Transforming reproductive rights and recording climate change
Top Jobs + Climate Change + India trends
This week, we dive into top jobs, World Inequality report findings, recording climate change and reproductive rights in India.
Job Board
Public Policy Manager, Strategic Response Policy, Meta
Location- Gurgaon
Project Associate, Clean Energy, World Resources Institute
Location- Jaipur, Rajasthan
Social Policy Specialist, UNICEF
Location- Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
India trends at World Inequality Report
Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty out of which - 68.8% of the Indian population lives on less than 151 rupees a day. This makes India one of the poorest countries in the world.
On December 7, 2021, the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics, released the 2022 World Inequality Report authored by a team of top economists led by Lucas Chancel and coordinated by Nobel-winning economist Thomas Piketty along with others.
India-
The middle class is more or less poor with an average wealth of 29.5% of the total national income when compared with the top 10% and 1% who own 65% and 33%, respectively.
India stands out as a “poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite”, which means, the bottom 50% of adults hold 13 % of the national income, while the top 10% hold 57% of the same.
Women’s share of total incomes from work was about 30% in 1990 and is less than 35% now.
Global Trends-
The 10 % of rich people own 76% of all the wealth and the 50% of the poorest people just own 2% of the global wealth.
The share of wealth held by public actors is close to zero or negative in rich countries, meaning that the totality of wealth is with the private sector.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are unequal regions in the world, whereas Europe has the lowest inequality levels.
Emerging economies like China and India experienced faster increases than wealthy countries after they transitioned away from communism (in China and Russia) or a highly regulated economic system (in India) where the private wealth of India increased from 290% in 1980 to 560% in 2020.
An interesting observation- The global income and wealth inequalities are “tightly connected to ecological inequalities and inequalities in contributions to climate change”. The top 10% of emitters are responsible for 50% of all emissions, while the bottom 50% contribute 12%.
(Sources: Indian Express, Down To Earth)
Earth’s BlackBox
Climate conferences happen, and leaders make promises, just as they did in COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, but to what extent do these leaders fulfil the promises they make? Is there a way to hold them accountable for their actions or inactions?
Well, just like an aeroplane has a BlackBox installed in it that records airspeed, altitude, cockpit conversations, and air pressure of the flight and if there is a crash, the purpose of it is to analyze what caused the crash.
What if Earth had to have a Black box that could record the changing weather patterns and actions taken by our leaders for curbing climate change?
Soon to be Reality- The data researchers from the University of Tasmania, artists, and architects are to create a steel vault, known as Earth’s Black Box, that will record the Earth’s warming weather patterns. The vault will be built in Tasmania, an Australian island, as the place is geopolitically and environmentally safe and the structure will be tough against threats including cyclones, earthquakes.
The purpose of the Black Box- It will record everything from the actions taken by the leaders to articles, newspapers, peer-reviewed journals. It will daily collect average oceanic and land temperatures, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, and biodiversity loss.
Experts’ Say-
Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University emphasized the fact that it would be a real mistake to confuse whether or not climate change poses an extinction risk to humans.
David Midson, general manager of the local council overseeing much of Tasmania’s west coast said the response from residents to the project had been largely positive.
(Sources: New York Times)
Reproductive Rights in the Modern World
India was among the first countries in the world to develop legal and policy frameworks guaranteeing the right to safe and legal abortion, access to contraception, the right to control one’s reproductive functions, and the right to access to make reproductive choices free of coercion. Despite this, reproductive rights continue to be ambiguous in India because of the lack of quality health services.
Through technological advancements, India has witnessed a spurt in the number of Assisted Reproductive Technology clinics in the country. Without legislative backing, 50% of the IVF performed in India are done by unorganized clinics which lack proper infrastructure and experience.
Given this, Rajya Sabha on 8th December 2021 passed the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, 2021.
The key points to focus on, in the bill-
The clinics and banks need to be registered under the National Registry of Banks and Clinics of India and have to meet certain standards like- physical infrastructure, diagnostic facilities, and skilled manpower.
The bill offers provisions of counselling, the chances of success, costs, side-effects, and risks, including that of multiple pregnancies and most importantly the informed consent of donors.
The function of the national and state boards will be to advise the government on ART-related policy matters, monitoring the implementation of code of conduct and standards for the banks and clinics. The State Boards will coordinate enforcement of the policies and guidelines for ART.
The offences include abandoning the children, trading, or importing human embryos or gametes, exploiting commissioning couple, woman, or the gamete donor in any form, transferring the human embryo into a male or an animal.
The points of concern-
In the Lok Sabha debate, it was stated that the ART Bill discriminates against LGBTQI+ individuals, live-in couples, and single male parents. The ART Bill defines a couple accessing the ARTs as an “infertile married couple” and the Surrogacy Bill restricts eligibility to Indian citizens married for at least five years, with no surviving children.