RIO+20, 2012

RIO+20,   2012

Ø  The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio 2012, Rio+20, or “Earth Summit 2012” was the third international conference on sustainable development aimed at reconciling the economic and environmental goals of the global community.

Ø  Hosted by Brazil in Rio de Janeiro from 13 to 22 June 2012, Rio+20 was a 20-year follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit / United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in the same city, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.

Ø  The ten day mega-summit, which culminated in a three-day high-level UN conference, was organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and included participation from 192 UN member states — including 57 Heads of State and 31 Heads of Government, private sector companies, NGOs and other groups.

Ø  The conference had three objectives:

Ø  Securing renewed political commitment for sustainable development

Ø  Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting previous commitments.

Ø  Addressing new and emerging challenges.

Ø  The official discussions had two main themes:

·        How to build a green economy to achieve sustainable development and lift people out of poverty, including support for developing countries that will allow them to find a green path for development.

·        How to improve international coordination for sustainable development by building an institutional framework.

Ø  In the months leading up to the beginning of the conference, negotiators held frequent informal consultations at UN headquarters in New York City, and in the two weeks before the conference was scheduled to begin, they managed to reach consensus on the sensitive language in the then proposed outcome document for the summit.

Ø  Billed as the biggest UN event ever organized—with 15,000 soldiers and police guarding about 130 heads of state and government, from 192 countries, and the more than 45,000 individuals gathered in Rio de Janeiro.

Ø  The conference centered around Agenda 21, the outcome document from Earth Summit 1992. That document was considered revolutionary in that it essentially created the term sustainable development and created the global environmental agenda for the next 20 years.

Ø  The UN wanted Rio to endorse a UN "green economy roadmap," with environmental goals, targets and deadlines, whereas developing countries preferred establishing new “sustainable development goals" to better protect the environment, guarantee food and power to the poorest, and alleviate poverty.

Ø  A few key global leaders—mostly G20 leaders and namely United States President Barack Obama, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron—did not attend the conference and blamed their absence on the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis. Their collective absence was seen as a reflection of their administrations’ failure to prioritize sustainability issues.

Ø  The primary result of the conference was the nonbinding document, "The Future We Want," a 49 page work paper. In it, the heads of state of the 192 governments in attendance renewed their political commitment to sustainable development and declared their commitment to the promotion of a sustainable future.

Ø  Some important outcomes include the following:

·        “The text includes language supporting the development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of measurable targets aimed at promoting sustainable development globally.

·        The attempt to shore up the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in order to make it the “leading global environmental authority”  by setting forth eight key recommendations including, strengthening its governance through universal membership, increasing its financial resources and strengthening its engagement in key UN coordination bodies.

·        Nations agreed to explore alternatives to GDP as a measure of wealth that take environmental and social factors into account in an effort to assess and pay for ‘environmental services’ provided by nature, such as carbon sequestration and habitat protection.

·        Recognition that "fundamental changes in the way societies consume and produce are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development.” EU officials suggest it could lead to a shift of taxes so workers pay less and polluters and landfill operators pay more.

·        The document calls the need to return ocean stocks to sustainable levels “urgent” and calls on countries to develop and implement science based management plans.

·        All nations reaffirmed commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

EARTH SUMMIT, 2002

EARTH SUMMIT, 2002

Ø  The World Summit on Sustainable Development, WSSD or Earth Summit 2002 took place in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ø  It was convened to discuss sustainable development by the United Nations.

Ø  WSSD gathered a number of leaders from business and non-governmental organizations, 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (It was therefore also informally nicknamed "Rio+10".)

Ø  The Johannesburg Declaration was the main outcome of the Summit; however, there were several other international agreements.

Ø  It laid out the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation as an action plan.

Ø  Instead of new agreements between governments, the Earth Summit was organized mostly around almost 300 "partnership initiatives" known as Type II, as opposed to Type I Parnerships which are the more classic outcome of international treaties. These were to be the key means to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Ø  The absence of the United States rendered the summit partially impotent. George W. Bush boycotted the summit and did not attend.

RIO EARTH SUMMIT, 1992

RIO EARTH SUMMIT, 1992

Ø  The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 3 June to 14 June 1992.

Ø  In 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development was also held in Rio, and is also commonly called Rio+20 or Rio Earth Summit 2012. 255 governments participated, with 144 sending their heads of state or government. Some 2,400 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attended, with 17,000 people at the parallel NGO "Global Forum", who had Consultative Status.

Ø  The issues addressed at the Rio Earth Summit, 1992 included:

·        systematic scrutiny of patterns of production — particularly the production of toxic components, such as lead in gasoline, or poisonous waste including radioactive chemicals

·        alternative sources of energy to replace the use of fossil fuels which are linked to global climate change

·        new reliance on public transportation systems in order to reduce vehicle emissions, congestion in cities and the health problems caused by polluted air and smog

·        the growing scarcity of water

·        global warming

Ø  An important achievement was an agreement on the Climate Change Convention which in turn led to the Kyoto Protocol.

Ø  Another agreement was to "not carry out any activities on the lands of indigenous peoples that would cause environmental degradation or that would be culturally inappropriate".

Ø  The Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature at the Earth Summit, and made a start towards redefinition of measures that did not inherently encourage destruction of natural eco-regions and so-called uneconomic growth.

Ø  The Earth Summit resulted in the following documents:

Ø  Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

Ø  Agenda 21

Ø  Forest Principles

Ø  Moreover, two important legally binding agreements were opened for signature:

·        Convention on Biological Diversity

·        Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Ø  It also created new international institutions, among them the Commission on Sustainable Development, tasked with the follow-up to the Rio Conference and led to the reform of the Global Environment Facility

INDIAN INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY (IITS)

INDIAN INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY (IITS)

Ø  The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are a group of autonomous public engineering and management institutes of India.

Ø  The IITs are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 which has declared them as "institutions of national importance", and lays down their powers, duties, framework for governance etc.

Ø  The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 lists sixteen institutes located at Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mandi, Mumbai, Patna, Ropar, Roorkee and Varanasi.

Ø  Each IIT is an autonomous institution, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration.

Ø  The IITs award degrees starting from B.Tech to Ph.D.

Ø  The IITs have a common admission process for undergraduate admissions. It was based on IIT-JEE, replaced by Joint Entrance Examination in 2013.

Ø  The graduate level program that awards M. Tech. degree in engineering is administered by the older IITs (Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Varanasi, Guwahati, Roorkee). M.Tech. admission decisions are made on the basis of Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE).

Ø  In addition to B. Tech and M. Tech programs IITs also award other graduate degrees such as M.Sc. in Engineering, Maths, Physics and Chemistry, MBA, PhD and more. Admission to these programs are through Common Admission Test (CAT), Joint Admission Test to M.Sc. (JAM) and Common Entrance Examination for Design (CEED).

HISTORY OF INDIAN INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY

Ø  The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when Sir Jogendra Singh of the Viceroy's Executive Council set up a committee whose task was to consider the creation of Higher Technical Institutions for post-war industrial development in India.

Ø  The 22-member committee, headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, with affiliated secondary institutions.

Ø  The first Indian Institute of Technology was founded in May 1950 at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp in Kharagpur.

Ø  On 15 September 1956, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it as an Institute of National Importance.

Ø  On the recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, four campuses were established at Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), and Delhi (1961). The location of these campuses was chosen to be scattered throughout India to prevent regional imbalance.

Ø  The Indian Institutes of Technology Act was amended to reflect the addition of new IITs.

Ø  Student agitations in the state of Assam made Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi promise the creation of a new IIT in Assam. This led to a sixth campus at Guwahati under the Assam Accord in 1994.

Ø  The University of Roorkee, India's oldest engineering college, was conferred IIT status in 2001.

Ø  On 1 October 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced plans to create more IITs "by upgrading existing academic institutions that have the necessary promise and potential".

Ø  Subsequent developments led to the formation of the S K Joshi Committee in November 2003 to guide the selection of the five institutions which would become the five new IITs.

Ø  Based on the initial recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, it was decided that further IITs should be spread throughout the country.

Ø  When the government expressed its willingness to correct this regional imbalance, 16 states demanded IITs.

Ø  Since the S K Joshi Committee prescribed strict guidelines for institutions aspiring to be IITs, only seven colleges were selected for final consideration.

Ø  Plans are also reported to open IITs outside India, though not enough progress has been made in this regard.

Ø  Eventually in the 11th Five year plan, eight states were identified for establishment of new IITs, and IT-BHU was converted into an IIT.

LOCATION OF IITs:

Sr.    No.	Name	Short Name	Established	City/Town	State/UT
1.	IIT Kharagpur	IITKGP	1951	Kharagpur	West Bengal
2.	IIT Bombay	IITB	1958	Mumbai	Maharashtra
3.	IIT Kanpur	IITK	1959	Kanpur	Uttar Pradesh
4.	IIT Madras	IITM	1959	Chennai	Tamil Nadu
5.	IIT Delhi	IITD	1963 (founded in 1961)	New Delhi	Delhi
6.	IIT Guwahati	IITG	1994	Guwahati	Assam
7.	IIT Roorkee	IITR	2001 (founded in 1847)	Roorkee	Uttarakhand
8.	IIT Ropar	IITRPR	2008	Rupnagar (Ropar)	Punjab
9.	IIT Patna	IITP	2008	Patna	Bihar
10.	IIT Jodhpur	IITJ	2008	Jodhpur	Rajasthan
11.	IIT Bhubaneswar	IITBBS	2008	Bhubaneswar	Orissa
12.	IIT Gandhinagar	IITGN	2008	Gandhinagar	Gujarat
13.	IIT Hyderabad	IITH	2008	Hyderabad	Andhra Pradesh
14.	IIT Mandi	IIT Mandi	2009	Mandi	Himachal Pradesh
15.	IIT Indore	IITI	2009	Indore	Madhya Pradesh
16.	IIT (BHU) Varanasi	IIT(BHU)	2012 (founded in 1919)	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh

FUTURE IITs  :

Ø  Indian School of Mines, with approval of its Finance Committee, Executive Board and General Council, had forwarded the proposal for its conversion into an IIT in 2009, after which a detailed project report was prepared as per the directions of the Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development.

Ø  In September 2011, a resolution was passed by the Government of Jharkhand, recommending the Government of India to convert ISM to an IIT.

Ø  In June 2012, the Planning Commission favoured this conversion during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017), while maintaining ISM's core competency in mining and geology.

Ø  The conversion of ISM to IIT became a part of current 5 Year Plan after its passage by the Prime Minister headed National Development Council in December 2012.

Ø  It may be noted that for this conversion, a Bill has to be introduced in Parliament by the Union HRD Minister.

Ø  Another planned IIT is at Palakkad in the state of Kerala, as was announced in September 2011 by P. K. Abdu Rabb, the Minister for Education of the Government of Kerala. However, as establishing an IIT is done by an act of parliament, the local government role is limited, and this still requires several steps by the central government.

Ø  Another IIT was proposed in 2009 at Muddenahalli, Karnataka. In January 2011 a proposal was made to establish the Karnataka IIT by upgrading University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering to IIT status.

SUBSIDIARY ALLIANCE

SUBSIDIARY ALLIANCE

Ø  Subsidiary alliance is an alliance between a dominant nation and a nation that it dominates.

Ø  The doctrine of subsidiary alliance was introduced by Marquess Wellesley, British Governor-General in India from 1798 to 1805.

Ø  Early in his governorship Wellesley adopted a policy of non-intervention in the princely states, but he later adopted the policy of forming subsidiary alliances. This policy was to play a major role in British expansion in India.

Ø  By the late 19th century, the power of the Maratha Empire had weakened in the Indian subcontinent, and India was left with a great number of states, most small and weak. Many rulers accepted the offer of protection by Lord Wellesley, as it gave them security against attack by their neighbours.

PRINCIPLES OF A SUBSIDIARY ALLIANCE:

1.      An Indian ruler entering into a subsidiary alliance with the British had to accept British forces within his territory and also agreed to pay for their maintenance.

2.      The ruler would accept a British Resident in his state.

3.      An Indian ruler who entered into a subsidiary alliance would not enter into any further alliance with any other power, nor would he declare war against any power without the permission of the British.

4.      The ruler would not employ any Europeans other than the British, and if he were already doing so, he would dismiss them.

5.      In case of a conflict with any other state, he would agree the resolution decided upon by the British.

6.      The ruler would acknowledge the East India Company as the paramount power in India.

7.      In return for the ruler accepting its conditions, the Company undertook to protect the state from external dangers and internal disorders.

8.      If the Indian rulers failed to make the payments required by the alliance, then part of their territory was to be taken away as a penalty.

Under this doctrine, Indian rulers under British protection surrendered the control of their foreign affairs to the British. Most disbanded their native armies, instead maintaining British troops within their states to protect them from attack. As British power grew, in most parts of India this became increasingly unlikely.

TIMELINE OF BRITISH-INDIAN SUBSIDIARY ALLIANCES:

1798 - Hyderabad

1799 - Mysore

1799 - Tanjore

1801 - Awadh

1802 - Peshwa

1803 - Scindia

1803 - Gaekwad

The Nizam of Hyderabad was the first to enter into such an alliance. Tipu Sultan of Mysore refused to do so, but after the British victory in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, Mysore was forced to become a subsidiary state. The Nawab of Awadh also accepted the Subsidiary Alliance, in 1801. After the Third Anglo-Maratha War, the Maratha ruler Baji Rao II also accepted a subsidiary alliance.