<p>Hundreds of people on 25 stationary bicycles switched on the sun on World Environment Day on June 5 at Dilli Haat in Delhi. Delhites came together and pedalled away to claim their right to sustainable
<p>This documentary film from filmmaker Varial* chronicles the impacts of climate change and deforestation on the indigenous communities who live in and around the Maya Forest in the Yucatan Peninsula
Subsidy amounts and sales figures may not always be indicators of commercial success. After a decade old promotion campaign, only a few Indians own solar cookers and fewer still use them. Is the design, which is incompatible to Indian conditions, t
Even the "sensitive" Sen has failed to understand ecological poverty"
Sagar Refugee Colony, Ganga Sagar <i>gram panchayat</i>: Ever since her older son went off to work as a daily labourer in Kashmir two years ago, Sahajadi Bibi has to worry a little less about how to feed her family of eight.
A day after presenting his fifth Budget in the UPA government, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said budgets did not win elections, unless they were properly marketed. In a detailed interview on Saturday, Chidambaram said he still aimed at nine per cent growth for the economy in 2008-09. He also indicated that the surcharges on income-tax should go, provided revenues remained buoyant. Excerpts from the interview: You have presented five budgets in a row and looking back at them, what would make you the happiest about them and what would disappoint you? My happiest moments would be that my batting average so far has been 8.8 per cent. That is the economy. What about the Budget per se? The Budget was intended to set the course and pace of the economy and I think we have done fiscal consolidation, although we can argue about some items below the line. I think we have demonstrated that moderate and stable tax rates bring better tax compliance. We have demonstrated what inclusive growth is, that instead of being fixated only on growth, we can use the growth process to promote inclusive growth. I think these are many of the happy memories of the last four years. The disappointment is that we should have taken the reform process forward faster. There are still large areas of the economy which are under government controls. And if these controls had been removed, the economy would have grown faster. In case this is your last Budget? I will be happy if this is my last Budget. There are other things to do in life. People are calling this as an election Budget. Is that the way to look at it? For the last few years, every Budget has been an election Budget because every year is an election year. 2006 was an election year, 2007 was an election year, and 2008 is an election year. I think that is not a very correct way to describe it. I have presented the fifth Budget of this government and, according to schedule, the elections are in May 2009. So I would not agree that it is an election Budget. Will it help you win the elections? Budgets do not decide elections. It is how you communicate to the people what the Budget contains and what it wishes to do in the next year, which happens to be the election year. Take, for example, the Tamil Nadu state elections in 2006. It was the election manifesto which won the election. Likewise, a Budget, if it is communicated well to the people, can help win an election and what is wrong in that? You have done a Budget where there is a lot for the people, for farmers, for the middle class, tax payers, although companies are unhappy. So having done this, why not just go ahead and sign the nuclear deal and tell the Left if it wants to withdraw support, it can go ahead, as you now have something to go to the people with? These are the questions you need to address to the UPA leadership and the Prime Minister. I am only a finance minister. You have introduced many new taxes over the years and now you removed one of them, the banking cash transaction tax. I said so even when I introduced it. It is not a tax revenue raising measure. It is only a source of income issue. I would like to go back to your speech in 1997 when you said I propose to amend certain sections of the Income-Tax Act, to provide for the removal of artificial disallowances, travel and hotel expenses incurred for legitimate business purposes and you said it was a matter of simplification. So using that logic, why would you not do away with the fringe benefit tax, as a matter of simplification? I have explained this a number of times. I can deal with that expenditure as allowable or disallowable expenditure, which means I need discretion in the hands of the assessees. It was the assessing officer who enjoyed the discretion for many years until we brought in FBT. Now the assessing officer has no discretion. If this expenditure is made, you can take a base of 50 per cent or 20 per cent and we tax it. I think this is far better than leaving discretion in the hands of the assessing officer to decide whether the expenditure is allowable or to be disallowed. There is complication in FBT on employee stock options, for which industry might have come to you hundreds of times. I will take you into confidence. The FBT on employee stock options has been worked out in close consultation with industry CFOs. On the personal income-tax front, a tax payer may see halving of his income tax liability. If somebody makes Rs 5 lakh a year, he is earning Rs 40,000 a month. Most probably he lives in a city or a town. Rs 40,000 in a city or a town for a family is not a very large income. Of course, we have given him the tax relief, because compliance has increased, revenues have improved and I think moderation by adjusting the slabs will bring in more revenues. You will lose some of the revenue due to changes in the slabs. A large number of people move on to pay tax so that they can have a larger part of income on their balance-sheet and they can build capital. So when we move the tax slab, an assessee would not stop paying tax. He will still pay the tax that he paid the previous year and even build more capital for himself. So, we will get the revenues. You have assumed that income-tax revenue will climb by 18 per cent in 2008-09. It is a very reasonable assumption. People paying tax will continue to pay tax. They will simply comply better and I do not want to say anything more. They have been very nice to the Government in the past few years. Why should I say anything unkind about tax payers? Compliance will improve and I am sure everybody will comply better and we will get the revenues. That is our assumption and that is our assessment of the situation. There is no reason to assume that direct taxes will not grow at the same rate as this year. That is the question I have on corporation tax, because the trend in corporate profits shows a clear slowdown and is now running at around 15 per cent. Yet you assume a more than 20 per cent increase in corporation tax next year? I expect the demand to push up corporate toplines as well as bottomlines. There are signs that the global economy may slow down. Is it time to ensure that India keeps away from it by taking some measures? I said so in my speech that there is a slowdown especially in the consumer goods, and more particularly in consumer durables. I have identified various sectors - cars, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, paper and we have even cut taxes for buses and chasses. What about the corporation tax rate? Companies are doing well. They are making good profits. They are paying good taxes and it still works out to about 22 to 23 per cent effective tax rate for all companies. There is no reason to tinker with it this year. Why fix something which is not broken? You have been listing tax concessions that the government gives away. Would it not make sense to drop the nominal rate and remove some of the concessions? If you can get me agreement from the three chiefs of the chambers of commerce on which concessions can be removed, I will be very happy to do that. Every exemption provision has a lobby behind it. Let us now turn to the biggest announcement of the Budget, the farm loan waiver scheme. One of the questions is that it is meant only for those whose loans are overdue. But what about those who have sold their jewellery, land and have actually repaid the loans but will not get the benefit? So, what can I do about it? See it is always easy to pit one against the other. People will say what about those who borrowed from moneylenders. There is nothing I can do about it. There is no quantification of that
Managing the conflict
The tribal world view that humans can regenerate forests, but not create them, may resolve problems and failures which stalk forest management policies of the government
Militancy has destroyed much more than peace in Kashmir. Kalashnikov trotting extremists are ravaging the last green frontiers of the 'heaven on earth'. Even the Army is accused of active complicity. Eco vandalism has certainly emerged as a lucrative deal
Is there a worldwide trend of sustained growth towards sustainable development?
In recent years, scientists have closed in on cancer, pinning down precisely how its hellish manifestations are caused and spread. Their findings mean a whole new way of looking at and treating the killer disease
The culture of `businesslike" individual enterprise is playing havoc with the age-old collective wisdom of communities that plan for the common good
In 1996, industries in Delhi were hit by a series of court orders requiring them to take measures to reduce pollution 1,328 industries were closed down; 90,000 units were notified for relocation; and all factories in 28 industrial estates were asked to j
A weak environmental regime in Brazil allows free rein to Asian logging companies to plunder through the Amazon forests
Nobody expected farm forestry and exotics to become a major source of firewood
Beyond the Thar's austere barrenes, a battle of survival rages between the region's treasure trove of floral diversity and marauders like humans, animals and weather
Ritual offering, survival food, index of sophistication: what s pagan about northeast India s penchant for wild meat?
The government"s plans for boosting horticulture to earn foreign exchange do not take into account the hidden costs of deforestation, fertiliser and pesticide use and heavy water consumption. Keeping in mind this and the fact that the poor can seldom affo
Pollinators, small insects like bees and butterflies, animals like bats and small birds such as the hummingbird, play a big role in helping plants propagate. Their populations are declining rapidly. If they die out, so will the plants that depend on them
With ample sunlight almost around the year, one possibility is to use of solar energy to generate electricity in apartments and township projects in Chennai, writes Durganand Balsavar Steady strides: Solar Examples of how Solar Power is harnessed and used . House in Canada has solar panels on the roof. Impacted by the global context, Chennai is experiencing dramatic change with ever-increasing pressure from growing populations. Rapid urbanisation has resulted in considerable increase in the use of energy and fuel, consequently polluting atmosphere through the release of toxic emissions. This situation calls for a rapid and fundamental reorientation in our thinking, particularly on the part of planners and institutions involved in the process of urban development. The form of our future built environment must be based on a responsible approach to an ecological balance and the use of the inexhaustible energy potential of the sun. Buildings, in urban areas, are major consumers of energy. It has been estimated that in the US, residential and commercial buildings together use two-thirds of all electricity consumed in the country. While the situation is not as acute in India, increasing demands on urbanisation may push in that direction. The percentage of urban population in India increased from 18.0 in 1961 to 27.8 in 2001. The energy consumption raised threefold, from 4.16 to 12.8 quadrillion Btu between 1980 and 2001, putting India next only to the US, Germany, Japan and China in total energy consumption. There is greater recognition that it is time to take meaningful initiatives in this direction, through creating awareness of what are called 'green' buildings. Solar energy paradigm Solar lamp. With ample sunlight almost around the year, one possibility is through use of solar energy and other renewable energy sources to generate electricity to meet the needs of residential buildings in Chennai. At an urban scale similar initiatives could be undertaken to provide solar powered streetlights and other public facilities. Delhi government has decided to pass an order for compulsory use of solar power for advertising hoardings and water heating in government and some categories of buildings. The order also says that lights of advertisement hoardings shall be powered by solar photovoltaic systems at the cost of the franchisee and conventional streetlights shall be replaced by solar photovoltaic powered ones. Tsunami experiences In Tamil Nadu, renewable energy is now making a gradual impact especially in rural areas. Simultaneously though, its utilisation in urban and semi-urban areas has not yet been growing at the desired pace. Wind energy and solar energy seem to be the most preferred at this stage. Pertinent to mention here is that the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has initiated a programme at the national level assisted by academic & research organisations, solar equipment manufacturers, and funding institutions like the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). At the State level Non-Governmental Organisations have also, in the absence of infrastructure in rural regions, have invariably relied on solar energy sources. For instance, over the last three years, in coastal Tamil Nadu, affected by the tsunami, several rehabilitation and rebuilding programs were dependant on solar energy for their sustainability. Several temporary shelter enclaves were equipped with cost-effective solar lights and solar fans, in the absence of links to the TNEB network in remote inaccessible areas. The solar street lights are manufactured by companies such as Tata BP Solar. Though the initial cost of investment is relatively higher than the conventional systems, in the long term, in remote rural areas, solar energy has gradually come to be accepted as a more reliable alternative. Solar energy in Chennai Solar street light. If experiments to introduce solar energy are workable in housing settlements in Nagapatinam and Ladakh, a more systematic and concerted effort to explore the possibilities and constraints of introducing such systems in Chennai and other fast growing urban areas is required through the cooperative efforts of the various stakeholders. At a purely theoretical level, the unutilised surface area of the terraces of buildings in the city itself should provide enough incentive to gradually shift to renewable sources like solar energy. In addition balconies also become potential areas to harvest solar power. Even slopped roofs with tiles can accommodate solar panels. The present technology allows for less conspicuous solar array on the roof and they can harvest more energy with less space. In residential developments, the immense potential for use of solar energy equipment exists, through solar lights in common areas and open spaces, gateways, solar fans, solar water heaters and even the possibility of solar cookers in the kitchen. While it could dramatically reduce the consumption of electricity, savings in electricity bills could offset the initial investments. The fact remains that in harnessing it effectively, several initiatives are required.. A nominal solar power backup system UPS that can run 2 lights a fan and a TV can cost about Rs. 28,000/-. These systems have a 20-year durability and a battery life of 3 years. Apprehensions that a cloudy day could mean that there is no solar power need to be allayed.Several solar systems do have back-up energy systems to tide through a few days of cloudy weather. More user-friendly equipment could also facilitate its use on a larger scale. Concerns voiced by environmentalists on the excessive production of photovoltaic solar cells containing silica also need careful examination before deploying the technology. An integrated awareness of the benefits and constraints of solar energy and its sustainability over the long term in conserving and protecting our environment is essential. In order to attain these goals, it will be necessary to modify existing courses of instruction and training, as well as energy supply systems, funding and distribution models, standards, statutory regulations and laws in accordance with the new objectives. The author is an architect practising in Chennai and a visiting faculty at School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University.
