CHANGE PRIORITIES
Energy Discussion: Experts Want Shift In Focus
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Bangalore: As skewed priorities continue to hijack the energy debate in India, there is an increasing need for the debate to get more local in context. As historian Ramachandra Guha cautioned against the obsession with global climate change, columnist Kalpana Sharma sought a shift in focus: from the overtly politicized debate on nuclear agreements to the ground reality of the cooking gas crisis.
During a panel discussion on knowledge challenges that impact environment and development — organized by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED) — Guha also traced out how the West had been dictating development priorities in India. In the 1960s, it was the population issue; in the 1980s, it was the loss of bio-diversity and now, it’s climate change. “While I don’t deny that climate change is a serious issue, an over-emphasis on the issue obscures the real, local, every-day problems like pollution and the disposal of toxic waste, that also demand scholarly, policy-level attention,’’ Guha said.
Kalpana Sharma, who had co-edited the first Citizen’s Report on the state of environment in India, said while the nation is glued to a debate on nuclear energy, 86% of cooking in rural India is biomass-based. In urban India, about 20% of cooking is biomass-driven. Even when the figures tell a stark story, there has been no effort to research on the implications this dependence has on malnutrition and infant mortality.
The priorities in India continue to be misplaced in sectors like sanitation as well. “India is being projected as a huge economic power but we are a country where 665 million people still defecate in the open,’’ Sharma pointed out.
toiblr.reporter@timesgroup.com
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