Daily Archives: February 7, 2022

The European Union's environment chief says 2022 must be the year for an ambitious agreement to protect the world's oceans, and tackle the global crisis of plastic pollution, especially at sea. A series of international conferences will focus on the issue this year. Virginijus Sinkevicius, the EU commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, told a UN news conference that precious time to save nature and the oceans has been lost over the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 27-member bloc is determined to move ahead quickly to steer "a global green transition". He said: "This year must be the year of the oceans. This year must be the year of biodiversity ... it is essential to get plastics under control and the only way to do it is globally. "This year we must find a window of opportunity to reach agreements that will change the world for better." "Without acting on this front, we won't succeed in solving the climate crisis," he warned, "because the finest technologies to solve the climate crisis are not sophisticated machines. They are trees, oceans and healthy ecosystems." The Lithuanian politician said that at a conference in Kunming, China beginning in late April, there must be "a genuinely transformative moment for biodiversity, and this requires a strong political engagement from all at the highest level". The most important outcome at that conference should be agreement to protect 30 per cent of the planet's land and oceans by 2030, and also restore degraded ecosystems, he said. This requires additional funding, and the EU Commission has doubled funding for biodiversity, which means a billion euro a year, he said, and it is looking to similar action from other countries and the private sector. A One Ocean Summit in Brest, France, has been organised by president Emmanuel Macron and the EU from February 9-11. That meeting will be followed by a conference on oceans on April 13-14 in the Pacific island nation of Palau, a biodiversity hotspot about 600 miles east of the Philippines, with 20,000 people scattered across a 250-island tropical archipelago. The EU commissioner said the meeting will focus on illegal, under-reported and unregulated fishing as well as climate issues facing island nations. The main event this year is the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon from June 27-July 1 where Mr Sinkevicius said "the European Union is determined to reach an ambitious agreement on the high seas" with strong monitoring. "These negotiations are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the ocean, and it was very encouraging to discuss with our American friends our common determination to reach a successful conclusion still this year," he said. Mr Sinkevicius said about 140 countries are calling for a negotiating committee to be established to reach a global agreement on controlling plastic pollution, and more than 70 of them said it should be legally binding. Australian Associated Press

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The European Union's environment chief says 2022 must be the year for an ambitious agreement to protect the world's oceans, and tackle the global crisis of plastic pollution, especially at sea.

A series of international conferences will focus on the issue this year.

Virginijus Sinkevicius, the EU commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, told a UN news conference that precious time to save nature and the oceans has been lost over the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 27-member bloc is determined to move ahead quickly to steer "a global green transition".

He said: "This year must be the year of the oceans. This year must be the year of biodiversity ... it is essential to get plastics under control and the only way to do it is globally.

"This year we must find a window of opportunity to reach agreements that will change the world for better."

"Without acting on this front, we won't succeed in solving the climate crisis," he warned, "because the finest technologies to solve the climate crisis are not sophisticated machines. They are trees, oceans and healthy ecosystems."

The Lithuanian politician said that at a conference in Kunming, China beginning in late April, there must be "a genuinely transformative moment for biodiversity, and this requires a strong political engagement from all at the highest level".

The most important outcome at that conference should be agreement to protect 30 per cent of the planet's land and oceans by 2030, and also restore degraded ecosystems, he said.

This requires additional funding, and the EU Commission has doubled funding for biodiversity, which means a billion euro a year, he said, and it is looking to similar action from other countries and the private sector.

A One Ocean Summit in Brest, France, has been organised by president Emmanuel Macron and the EU from February 9-11.

That meeting will be followed by a conference on oceans on April 13-14 in the Pacific island nation of Palau, a biodiversity hotspot about 600 miles east of the Philippines, with 20,000 people scattered across a 250-island tropical archipelago.

The EU commissioner said the meeting will focus on illegal, under-reported and unregulated fishing as well as climate issues facing island nations.

The main event this year is the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon from June 27-July 1 where Mr Sinkevicius said "the European Union is determined to reach an ambitious agreement on the high seas" with strong monitoring.

"These negotiations are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the ocean, and it was very encouraging to discuss with our American friends our common determination to reach a successful conclusion still this year," he said.

Mr Sinkevicius said about 140 countries are calling for a negotiating committee to be established to reach a global agreement on controlling plastic pollution, and more than 70 of them said it should be legally binding.

Australian Associated Press

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2022 must see action to save oceans:EU - Daily Liberal

It is close to the election and I am not a vengeful or vindictive person I dont background and I dont want to be seen as someone who is out to exact revenge.

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I want to win the next election. And the one thing Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack agree on is that that has to be our priority. I know its mine.

Mr Joyce sent the text to a person last March to have it forwarded to former Liberal adviser Brittany Higgins after she went public with her allegation she was raped by a colleague in a ministers office in Parliament House.

Mr Joyce said in the message that he and Mr Morrison did not get along, adding: He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time. I have never trusted him and I dislike how he earnestly rearranges the truth to a lie.

The Prime Ministers office sought to minimise the political damage by revealing the text exchange late on Friday along with statements from Mr Morrison and Mr Joyce when The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had obtained the text.

Mr Joyce held a brief press conference on Saturday to apologise for the text and cancelled his scheduled appearance on the ABCs Insiders program on Sunday morning to avoid further questions, leaving Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews to take his place.

It wasnt Barnabys finest hour by a long stretch but he apologised, Ms Andrews said.

Mr Morrison said all Australians knew that people got angry and bitter at times and that the best approach was to forgive them.

That is what my faith has always informed me to do the same as it has so many others, and Im thankful for that, he said.

Appearing in western Sydney to mark i4give Day with Daniel and Leila Abdallah, who lost three children and a niece when a drunk driver struck them two years ago, Mr Morrison said everyone needed to understand human frailty.

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Im sure if anyone went out there and checked what everybody has ever said about them, including all of us here, you will find people who will say not the most pleasant things about you. No one is immune to that, he said.

The question is, how do you respond to it as an individual? And today, on i4give Day, I think we get a very good lesson about that. I think this day is all about understanding human frailty. Human frailty, its real. We all share it. We all live with it and we all need to be more understanding of it.

Labor has made Mr Morrisons character a dominant theme in its attacks on the government after the Prime Minister was called a liar by French President Emmanuel Macron and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, with the attacks likely to intensify in Parliament this week.

This government is a smoking ruin of division, disunity and dysfunction and ordinary Australians are paying the price for that, Mr Chalmers said on Sunday.

Weve got frightened and vulnerable people in aged care, weve got small business owners worrying about customers coming through the door, weve got working families worried about the skyrocketing costs of living and real wages going backwards, and the government seems to spend all of its time dishing out free character assessments of each other.

There is no salvaging this government. A change in the Liberal leader or the National leader wont do it. The only way to chart the path for a better future for this country is to change the government.

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Not the time for revenge: McCormack urges Nationals to focus on election - Sydney Morning Herald

rust in government has been declining since the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. According to Pew Research, only 36 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents and 9 percent of Republicans and those leaning Republican now trust government. Who can blame them given the failure of government to perform on many levels? One might think that trust by Democrats would be lower as they are regarded by many as the party of government and run large, crime-challenged cities.

Rarely does a voice break through the wall of meaningless political rhetoric as what occurred last week at the funeral of New York police Detective Jason Rivera who, along with his partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, was brutally murdered by a man who was shot by a third police officer and later died. The alleged gunman, 47-year-old Lashawn McNeil, was on probation after a drug conviction in 2003. His mother said he was mentally ill.

Riveras widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, received thunderous applause at St. Patricks Cathedral when she said: The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even members of the service.

Among those in attendance was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose lenient approach to criminal suspects has been denounced by police officers, police unions and Republican politicians, but insufficient numbers of Democrats.

In what many believe to have been a direct criticism of Bragg, Dominique Rivera said of her late husband: I know you were tired of these laws, especially of the ones from the new DA. I hope hes watching you speak through me right now.

Bragg later issued a statement in which he said he is grieving and praying for Detective Rivera and Officer Mora today and every day, and my thoughts are with their families and the NYPD. He promised that violence against police officers will never be tolerated and my office will vigorously prosecute cases of violence against police and work to prevent acts like this from ever happening again. How? He didnt say.

What Bragg and other district attorneys, liberal Democratic mayors in big cities and even President Biden refuse to comprehend is their contribution to the violence and anarchy sweeping the land. They seem indifferent to the laws they took an oath to uphold. Whether it is on urban streets, or at the southern border, where undocumented immigrants continue to pour into the country, laws are not being enforced.

Pictures of criminals looting high-end stores and shoplifting goods with impunity and video of cop killings should be used to awaken the public to what looks like spreading anarchy.

If the streets are not safe for police officers, they cannot be safe for average citizens.

What might help? One option should be the return of capital punishment for people out on bond (which needs to be raised) and who kill again. No amount of feel good policies will restore order. Ridding the planet of evil killers would go far to protect the rest of us. In addition to the murder of cops, people are being pushed onto subway tracks and attacked on sidewalks as they go about their business. Why are these perpetrators treated like misbehaving children who get sent to their rooms without dinner, but are back at the breakfast table the next morning?

The tendency is to forget monstrous events as other stories take their place. Recent police killings in New York, Harris County, Texas, and elsewhere must not be forgotten, lest they become more common and public safety is further compromised. Ultimately, it is up to voters to put people in office who will do more than offer thoughts and prayers.

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Crime and a widow's eloquence | News, Sports, Jobs - Minot Daily News

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At a vast wildlife sanctuary in the heart of the Kimberley three ecologists are flooded in, waiting for the next baby boom. Well over half a metre of rain has fallen so far this wet season, creating roaring waterfalls over towering escarpments and turning the Adcock River into a swollen beast. To say the animals are loving it is an understatement, stranded field ecologist Braden Riles says. The frogs are "going nuts", the birds are frisky, the termites are swarming in dense clouds, and reptiles, including whopper mulga snakes and olive pythons, are on the move. About lunchtime on Friday a plane managed to land and dropped off fresh food and other supplies to sustain the ecologists and two other staff while the 85km long "driveway" to the Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is cut. Mr Riles is looking forward to what's ahead as the waters recede and the ecosystem makes the most of the drenching - the second good one in as many years. "We're out bushwalking every other weekend and we're already seeing (endangered) gouldian finches feeding on all the seed that's popped up," he says. The endangered purple-crowned fairy-wren is also doing well. "Their breeding has increased at the moment with the number of insects that are out and about following the rain, and with the creeks coming up. It's all pretty exciting." Mr Riles has worked at the sanctuary for the past three years, carefully monitoring the health of its many inhabitants including wallabies and wallaroos, northern quolls, big snakes, small snakes, blind snakes, and possibly his favourite, the semiaquatic Mitchell's water monitor. He says being in the grip of a period of plenty is always a thrill. "We had two pretty dry seasons, and we did see a bit of a trough in small mammals and reptiles. But now we've had two good seasons, I'd expect we're now going into a bit of a boom generally, across the landscape." But the rain - 670mm so far this wet season - is not without its downsides. "When the big rains come in the termites get really excited so if you leave a light on accidentally, you'll be in a cloud of them. They all come out of their mounds, and fly around." And there there are the snakes that are hard, if not impossible, to keep out of the sanctuary's living quarters. "Last year someone found a python in their bed in the middle of the night. It was coming in for warmth," Mr Riles says. "They're often around, in people's showers when they get home and all sorts. They can get a bit cheeky. "In fact our chicken population is dwindling because of them and when I say dwindling, they've actually gone extinct. We had one left as of a month ago, but it's since disappeared. "So that's another dry season job, to get a few more chickens in." Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is Australia's largest non-government protected area, covering 312,00 hectares of tropical savanna and spectacular escarpments and gorges. Home to more than 200 birds, almost 100 reptiles and amphibians and 35 mammal species, it's a hotspot for northern Australia's threatened wildlife and is owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. Australian Associated Press

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At a vast wildlife sanctuary in the heart of the Kimberley three ecologists are flooded in, waiting for the next baby boom.

Well over half a metre of rain has fallen so far this wet season, creating roaring waterfalls over towering escarpments and turning the Adcock River into a swollen beast.

To say the animals are loving it is an understatement, stranded field ecologist Braden Riles says.

The frogs are "going nuts", the birds are frisky, the termites are swarming in dense clouds, and reptiles, including whopper mulga snakes and olive pythons, are on the move.

About lunchtime on Friday a plane managed to land and dropped off fresh food and other supplies to sustain the ecologists and two other staff while the 85km long "driveway" to the Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is cut.

Mr Riles is looking forward to what's ahead as the waters recede and the ecosystem makes the most of the drenching - the second good one in as many years.

"We're out bushwalking every other weekend and we're already seeing (endangered) gouldian finches feeding on all the seed that's popped up," he says.

The endangered purple-crowned fairy-wren is also doing well.

"Their breeding has increased at the moment with the number of insects that are out and about following the rain, and with the creeks coming up. It's all pretty exciting."

Mr Riles has worked at the sanctuary for the past three years, carefully monitoring the health of its many inhabitants including wallabies and wallaroos, northern quolls, big snakes, small snakes, blind snakes, and possibly his favourite, the semiaquatic Mitchell's water monitor.

He says being in the grip of a period of plenty is always a thrill.

"We had two pretty dry seasons, and we did see a bit of a trough in small mammals and reptiles. But now we've had two good seasons, I'd expect we're now going into a bit of a boom generally, across the landscape."

But the rain - 670mm so far this wet season - is not without its downsides.

"When the big rains come in the termites get really excited so if you leave a light on accidentally, you'll be in a cloud of them. They all come out of their mounds, and fly around."

And there there are the snakes that are hard, if not impossible, to keep out of the sanctuary's living quarters.

"Last year someone found a python in their bed in the middle of the night. It was coming in for warmth," Mr Riles says.

"They're often around, in people's showers when they get home and all sorts. They can get a bit cheeky.

"In fact our chicken population is dwindling because of them and when I say dwindling, they've actually gone extinct. We had one left as of a month ago, but it's since disappeared.

"So that's another dry season job, to get a few more chickens in."

Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is Australia's largest non-government protected area, covering 312,00 hectares of tropical savanna and spectacular escarpments and gorges.

Home to more than 200 birds, almost 100 reptiles and amphibians and 35 mammal species, it's a hotspot for northern Australia's threatened wildlife and is owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

Australian Associated Press

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Period of plenty ahead at Kimberley haven - Daily Liberal

Subramani Ra Mancombu

Sujit Sahgal, who had a successful banking career of over 25 years, had kindled interests in the agriculture sector in 2020 with his maiden book A Wall Street View of Rural India. The book was released during the Covid pandemic and he gave himself some headroom to write his next book by penning a chapter Future of Farming. Given the fact that the media has not dealt with the future of farming in detail, Sahgal was requested by his well-wishers to expand on the theme. This was the seed that was sown to write this book Agribusiness and Technology - Revolutionizing the Future of Farming.

In penning this book, Sahgal has visited many farmers across the country and talked to them to understand their views and thoughts on agritech, their curiousness to learn and their willingness to adapt to new technologies.

In talking to as many farmers as he could, the author has come up with some very interesting findings that will not only help policymakers and government officials but also those in the private sector. Sahgal has tried to outline the solutions to many issues that have been dogging the agriculture sector for decades now. More importantly, he is reiterating some of the important points that have been discussed and debated all these years.

For example, community farming is one of the most widely discussed issues in the field of agriculture as most of the farmers are marginal and small farm holders. Sahgal says these small farms hamper economics at the farm level and investments. He advocates land aggregation possibly through safe leasing agreements, farming collectives and farmer producer organizations.

The authors views have been reflected in the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) pre-budget memorandum this year. Assocham has called for repealing land ceiling laws to allow farmers to thrive economically.

Sahgal has come up with a SOLID - sustainable solutions, lucrative, independent and doubling income - farming model to keep farmers and their future generations interested in agriculture. This can be achieved only by making the core agricultural activity sustainably profitable on its own.

The author advocates liberalisation of farming from rules, regulations and restrictions to treat reforms in the sector with a different approach. Sahgal advocates allowing farmers to access markets through the electronic national agricultural market (e-NAM), choose crops without the minimum support price, get mini-storage infrastructure, easier financing, and enjoy liberal trade laws.

A feature of Sahgals presentation of various issues is the anecdotes he uses in each chapter to introduce the subject and the issues around it. One of the interesting aspects that the author has brought to light is that farmers accept only what they think is feasible.

The author explains how a tissue culture scientist told farmers that they could make50,000 per acre annually against the 2,000-3,000 they were making if they followed his advice. The growers ignored his suggestion, dubbing him mad. The scientist realised his folly and told them that they could make 10,000. The farmers trusted him thereafter and followed his suggestions. Soon, they began earning 20,000 per acre annually.

Sahgal is clear in his view that policymakers, government officials, extension personnel and others understanding the nuances is the key to learning what farmers know and what they want.

One of the interesting suggestions that the author proposes is offering input access services and renting of equipment (FaaS) along with financial services such as effective insurance policies. Sahgal says FaaS is in huge demand from farmers producers organisations especially for small farmers for who it would be sensible to rent farm equipment.

Unlike those who tend to come up with a pessimistic outlook on Indias rural areas, Sahgal sounds optimistic and positive on the future of Indian farming. His viewpoints are embellished by various options and solutions to make farming profitable and more promising.Agribusiness and technology could well turn out to be a guide for those wanting to make agriculture profitable.

Book: Agribusiness and Technology - Revolutionizing the Future of Farming

Author: Sujit Sahgal

Published by SAGE Response Business Books

Pages: 246

Price:550

Check out the book on Amazon

Published onFebruary 07, 2022

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Revolutionizing the Future of Farming - BusinessLine

HAVING lost his father Ajit Singh to Covid last year, Jayant Chaudhary, 43, is gearing up for his first Assembly election as head of the Rashtriya Lok Dal. The family legacy goes down even further, to western UPs foremost farm leader, former prime minister and Jayants grandfather Charan Singh. Born in Texas, US, with a degree in accounts and finance from LSE, Jayant has proved sceptics wrong by energising his party that won just 1 seat in 2017 and forging an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav that has been generating a lot of buzz. As west UP, the only region of the state where the RLD has a credible chance of making an impact, heads to polls in the first phase on February 10, Chaudhary gives a wide-ranging interview while on the road from Shamli to Muzaffarnagar during a hectic schedule.

For your birth, your grandfather held a party that came to be known as birthday diplomacy. Indira Gandhi came, a government got formed It heralded a new kind of politics, of unlikely interests coming together. Are you in a way taking that forward?

There are no set formulas, you have to respond to the environment, circumstances, and try for what is best for your constituency. Thats what politics is ultimately about. Its about creating solutions, negotiations, a common minimum sort of agenda. There are always differences but you have to resolve them democratically Of course parties are found around certain ideas Politics devoid of ideology will not take us forward I respect anyone who sticks to their ideological position (but) you can try different combinations politically that work on the ground.

What is the core idea or principle that the RLD represents?

We represent the hinterland really. Even though some parts of the region are in the vicinity of Delhi you find a level of deprivation. So taking the villages forward, reforming the agricultural system and rural development are the issues I feel strongly about. I track issues like climate change and there is a need for technology and more innovation even in our rural society.

Where would you place yourself in the conventional left, centre and right streams of thought?

We are more on the liberal side, the central side. We stand up for individual freedoms. And thats why we respect the sanctity of citizen movements, and were vocal about the farm agitation. The farmers were well within their rights to pressure their representatives, ask their government to roll back a law. Similarly on land acquisition my personal Bill was on correcting the imbalance of power between the Centre and the state and citizens You cant take land without the consent of the individual. So in that sense we are more liberal, pro-people.

Yes, the State is important. It needs to provide social security, parity in relationship between industry and agriculture, and farmers or labourers But we never asked for crude market interventions So we are not against private industries coming in but there need to be safeguards. Take the sugar industry. Chaudhary Ajit Singh provided licences to so many of the industries that are still providing service to farmers and consumers There is a way for the farmer to get legal redress.

Have you ever felt that the RLDs past, particularly your fathers constant switching of sides between parties, has affected your present?

I dont think we should question decisions taken in the past. There were a set of circumstances we can never truly understand today. That was the coalition era. It was about refashioning the non-Congress movement, the Janta Parivar splintering into many factions, the rise of the regional players, the rise of Mandal (Commission) and other factors He had to respond to those situations. Right now there is an enabling environment for farmers to cut across those narrow lines and work together. The iron is hot and we are trying to create a larger social coalition than our traditional vote bank.

You come from a region where people have a strong sense of community. Do you think RLD votes will get smoothly transferred to the SP and vice-a-versa?

Younger people today have a stronger voice in that community and they are connected with each other. They follow what we are saying on Twitter, where Akhilesh and I are moving. Sitting in Muzaffarnagar they know what we have said in Agra. And our chemistry and communication have been very, very to the point, focused on real issues. That message has gone down very well. We ran a lot of programmes to build a rainbow coalition, as you said. So its a long-term project. This election is just the beginning.

How tough do you find the rough and tumble of politics, particularly in the absence of your father?

You need the counsel of elders. But, in a sense, it (the loss of elders) happens to everyone. And Chaudhary Ajit Singh empowered me a lot. He trusted my decisions, gave me responsibility in the organisation. So its not as if the issues were not known to me or that I didnt have a relationships already with voters. I have crisscrossed entire UP, we have worked hard. This first election people will abide by my decisions There are so many candidates (for our tickets) because the environment is so positive. In every seat we got 20 applicants. I am happy to say that the 19 who didnt get tickets all of them have stuck with us.

So you think they have accepted you as their leader?

I think they want to give us a chance.

You said earlier that you would have been open to the idea of working with the BJP had it chosen the middle path instead of going so right. But a sizeable section likes its muscular brand of nationalism and identity politics.

They did, but ultimately they (the BJP) have caused so much harm to the society and economy that people have been forced to reconsider. Those hardships are creating an environment where people now want to come together. They dont want tension, divisive language, which is very crude, negative. Leadership should be about positive ideas It might work when there is emotional trauma like after the Muzaffarnagar riots it will not work in every circumstance.

Your father held the SP as responsible for the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots as the BJP.

The SP was in power (at the time). Obviously these questions were posed to the SP. But I feel, in hindsight and I have had that conversation with Akhilesh ji there were things he could have done better and he is also aware of it. When we have decided to come together, its pretty clear we are not going to let such incidents or riots happen again. There will be zero tolerance for hatred, for people who incite hatred, who are part of this culture of encouraging riots. We are going to provide good governance. Rule of law must be respected by everyone. We are both very clear on this, and if you look at our leadership, our background, we are educated, we are young, we are taking about new ideas, about development. People can have the faith and confidence that we will not do anything that will give the state a negative direction.

So you spoke to him about the riots before the poll pact?

We discussed a lot of things. He spent five years in the Opposition Its very clear that the principle of social equity, social justice, harmony, these are going to be at the core of our government.

What is the vision that you are offering in terms of development, be it education, health or infrastructure?

Ajit Singh was development oriented and there was a time when Muzaffarnagar was one of the highest per capita income districts in the country. And if a small farmer with 2-3 bighas was able to educate children in Delhi, Meerut, Ghaziabad, it was due to our strong, development-oriented focus. We favour providing support to those industries which are not as much capital-intensive but labour-intensive At the same time we are talking about new ideas, about spurring innovation. In our manifesto, we have spoken about grants, scholarships to scientists coming up with patents in ideas or areas like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, artificial intelligence. We talk about blockchain in our manifesto. These are very new-age ideas the knowledge economy is going to take us forward. We have a target of Rs 25,000 crore investment in food processing, which is going to be the next wave, with farmers getting better prices for their produce. Right now there is huge wastage procurement is very minimal because of the lack of packaging, branding, storage. Farmers get a very small share of what the consumers in the big cities are paying. That is where we have the maximum room to grow.

Why is senior BJP leader Amit Shah repeatedly reaching out to you?

He is trying to isolate the Jats, like they did in Haryana. Thats it Its not a gesture made out of goodwill. If it was, they would have done so before the elections, before we had struck our alliance, with efforts to reconcile the issues we have been very vocal about. (Ajay ) Teni is still a Union minister, the farmer agitation has been called off but none of the issues have really been addressed. They invoke (my) Jat identity because they feel it will help them break away some of the other communities today working with us.

How are you attempting to broaden your social base?

Through initiatives like Bahujan Uday Abhiyan, Nyay Yatra. We spoke about the Hathras victim, the April 2 (2018) cases against Dalits (over all-India protests), and have had a bhaichara programme with Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in rural areas. When people sit together, eat together, work together, vote together, you create lasting relationships that can withstand pressures That is the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb. There may be a small incident that disrupts it, but now this region has again gone back to its historic default.

Do you think the wounds of the 2013 riots have healed completely?

No, it takes time. For those families directly affected, it will take time. But that does not mean politics is going to be governed by those issues anymore. People want to forget and forgive, and they have as well.

The poll verdict on March 10 will have a far-reaching impact on national politics. What is your take?

We are at an inflection point for national politics. This mandate is going to provide a lot of support to farmers across the country and they will take confidence from this. If we somehow fail to muster the support required, I dont think we will see the sort of agitations (farmer, etc) that we have witnessed for the last 30 months.

Why did you visit the residence of the Tikaits on Sunday, four days ahead of the polls?

The visit was about sending out a message of solidarity. Sisauli has a special significance in the history of the farmers movement. We have known the Tikait family for long. On Sunday, I met Naresh Tikait, who blessed me.

Was there a larger message in the visit?

Yes, it essentially conveys that we stand united in the cause of farmers. There is no room for any ambiguity.

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Akhilesh ji is also aware there are things he could have done better in 2013Its clear were not going to let such incidents happen again: Jayant...

Caste is an elephant in the living room of Indian social development professionals. While caste has always been pivotal to the countrys electoral politics, it remains marginal to mainstream development thinking.

Globally, too, it is absent from the social characteristics of concern, such as gender, race or age in the Sustainable Development Goals, their emphasis on equality of opportunity and reducing inequality of outcomes notwithstanding.

The increasing inability of the Indian agrarian sector to sustain the tillers and landless labourers has intensified the exodus of the poor from the rural parts of India to urban centres. According to a survey conducted by the Peoples Research on Indias Consumer Economy published in 2021, there has been a rise in the share of poor in cities.

In 2016, 90% of the poorest 20% lived in rural India but that number had dropped to 70% in 2021. On the other hand, the share of the poorest 20% in urban areas has gone up from around 10% to 30% now.

Unplanned, and therefore unprepared, cities receive people with education and skill sets that are inadequate for their survival in the new setting. The informal sector balloons at the bottom of the skill pyramid and so does the insecurity associated with it. Unemployment, malnutrition and food insecurity, lack of education and health facilities and crime and substance abuse begin to colour the urban.

Thats when most civil society organisations enter the stage, earnestly seeking to engage with, what appears in the final analysis as, urgent, and symptomatic.

Today, climate change is being recognised as one of the main reasons why the agrarian sector has been in an unstoppable decay of late. Globally, until 2000, climate change was largely seen as an environmental issue. But soon poorer countries and development non-governmental organisations grew concerned about the varying impacts of climate change on poor and vulnerable communities.

The Up in Smoke coalition, which came together in 2003, sought to bridge the divide between environment and development non-governmental organisations. Unfortunately, this shift did not resonate visibly in Indian development discourse.

The data on how differently climate change is affecting tillers, who are mostly caste Hindus, and the landless labourers, who are mostly Dalits, remains scanty. Owing to the precarity of Dalits residing in low-lying areas, suffering from poor health conditions, underemployment, abysmal social security it is not difficult to imagine that they are affected the first and the most.

The distress dimensions of migration are invariably emphasised by highlighting the worsening situation of dryland agriculture created by drought or flood and crop failure, poor prices of agrarian products and low wages.

The Agricultural Census of 2015-16 reported that Dalits own only about 9% of the total agricultural land and 71% Dalits are landless labourers. Having little land to fall back on, in any event of distress, the only option for them is to move to a big city and be willing to squat in squalor and occupy the lowest-paying jobs.

As per the 2011 Census the most recent data on Dalits in urban and slum areas are over a decade old 28% of Indias urban Dalit population lives in slums. Wards with high populations of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes often lack access to amenities such as piped water and toilets across cities.

The lack of access to basic amenities cannot be due to poverty because there is enough evidence around the globe to suggest that residential segregation itself is a cause of poverty, impairing chances of education and employment for marginalised groups.

As per the 2011-12 National Sample Survey Office statistics, the share of wage labourers among scheduled castes was 63%. Among wage labourers, too, scheduled castes have a much greater share of casual wage workers at 47%, which signifies higher job insecurity and poor earnings. In contrast, migrants from the general category, because of their historical advantages, are able to find better safety nets and higher-paying jobs in urban areas.

A study conducted by the Centre for Womens Development Studies in 2012 pointed that about 66% of upper caste female migrant workers were engaged in white-collar services, as compared to other caste groups with other backward castes at 36%, scheduled castes at 19% and scheduled tribes at 18%.

While this is the situation on the demand side, on the supply side we could have a far more nuanced understanding of this phenomenon if the civil society organisations collected data on drop-outs from skilling, employability, and job placements programmes along caste lines as well. There is a need to understand the cultural make-up of the participants in these programmes, and of the drop-outs, to make a sense of their alienation from the solutions that we offer.

The National Commission on Population predicts that by 2036, about 38.6% of Indians, or 600 million, will live in urban areas. The United Nations, too, highlights that Indias urban population size will nearly double, from 461 to 877 million, between 2018 and 2050. Yet, there seems to be little preparation even by the civil society organisations as to how the millions who will arrive in the city will have a life with dignity.

One reason could be that development ideas and leadership have been increasingly feeling the pressure to move away from systemic and structural issues. Civil society organisations have clearly moved away from creating and supporting social movements since the onset of the neo-liberal world order three decades ago. Directly or indirectly, both, sarkar and bazaar seem to have nudged, or limited, Indian civil society organisations to service provision or addressing social issues merely at its symptom level. This has further worsened since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The recent years have seen unprecedented erosion of the public sphere, where the space for questioning the government and its policies has critically shrunk. The fear of inviting negative attention from the government has forced civil society actors to stay away from issues that are rendered political. The social, like caste, is extremely political in a society where social inequality functions as the source of power.

Civil society players need to open their eyes to the elephant in the room. Caste continues to impact a number of development outcomes. For instance, in education, the focus is usually on enrolment and learning outcomes, overlooking the fact that gains may vary significantly along caste lines.

A United Nations Childrens Fund study from 2019 suggests that for those from scheduled castes or scheduled tribes, the transition from primary to secondary, and from lower to upper secondary levels are the hardest as they are not only under-prepared to tackle the challenges at the next level of their education but low aspiration and self-esteem and the pressure to earn early also put great stress on them to drop out. Drop-out rates between upper primary and secondary school are the highest for those from the scheduled tribes, followed by those from Scheduled Castes. The data on de-notified tribes remains scanty.

Caste often creates an existential dilemma for the mainstream civil society which then prefers to overlook its exclusionary structure and practices. To overcome that, one of the steps could be to look at the social profile of the civil society organisations board members and their senior leadership team and ensure representation of the marginalised in the decision making bodies.

There is no caste-based analysis of the civil society leadership available in India. The general observation is that the social development leadership is overwhelmingly non-scheduled caste and non-scheduled tribe. The same can be extended to funding organisations and corporate social responsibilities of Indian comopanies.

There have been instances of funding organisations insist that a civil society organisation, with a stated mission to work for the welfare of the marginalised, must have representation from these sections on their boards. At the same time, these funding organisations themselves have refused to carry out similar measures while constituting their own boards and leadership.

Caste cannot be treated as an archaic Indian cultural phenomenon erased by migration to cities. Civil society groups have turned away from the role of mobilising people to challenge established power relationships, such as caste, that reproduces inequality.

One way to correct the script would be to improve national data. Bringing the overall caste data into the public domain could be a good start. There is an urgent need to look at the strategies, programmes and outcomes of civil society organisations with the lens of caste to reach the furthest behind first, and to do that, we must consider the continuation of caste system as a violation of human rights.

Arun Kumar is a researcher and social change professional based out of London. His Twitter handle is @ArunKumarMumbai. Diksha Shriyan is a researcher and social change professional in Mumbai. Her Twitter handle is @diksha_21.

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Civil society organisations need to stop ignoring caste and diversify their leadership - Scroll.in