News Wrap

A G D

The first National forest policy in India of 1952, had set a target of achieving; a forest cover of 33%. The actual forest cover in India is only 21.67%, whereas the related forest area stands at 114.36%. excluding Jammu and Kashmir, according to the State of Forest Report 2019, by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, copy confirmation, Forest Survey of India, only 13 out of 28 states have 33% forest cover. The northeastern states feature in this list. Six of these eight states top the chart. Sikkim and Assam now lag behind with Goa, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Chattisgarh and Odisha now entering the hallowed list. Nagaland suffered a decline by 10.1% of forest cover since 1999. Dense forests with tree canopy of 40% and more increased in Tripura (164.90%), Meghalaya and Mizoram (over 50%). Arunachal Pradesh and Assam registered a decline by about 10%. Jhum cultivation has helped retain forests and its health.

Unlike the rest of India, 55% of .he forests in the north east are free from the official forest regime. Over half of the north east is forested. Recorded as "unclassed forests", they form a sizeable portion in most of the North east states, except Sikkim that has no such category. Local communities are the custodians of these forests. Unclassed forests have a presence of 97.29% in Nagaland, of 60.38% in Arunachal Pradesh. Notified forests are 20.53% in Mizoram.

There is a poor response to the implementation of Forest Rights Act (2006) in the tribal-majority states. The dense forests in the tribal majority states are primarily controlled by the community, and not by the forest bureaucracy. The Nagaland Assembly has not passed any resolution under Article 371(A) of the constitution to extend the FRA to the state Mizoram extended the law in 2009 as per Article 371(G), but revoked it Nov 2019. Except Assam and Tripura, no ether north east state has implemented the FRA. As of July 2019, Assam recognised only 58,802 claims out of 155011 under the FRA. Tripura recognised 1,27,986 claims out of 2,00,635, for 1,86,266 hectares. Demand for land is increasing including unclassed forests, with infrastructure projects being developed, under the Act East policy. Indigenous people have created intricate, elaborate and democratic systems of conservation of territories under their jurisdictions. There has been no dissemination of wildlife and wilderness in the north east.

PDS
There is a need to. promote the intake of protein rich food in India, as four out of every 10 children are undernourished. The National Institution for Transforming of India (NITI) is considering a proposal to subsidie protein-rich foods such as meat, fish, chicken and eggs for supply through the public distribution system (PDS). The disbursal of highly perishable food stuff through the vast PDS network, will require constant refrigeration, including areas where power supply is erratic. Any compromise on food quality is bound to cause heath hazards. The food subsidy, which already exceeds Rs 1.84 trillion (budget 2019-20) would have to be scaled up massively, to bring these high priced non-veg foods within the economic reach of the poor. A sizeable section of India's population is compulsorily vegetarian, who may not eat livestock products. There is no dearth of nutritious, yet cost effective and easy-to-handle alternatives, like pulses and millets. Leguminous grains, grown widely in India, can potentially wipe out protein deficiency, if these can be brought within the economic reach elf the poor. Their production is required to be increased to generate surplus for supplying through the PDS. The extent of subsidy required for pulses would be only a fraction of what is needed for the livestock products. Millets now rechristened as nutri-cereals, include small-seeded cereals, like pearl-millet (Bajra), sorghum (jowar), finger millet (ragi) are storehouses of nutrients, which fine grains such as rice arid wheat lack. Research in Karnataka has revealed that replacement of rice with millets, in the mid-day meals has improved children's growth by 50%. The union government of India had declared 2018, as the year of the millets. The minimum support prices of millet crops were increased substantially to raise production.

Homelessness In Usa
Homelessness is sparing in America's most prosperous cities, even though it is in decline. Roughly 5000 people live on the streets in San Francisco, a 19% rise in just two years. In post-war America there was little rough steeping, and homelessness was falling so fast that sociologists predicted its imminent disappearance. Softer policing tactics in the 1970s, including lax attitudes to public drunkenness, were in part responsible or the rise in homelessness. Housing costs have remained high, which is one of the underlying reasons for rising homelessness. On 16 December 2019, America's Supreme Court affirmed that lawmakers may not criminalise rough sleeping. Since housing rent was cheaper, few Americans lived on the streets in the early post-second WW-II period. Back then only one m four tenants spent more than 30% of their incomes on rent, compared with one in two today. In USA, a 10% rise in housing cost in a pricey city prompts an 8% jump in homelessness. USA had origin ally pioneered an approach as to not demand that homeless folk quit drinking or drugs before giving them accommodation.

Back to Home Page

Frontier
Vol. 52, No. 42, April 19 - 25, 2020