Detecting What Unravels Our Society – Bottom-up and Top-down

Ralph Nader 

The unraveling of a society’s institutions, stability and reasonable order does not sound alarms  to forewarn the citizenry, apart from economic yardsticks measuring poverty, jobs, wages, health, savings, profits and  other matters economic.

However, we do have some signs that we should not allow ourselves to ignore. Maliciousness, profiteering and willful ignorance on the part of our political and corporate rulers undoubtedly contribute to worsening injustice. Let’s consider some ways that we as citizens, far too often, collectively allow this to happen.

1. Democracy is threatened when citizens refuse to participate in power, whether by not voting, not thinking critically about important issues, not showing up for civic activities or allowing emotional false appeals and flattery by candidates and parties to sway them on important issues. Without an informed and motivated citizenry, the society starts to splinter.

2. If people do not do their homework before Election Day and know what to expect of candidates and of themselves, the political TV ads and the plutocrats’ campaign cash will take control of what is on the table and what is off the table. This leads to the most important changes a majority of Americans want ending up on the floor.

3. Too often, you have a grievance as a consumer, worker, taxpayer or citizen and you hit the wall trying to reach someone who should be helping you. Robots, either nonhuman or human, on the telephone are of little help. Repeated failure to productively voice one’s grievances leads to alienation, anxiety and withdrawal, rather than resurgence to demand remedy.

4. When a majority of people think their government doesn’t work for them, but instead serves the rich and powerful, people begin to forget the good that government and honest civil servants at all levels do, or can do (see Jacob Hacker’s 2016 book, American Amnesia), thereby disregarding their crucial watchdog role as citizens. In the process, they passively surrender control of government to the plutocrats and oligarchs – leading to a corporate state defined by crony capitalism. The military industrial complex and the corporate welfarists know how to extract dollars for boondoggles from our government, which is all-too-willing to turn its back on taxpayers.

5. When people make up their minds about an ideology or politician without the facts and relinquish any willingness to hear alternative views, societies become polarized. People are stereotyped, the marketplace of ideas goes bankrupt and instances of incivility and dehumanization increase.

6. When people constantly consume media fueled by violence, political insults, crime and celebrity misbehavior, rather than giving voice to the good that people do every day in civil society or to important points of agreement between liberals and conservatives, the way we relate to news and each other becomes needlessly skewed. This problem has increased exponentially in recent years.

7. If people of all backgrounds feel powerless, they will be powerless. This self-perception stifles democracy and often results in people turning their blame against one another and ignoring the power structures at the root of the problem.

8. Readers think; thinkers read. That includes learning from the mistakes of societies throughout history that wrongly believed that they were impervious to crumbling from within. In our culture of virtual reality and Twitter-length propaganda, we all too often forget the valuable lessons of past mistakes.  History is a great teacher, as anyone who has studied how the bloody World War I was triggered by a teenager assassinating an archduke in Sarajevo or how a few rulers of autocratic nations, without institutional civic and political resistance, caused the deaths of 60 million people in World War II, can attest.

9. At this point, some readers may be wondering about the powerful people who comprise the Wall Street and Washington supremacists. Aren’t they heavily responsible for the disintegration of our society’s economic and political health? Of course. But we citizens, day after day, let them get away with actions that embolden them further through what they see as our habitual passivity.

10. Supporting good candidates who so often lose to silver-tongued bad candidates would be a start. Given what people think of Washington politicians, tens of millions of voters are choosing bad candidates. They may want to ask themselves whether the candidates and their rhetoric they bond with are hiding cruel records and votes against the voters’ own interests. The Washington Republicans’ current effort to take away or make less affordable health insurance, even of Trump voters, is a case in point.

For a top-down analysis, read Peter Wehner’s searing column, Declaration of Disruption in the July 4, 2017 issue of the New York Times, regarding how the rulers at the top are now leading our country “toward chaos, disarray and entropy.”

Half of democracy is showing up at community gatherings, marches, meetings and elections with your fellow citizens. No one can stop you from saying yes to your neighbors, near and far, when they send you their kind invitations to meet new people, hear new ideas, and be urged to pull together for a better community, state, nation and world.

Democracy and its blessings work, but only if we don’t drop out and recommit ourselves to securing these blessings for our posterity. It’s easier than we think!

Covering Islam, Post-Jack Shaheen

Barbara Nimri Aziz

The event of 9/11 is unparalleled in history, in drama, in audacity, in the terrorific images, in deaths, in its live transmission, in its ongoing controversies. It remains a traumatizing American experience with continually unfolding consequences. One result is the rise and persistence of hostility by Americans not only towards the perpetrators, Arab agents purportedly motivated by a religious ideologue, but also entire Arab nations and Arab and Muslim peoples worldwide.

This everlasting bitterness exaggerates the tragedy in the minds of Americans. At the same time, it interrupts and distorts Muslims’ self-identity and the daily injustices we experience.

Any conversation, private or public, with other Muslims about our current woes and anxieties– our prayers and dreams, our relations with fellow students, neighbors and co-workers– somehow finds its way back to that dreadful iconic date in 2001. It is a shadow haunting us wherever we go—to the ballot box, in our classroom, at a job interview, down our neighborhood street, on a holiday.

That event has become such a part of us, even if we think we buried it, that we unwittingly own it. We write books and magazine essays condemning terror and demonstrating our American-ness; we pen memoirs documenting our victimization; we reply to surveys testifying to our children’s bullying by classmates and teachers alike; we join interfaith sessions; we seek out grants to teach others about the calm nature of our religion and the beauty of our cultures. Even as we do so, that awful event remains the peg around which our existence rotates—favorably or otherwise.

The death of media critic Jack Shaheen earlier this month is an opportunity to offer our post-9/11 generation (there it is again) of activists and commentators an essential historical perspective on the demonizing process in which we are enmeshed.

Shaheen’s work needs to be better known by American Muslims. It warns us: “Go beyond 9/11; that vicious blight consuming our history and humanity has been with us for a long time. It’s not only driven by our nightly news broadcasts; it is embedded in our children’s school books and our most entertaining action films starring our favorite actors”.

As powerful as the medieval Christian crusade, Hollywood’s film industry is behind a century of productions targeting Arab and Muslim peoples—in animated children’s films, exotic tales of romance, and in American war legends.

Shaheen was a professor of communications who focused his attention as a media critic on film portrayals of Arabs; his exhaustive work provides irrefutable documentation of the creation of the “bad arab” in cinema and lore. He expanded his arguments, first published in TV Arab (1984), in his later book, Reel Bad Arabs (2001 and 2012), offering hundreds of examples of the mindless belly dancer, the veiled seductress, the sword-wielding assassin, the hook-nosed desert nomad, the oil-rich despot. You know them well.

Since the early days of the silent cinema those images remain popular in today’s biggest Hollywood blockbusters. The terrifying Arab was ultimately given a tangible personality in the form of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). As noted by Rima Najjar writing about the political manipulation of this concept “The pattern of dehumanizing Palestinian Arabs and/or deliberately obscuring their humanity are factors that have facilitated Israel’s project of designating Palestinian resistance movements as terror organizations.”

Although the PLO was distinctly secular and socialist, by the 1980s their image became layered with a religious identity conveniently found in the Gaza-based movement Hamas. As Hamas gained recognition as the image of Palestinian resistance, the threat to Israel was now ‘Islamic terror’.

In 1984 came the highly successful autobiography Not Without My Daughter which in 1991 was made into a popular film of the same name starring Sally Fields. Its promotional blurb sums up the storyline thus: “An American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, must find a way to escape with her daughter…”. Septembers of Shiraz, a 2015 film I plucked at random from my local library only yesterday, assures continuation of filmic exploitation of a ‘revolutionary Iran’ and Islam, and the racist values they perpetuate. We are reminded of our media’s role in this process with a recent admission by the New York Times.

The course by which Islam became such a fearsome concept, effectively manipulated for political purposes primarily through American media is best documented by the outstanding culture critic Edward Said in his 1981 Covering Islam. Even today, with our abundance of so-called experts on Islam, from gadflies to published professors, Covering Islam remains unsurpassed as an analysis of the role of our media in designing a frightening ogre for American consumption, a creation that daily deepens mistrust among peoples and shapes foreign policy. Nothing I have read in these decades of overwhelming attention on Islam supersedes Said’s brilliant, straightforward analysis. Along with Mahmood Mamdani’s Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, it ought to be read and used by every journalism student, every political scientist, every anthropologist, and every Muslim.

Shaheen’s exposé on the role of film in fostering and supporting racism applies to education (sic) about our Native Americans, Black Americans, Asian peoples, even Irish and Italian. Our Black citizens are hard at work using their resources and political savvy to overturn centuries of misrepresentation. Muslims can do it too. We must. Muslim comedians have broken the ground; the next step is to make our own films.

Analysis has its limits; film is a powerful artistic tool that can sweep aside all arguments and misunderstandings.

Fear and Trembling in the Workplace

David Macaray 

One of the most damaging “factoids” you hear around the campfire is the assertion that businesses and corporations are no longer afraid of labor unions. Because unions have grown so weak and decrepit and stupid, no one fears them anymore. Of course, you’re going to hear that from people who despise or resent the American labor movement, but unfortunately, you also hear it from observers who, by their own admission, claim to be “pro-union.”

Consider: If that mindless assertion were true, then two accompanying assertions should also be true.

(1) Management would have no reason to oppose a card-check system (where employees simply fill out a card declaring that they wish to join a union, thus avoiding the arduous and time-consuming NLRB union certification process), and (2) companies wouldn’t need to spend tens of millions of dollars doing everything in their power to keep unions out. After all, if companies had no reason to fear unions, why lift a finger to prevent employees from joining one?

And by the way, the term “factoid” was coined by novelist Norman Mailer in the late 1960s, and first used in his quasi-biography of Marilyn Monroe. The term refers to something that resembles a “fact” but isn’t “factual.” A “factoid” is to a “fact” what a “humanoid” or “android” is to a “human.” But over the years, the media have recast Mailer’s term to mean “mini-fact” or a piece of trivia, which, of course, couldn’t be more wrong.

I had a friend who was the president of a West Coast industrial international union. We were never “buddies,” but during my time as a union activist and polemicist we chatted two or three times a month. We never quarreled. But after I published a couple of less than complimentary articles about the International (nothing vicious, mind you, just some garden variety criticism), he stopped returning my calls. We haven’t spoken in years.

Whenever this union official was asked at social functions what he did for a living he had a perfect answer. He said he “helped working people with any problems they had on the job, such as making sure they weren’t bullied, harassed or treated unfairly, making sure they received any overtime compensation due them, and seeing to it that they got all the health insurance and pension benefits to which they were entitled.”

According to him, people were blown away by this answer. They were astounded by it. They responded by gushing and praising him, blurting out things like, “Wow, man, what a cool job.” Or: “I had no idea there were people who had jobs like that.” Or: “That’s really great! I wish there more people who did that sort of thing, because Lord knows, we could sure use it.” Etc.

But when he finished his explanation by casually noting that he was the president of a labor union, those same people—the same men and women who moments earlier had praised him—almost recoiled in horror. They appeared stricken. He said they looked at him as if he had just confessed to being a pedophile or Jihadist.

Which makes the case that organized labor is desperately in need of a major facelift. The AFL-CIO needs to hire the best public relations firm in the land, pay them what they ask, do exactly as they say, and get busy educating the American public.

It has been said by sociologists and magicians that “perception is everything.” If that’s true, then the AFL-CIO needs to radically alter how this country regards its labor unions, because, clearly, we are losing the battle. We are being perceived poorly.

Tragically, the AFL-CIO refuses to seek outside help. The House of Labor stubbornly chooses to utilize only internal resources, insisting that hiring a big-time public relations firm would be a waste of money, and clinging to the belief that only actual union people know how to promote a union. The AFL-CIO presents that belief as a fact. Alas, there are those who view it as a factoid.

Yemen Policy is Creating More Terrorists

Adil E. Shamoo & Bonnie Bricker

As Iraq finally pries the death grip of the Islamic State off of its bloodied form, you’d think US policy would reflect the lessons learned from killing innocent civilians and destroying the basic functions of a nation. Instead, more than a decade of using drones to “target” suspected terrorists, the Trump administration has now opened the door wide for the Saudis to ramp up the carnage in Yemen.

Just as the invasion of Iraq eventually produced the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), the killing of innocent Yemenis for no moral reason at all is providing a recruitment tool for terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East and Africa. And just as the Iraq invasion was predicated on a false claim of weapons of mass destruction, the war in Yemen rests on the bogus argument that Iranians are supporting terrorism in that country. In the first two years of the conflict in Yemen, the United States was not able to point to any evidence of Iranian weapons delivery to Yemen. Yet, the United States joined with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States with weapon sales, intelligence, and a U.S.-enforced naval blockade. Trump’s recent sale of arms to the Saudis was worth $125 billion.

The results of all this has been catastrophic. Take a look at the suffering of the Yemeni people in the past few years.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab region. It has gone through conflicts for a variety of reasons: religion, ideology, and resources. In 1990, Yemen unified, but conflicts remained. The Zaidis (a branch of Shia Islam) are located in the mountains of northern Yemen where the Houthis are the major tribe/group. The remainder of the population of the country are Sunni. In 2014, the Houthis surged south and took control of the capital, Sanaa, and most of the surrounding area. The president of the country, Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, escaped to Saudi Arabia in 2015. In six months, the Saudis and Hadi formed an army and took back part of the area but not Sanaa.

The Saudi-led war against the Houthis brings together troops from Saudi Arabia, President Hadi’s supporters in the Yemeni military, Emirati countries, Islamist militants and some smaller tribes. Saudi allies are intervening to support the Hadi’s Saudi-installed puppet regime, with the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, and Belgium joining in the effort. Regional countries – Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Republic (UAE), Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan – are also providing support to the Saudis.

The Saudis are not just waging war against Houthi soldiers. They are bombing hospitals, schools, medical clinics and other civic places. The Houthis, outgunned, have resorted to fighting the war with child soldiers and, more recently, using smuggled weapons from Iran.

Yemen, a country of 25 million people, has 10,000 lives so far in this conflict. It has also experienced widespread human rights violations and disease, and nearly half the population is in a food crisis. “There is no food, no pure water, no electricity, nothing,”  a Yemini woman says. “One day, a businessperson came to us and give us dishes and spoons but I told him sarcastically, ‘what should we do with these? Eat the soil?’”

The dire situation in Yemen has become even more severe since the recent outbreak of cholera. The lack of sanitation, clean water, and medical care are fertile ground for the spread of the disease. This current outbreak reportedly infected 269,608 people and has caused the deaths of over 1,600. This number of fatalities in Yemen due to cholera is larger than all the cholera deaths in the world in 2015, as reported by the World Health Organization.

The current civilian slaughter, chaos, and daily indignities in Yemen create the perfect recruitment tool for the expansion of terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda has been operating in Yemen for a long time. Known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), they are augmenting their presence with technological savvy and are now considered one of the most dangerous al-Qaeda groups. In addition, IS has begun to make their presence felt in Yemen.

The Islamic State is on the verge of defeat. But U.S. analysts, most recently Ashton Carter in a Washington Post op-ed, continue to overlook how U.S. policies created the blowback of terrorism and entities like IS. In Yemen, the United States is repeating the same errors it made in Iraq. And the results, in terms of breeding terrorist backlash, will be the same. Until the United States learns to be more humane and severs ties with corrupt and ruthless dictators for the sake of oil or other commodity interests, this cycle will never end.

Perils Of Overpopulation

Vasudha Rao

The Guardian,UK. had a  suggestion for the battle against climate change“Want to fight climate change.Have fewer children .” 

This was  known already & yet, since this has been extensively researched in a scientific fashion, this makes for a few headlines. And yet, will it make us, the humans ( ? ! )  any wiser ? Highly doubtful..Weare  depleting natural resources at a faster pace than the speed with which they are  being  produced.And as population rises, because of copulating endlessly, extinction seems very near !

We  have got better at medical management. This means, that our average life spans have been rising, even in poor countries. Neo natal mortality rates have been falling worldwide. And yet, there are miles to travel, before population growth can stabilise. Many of us  humans think, that we are God’s gift to the world. So , we insist, on giving birth to mini versions of ourselves who transform into  monsters like us, too soon & how ! And then, burden the earth further. The cumulative effect of so many  of our follies  is making it nearly impossible for other living things to simply  exist. In fact, the term rakshas or demons was coined for humans only. It appears to be so, as humans have no control whatsoever, on their greed to use up or rather waste each & every bounty of nature. This leaves the plants & animals helpless. That’s why , we have floods, famines , etal. Wild animals come roaming around in urban & rural areas  Our actions of usurping all habitats for our selfish wants rather than needs, has led to this sorry state of affairs.

And yet, we seem remotely  interested in population control.Men particularly, Indian men , are notorious for avoiding    any device or method to rein in their raging libidos ! Because, they feel that adopting family planning methods ( temporary or permanent ) will reduce their virility.Though come to think of it, women in  India would be much safer, if that indeed would have been the case.   Women are forced to bear the burden of adopting temporary & permanent methods of planning families. This  reinforces, that the power to impregnate, without responsibility is an inherent, innate & inborn tendency of men. And this is on display, as rapes of females of all ages, have  been in the news,  almost on a daily basis !

Many   Indian women seem to opt for sterilization as the only family planning method. Nearly 68 % of 45 million women do not use any method of contraception. The rest, use traditional methods which are highly unpredictable.Though , many contaceptive methods are being added to increase choice, the switch has been slow.

In India , population growth seems to be slowing down. Despite this, India will get more populous than China by 2024. Progress has been extremely sluggish as family planning is like the holy cow  especially with the present regime ( pun  intended) because of forced sterlisations during the Emergency.

It has been  stated, that seven million girls die every decade in India. This is  because, many times, the girl is killed in the womb itself .By some luck, if the girl child survives, she is neglected so much ,that she dies  in the first five years.Sex ratios in India have been falling in every State, in India,  exceptKerela& Meghalaya. The discrimination is so rampant, that the second female child in a family is rare.

Educating girls & women has helped in slowing down population. This is true even for states like Bihar & Uttar Pradesh. In Uttar Pradesh, a rise of 16 % in female literacy has reduced fertility rate by 1.1 over aten year period from 2005-2006 to 2015-16.  Bihar has fared less better& yet, it shows that education is the key. Female literacy rose by 12% & consequently, fertility rate went down by 0.6.So girls need to be made literate so that they have control over their bodies & health. And this will transform into even lower fertility rates. All this, would lead to stablising of population.And even sex education needs to be imparted to prevent unwanted pregnancies ,etc.

Al Gore puts it so  succintly,”Population growth is straining the earth’s resources to the breaking point , & educating girls is the single most important factor  in stabilising that.That, plus helping women gain political & economic power & safeguarding their reproductive rights.”

A Comprehensive Study of Air Pollution in India

Hanzala Aman

Abstract

The review article discusses the condition of Air Quality and Pollution in India with relevant references from prominent sources like The Environment Performance Index 2016, The Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) 2016, Ambient Air Pollution Database, WHO, May2016, Clear the air for children: The impact of air pollution on children UNICEF 2016 and many others. It comprehensively studies the condition of Air pollution in India in present and future context along with the sources of the pollution, its impacts on health & environment, economic damage caused and brief explanation on how to tackle with it.

Introduction

The 2016 Environmental Performance Index ranked India 141 out of 180 countries surveyed. EPI is unique in its approach because it incorporates many high-priority environmental issues, including resource consumption, depletion of environmental assets, pollution, and species loss among other important topics. The EPI typically ranks countries on performance indicators tracked across policy categories that include both Environmental Public health (protection of human health) and ecosystem vitality (protection of Ecosystems). Within these two policy objectives, the EPI scores national performance in nine issue areas comprised of about 19 indicators. Environment Health, being the first policy objective, is given 50% weightage and it comprises 3 categories viz. health impacts, Air Quality and Water & Sanitation each given 33% weightage in the score within; whereas Ecosystem Vitality, being the second policy objective, is again given 50% and it comprises 6 categories viz. Water resources(25%), Agriculture (10%), Forests (10%), Fisheries(5%), Biodiversity & Habitat(25%) and Climate & Energy(25%). A very interesting observation is that China and India, despite having high GDP per PPP, have received low scores on the EPI. However, we will be studying the issue area Air Quality in Indian context.

Study of Air Quality in India

The open burning of waste is a large source of toxic air pollutants such as particulates, carbon monoxide, black carbon, dioxins, furans, and mercury. Air pollution in India is caused by fuel wood and biomass burning, burning of crop residue in agriculture fields in large scale, use of adulterated fuel, emission from vehicles and traffic congestion. India is the third largest in the emissions of greenhouse gases after China and the United States. The severity of air pollution is so much that life expectancy among Indians on an average reduces by 3.4 years while among the residents of Delhi it reduces by almost 6.3 years.

In this section, we will assess the Quality of air in India based on indicators like Household Air Quality and Outdoor Air Quality affectedby PM10, PM2.5, Ozone (O3), Nitrogen oxides (NOX), Sulphur dioxide (SO2) and Carbon monoxide (CO).It has been found that, around the world, more deaths occur due to poor air quality than water. The World Health Organization (WHO) gives a guideline to measure air pollution in a region according to which it had fixed the limit of particulate matters in the air;

O3	100 μg/m3 (8-hour mean)
PM2.5	10 μg/m3 (annual mean)	25 μg/m3( 24-hour mean)
PM10	20 μg/m3  (annual mean)	50 μg/m3(24-hour mean)
NO2	40 μg/m3 (annual mean)	200 μg/m3 (1-hour mean)
SO2	20 μg/m3 (24-hour mean)	500 μg/m3 (10-minute mean)

The World Health Organization considers air unsafe when average exposure to any of these matters exceeds the limit.  According to the 2016 EPI, more than 3.5 billion people – half of the world’s population – are exposed to unsafe air quality which also includes 75% of India’s population. However, Indian air quality standard limits the safe exposure to PM2.5 up to 40 μg/m3 and a recent study reveals that 50% population living in 45% districts of India is exposed at PM2.5 concentration beyond 40 μg/m3.

As some indicators are common for indoor as well as outdoor pollution so to understand clearly, first we need to know what these indicators really are.

Particulate matter (PM) is a complex mixture consisting of varying combinations of dry solid fragments, solid cores with liquid coatings and small droplets of liquid. These tiny particles vary greatly in shape, size and chemical composition, and can be made up of many different materials such as metals, soot, soil, and dust. Particulates are highly carcinogenic and have been classified in Group I carcinogen because of their ability to penetrate deep into the lungs and blood streams. They can also cause permanent DNA mutations, heart attacks, and premature death.

PM10 is roughly one-seventh the diameter of a normal human hair. PM10 is a major component of indoor air pollution and forest fires. It consists of sulfate, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, and black carbon; it may also include concentrations of natural windblown dust. PM10 is harmful to health because it can block and inflame nasal and bronchial passages, causing a variety of respiratory-related conditions that lead to illness or death. The European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) published in 2013 stated that with every increase of 10 μg/m3 in PM10,the rise of 22% in the lung cancer was observed.

PM2.5 is often produced by biomass and fossil fuel combustion as well as natural sources such as windblown dust and volcanic activity. It is often considered even more dangerous to human health because of its ultrafine size and ability to cause several diseases related to lung and heart. With every increase of 10 μg/m3 in PM2.5 concentration, 36% increase in lung cancer was also observed (ESCAPE, 2013).

Ozone (O3), an important ingredient of smog, is a highly reactive and unstable gas capable of damaging the linings of the respiratory tract that can cause lung inflammation, shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, coughing and exacerbation of respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia and asthma. Long-term exposure has been linked with chronic respiratory illnesses. Approximately 142,000 people died as a result of exposure to ozone in 2010 –an increase of about 6 per cent since 1990.

Nitrogen oxides (NOX) are one of the principal pollutants that result from fossil fuel combustion. It helps in the formation of ozone and also causes several chronic diseases.

Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is a colorless gas with a very sharp odour formed with the combustion of sulfur-based coal and oil.Sulfur dioxide can form Sulphuric acidic upon combination with water and can cause acid rain. SO2 can also cause respiratory and cardiac diseases which lead to increased mortality rate.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odourless gas, produced mostly by vehicles, fuel combustion boilers and incinerators. It can cause headaches, visual impairment, reduced cognitive functioning and ability, and reduced ability to perform complex tasks. Very high levels can also result in unconsciousness and eventually death.

Household Air Quality

Indoor air pollution is among the top five environmental health risks. According to various studies, household air pollution causes more deaths than outdoor with researchers even emphasizing that 40 per cent of all the diseases burden can be attributed to household air pollution.

In 2012, indoor air pollution was linked to 4.3 million deaths globally, compared with 3.7 million for outdoor air pollution. In another survey done the sameyear, it was found that Indoor and outdoor air pollution claimed at least 40,000 UK lives a year with a total damaging cost of £20bn.In India, too, the death due to indoor air pollution amounts to 300,000 to 400,000.

Artemis hospital conducted a survey which found that 76per cent of the offices and houses in National Capital Region have unhealthy air quality and 34 percent of people staying indoors have respiratory problems.

Solid fuels are the biggest contributor to the deterioration of household air quality. It is estimated that 25-30% of primary particle pollution in India is from household fuels (Chafe, 2010). Over 1 billion children live in homes where solid fuels are used in cooking and heating and in India about 64% population use solid fuels with high PM2.5 production (see fig 1).

A study in Andhra Pradesh, India, found that solid fuel use created a mean 24-hour average concentration of particulate matter that ranged from 73 to 732 μg/m3. Guidelines from the WHO indicate that it shouldn’t exceed 10 μg/m3. National exposure models, developed for solid fuel using household-level average estimates of PM 2.5, has found following results:

	Average Exposures (24 hours)
Women	337 μg/m3
Men	204 μg/m3
Children	285 μg/m3

Outdoor Air Quality

Outdoor air pollution is also considered Group I carcinogen. Many types of research show that pollution is not only the national problem of India but also the problem of whole South Asia. India is surrounded by highly polluted neighboring countries like Pakistan,Bangladesh,China, Nepal, Tibet,Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has performed best in South Asia with the rank 108th in 2016 EPI. Around 2 billion children live in areas where outdoor air pollution exceeds international limits. Almost 300 million children live in areas where outdoor air pollution is toxic – exceeding six times international limits. WHO reports, also suggestthat urban outdoor air pollution has increased by about 8 per cent between 2008 and 2013. It has also been found that in 2012 approximately around 127,000 children under the age of 5 died from outdoor air pollution in 2012 while 531,000died from household air pollution.

China and India have time and again been observed as areas where air pollution is at its worst.

PM 2.5 and PM 10: On October 31st, 2016, the day after Diwali, Delhi witnessed severe air pollution which was 14-16 times higher than the safe limit prescribed. On the basis of the data retrieved from the Central Pollution Monitoring Agency,  concentrations of Particulate Matter or PM 10 (coarser pollutants) was found to be around 1,600 micrograms per cubic metre against the safe level of 100 at around 2 am in Delhi’s AnandVihar and PM 2.5 was 14 times the safe limit. Following nine days from November 1st till November 9th, Delhi saw its worst smog very similar to the Great London smog, and is also named as Great Delhi smog.Infact, according to ‘Ambient Air Pollution Database, WHO, May 2016, India has 13 cities in worlds top 20 most polluted cities with Delhi leading the pack along with Patna, Gwalior, and Raipur respectively. Of 1215 most polluted cities recorded, 133 were Indian with 31 in top 100 most polluted cities. Figure 2 shows PM10 concentration in various mega-cities of the world.

Carbon emission: India has seen an increase of 137% in the carbon emission from 2001 to 2013 while China has observed an increase of 191%. Again from 2014-2016, carbon emission increased in India by 2%. Between 1971 and 2014, total CO2 emission in India has increased by more than 1100% with 181 million tons in 1971 to 2190 million tons in 2014. In 2014, carbon emission from India accounted for 6.78% of total global emission.

Nitrogen Oxides: From 1997 to 2011, NO2 emission in India increased by 28% while Nitrogen Use Efficiency decreased by almost 32%.

Sulphur Dioxide (SO2): According to recent studies it was found that SO2 emission in India from 2005-2012 increased by 71% while the SO2 burden on the environment increased by 63%.

Consequences of Air Pollution

There is concrete evidence that air pollution leads to low birth-weight, tuberculosis, ischemic heart disease, cataracts, asthma and nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers. New research has found that air pollution might also affect cognitive development. PM2.5 are so small that when inhaled they can enter the bloodstream,and recent medical research indicates that it can cause thedegeneration of blood-brain barriers, leading to oxidative stress,neuro-inflammation and damage of neural tissue. Air pollution is linked to diseases and infections that kill around600,000 children under 5 years of age per year. A study even shows that about 2.2 million school children in Delhi are growing up with irreversible lung damage which they will never recover.

The number of premature deaths due tooutdoor air pollution is projected to increase from3 million people globally in 2010 to a global total of6 to 9 million people in 2060. The number of cases of bronchitis is projected to increase substantially, going from 12 to 36 million new cases per year for children aged 6 to 12 and from 3.5 to 10 million cases for adults.

Total welfare losses due to air pollution in India amounted to more than 500 billion USD (~8.5% of country’s GDP) in the year 2013 (381% increase from 1990). Total welfare costs of air pollution in the world is expected to increase from 3160 billion USD in 2015 to 18300 – 25330 billion USD in 2060 (as per 2010 PPP exchange rates).

Solutions

Three basic strategies to reduce pollutant concentrations in indoor air are source control, ventilation, and air cleaning. Under source control,we can reduceemissions through the use of cleaner fuels, such as liquid petroleum gas and electricity. Under ventilation, air is exchanged between the inside and outside of a building throughthe introduction of outdoor air. Air cleaning can be done with the help of mechanical air cleaners. Planting trees as much as possible might help in tackling air pollution in general. Some policies and measures suggested by OECD are making pollution more costly than greener alternatives, removing environmentally harmful subsidies, devising effective regulations and standards, encouraging green innovation and integrating environmental objectives in economic and sectoral policies etc. Using public transport instead of private will also help mitigate pollution. The government has agood option of local and metro trains based on electricity to reduce carbon load as id evident by the case of The Delhi Metro.One study shows that each extension of the metro rail resulted in a decline in nitrogendioxide and carbon monoxide in Delhi. The estimates for nitrogen dioxide reductions rangedfrom 3 to 47 percent, while those for carbon monoxide rangedfrom 31 to 100 percent.

Conclusion

Various reports like The Environment Performance Index 2016, The Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) 2016, Ambient Air Pollution Database, WHO, May2016, Clear the air for children: The impact of air pollution on children UNICEF 2016 and many others suggest that India is oneof the most polluted countries in the world.

India, inspite of being better in GDP per PPP than many countries, has done very poor in the 2016 EPI.  Infact, if we compare the 2016 EPI reports with 2016 Global Peace Index (GPI) in which India (coincidentally and interestingly) again ranks 141; we observe that India has done worse than various less peaceful countries like Iraq, Nigeria Libya, Ukraine, Egypt, Syria and several others in overall EPI. This brings us to the construe the fact that it is the willingness of the government rather than its GDP or stability to act against pollution.

Not any major initiative has been taken by the Indian Government to tackle the air pollution. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) was launched by Government of India on October 2nd, 2014 to reduce the pollution but exactly one week before on September 25th, 2014; Government also launched “Make in India Initiative” which hopes to make India a production hub. Production will also mean putting our already vulnerable environment further at risk. The government needs to understand that “Swachh Bharat” and “Make in India” cannot go hand in hand. Rather, Central Government along with the State Governments should create and launch strict policies and measures to cope with the menace called Air pollution.

India, on October 2nd, 2016, has ratified the Paris Agreement with the aim to deal with greenhouse gases emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance starting in the year 2020. Decalaration, as given by the government, is

   “The Government of India declares its understanding that, as per its national laws; keeping in view its development agenda, particularly the eradication of poverty and provision of basic needs for all its citizens, coupled with its commitment to following the low carbon path to progress, and on the assumption of unencumbered availability of cleaner sources of energy and technologies and financial resources from around the world; and based on a fair and ambitious assessment of global commitment to combating climate change, it is ratifying the Paris Agreement.”

India has also recently unveiled largest solar panel facility in the world at Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu which has a capacity of 648 MW and covers an area of 10 sq km. In a bid to curbe air pollution in National capital Region, Supreme Court banned the sale of firecrackers. Badarpur Thermal Power Plant was also ordered to stop functioning till January 31st, 2017. For a few days all the construction works were also ordered stop. Let’s hope that government follows its agreement and work towards making the world much cleaner and saferplace to live in.

The Story Behind The Jerusalem Attack

Ramzy Baroud 

Early October 2016, Misbah Abu Sbeih left his wife and five children at home and then drove to an Israeli police station in Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.

The 39-year-old Jerusalemite was scheduled to hand himself over to serve a term of 4 months in jail for, allegedly, trumped up charges of ‘trying to hit an Israeli soldier’.

Misbah is familiar with Israeli prisons, having been held there before on political charges, including an attempt to sneak into and pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is part of a large compound known as Haram al-Sharif, which includes – aside from Al-Aqsa – the famed Dome of the Rock and other Palestinian Muslim sites, revered by Muslims everywhere.

Al-Aqsa is believed to be the second mosque ever to be built, the first being Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. The Holy Quran mentions it as the place from which Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven, journeying from Mecca to Jerusalem.

For Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, the Mosque took on a new meaning following the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian city of al-Quds (East Jerusalem) in 1967.

Scenes of Israeli soldiers raising the Israeli flag over Muslim and Christian shrines in the city fifty years ago, is burnt into the collective memory of several generations.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, that the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has been the focal point of clashes between Palestinian worshipers and the Israeli army.

Daily visitors to the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem include non-Muslims tourists. They are often welcomed by the Al-Waqf administration, which is the Islamic religious trust that manages the holy shrines, a practice dating back 500 years.

Even after the Israeli occupation of the Arab city, al-Waqf has continued to be the caretaker of the Muslim site, as arranged between the Jordanian government and Israel.

Israeli design in the occupied city, however, is far greater than the Mosque itself. Last April, the Israeli government announced plans to build 15,000 new housing units in Occupied Jerusalem, contrary to international law.

The international community recognizes East Jerusalem as a Palestinian city. The United States, too, accepts international consensus on Jerusalem, and attempts by the US Congress to challenge the White House on this understanding have all failed. That is, until Donald Trump came to power.

Prior to his inauguration in January, Trump had promised to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The announcement was welcomed by Israeli rightwing politicians and extremists alike. Many of Israel’s supporters in the US saw this as a good sign of the Trump presidency.

While the US embassy is yet to officially move to Jerusalem, the new administration is sending a message that it is no longer bound by international law with regard to the Occupied Territories.

Not only is the US abandoning its self-tailored role as a ‘peace broker’ between Israel and the Palestinian leadership, but it is sending a clear signal to Israel that there can be no pressure on Israel regarding the status of Jerusalem.

In response, the United Nations and its various institutions have moved quickly to reassure Palestinians.

The UN cultural agency, UNESCO, has been the most active in this regard. Despite US-Israeli pressure, several resolutions have been passed by UNESCO and the UN General Assembly in recent months, which have reaffirmed Palestinian rights in the city.

Israel and the US moved to punish Palestinians for UNESCO’s decisions.

It began when the Israeli Knesset began pushing laws that make life even more difficult for Palestinian Jerusalemites, including a law that limits the Muslim call for prayer. The law, which passed its second reading last March, was championed by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli police expanded the ever-growing list of Palestinians who are not allowed to reach their houses of worship. The list included Misbah Abu Sbeih, who was repeatedly arrested, beaten and incarcerated by the Israeli police.

The Israeli government then opened up the flood gates of settlement expansion in the occupied city, after being partially limited during the presidency of Barack Obama. In part, that was Netanyahu’s response to UN Resolution 2334, which demanded an immediate halt to Israeli settlement construction in Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.

Concurrently, the new US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, took on the task of silencing any international criticism of the Israeli occupation, calling international attempts to end the occupation a form of ‘bullying.’

Assured by the unconditional US support, Netanyahu moved to new extremes. He severed his country’s ties with UNESCO and called for the dismantlement of UN headquarters in the occupied Palestinian city.

East Jerusalem was already illegally annexed by Israeli in 1981, but without international acceptance of such a measure, the Israeli move seemed pointless.

Now, Israel feels that times are changing, as the Trump administration offers Israel a window of opportunity to normalize its illegal occupation and annexation of the city.

In recent months, Palestinians have responded in myriad ways. They have worked with various countries across the globe to challenge the Israeli-US plans.

Most Palestinian efforts, although successful to some extent, have failed to sway Israel in any way.

The political upheaval has translated on the ground to more violence, as thousands of Israeli occupation soldiers and police were rushed to the city to restrict Palestinian movement and to block thousands of worshipers from reaching Al-Aqsa. Hundreds were detained in a massive security campaign.

In the absence of a strong leadership, Palestinians are growingly increasingly desperate and angry. The Palestinian Authority is largely busy in its own pitiful power struggles and appears to have no time for Palestinians, who are left with little hope for a political horizon and no clear sense of direction.

While thousands of Palestinians have resisted through constantly attempting to reach Al-Aqsa or demonstrated in protest, others are “reaching the breaking point”. One is Misbah Abu Sbeih.

Once he arrived at the Israeli military police station, Mishbah did not give himself up. Instead, he opened fire, killing an Israeli army office from the ‘Yassam’ unit and another Israeli. He was killed instantly.

Other attacks followed. On Friday, July 14, the holiest day of the week in the Muslim calendar, three Palestinian men attacked Israeli soldiers and police officers stationed near one of the Haram’s gates.

They killed two Israeli officers, and were killed by occupation soldiers, soon after. This is the first time that an attack of this nature has been recorded inside the Al-Aqsa compound. Since 1967, only Israelis have used arms in violent clashes with Palestinians. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in or around this holy shrine throughout the years.

Last June in Jerusalem, speaking to a crowd celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the city, Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu declared that the al-Aqsa Mosque compound would “forever remain under Israeli sovereignty.”

Empowered by the Trump administration and assured by Haley’s tactics at the UN, Netanyahu feels that his dream of subduing East Jerusalem is being realized. The price of Netanyahu’s dream, however, is likely to be costly.

On the day of the attack, several Palestinians were killed in various parts of the West Bank and a 3-year-old child from Gaza died while awaiting a permit to cross from the besieged region to the West Bank for treatment. None of this registered in international media. The armed Palestinian attack on Israeli soldiers, however, made headlines around the world.

More violence is likely to follow. Palestinians, who are dying without much media coverage, are desperate and angry as their holy city is crumbling under the heavy boots of soldiers, amid international silence and unconditional US support for the Israeli government.

Does Renewables Hold The Answer To Rural?

Deepak John

“Energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, social equity, and environmental sustainability”. This is how ex- Secretary General Ban Ki Moon described energy in an event address at Washington DC.  This single statement reflects how access to energy can be vital in bringing positive change to lives especially for the marginalized. Studies have shown a strong correlation between rural poverty and access to electricity. But what is the point if electricity doesn’t reach the intended group? This is the harsh truth for the masses in 14,796 remote villages where the electricity hasn’t reached yet.  The gravity of the issue can be understood when the definition of ‘electrified’ is scoped further. According to the criteria used by the power ministry, a village is considered electrified if electricity is provided in public places and at least 10% of households. A village can be considered electrified even if 90% of its households do not have electricity. Although currently, the electrification rate is high and growing (96%), 244 million or 19% of population still do not have access to electricity as of 2016. Other than this, there are other questions raised on the quality of energy supply, individual connectivity and the duration.  So, do the answer to rural energy security lie in renewables? Do renewables have enough firepower to sustain and empower the rural economy? There is no simple answer yet.

If the same questions were to be raised a decade earlier, the answer would have been a definitive ‘No’. But over the years, this definiteness is fading as renewed vigour in research and development have paved way for more affordable and accessible renewable technologies.  This is especially in the case of solar technology. As per the World Bank report, the cost of electricity from solar photovoltaic (PV) is currently a quarter of what it was in 2009 and is set to fall another 66% by 2040. That means, a dollar will buy 2.3 times as much solar energy in 2040 than it does today. Favouring its adoption even more is the fact that India is in a fortuitous position to tap solar energy with the country receiving 300 days of sunshine throughout the year. A major thrust has been put in to develop a conducive environment for the growth of Solar sector in the country.   In the international arena, India even scored a diplomatic win by pioneering International Solar Alliance (ISA) and rallying the cause for affordable and accessible solar energy. But what does all this hullabaloo around renewables mean to the people of the villages?

Sustaining rural economy

A rural renewable project not only raises productivity but also provides a host of socio-economic benefits. Apart from freeing up time from monotonous chores and gaining access to better electricity services, it also helps develop a self-sustaining micro-economy. A Rockefeller foundation initiative called “Smart power for rural development” based on renewable power in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is showing positive results in uplifting and rejuvenating the local economy. In the village of Kamlapur in Uttar Pradesh, a local entrepreneur set up a new business to manufacture garments with the use of electric sewing machines. After a two-month training, 50 local women were employed from the community, resulting in increased incomes for families that traditionally depended on agricultural wages. Like these, scores of other encouraging stories of empowerment for women, girls and youth has shown that renewable power can be an agent of social transformation too.  It also has the potential to bring positive changes in the mainstay of rural economy- agriculture. Adopting a renewable route to agri-power makes economic sense as major subsidy to farmers can be drastically reduced. Not only this, the operations and maintenance (O&M) of such energy assets itself will require a team of semi-skilled workforce wherein the rural youth can be meaningfully engaged. But the question remains whether we are ready to fully harness the renewable energy at the grassroots. There are some challenges.

What’s holding back renewables?

Renewable energy has a unique quality that the raw material is available at the site itself and no external supply is required- be it wind, solar or small hydro. Being constraint in resources and in delivery mechanism, it makes sense to go for an off-grid model which leverages this quality. This is a not a new concept as government has been already toying with concept of decentralized renewable energy (DRE) based rural electrification for years now. However, the implementation and application has been met with limited success owing to many factors. One of the major impediment is the financial viability.  It includes both up-front installation cost and high operation and maintenance expense. It further leads to prohibitive tariffs structure that is a barrier to low-income rural population. There is high disparity between grid-connected and off-grid tariff structure. This is where government and private players have to step in. It is a state imperative to devise creative financial instruments that hedge the risks for private players, even out tariff iniquities and at the same time ease the access to financial capital for the local community. Currently, there is no robust finance mechanism for supporting DRE projects in the start-up or in the initial phase except for capital subsidies. Thus, a cohesive partnership between government, private players and local stakeholders is needed and the grey areas in capital finance and tariff structure will have to be cleared.

Now, there is a clear policy bias towards grid extension rather than on off-grid model as preferred mode of electrification. Consequently, the government has been reluctant to heavily invest in off-grid options for rural electrification, barring remote villages. This adverse policy environment is hindering the growth of an ecosystem that is essential for developing off-grid villages in remote areas. Developing an off-grid village should not be seen as costly and complex exercise but rather also account for its extended socio-economic benefits in terms of women empowerment, enhancing organizational capacity of rural masses and social dignity.