Model Villages with Urban facilities possible utilizing government schemes

Punsari village, barely 100 km from Ahmedabad, could be a textbook case of development. Closed-circuit cameras, water purifying plants, air-conditioned schools, Wi-Fi, biometric machines - the village has it all. And all of it was done in a matter of eight years.

The man behind the transformation is its young sarpanch - 31-year-old Himanshu Patel. A graduate from North Gujarat University, Mr Patel had won the panchayat polls in 2006, at the age of 23. Back then, the village didn't even have proper roads, power or water. The panchayat funds were in deficit. Mr Patel found though money come aplenty, it was the utilisation that's at fault. 

Over the next eight years, together with the district administration, he stitched up funds from under various heads - the District Planning Commission, Backward Regional Grant Fund, 12th Finance Commission, and those under Self Help Group Yojnas - and began the development of the village.

 The results are obvious. Recently, a team from the Central ministries of rural and urban development had come to study the "Punsari model".
But the young sarpanch is already onto his next projects - a unit producing electricity out of plastic waste and e-rickshaws for garbage collection. "The state government has already sanctioned Rs. 52 lakh," he said.

Understanding the importance of education, Mr Patel has earmarked a chunk for the village school. From 300 students in 2006, the number has now doubled to over 600. The classrooms are not just air-conditioned but also have computers and projectors.

"We have managed to attract more children," said teacher Narendra Jhala.  Vidya Patel, a student of Class 7, thinks learning is fun. "The audio visual presentations make it easier to remember our lessons," she said.

Interestingly, Mr Patel has not asked for a penny from the MLA fund, and over the last eight years, the village has just got Rs. 1 lakh from the MP fund.

"We didn't feel the need, since there is enough from various budgetary grants of the state and Centre. If you utilise it properly, you can work wonders,'' said Mr Patel.

"The village has demonstrated how understanding various schemes available and leveraging them properly can bring about a qualitative change," said Himmatnagar collector Banchha Nidhi Pani. At a government primary school in the village, the students are under constant CCTV observation. This is to keep a tab on any wayward activities. Says Bhagwatiben Patel, Principal of the Punsari Primary School, "With the cameras in place, we can monitor the kids better. And even the children know they are being watched."

A reverse osmosis plant in the village provides clean drinking water at a nominal cost of Rs 4 for a 20-litre drinking water can. An indepenent bus service, a Wi-Fi tower providing 24-hour free Internet connectivity, water-proof public speakers and solar-powered lamps have enhanced Punsari's brand equity. And with each villager being insured for an accidental cover of Rs 1 lakh and a mediclaim cover of Rs 25,000, the people here have little to complain.

Sarpanch Himanshu Patel says, "The main intention was that we should have an atmosphere of a village, but facilities like those in the city. The government talks of urban-rural connect now, but we have already done it."

Punsari's turnaround happened when the village sold part of its land for plotted schemes. The money, deposited in government coffers, is used to fund the village's welfare schemes. And the village has now received good governance awards from both the central and state governments.

Meanwhile, neither is the village drenched in NRI funds nor have its schemes been funded through donations. It's just that the village has managed its accounts well and has made optimal use of government schemes.

Tackling Poverty Through Farming

Bio-diverse integrated farms: Means for reducing rural poverty

Farmers of fragile agro-ecosystems have developed some unique integrated farming systems, to make their farms more resilient to factors like changing climatic conditions, declining soil fertility levels and decreasing farm income. While many NGOs have promoted such improved systems, it is time to reckon these systems as units of planning for large scale adoption.

Bio-diverse farming in a 700 sq.m plot.

Poultry is integrated with fishery to reap more benefits.

In developing countries, ensuring food, nutrition and livelihood security through agriculture without causing negative externalities on social, economic and environmental sustainability is a challenge. This assumes greater proportions in the context of ever-increasing pressure on land and other natural resources, globalization and urbanization.

In West Bengal, the picture is even bleaker where 85% farmers are small and marginal in nature. The situation becomes harsh in marginal and less integrated environments like the rainfed and the coastal-saline production systems, where most of the poor people live. In such a situation, small holder agriculture assumes great significance.

Future of agriculture and rural poverty alleviation depends on how we ensure food, nutrition and livelihood security through sustainable and integrated family farming, which is resilient to uncertainties of climate and markets. Promotion of sustainable farming systems as a poverty alleviation strategy seems to be an appropriate solution. Though simple, it is still a challenging proposition.

The Integrated Bio-diverse Family Farm

Agriculture in South Paraganas, a coastal district in West Bengal, is characterized by mono-cropping systems. Soil salinity particularly in dry months is a major problem. Farmers migrate to nearby towns and cities in lean agricultural months. Agricultural productivity is low and there is a cyclic productivity-led poverty trap affecting the farmers. Small holdings limit the expansion of conventional farming and the youth are reluctant to pursue farming as an occupation.

To overcome the constraints, several hundreds of farmers in coastal saline area in West Bengal have established Integrated Bio-diverse Family Farms (IBFF) with the support from Development Research Communication and Service Centre (DRCSC), a Kolkata-based NGO. There are also thousands of similar IBFF that have been developed by the farmers themselves to sustain livelihoods from their small holdings. One could also find IFS in smaller holdings of less than 30 decimal.

Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University (RKMVU) aimed at establishing a model village on Integrated Rural Development, conducted an intensive study on IBFF to understand IFS models. The study was made as a part of the academic research programme.

We selected an IFS farm of 1 acre (60 katha) size from Patharpratima Block of South 24 Parganas district for our study. The one acre land was utilized as follows: 30-40 katha (50-66%) for raising crops, 10-12 katha for home and homestead (16-20%), 8-10 katha for water body (13-16%) and 4-6 katha for livestock raising (6-10%). Substantial space was created by raising and broadening the bunds. For every 0.27 ha crop field, around 0.02- 0.03 ha of cultivable land was created on the bunds, on which vegetables were grown all through the year. The ponds and trenches around the crop fields were interconnected to facilitate water flow in which fishes were reared. Apart from this, some space was created by using aerial cultivation on bamboo and rope made scaffolds. Since the farm was small in size, intensifications were enhanced by growing crops having less water requirement, more intercropping, agroforestry of fruit trees, use of aerial space, small livestock, backyard poultry etc.

We measured nearly 40 environmental, economic and social parameters of these farms. Primarily, to examine the benefits accrued from the farm, we took up two important poverty-related indicators – food intake (calorie consumption) and farm income. We examined whether the IBFF was enough to feed the family of five persons throughout the year or not.

The study revealed that the model could provide the requisite calories for the family members (2400 and 2200 Kcal per person per day for men and women, respectively). The household had to purchase only a small amount of pulses and onions from the market, which was less than 5% of the total dietary need. The estimated monetary benefit from IBFF model was around Rs.75,000-80,000, of which more than 60% was secured as cash income. Though the estimation did not consider benefits from medicinal plants (saving health expenditure), recycling of nutrients and organic manure (saving cost of fertilizers), materials used for household use etc., the monetary income of the model was enough to bring the households above government specified poverty line. (Rs.41062/ - per household per annum, assuming Rs.22.50/- per capita per day for rural areas).

Upscaling the model

A small farmer adopts an IFS model

RKMVU aimed at establishing a model village on Integrated Rural Development, conducted surveys in Paruldah village having nine village settlements. During the initial surveys conducted during 2011-12, we found agriculture as the principal livelihood option. But, this was constrained by salinity and small fragmented holdings of the farmers. Eighty eight percent of 561 households in Paruldah village belonged to Scheduled Caste and more than 50% of them were below the poverty line.

RKMVU discussed with the farmers about their needs and preferences. Also had discussions with the local Community-Based Organization, Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur (where our University’s Faculty Centre is situated) which has vast experience in promoting such models in the district. This apart, experts were also consulted in arriving at a suitable, powerful intervention point. IFS models of South 24 Parganas was the obvious choice which suited small holdings and resulted in multifunctional benefits to the farm household.

Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University initiated scaling up of the model in 2013, with farm-specific refinements in Paruldah village. The model is developed as per the needs and resources of the household and is not a prescriptive recommendation. Besides focus on the principles of ecological farming, these IBFF models further aimed at building social capital and a conducive institutional environment.

Farmers were organized into para (hamlet) committee comprising of around 20 men and women in each project village. Farmers are selected through bi-weekly para committee meeting followed by approval in the monthly village committee meeting.

Farmer Field School was organized to a group of farmers. Farmers received training from experts and scientists on scientific cultivation of crops and their pest management. FFS members are selected through the Para and Village Committee resolutions. An assurance is taken from the host farmer to return 10% of the benefits in monetary and/or non-monetary terms (e.g. - seed, labour) to the village committee. Besides crop data, members of this network also collected meteorological data from the village resource centre where a Hygrometer and Digital rain gauge are kept and monitored by the village committee. Further, leaders/farmer-trainers of the FFS provide training to other farmers at regular intervals.

All the farmers having IFS model are members of a Seed Sharing Network. Farmers select the germplasms and maintain them through the seed sharing network. All the members, as per their need, take seed at the initial stage of their cultivation and return 20% extra seed material to the seed sharing network after harvest. Members regularly monitor the process and supervise the quality of the germplasms, which are kept in a cool and dry place inside seed bins. Presently, the seeds of vegetables and mustard have been shared and they are stored in the seed bins.

As farm surplus is small, farmers have planned to sell their produce collectively, by forming a Market Linkage Network in each of the hamlet. This is still in the initial stages. In future, the entire model may be linked to farmer producer company or cooperative.

Thus, three institutional entities namely, Farmer Field School, Seed Sharing Network and Marketing Network have been established. A farmer may be a member of all these networks, but, this is not mandatory. Even interested non-farmers of the village have become member of one or more of these institutions.

Early benefits

Though it is too early to measure the impacts, there are certain developments that indicate that there are positive results. Farmers are coming together for the first time with regular interaction through Farmer Field Schools. Important farming related information/technologies are being exchanged among farmers. For instance, two progressive farmers are freely sharing their ‘hidden expertise’ with FFS members. Also enthusiastic members make use of Village Resource Centre where extension literature in local language is being maintained.

The seed sharing network has saved the farmers from expending cash for purchasing seed. In the first year, farmers have saved around Rs.400-500 on an average. While it has improved the access to seeds, the seed network has helped in maintaining the local germplasm. Seeds of local varieties of cucumber, bottle gourd, leafy vegetables, chillies etc. are being preserved, as women of the farm households grow these in the homestead areas.

There is a definite increase in the incomes realised from the farm. For example, Ranjan Mondal, one of the farmers, after securing for household consumption earned Rs.8000 from 18 layer birds (Rhode Island), Rs.8000/- from fish, Rs.15000/- from vegetables. Last year, he had not received any income.

The dietary diversity of the households has also increased due to the intervention. Previously, the share of carbohydrate was more than 80%. Now, with the consumption of vegetables, fish and eggs, the protein and vitamin components in the diet have increased. Also farmers are able to consume pesticide free, healthy produce.

More importantly, the solidarity of farmers has enhanced. Earlier, farmers of the nine village settlements hardly sat together for regular discussions.

Future potential

FFS members being trained in vermicomposting

Integrated Farming System (IFS) employs a unique resource management strategy to help achieve economic benefit while sustaining agricultural production and environmental quality. These systems which have the potential to address many issues like food security, employment generation and environmental stability are being promoted sporadically by NGOs. It is time to reckon these systems and implement as a unit of planning on a large scale.

Also, there is a need for various departments to work in tandem. For example, Sundarban Development Board, an autonomous body under the Sundarban Development Department of Govt. of West Bengal has promoted thousands of land shaping/excavation of irrigation tank in the Sundarbans region. A large number of such tanks have also been created under MGNREGA, a rural employment programme of the government.

There is an enormous potential of improving socio-economic condition and restoring ecological balance by promoting IFS on these lands. Even with a conservative estimate of 50000 farms in the area, the potential value of primary agriculture produce will be Rs.350 crore a year, of which Rs.125 crore will come to market directly. Not to mention the employment generated by these farms and the associated labour economy.

The contribution to ecosystem services is enormous if one can estimate in terms of nutrient balance, water saved, carbon sequestered, energy saved and biodiversity enhanced. These are subjects of great practical importance and, astonishingly, no policy initiatives have been taken up to focus the same. IBFF need to be taken up as units of NRM in regional planning and be merged with the overarching poverty alleviation strategy.

Old New Kingdom of Birds How India’s farms grant endangered avian species sanctuary

Despite all the trees being felled for farmland, official statistics suggest that India’s forest cover is not doing too badly. In the past two years, 367 sq km of it was lost, according to the Government’s latest India: State of Forests Report. But 50,000 sq km of it has been added by successful afforestation drives over the past 15 years. What these figures do not reveal are the implications to biodiversity. While natural forests support a wealth of flora and fauna, the afforestation count includes commercial plantations of teak, rubber, coffee or eucalyptus trees in neat arrays of desolate homogeneity. In other words, the natural habitat of many endangered species continues to shrink, their risk of extinction rising with every acre of forest cleared for a farm.

Until recently, that rising risk was held as an unqualified truth by conservationists. But evidence has emerged that farms—specifically, traditional farming practices—can sustain several forms of wildlife, avian especially. This is the conclusion of a unique study carried out by Dr KS Gopi Sundar, director of Program SarusScape, on the Gangetic floodplains of Uttar Pradesh to examine the impact of agriculture on biodiversity.

The Gangetic floodplains are one of the world’s four most intensively cultivated areas, with agriculture thought to date back at least 10,000 years. Today, this is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. “Cultivated areas in UP have proved an excellent barometer of the value that our farmers and their traditional ways offer the world at large,” says Dr Sundar, “By living in ways that keep them connected to the land and seasons, they have created a very large area that offers us multiple services—food production and conducive conditions for a large number of wild species.”

Dr Sundar is referring, specifically, to traditional farming practices that are marked not just by an absence of modern machines, but by a social and cultural milieu that shapes the attitudes of farmers in eco-friendly ways. Birds here are treated as friends. Instead of putting up scarecrows in every field, these farmers allow birds to feed off the farmland even if that means tolerating some crop damage. Traditionally, farming tracts in India have not been geometric furrows of prefect alignment with the crop occupying all possible space; they are patchworks of ponds, bunds, scattered trees and fallow zones that serve as a common area for cattle grazing. The idea has been to harmonise man’s need for sustenance with nature, a sort of ecological version of the region’s ‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’.

The study, which covered as many as 24 districts of UP, is clear that farmland is no substitute for the natural habitat of birds. It supports the restoration of forest spaces to the extent possible, but suggests that farming need not be disastrous to wildlife. Natural wetlands make up a mere 2 per cent of the Gangetic floodplains. Yet, the study has identified as many as 250 bird species thriving in the region, including the sparrow, the dwindling of whose population it exposes as a myth. For bigger birds that are indeed threatened, the findings are all the more noteworthy. “In terms of breeding success,” says Dr Sundar, “this region has a better crane and stork population than anywhere else in the world.”

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Pappu, a resident of Saifia village in Etawah district, is soon to be married. To gauge his prospects of marital happiness, he walks up to an oracular pair of Sarus Cranes—held in veneration for the lifelong bonds they form as couples—he has spotted feeding on a farm, and poses his question: “How will my wife be?” The female flutters her wings, raising her head from behind tall paddy stalks. Pappu is pleased with the answer. If the male had responded, he would have to worry about a tough, domineering wife. The female crane has assured him of a caring, pliant partner instead.

This is the land of the Panchatantra and Jataka Tales, with their lessons from the kingdom of birds and animals. Birds in rural UP are seen to have a mythical aura around them. “Chidiya ko maarna paap hai(killing birds is a sin),” declares Satish Chachu, a 42-year-old farmer who lives in a joint family of a dozen in Auraiya district. Birds are auspicious, he explains, they kill pests and rodents. More importantly, they are “Varunadev ka ashirvaad (a blessing from Varuna, God of the Elements)”, allies of mankind.

Just before the monsoon, for example, Red-wattled Lapwings (titeheris) issue a rainfall forecast by way of the number of eggs they lay. Two eggs laid are a sign of a parched landscape, while four eggs are a harbinger of bountiful rains. “It is always true,” says Ganesh Pal, a 73-year-old retired government employee with a bristly white moustache who now lives in Aligarh as a farmer.

Many other age-old practices that seem superstitious at first have been validated by science. Take the practice of scouring the land of its clay during summer, with the sticky mud used as material for building bricks or making dams and dykes. The practice, it turns out, keeps seasonal wetlands from drying out. Floodplains have thick deposits of silt and clay that form layers above the coarser soil. These layers fill up depressions, flatten the land and hold moisture near the surface—all welcome. But impervious layers of clay also prevent the percolation of water, and their periodic removal lets local acquifiers be replenished.

So too, the old practice of throwing fistfuls of ash from the kitchen stove onto a ripening rice field. This works as an organic pesticide. With no toxic chemicals in use, this also allows a vast variety of water birds to feed themselves safely and flourish in the fields. The stagnant water of paddy fields is found to host an entire eco-system of small fishes, crabs, frogs, snails, earthworms and the like. “They are a rich source of protein,” says Dr Suman Sahai, an academic in the field of genetics who has worked extensively on eco-friendly agriculture, and founder of Gene Campaign, a grassroots organisation that works with farmers.

Chemical pesticides are a real threat. Dr Sahai, who belongs to Tilhar, a small town in Shahjahanpur district, has vivid childhood memories of migratory birds coming to their farm. She now worries that mechanisation and the wanton use of chemicals will destroy this ecology that’s so integral to traditional agriculture. A lot of damage has already been done, she says.

Thankfully, traditions do endure in many parts of the Gangetic basin. Even in the most abundant of wetlands, it’s a rarity to capture five juvenile Black-necked Storks in a single frame, but such a photo graph was taken recently in Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh, and that too, along with a Sarus Crane family. These birds were nesting not around a lake, as is their wont, but on a watery farm.

Dr Sundar’s study finds that western Uttar Pradesh hosts the largest known population of Black-necked Storks, which have been losing numbers and were believed to be fish-eaters, primarily. In these parts, however, frogs have been found to be their favourite food, so much so that every fledging learns to catch frogs early in life. The fussy Asian Openbills, which live on an exclusive diet of large snails, have also found sustenance in water-logged paddy fields.

Equally impressive are the flocks of Black-breasted Weavers found to congregate in summer after their young ones come of age. Once, on a field trip in Jaunpur, Dr Sundar had one such flock—easily 2,000 strong—literally block his path. It was an experience he won’t forget. In its feeding frenzy, the flock was oblivious to the farmers tilling the soil nearby. “They are mostly seed-eaters,” he says, “but it was impossible not to think ‘Hitchcock’ when the flock took off at one point and flew at me. I suspect that the reed beds formed along the increasing irrigation canal network are helping this species.”

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Apart fromt the Sarus Crane, UP farmers are known to hold the Nilgai in reverence. It’s an antelope, but its hunting is strictly forbidden (thanks in part to its name, literally ‘blue cow’ in Hindi). Both species are doing spectacularly well in the region. “India’s largest flying bird Sarus Crane and India’s largest antelope, Nilgai, are found in largest concentration in agricultural fields here, not in any protected area,” says Dr Sundar.

According to his study, there is also a lot to be learnt from the institutional structures that let village panchayats aid the cause of biodiversity. “In India, small landholders continue with their style of farming no matter what the global economy goes through,” he says, “So crops in places like UP are largely those that match the weather profile of the landscape, and the maintenance of a patchwork mosaic landscape is natural for them since farmers need cattlefeed and firewood and also wetlands for various purposes.”

While population pressures may continue to result in wetlands drained and forests cleared for agriculture, village panchayats are perhaps a bulwark against ecological disaster. Even the Judiciary has thrown its weight behind the empowerment of panchayats. ‘Our ancestors were not fools,’ reads a January 2011 judgment of the Supreme Court passed by Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra, ‘Traditional rain harvesting water methods [have] served them for thousands of years.’

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While the wonders of traditional farming remain woefully unnoticed by the world at large, large sums of money are being devoted in the West to the cause of biodiversity.  In many parts of Europe and the US, industrial style farming is now seen as a threat to the planet. In central Europe, more than half of all arable plant species are on ‘red lists’ of threatened species. Despite expensive programmes to sensitise farmers to the environment, little headway is reportedly being made.

“The Government of India and local administration should not follow the bad examples of the West,” cautions Jan Peters, a landscape ecologist and ornithologist based in Germany. He has been in India for six months, travelled extensively and helped implement various projects for farmers under the Sustainable Management of Natural Resource Project of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ). He recommends rural development strategies that link the welfare of rural communities with traditional land use, sustainable utilisation of natural resources and conservation of biodiversity. In other words, a return to traditional farming.

Credit : http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/old-new-kingdom-of-birds

Human Development Index (HDI) India report

The world recognizes India’s economic growth and its progress on millennium development goals, yet the Human Development Report 2010 says that India’s 400 million citizens are still stuck in poverty and the country has to do a lot more to make significant progress on Human Development Indices.

According to 2010 HDR report India stands at the 119th position on the Human Development Index (HDI). Though India has jumped one position during the last five years, it continues to have high absolute poverty of people living below $1.25 per day along with high incidence of multidimensionality which is characterized by lack of access to health, education and living standards.

As per the report, about 1.75 billion people live in multi-dimensional poverty and 1.44 billion live below absolute poverty in the world. While Norway, Australia and New Zealand lead the world in HDI achievement, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe figure at the bottom of the pile among 169 countries in HDI – a composite national measure for health, education, and income.

Parallel to the advancements in the field of science and technology and many other spheres, India needs to work a lot to fight poverty and related challenges, says the report.

UN has come up with a report that suggests India is making some progress in reducing poverty. The report that tracks the progress of the international organization’s long-term goals, shows India’s poverty rate is expected to fall to 22% by 2015 from 51% in 1990.

Amidst all the poverty deaths, rising number of malnourished children in poverty stricken areas like Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Bundelkhand etc the report seems a travesty. The poverty rate though is measured by assessing the number of people who live below $1.25 a day, a threshold set by the World Bank, which is equal to Rs. 56.

The report says the improved conditions in India prove that global poverty has reduced. It concludes that by 2015 the number of people classified as living on less than $1.25 a day in developing countries will drop to less than 900 million from around 1.4 billion in 2005. Of these, the report expects around 320 million will be lifted from poverty in India and China.

The report also talks about the improved maternal health conditions, as it has declined by 63 per cent, 57 per cent and 53 per cent respectively in Eastern, South-Eastern and Southern Asia. Despite the healthcare and medical advancements, South Asia still has the second highest level of maternal mortality among all regions with 280 deaths per 100,000 live births.

The report overall shows a positive picture about meeting the poverty reduction target, aimed at reducing the number of the world’s poor between 1990 and 2015. Still many nations needs to do a lot more for people, where they are weaned of basic amenities like sanitation facility, clean water to drink, access to basic education and healthcare. However, the report sees fall in poverty rate below 15 per cent by 2015, indicating that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target can be met.

Rank	State/Union Territory	HDI
Very High human development
1	Kerala	0.921
2	Chandigarh	0.892
3	Lakshadweep	0.796
4	Mizoram	0.790
5	Delhi	0.750
6	Goa	0.617
7	Nagaland	0.770
8	Andaman and Nicobar Islands	0.766
9	Daman and Diu	0.754
10	Pondicherry	0.748
11	Manipur	0.707
Medium Human Development
12	Maharashtra	0.689
13	Sikkim	0.684
14	Himachal Pradesh	0.652
15	Punjab	0.605
16	Tamil Nadu	0.570
17	Haryana	0.552
18	Uttarakhand	0.490
19	West Bengal	0.492
20	Gujarat	0.527
21	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	0.618
22	Arunachal Pradesh	0.617
23	Tripura	0.608
24	Jammu and Kashmir	0.529
25	Karnataka	0.519
26	Meghalaya	0.585
-	All India	0.547
27	Andhra Pradesh	0.473
28	Rajasthan	0.434
29	Assam	0.444
30	Chhattisgarh	0.358
31	Jharkhand	0.376
Low human development
32	Uttar Pradesh	0.380
33	Madhya Pradesh	0.375
34	Orissa	0.362
35	Bihar	0.367

How the world can buy its way out of poverty for just $100 billion

July 11 was World Population Day, an annual occasion on which the United Nations reminds us all of the number of people on the planet -- now approaching 7 billion -- and the monumental challenges entailed in the task of caring for such an enormous human family. Among those challenges was "ending poverty," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement, one whose resolution would "unleash ... vast human potential."

That's undoubtedly true -- were a world free of poverty more than an idle dream. And the good news is that perhaps it is.

Poverty is, of course, a highly relative concept, but the usual definition of "absolute" poverty is an income of less than $1.25 a day. And it is an increasingly manageable task to ensure no one on the globe lives below that income. There are already a lot fewer poor people living at that level of destitution than there used to be -- indeed, less than half as many as there were 20 years ago. Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz at the Brookings Institution estimate there were around 1.8 billion people worldwide living on less than $1.25 a day in the early 1990s; the figure dropped to 1.3 billion people in 2005 and further to 900 million in 2010. Chandy and Gertz suggest that if we could accurately and directly supplement the income of each poor person in the world to bring his or her daily income up to $1.25, it would have cost $96 billion in 2005. But by 2010, as the number of poor people fell, that cost had dropped to $66 billion. This is something close to an aid official's dream: a foreign assistance program that actually gets cheaper every year.

Of course, donor countries might balk at combating absolute poverty in countries rich enough to handle the problem themselves. Martin Ravallion of the World Bank argues that the majority of countries with an average income above $4,000 could end domestic absolute poverty through a tax on those earning more than $13 a day in the country. For China in 2005 (with an average income just over $4,000), for example, he estimates that a 37 percent tax on those earning over $13 a day would provide enough revenue to bring every poor person in the country above the $1.25-a-day line. We've had six more years of growth in China since then; World Bank data suggests average incomes climbed 50 percent between 2005 and 2009 alone. That means there are a lot more rich people and a lot fewer poor people in the country already, and the necessary tax would be even lower today.

What about poor people living in countries with average incomes under $4,000? Such countries were home to about three-quarters of all those living on less than $1.25 a day six years ago, according to the World Bank. And because these countries contained most of the world's very poorest people, they also accounted for as much as 90 percent of the "income gap": the money required to lift poor people up to the $1.25 mark. If we assume (conservatively) that this share of the income gap is still about right, that would leave the annual global cost of eliminating absolute poverty in countries too poor to deal with it themselves at about $59 billion, or less than the annual budget of New York City.

And even that number is likely to drop fairly rapidly. Chandy and Gertz suggest that by 2015 there may only be 586 million people living below $1.25 a day, suggesting that the annual cost of eliminating poverty in poor countries could be only $40 billion in four years' time. By that time, too, more countries will be rich enough to handle poverty on their own, and the income gap will have fallen further, meaning that the actual number could be even less.

That's the theory, at least. But the $40 billion figure rests on the assumption that we can identify the world's poorest, work out exactly how poor they are, and deliver them the right amount of money to get them to $1.25 a day. We can't. Even the best income surveys are inaccurate, and enough people cycle in and out of absolute poverty that it would be an impossible task to precisely track and target them over time.

Still, we shouldn't overstate the scale of the problem: It isn't that hard to get a reasonably accurate measure of a household's income and wealth. In 1998, economists Lant Pritchett and Deon Filmer found that tracking people's ownership of 23 different assets -- bicycles, land, and flush toilets among them -- was a very reliable guide to their affluence or lack thereof. If you are willing to accept a little more imprecision, even simpler approaches are possible. In Bangladesh, a cash-transfer program kicks in if families meet one of only a few criteria for eligibility: working as day laborers, as sharecroppers, or in one of a few low-paid occupations such as fishing or weaving; belonging to a female-headed household; or owning less than half an acre of land.

The Bangladeshi program is designed to target families in the bottom 40 percent of the country's population with cash transfers. The Primary Education Stipend is given to parents of 4.8 million children from deprived households in return for sending their kids to school, at a rate of about $1.76 per child per month. Six national banks disburse funds to parents with bank-issued identity cards at temporary distribution points set up within a maximum of five kilometers from each school. The program has been analyzed by Bob Baulch of the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the study suggests that even a very poor and very populous country can operate a large-scale targeted cash-transfer mechanism. A little under 30 percent of the poorest fifth of the country's rural households get the stipend compared with around 10 percent of the richest fifth -- far from perfect accuracy, but some evidence that targeting can work. (And considering that the average income in Bangladesh is under $4 a day, even the least-poor recipients of the subsidy are still poor by any reasonable definition.)

Based on the Bangladeshi experience, it's safe to assume that the real price tag of ending absolute poverty in poor countries by 2015 would be a lot higher than the theoretical cost of $40 billion. But it's hard to imagine even a relatively inefficient, bureaucratic, and poorly targeted cash-payment-based program exceeding $100 billion. That's less than the value of current aid flows, which stands at around $129 billion -- and it amounts to only 0.25 percent of the GDP of high-income OECD members. In cash-strapped times and with the effectiveness of traditional aid still widely questioned, many rich countries have been wary of any commitment to increase assistance. But perhaps they could all agree to an additional one-quarter of 1 percent of their GDP going directly to the planet's poorest? For a measure that could end absolute poverty worldwide, it hardly seems like too much to ask.

Copenhagen Conundrum

The only thing that's interesting - and significant -- about the ongoing UN climate change conference in Copenhagen is the rallying together of the so-called weak countries: the African nations, Bangladesh, Island nations and others and their being backed by the BASIC four - Brazil, South Africa, India and China. And why wouldn't they fight for their survival, pushed to the wall as they are by the rich world?

Why is it so surprising that wealthy - and selfish - countries led by the likes of Denmark, Australia and the US are holding a brief for their like-minded brethren, refusing to commit themselves to targets and figures to slowdown global warming? Of their outright rejection of the Kyoto Protocol that was formulated with great thought, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility? What happened to the upholding of the polluter-pays-principle that requires those with historical responsibility to make amends in the interests of the common good? Isn't it inhuman to expect that while they remain well fed and uncommitted, poorer countries - who are only now taking the path of poverty alleviation and basic development needs - ought to reduce their energy consumption and infrastructure programmes? Is this not a violation of human rights?

Even as the rich countries wrangle over their right to continue to pollute, they have chosen to forget that the developing world is only asking for help - by way of clean technology transfer and funding for adaptation - to not take the same indiscriminate, environment-unfriendly path the developed world has taken so far. Is that asking for too much? Mary Robinson, former UN Commissioner for Human Rights, delivering a global verdict along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, says: "International human rights law says that 'in no case may a people be deprived of its means of subsistence'. Yet because of excessive carbon emissions, produced primarily by industrialized countries, millions of the world's poorest people's rights are being violated every day. This is a deep and global injustice."

Could there be any reasonable argument against this stand? With just four days to go before the current UN climate change conference concludes, tensions are running high with no sight of either monetary and technology transfer nor emissions cutback commitments from developed countries despite the UN framework underlining the fundamental principle of equity and justice in all such international negotiations.

The rich countries are guilty of several human rights violations against millions of people in the developing world, and these include the denial of the right to livelihood, the denial of the right to their homes, the denial of the right to food, shelter and clothing, the denial of the right to employment opportunities, the denial of the right to freedom from disease, denial of the right to preservation of cultures and traditions and in all, the denial of the right to a future free of poverty.

In its March 28 resolution in 2008 the UN Commission on Human Rights declared that climate change "poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world" and that the link between climate and change and human rights could no longer be ignored. From the International Panel on Climate Change fourth assessment report it is clear that there is scientific evidence that the acceleration in climate change and the ensuing consequences of the increase in the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts, and other what were hitherto seen as "natural" calamities are no longer natural but man-made, on account of the huge volume of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere with fast-paced industrialization and burning of fossil fuels, mostly by the developed world.

What the UN conference ought to address urgently is how culpable countries can be made to account for their responsibilities with regard to righting human rights violations of people living in vulnerable countries who had little or no part in the creation of the climate change problem in the first instance. If this question remains unanswered, maybe it is time the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change calls it a day, admitting that the entire expensive exercise - that began in 1992 with the Rio summit - has been a dismal failure, contributing to rather than helping to solve the problem that inspired the creation of the framework in the first place.

Sorry delegates, for squashing your plans for your next junket to Mexico City.

India's population will peak at 1.7bn in 2060: UN study

India's population is projected to peak at 1.718 billion in 2060, after which it will decline. At its peak, India will be the most populous country there has ever been or probably ever will be.

According to population projections released by the United Nations on Tuesday, India's share in the world's population will peak in 2030 after which it will decline, and the growth in the world's population from then on will be fuelled by Africa.

China at its peak in 2025 will have 1.395 billion people. In fact, when China peaks, India will have already surpassed it in population.

India's population will begin to decline only in 2060, a full 35 years after China. By the turn of the century, India's population, though declining, will be almost double that of China.

The latest numbers come from the UN's 2010 revision of the World Population Prospects. The last revision was in 2008. The "medium variant" for 2010 – the population projections based on national trends, which is neither the best nor worst-case scenario – produces a world population in 2050 of 9.31 billion, that is 156 million larger than the 2008 revision.

At the turn of the century, the world will have 10.1 billion people. On October 31 this year, the world will have its seven billionth person.

India's population will peak in 2060 and decline thereafter but still be double that of China's by the turn of the century, projections released by the UN say.

The rise and ebb of India's demographic dividend is played out starkly in the new numbers. Today, India's median age is 25 years, which makes it younger than China, Africa, the developed world and the global average. As fertility drops and life expectancy increases, India will grow older than the world as we cross the middle of this century. By the end of the century, even the developed world will be younger than India, whose median age will have almost doubled.

In 2010, just under two-thirds of India's population was of working age, that is, between 15 and 60 years. In contrast, less than half the population of the developed world is in its working age group, 24-60 years. By the turn of the century, less than half of India's population will be working, the rest dependent on it. The developed world will be nearing a two-thirds dependent population.

Whether the current demographic composition pays its promised dividend will depend to a large extent
on improved access to higher education. According to an Asian Development Bank draft report released on Wednesday, enrolments in tertiary education in China (21%) and India (12%) are far below those in the developed world.

However, postgraduate enrollment in China has now surpassed levels in India, growing more than five-fold, from 70,000 in 1998 to 365,000 in 2006, of which doctoral enrollment is 208,000.