ultimately, the onus is on us to protect our beloved planet earth. So human beings should take utmost responsibilities in making the environment much more cleaner.
Ronit john 