Environmental policy

Passage (Questions number 6 to 10): World leaders have recently announced 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 associated targets. The goals and targets are integrated and indivisible. Global leaders have pledged common action and endeavour for such a broad and universal policy agenda. They have decided to implement the Agenda for the full benefit of all. The world has reaffirmed the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other international laws. The emphasis is given on the responsibilities of all states, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations, to respect, protect and promote human rights and ensuring fundamental freedom for all, without distinction of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, disability, etc. The new goals and targets have come into effect on January 1, 2016 and will guide the decisions to be taken over the next fifteen years. It is necessary to respect the national policy space for inclusive and sustainable economic growth, in particular for developing countries from Africa and Asia. People who are vulnerable must be empowered. Those whose needs are reflected in the development agenda include all children, youth, persons with disabilities, people living with HIV/AIDS, older persons, indigenous peoples, refugees and internally displaced persons and migrants. The commitment is shown towards ending poverty in all its forms and dimensions by 2030. SDGs ensure the basic standard of living, end of hunger and achieving food security as a matter of high priority and to end all forms of malnutrition. To promote physical and mental health and well-being, and to extend life expectancy for all, we must achieve universal health coverage and availability of quality healthcare. It is essential to reduce new-born, child and maternal mortality by 2030. SDGs have promised universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including for family planning, information and education. The focus will be to accelerate the pace of progress made in fighting malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, Ebola and other communicable diseases and epidemics. SDGs aim at building strong economic foundations for all countries. Inclusive and sustainable economic growth is essential for prosperity. It will be easy if wealth is distributed equally and income inequality is addressed. Nations must work to build dynamic, sustainable, innovative and people-centred economies, promoting youth employment and women's economic empowerment. All countries stand to benefit from having a healthy and well-educated workforce. The vast agenda of SDGs shows a certain direction of human progress in the next decade and a half. All the countries in the world must work relentlessly to ensure that most of the goals are attained and the quality of human life is improved all over the globe.

Bottled Water and Its Environmental Cost The next time you buy a bottle of drinking water, you need to pause and think. You may not bat an eyelid shelling out ₹ 15 for a litre of bottled water but what you don't realise is that you are actually paying over 4,200 times of what you normally pay for a litre of tap water. The economics of drinking water has always baffled me. What is perplexing is that the average urban middle class squirms and protests if the Delhi Jal Board, for instance, tries to 'nominally' raise the price of tap water. Paying a little over one paise for three litres of tap water (DJB prices tap water at ₹ 3.50 per 1000 litres) they feel they are already being made to pay through the nose. Price being of little constraint for the consumers, the global bottled water industry is galloping. In 2004, the world consumed 154 billion litres, of which India's share was 5.1 billion litres. Expected to grow at 40 percent annually, the ₹ 1,800-crore bottle water industry is experiencing unprecedented boom with over 1200 water factories doing business throughout the country. If you think bottled water assures you of purity and safety, it is time you think again. Even in the U.S., despite strict quality norms formulated by the Food and Drug Administration, it is safely assumed that nearly 40 percent of the bottled water is repacked pipe water. Shockingly, what is little known is that more than five litres of water is required to produce every litre of packed water. In other words, 770 billion litres of water were used to produce and pack the 154 billion litres of water that the world consumed in 2004. What a colossal waste ! Bottled water also has additional, hidden environmental costs. According to the Pacific Institute in California, the entire process of making plastic for the bottles requires huge energy. In America alone, where nearly 26 billion litres of bottled water was consumed in 2004, an equivalent of 20 million barrels of oil was