Article 370 Scrapped But These Are 12 Pressing Issues In India That Need Immediate Attention
While it¡¯s easy to get carried away in the chest thumping on Article 370, how much of your and my Daily life will it affect?
While it¡¯s easy to get carried away in the chest thumping on Article 370, how much of your and my daily life will it affect? There¡¯s arguments on both sides -- and whether you agree or not with how this thing was handled, you¡¯d have to agree that Kashmiris did not have a say on what happened, and that was undemocratic. But regardless, here goes.
1.Our economy is at a six year low
The Indian rupee has declined the most in about six years and it lost 1.63 per cent on Monday alone to close at 70.74 to a dollar. The decline is the most since September, 2013. Foreign portfolio investors, according to data from the National Securities Depository, have sold a net Rs 12,419 crore in equities while buying Rs 9,433 crore net in debt securities in July while they have already sold Rs 5,522 crore of equities while buying Rs 755 crore worth of debt paper in August so far.
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Auto industry is in the midst of a massive meltdown. Maruti Suzuki registered a drop of 27.3 per cent in profit during the first quarter of Financial Year 2019-20. So, Kashmir, though it may disrupt the news cycles, will not have a massive impact here.
2. We¡¯re unhappier than we have been before
India has dropped down seven spots in the happiness rankings as compared to its 2018 ranking. Last year, India was placed on 133 position, but this year its ranking went down to 140. In 2015, India was on 117 spot, in 2016 it was ranked on 118 spot. So we can clearly see that our population is not happy and no matter how much of exuberance one may come across as unprecedented events unfold in Jammu and Kashmir, it is not going to change this state of unhappiness among the Indian population.
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3. Our entrepreneurs are really pissed off
A slew of entrepreneurs have publicly expressed their unhappiness at the manner in which they are being bullied by authorities and looked upon as criminals by the taxing and enforcement bodies. Founder of Cafe Coffee Day, India's largest coffee chain, late VG Siddhartha asserted that he was being pressurised by a private equity firm and the previous DG of income tax department but those remained the last words of the entrepreneur. At the same time, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the billionaire businesswoman and head of Biocon, told a leading newspaper that she received a phone call from a ¡°government official¡± who told her to refrain from discussing issues around income tax harassment.
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4. Our air is rapidly going from bad to worse
While steps are being taken to reduce air pollution at the national and state levels, the air we breathe is increasingly turning toxic. India falls in the shameful list of countries with the highest number of deaths due to air pollution, according to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which estimates seven million people are killed every year due to air pollution while non-fatal effects include irregular heartbeats, aggravated asthma and decreased lung function.
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Further according to the AirVisual and Greenpeace index, which was released in March this year, Seven of the world's 10 worst polluted cities are in India. New Delhi, which is home to more than 20 million people, was ranked at 11, making it the world's most polluted capital, even ahead of Dhaka and Kabul.
The scraping off of Article 370 isn¡¯t going to make our air cleaner and your lungs safer so do not drain your entire attention to it so as to neglect the more pertinent issues that have an impact on your lives directly.
5. Crimes against women are rapidly increasing
Every new day is a new horror as crimes against our women continue to increase rapidly. Women are being harassed, raped, tortured and killed in our country and no we are not living in the stone age. All of this is happening in 2019 but we seem to be caring very little about them. A lawmaker has come under the scanner for not only raping the daughter of Unnao but also for using evevry possible means to throttle her voice.
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As a society, we surely need to come together and stand shoulder to shoulder with our women, who are neither safe in the country nor do they have a free voice to resent their grievances. If you thought, Kashmir issue was something you cared deeply about and took a stand on it, why not make a similar show of strength for our women and ensure that they have an equal place in our country?
6. Our farmers have dropped out of the news cycle but they continue to suffer
It may be extraordinary but is a fact that should not be ignored. For a country like India that is largely an agro-based economy with farmers as the backbone of the country, isn¡¯t it astonishing to note that they occupy an almost negligible presence in our news cycle? Just last year, and that too on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, thousands of them walked in protest but were water-cannoned and prevented from entering the national capital!
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Let us put our attention where it is long overdue and ask why our farmers continue to suffer, why they have to committ suicide for trivial sums of money that may not even matter much to me and you?
7. We¡¯re sitting on a plastic epidemic
We are producing tons of plastic as waste everyday and as we know it is non-biodegradable. Plastic pollution continues to affect our environment and especially in our country, there is hardly any regard for the environment. A new report recently revealed that more than 25 countries dumped 1,21,000 metric tonne of plastic waste in India after recycling companies "slyly" imported it.
Reuters
According to the report by NGO Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Smriti Manch (PDUSM), 55,000 metric tonnes of plastic waste was imported in India from Pakistan and Bangladesh for recycling purposes. Well if we always have something to blame Pakistan for, this was surely something that should have been prevented. Isn¡¯t it?
8. India will soon run out of water
Our taps are drying out, schools, restaurants and hotels are shutting down due to scarcity of water and even police protection is being used to safeguard our water resources. These are chilling events that we are collectively failing to take note of even though they have now reached almost every neighbourhood in the country.
AFP
The World Resources Institute's Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas ranked water stress, drought risk, and riverine flood risk across 189 countries and their sub-national regions, like states and provinces.
India, ranked 13 on The World Resources Institute's Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas list of "extremely highly" water stressed countries, which said that India may soon run out of water.
9. Lynchings continue and there has only been one state which has brought an act against it
Shameful instances of lynching one another in the name of religion is not new in India and historical records trace them to pre-independence times but they have gained a lot more momentum in India over the past couple of years. In April 2017, Pehlu Khan, a Haryana native was lynched by a mob of over 200 while the cattle farmer, who was returning from Jaipur to Nuh in Haryana after buying cows.
There have been numerous other similar instances that have shocked the very consciousness of our population but only one state has so far decided to act tough on those indulging in mob justice. The Rajasthan legislative assembly on Monday passed a bill providing for life imprisonment and a fine from ?1 lakh to ?5 lakh to those convicted in cases of mob lynching leading to victim¡¯s death. Do we not need similar laws in all states of the country?
10. Road accidents have been rapidly climbing
India loses a city every year in road accidents. Road accidents take more than 1, 40,000 lives in a year in India. According to the statistics presented in the Lok Sabha, 146,133 people died in road accidents in 2015, 1,50,785 people in 2016, 1,47,913 people died in road accidents in 2017.
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11. Unemployment is showing no signs of being addressed
3,700 PHDs holders, 50,000 graduates, 28,000 PGs applied for merely 62 peon-level posts in UP police. This is the larger reality of the India that we live in. Despite the fact that official figures have not been released in the last two years, unemployment is an acute problem. Further, of about 72 lakh trainees under the government of India¡¯s ambitious Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), only 15 lakh people were able to bag placements.
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To make matters worse, we haven¡¯t even started planning for what happens when aggressive automation hits our economy.
12. Global Warming is taking its toll
For years now, scientists have been talking about the climate apocalypse. Different studies will put it at various times. It might not be till the turn of the century, it might be in a few decades, or it might be in 10 years. The fact remains though that it's coming. India is witnessing an unprecedented series of climatic events in recent years. Nobody would have thought that a city like Ajmer would see a flood like situation, drought is an almost yearly occurance and it is the same with floods. Our temparature is rising and we are burning more fuels, running more ACs, driving more cars. All of this together is only going to increase its impact in the years to come. How long can we go on ignoring it and when it¡¯s wrath has already begun to surface in our day to day lives?
Reuters