Plastic pollution is one of the most visible testimonies of the anthropogenic havoc caused to the planet. As per the recent UNEP Report, approximately 400 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced every year of which only 9 percent is recycled and the vast majority of the rest accumulates in landfills or the natural environment. Further, every year, an estimated 11 million tonnes of plastic enter the world’s oceans. The rising plastic pollution has posed a debilitating impact on the environment in the following ways:

• Soil and water pollution: Chlorinated plastics can release harmful chemicals into the soil, which then seeps into groundwater or surrounding water bodies, and the ecosystem.
• Contributes to greenhouse gas emissions: About 8 percent of the world’s oil production goes to manufacturing plastics. The level of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production, use and disposal of conventional fossil fuel-based plastics is forecast to grow to 19 per cent of the global carbon budget by 2040.
• Disruption of ecosystems: Plastics can cause disruption of the ecosystems. For instance, the root systems of mangroves get adversely affected by plastic pollution in the sea. Plastics are also contributing to the destruction of coral reefs.
• Impact on humans: Microplastics tend to accumulate in organs like lungs, livers, spleens and kidneys. They have the potential to cause metabolic disturbances, neurotoxicity, and increased cancer risk in humans.
• Marine pollution: The level of microplastics in oceans is set to grow 50-fold by the end of the century raising the risk of widespread extinction of marine life in the most polluted areas, according to a report by the World Wide Fund (WWF). The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a well-known example of marine plastic waste.
• Threat to biodiversity: Plastic pollution has been an additional stress factor pushing the marine population towards extinction, especially in hotspots. As per the WWF, already 88% of marine species studied have been negatively impacted by plastic pollution.
• Vehicle for invasive species: Floating plastic waste, which can survive for thousands of years in water, serves as mini transportation devices for invasive species and disrupts habitats.

The Basel Convention is the only global, legally binding instrument that addresses plastic pollution, and regulates the transboundary movement of plastic waste. The recent measures that have been taken to tackle plastic pollution are as follows:

• In the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2), in Nairobi, a resolution was passed to end plastic pollution and forge an international legally binding agreement by 2024.
• The Global Plastic Action Partnership was convened by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to create a unified platform to champion the transition to a circular economy model for plastic production.
• The WEF’s Uplink innovation crowd-sourcing platform is running the Global Plastic Innovation Network Challenge for innovative alternatives to plastics.
• Plastic-Free Rivers and Seas for South Asia (PLEASE) is an ambitious $50 million project to fight plastic pollution across all eight countries of South Asia, supported by the World Bank, Parley for the Oceans, and South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP).
• India has pledged to join the UN Environment’s Clean Seas Campaign, which seeks to turn the tide on marine litter.
• India has also pledged to ban all single-use plastics by 2022. For this, India has passed the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 and introduced the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility.

Managing plastic pollution requires multi-stakeholder involvement and sustained efforts at various levels including plastic production, regulation of its use, disposal etc.

Human capital refers to the economic value of a worker’s experience and skills. It includes assets like education, training, intelligence, skills, health, and other things employers value such as loyalty and punctuality.

Sources of Human Capital:

• Investment in education: Just as companies invest in capital goods with the objective of increasing future profits over a period of time, individuals invest in education with the objective of increasing their future income.
• Health: A sick labourer without access to medical facilities is compelled to abstain from work and there is loss of productivity. Health expenditure directly increases the supply of a healthy labour force and is, thus, a source of human capital formation.
• On the job training: Firms incur some expenses on the training of their employees. After that they insist that the workers should work for a specific period of time during which they can recover the benefits of the enhanced productivity owing to the training.
• Expenditure on migration: Migration involves cost of transport, higher cost of living in the migrated places and psychic costs of living in a strange socio-cultural setup. However, the enhanced earnings in the new place outweigh the costs of migration.
• Information: Information is necessary to make decisions regarding investments in human capital as well as for efficient utilization of the acquired human capital stock. Expenditure incurred for acquiring information relating to the labour market and other markets is also a source of human capital formation.

Human capital and economic growth:

• Economic growth means the increase in real national income of a country. The contribution of an educated person to economic growth is more than that of an illiterate person. Similarly, because a healthy person can provide uninterrupted labour supply for a longer period of time, health is also an important factor for economic growth. Thus, both education and health, along with many other factors like on-the-job training, job market information and migration, increase an individual’s income generating capacity, which contributes to economic growth.
• Human capital contributes substantially not only towards increasing labour productivity but also stimulates innovations and creates the ability to absorb new technologies. Education provides knowledge to understand changes in society and scientific advancements, thus, facilitate inventions and innovations. Similarly, the availability of an educated labour force facilitates adaptation to new technologies.
• Human capital formation will lead to a high rate of participation of people in economic activities and thus will reduce the gap between the poor and the rich, thus reducing inequality. It further helps in improving the quality of life.

However, while the human capital growth in developing countries has been faster but the growth of per capita real income has not been that fast. There are reasons to believe that the causality between human capital and economic growth flows in either direction, i.e., higher income causes the building of a high level of human capital and high level of human capital causes growth of income.

• Improved decision-making: By having the necessary information, farmers make improved decisions concerning their agricultural activities based on various factors. For instance, weather advisories help the farmers to sow the seeds at relevant time to enhance productivity.
• Better planning: E-technology helps to continuously monitor the land so that precautions can be taken at an early stage. It increases productivity, reduces manual work, reduces time and makes farming more efficient. For instance, big data collected through mobile imaging, satellite imagery, drone patrolling, GPS / RFID is useful in better planning of available resources like water.
• Community involvement: There are several programmes which are made possible by IT applications which promote community involvement in agriculture. With the application of IT, there can be better coordination among the local farmers. This will further lead to improved crop productions facilitating better farm income.
• Agricultural breakthroughs: E-technology makes the spread of information concerning the latest agricultural breakthroughs more possible. Sharing information regarding new technologies and inventions to help everyone progress is made easier through resources made available and accessible by IT.

The following steps have been taken by the government towards use of e-technology in agriculture:

• AGMARKNET: This e-governance portal facilitates generation and transmission of prices, commodity arrival information from agricultural produce markets, and web-based dissemination to producers, consumers, traders, and policymakers transparently and quickly.
• Kisan Suvidha app: It is an omnibus smartphone app that helps farmers by providing them relevant information regarding weather, dealers’ market prices, plant protection, agro advisories, IPM practices etc.
  • Various other apps have been launched such as the Al-Sowing app for optimal date of seed sowing, Crop Insurance app to calculate insurance premium, Agri Market app for information of market price of all crops within a 50-kilometre radius, Pusa Krishi app for information about various crops etc.
• Bhuvan platform: ISRO’s geo platform, Bhuvan provides valuable data on plantation, pest surveillance and weather.
• Direct benefit transfer (DBT) Central Agri Portal: It is a unified central portal for agricultural schemes across the country to help farmers adopt modern farm machineries through government subsidies.
• e-NAM: The National Agriculture Market scheme envisages initiation of e-marketing platforms at the national level and supports creation of infrastructure to enable e-marketing in regulated markets across the country.
• Unified Farmer Service Platform (UFSP): It is a combination of Core Infrastructure, Data, Applications and Tools that enables seamless interoperability of various public and private IT systems in the agriculture ecosystem across the country.

Further measures are required to address lack of awareness, establish digital infrastructure in rural areas, overcome digital divide and encourage adoption of e-technologies to ensure increased agricultural productivity and income.

Answer: Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be described as a set of skills that involve the ability to monitor one’s own emotions as well as other’s feelings/emotions so as to use that information to guide one’s thinking and action. A well-developed El is instrumental in achieving goals, as discussed:

• Self-awareness: El helps in the development of self-awareness. When we are able to label the emotion and understand its cause, we are in a much better position to address the issue.
• Self-management: Everyone experiences bad moods, impulses and negative emotions like anger and stress, but El helps in self-managing and controlling these emotions.
• Motivation: Motivation is essentially what moves us to take action. When we face setbacks and obstacles, checking in with our motives is what inspires us to keep pushing forward.
• Empathy: It is a key part of welcoming and appreciating different points of view to solve problems and come up with innovative ways.
• Relationship management: A manager with outstanding relationship management skills is able to inspire, guide and develop his team members, greatly affecting team performance and productivity.

However, there is a negative side of a well-developed El. An emotionally intelligent person is good at understanding the feelings of others and thus is good at controlling emotions. He commands respect and is capable of motivating others to act as per his own thinking. People abide by her/him without any condition. They blindly follow all the directives as their faith in their leader erodes their critical reasoning power. This can be illustrated with following instances:

• Hitler’s regime: During this time, the entire Nazi establishment was so attached to the personality of their leader that they blindly committed inhumane crimes against humanity.
• Electoral mobilisation: Leaders of various sections of a society may use caste, language, ethnicity etc. to affect the voting behaviour of people by commanding targeted outcomes.

Thus, emotional intelligence needs to be inculcated along with other values such as honesty, integrity, positive attitude etc. to ensure its dark side is curtailed and prevent its misuse by some for personal gains over public interest.

Answer: There may be two types of providers of education: public and private. Private institutions may be partly funded by the government (aided) or entirely self-funded (unaided). According to the All-India Survey of Higher Education, there are 31,390 private colleges, 388 private universities, and 88 private deemed to be universities functioning in the country. Higher education in India faces the triple challenge of ‘expansion, inclusion, and excellence’. Private involvement is necessary to enhance investment and quality in higher education:

• Low GER: The private sector has contributed significantly to increasing the gross enrolment ratio (GER) from 10% in 2000 to 13.8% in 2010.
• Public Spending: The central government expenditure on higher education has been fairly constant around 1-1.5% of its total expenditure, in contrast with developed world spending around 3% or more. The private sector can fill in that gap.
• Modernity in course content: Private involvement can complement traditional colleges and universities offering highly subsidized education that are often not in a position to proactively upgrade infrastructure and update curricula.
• Choice: Private educational enterprises offer a wide choice that matches the educational needs and interests of a radially expanding and heterogeneous student population.
• Employability: Placement-oriented courses whether short-term or full-duration, is a niche opportunity successfully catered to by private educational institutions.
• Industry-academia linkage: Collaboration between industry and academia is key to catalyzing innovation and growth in technology

However, participation of the private sector in higher education even though necessary, creates certain issues:

• Affordability and Access: Private higher education institutions are often accused of charging capitation fees from students, in turn making them unaffordable. Fee structures of private institutions may be one reason for the inaccessibility of higher education.
• Commercialization of education: Over the years, the Supreme Court of India has interpreted the nature of educational institutions to be charitable and not-for-profit. However, the current regulatory regime has not been able to curb the commercialization and economic exploitation of parents by many for-profit private institutions.
• Inefficient regulation: Regulation and accreditation in India are centralized with poor outreach in the federal states. Also, corrupt practices within regulatory agencies like UGC and AICTE have often been reported in the various federal states. Such things have stymied the quality of higher educational institutions.
• Quality: Post-accreditation complacency is typical of private institutions that consider quality upgradation a one-time phenomenon.

India has taken steps like the RTE Act 2009, Institutes of Eminence Scheme, New Education Policy, RISE and EQUIP schemes and allowed 100 percent FDI through automatic route. However, a clear and decisive policy boosting private investment in higher education institutions; alongside an appropriate regulatory environment is imperative to improve the status of private education in the country.