 Welcome to Civil Speedia, the current affairs digital library powered by Shankar Iyer's Academy. As part of today's discussion, we look at Pakke, Hornbill Festival and Alliance to End Plastic Waste and about fiscal responsibility and budget management act review committee recommendations on depth GDP ratio and on an article in the Hindu newspaper with the title India Stares at Water Scarcity. First let us look at this Hornbill Festival. First of all, this location is in the state of Arunachal Pradesh and this Hornbill Festival, Pakke Hornbill Festival, Hornbill Festival is celebrated in Arunachal Pradesh and we should know that there are five species of Hornbill that are present in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. They are great Indian Hornbill, are also called as Great Peer or the Great Indian Hornbill with the biological name as Buceros bicarbonate and the next species is this Austen's Brown Hornbill or normally called as this Brown Hornbill, this also sometimes known as White Throated Brown Hornbill and earlier it was also given the name as Thelomius Ticheli and the third one, this Oriental Peered Hornbill, Anthrococeros albirostris, also known as this Indian Peered Hornbill and it was earlier wrongly named as this Anthrococeros malabaricus. You could find this name in the Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, however according to the government of Arunachal Pradesh, you could find this as the biological name and they have clarified that this was wrongly earlier named as Malabaricus and then Rupas Nect Hornbill also called the biological name as Asiris nipalinis and finally this Wrethed Hornbill which was also known as this Bar-pitched Wrethed Hornbill. These are the five species of hornbill that is available or found in the state of Arunachal Pradesh and most of these hornbills are Frugivorous which means largely they are Frutitis. This Ostens Brown Hornbill is the only hornbill species which is largely Carnivorous and coming to the legal protection to the species we should note that all these five species of hornbills were given legal protection under Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. They cannot be hunted and we should note that if at all as usually in the month of December Hornbill festival is celebrated in the state of Nagaland and usually for particularly for the last four years this festival is being celebrated in the state of Arunachal Pradesh during the month of January and it is recently in news because the state of Arunachal Pradesh has declared that Hornbill festival will be a state festival hereafter and that is why this Hornbill festival was in news and this in this location we could also find Tiger Resow and also a wildlife sanctuary. With this we come to the we talked about these five species of hornbills also the location Arunachal Pradesh and we saw about these details. Next we shall discuss about this Alliance to End Plastic Waste. What we should keep in mind is that on 16th January of 2019 in London this Alliance of Alliance to End Plastic Waste has been formed by around 30 international or national 30 companies in various parts of the world and this this alliance is also a not-for-profit organization. It was formed with and the alliance has also committed 1 billion dollar with the goal of investing 1.5 billion over the next five years. The main objective is to eliminate plastic waste in the environment particularly in the ocean. Special priority or the primary focus will be given to the plastic waste elimination of the plastic waste in the ocean and also to minimize and manage plastic waste and also promote solution for used plastics thereby to enable a by helping to enable a circular economy that that is there is no new present plastic should not add into waste rather than it should be reused and almost 30 companies have formed this alliance more all these companies will be part of this plastic chain involving production you know manufacturing buying selling reusing of these plastics in general these are the companies and we should note that this alliance has a chairman and two vice chairman and the chairman is David Taylor of this company Proctor and Gample and he is the chairman of this Alliance to End Plastic Waste and the two vice chairman are Bob Patel the CEO of of Landel Basel and Anto or the chairman and CEO of Veolia. They are the two the vice champions and he is the David Taylor is the chairman of this Alliance to End Plastic Waste and we should note that the first press release released by this alliance on 16th January of 2019 has mentioned that they are they are one of the project is to to to prevent or to eliminate this accumulation of plastic waste in the ocean through ten major rivers in the world and and they have particularly mentioned about River Ganga particularly the project called as Renew Ganga project. This project was sponsored by this National Geographic Society in which this alliance is very much interested and we should note that River Ganga every year accumulates around 0.54 billion plastic waste to the nearby ocean and with this we come to the end of this discussion on this Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Next we will discuss about this fiscal responsibility and Budget Management Act review committee which was for which Sri N. K. Singh was the chairman and this committee was appointed in the year constituted or appointed in the year May 2016 which is also called as FRBM review committee because the primary purpose was to comprehensively review this fiscal responsibility and budgetary management act of 2003. This was the primary purpose and and the terms of reference have also found mention to give opinion on the various recommendations suggested by 14th finance commission and also the expenditure management commission. This committee N. K. Singh committee was also asked to give opinion or views on the recommendations given by this 14th finance commission and also this expenditure management commission and coming to what where the various recommendations or proposals submitted by this N. K. Singh committee where we look at this. This they have submitted the report in the year 2017 January the report was made public in April 2017. Some of the very important recommendations are the committee proposed a new bill called as debt management and fiscal responsibility bill in the place of FRBMA act. And they made they have stated that debt should be the primary target for fiscal policy. Keeping this in their their statue and they have moved forward saying that debt to GDP ratio of 60 percent should be targeted with 40 percent limit for the center and 20 percent limit for the states. And they have also given a target wherein by the year 2020 to 2023 there should be only 2.5 percentage of GDP as fiscal deficit and only 0.8 percentage of GDP as revenue deficit and the debt as percentage of GDP or debt to GDP ratio in terms of percentage should be 38.7 percent for the central government at the first central level. This is these are their recommendations and we will also see some of their other recommendations as well. They have asked the center to constitute autonomous fiscal council with a chairperson and two members appointed by the center and they have also given what roles they have to play particularly in advising the government related to fiscal policy. Mostly their area will be within the within the purview of fiscal matters and they have also asked the central government not to deviate much as given in the FRBMA act 2003 the central government may deviate from the deficit target in case of national calamity and in case of national security and other exceptional circumstances. What the committee has asked is to remove this other exceptional circumstances and to bring out clear circumstances in which the country or the government can deviate from it and it has suggested few circumstances as well. And it has also asked the 15th the government should ask the 15th finance commission to recommend the dubbed trajectory for the individual states. This is also one of the recommendations and it has also made some restrictions towards the government of India borrowing from the RBI and finally it has also asked that by the end of 2022-23 a review committee similar to this has to be constituted so as to review the bill which could have become an act. These are the various recommendations related to this NK Singh Chad committee which reviewed the FRBM act of 2003 and these are all various recommendations. This is in news because recently the government of India has published the status paper for government debt for 2017-18 financial year wherein we could find the debt to GDP percentage of the central government has fallen from 46.5 percent in March 1, March 2014 from 47.5 percent in March 2014 to 46.5 by 2017-18 and there were experts saying that this is a good sign for the central government. Similarly, if you take the case of states in March 2014 the debt to GDP as percentage is 22 percent was 22 percent but now by the end of 2017-18 it was it rose to 24. What they are saying the economic experts are saying that this is not a good sign because if the states debt to debt to GDP ratio or in terms of percentages increasing in future it may lead to a situation where the states may may may caught up in a position where they could not service their debts. For example, they could they will not be able to pay interest for whatever debt or whatever money they have borrowed and actually if you do not consider this GDP denominator actually our debt for the central government and also for the state government has increased. If you see it was 56 lakh crore almost approximately 56 lakh crore in the year 2014 and between this and by the end of 2017-18 it rose to 86 lakh crore. We could find a 45 percent increase in the debt and also for the state it was around 63 percent increase but why we why we are taking the GDP in terms of denominator debt to GDP ratio is that because it gives a better picture including the idea of whether the state or the center will be able to service their debt that is whether it could be able to pay interest and finally settle the debt and why we are focusing on the states because the rating agencies are very crucial because every investment investment agency will look at the rating given by the rating agencies and source to make their investment choices. The rating agencies do not give you know a meritorious rating for our state governments because of this increased debt to GDP percentage then investments may not come in and which will affect always in economy like investment will affect the employment opportunities etc and it was also in terms of international best practices that the encasing chat committee has asked the state governments to stay within 20 percent of debt to GDP as percentage and also if states could adhere and also the central governments could adhere to this 40 percent and 20 percent of debt to GDP percentage then it means that Indian government overall is perfectly you know fiscal is stable and also prudent particularly in terms of fiscal realm with this we come to the end of this discussion next we look at this article from The Hindu newspaper which talked about water scarcity where the other states that the government every state government and the national and the center government should make water management or addressing the drought in all over India to be the immediate and the first priority rather than other things and the author has stated that in the year 2019 there is no guarantee that the month of June will witness a normal monsoon here the monsoon means southwest monsoon and he has stated that in the year 2018 during the southwest monsoon there was a national monsoon deficit of 10 percentage and the post monsoon deficit which means the post monsoon means during the month of October to December whatever precipitation or the rainfall that we have received during the months of October to December was called as this post monsoon in other words post southwest monsoon this deficit in the year 2018 was 44 percentage at what we have to keep in mind is this 10 percentage and this 44 percentage or national average it will not give give clear picture it will not give which state has received highest rainfall and which state has received the lowest rainfall therefore the other states if we look closely if we go by region by region if you take for example in Maharashtra there are two regions we know that Marathwada and this part will be Vidarbha and this part will be Marathwada this part will be Vidarbha and this part will be Marathwada and the state of Maharashtra we could see post monsoon deficit of around 84 percentage and in Vidarbha it is around 88 percentage and that is the seriousness of the data that we have and what this drought or what this less rainfall could lead to you know it could aggravate the present water crisis that we have at the national level and also at region level because of the other states it is also because of policies and also because of this corporate driven water transfers here the author mentions the water transferred from rural to urban area from agriculture to industry from poor to the rich and these are some of the reason it will aggravate water crisis and also it will aggravate agrarian crisis which is already looming we could see there are in numerous farmers committing suicides because of various reasons and one of the most important reason is because of the gamble in the monsoon and it could lead to food scarcity because no availability of water will lead to agrarian distress because not much productivity or production of production of food crops could be seen and therefore we could see loss of livelihood and finally loss of lives as well and the author also states that one should not see this justice a farm crisis or agrarian distress alone rather it should be seen as a national crisis because by by april or may of 2019 most of the regions in india would not have enough water to drink or to use for for agricultural purposes be it in cities or be it in rural regions and we should we all know that last year an intiyog report has stated that india is going to face the worst water crisis in its history and before entering into what the author has stated in the article next we will look at this average annual per capita water availability and according to government of india the year 2001 annual annual average annual per capita water availability is 1820 cubic meters and same for the year 2011 is 1545 and what we have to keep in mind is see the annual per capita water availability if it is less than 1700 cubic meters it means water stressed condition that means by 2011 if you take this national average india is already in the water stressed condition even in that period of 2011 if one looks based on different regions or different states we could see water scarcity condition which means if the annual per capita water availability is less than 1000 cubic meters it means water scarcity and the government of india has stated that even in the by the year 2011 several regions it has stated many regions in india has already become water scarcity condition and it has also projected that by the year 2025 there will be 1341 and by 2015 national average will be just 1140 and it is an alarming situation that of course as per the intiyogs report india will face the worst water crisis if certain measures or certain directions are not taken and the author has stated also stated that many a times this drought has given given haunts to india but it is also because of the role of media that it didn't become a famine what here the author author mentions to say is that many a time not the government has made its significant steps in preventing a drought to become a famine rather the media has also played a positive role in also preventing a drought by giving by by by you know distributing the information available so as to tackle the drought at the level of particularly related to agrarian distress and the author has asked all the government and the political parties and all the state government should consider it as a priority because 2019 is not going to be as in the past it will it can lead to a highly difficult situation because there is no guarantee even in 2019 there will be a normal monsoon and the author also called for drought relief water use and food security and massive earth related programs to be made the absolute priority of the central and the state governments and the he also states that any new prime minister who will be coming after the elections has to make a commission similar to national commission on farmers which was constituted in the year 2004 under the chairmanship of Sri Ammas Swaminathan there should be such a commission and the prime minister should be the chairperson and the drought commissioner and should be given a month so as to how to face this drought and how to assist the Indian population and these things has to be carried out two important things here we can suggest for solution of course there are a variety of solutions that can be offered in Delhi there is a Delhi Palla floodplain project what the project means is that here using the floodplain as an aquifer source to provide drinking water and water for users to million people per day in the cities and also in rural regions this is one of the project wherein we could use water coming from rivers for the purpose of consumption in the cities particularly and the year 2008 government of India has launched this national action action plan on climate change wherein one of the one of the sub schemes is the submissions is national water mission but what has to be made is that renewed focus has to be made wherein this drought has to be given a wide priority and absolute priority over others and much focus has to be given to rural India and farmers and then cities because usually when we talk when we talk about this water scarcity usually drinking water will be talked for the cities but what we have to give priority to this rural villages and rural India because it affects the farmers and we have this this this target of doubling this farmers income by the year 2022 but if we have all these problems if we do not address this agrarian distress and farm distress as the as given as the highest priority the situation will not improve and we cannot double the farmers income by the year 2022 and one important thing is that if we do not address the farmers distress or agrarian distress there will not be water to drink in cities in the future or very sooner according to the author with this we come to the end of this discussion we will we request you to like our video comment our video and also to subscribe to our Shankar eyes academy youtube channel for more updates and content on civil services preparation