Onno ruhl biography of mahatma gandhi

The environment takes care of not just human beings but also all other life forms that exist on this planet by providing adequate resources to ensure their survival. However, over the years humans have exploited these resources to satisfy not just their needs, often also their greed. Human ventures have discounted the value of the future and of nature, and thus have had a destructive effect on nature’s resources. Pollution, mass deforestation, lowered biodiversity, climate change and the exhaustion of natural resources are just a few problems that humans have created.

Since 1972, World Environment Day is celebrated on 5 June every year in an attempt to spread awareness about the rising adversities in the environment. Despite these efforts, the theme of the first World Environment Day, “Only One Earth”, remains ignored. Large-scale awareness about protection of the environment is needed today more than ever, since science shows it is not long before things get out of hand and irreversible damage done.

In India, the total forest cover increased by less than 1 percent in the last two years, according to the 2017 State of Forest Report. A report published by the National Institution for Transforming India, also called NITI Aayog, suggested that only 21 percent of land in India is under forest cover as against the recommended 33 percent suggested in the national forest policy. Over the years, development in India has come at the cost of forests and the green cover has gone down considerably. According to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, in the past three to five years, Maharashtra lost 63 square kilometres of forest land and ranked fourth in India for maximum reduction of forest cover. According to a report by the Government of Delhi released in September 2018, since 2005, the city has lost more than 112,000 trees, which means roughly that a tree is lost almost every hour.

The report has advocated that the flagship scheme should be redesigned to create capital assets that would help improve rural productivity and issues such as unmet demand and payment of stipulated wages should be addressed.

“If MGNREGS were to be implemented effectively, its design would ensure that there is no unmet demand for work. On-going efforts at convergence of the scheme with other programmes will ensure that the assets created are productive and of lasting value,” said Rinku Murgai, lead economist, World Bank and one of the authors of the study on the scheme.

The World Bank report has, however, noted that the scheme has the vast potential to reduce poverty be providing employment and income and is better than a cash transfer scheme such as the JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana-Aaddhar and mobile technology) trinity as it is better targeted and has a multiplier effect on economic activity.

“In essence, the key benefit of MGNREGS is asset creation. It could be better than a cash transfer scheme but needs to have a better impact in poorer states,” said Onno Ruhl, country director (India), World Bank, adding that it can be scaled up to help provide relief in rural areas where unseasonal rains have damaged crops.

The scheme has had a mixed performance across the country with states such as Andhra Pradesh showing a significant increase in consumption, land investment and asset accumulation and leakages in the scheme are not as bad as reported.

But the report found that though the scheme is designed to ensure that there would be no unmet demand for work, at an all India level, 46 per cent of households reported that one or more of their members would have liked to get employment under the scheme, only 25 per cent secured any work over the course of the year according to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 2009-10 survey.

The World Bank’s India

Why Onno Ruhl

As the country director for World Bank India since 2012, Onno Ruhl has now seen both the UPA and NDA governments in action. He was also the director for operations in the south Asia region earlier, and has held positions in east and central Asia as well as Africa. Ruhl served as the country director for Nigeria and manager for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Dutch national, he has been the lead private and financial sector development specialist in Africa and Europe and helped create the African Trade Insurance Agency.

P VAIDYANATHAN IYER: You have been country director (India) with the World Bank since September 2012, and have seen both the UPA and NDA governments in action. What differences do you see in the functioning of the two governments?

My most lasting impression of India is the remarkable consensus that there was a deep economic crisis at the time of the general elections. But India was still growing — the lowest (mark) was 4.7%. So my takeaway was that if 4.7% growth means deep economic crisis, then you are really talking about India’s powerful economic potential — despite the government’s inaction. It led me to the conclusion that rather than perfect policies for fast growth, all India needed was a bit of an injection of optimism to grow at 8%. The previous government’s core attitude was, ‘We in India know everything, who are you to say what to do, that is not very interesting’. I was flabbergasted at the hostility to the notion that sharing our experience in other countries could be beneficial to India. But this government is very different. This government has a prime minister who is very ambitious about goals and is very open about the fact that they do not necessarily know how to reach the goals, they just know they have to reach them. So, he has been hammering quite strongly that it is useful for India to learn from what other countries have d