Sustainable Development in India – Initiate

The world is currently facing extremely difficult challenges in the protection of environment. With the progression and development of the world, there is a rapid depletion of natural resources, thus increasing the negative environmental impact, deteriorating the biosphere balance, as a result of which consequences of climate change have become perceptible everywhere in the world. To meet the challenges of continuing growth, sustainable development becomes necessary.

In light of it, a different approach of modernization should be encouraged in a way which results in economic efficiency, and reduces the negative environmental impact caused by human beings, thus becoming a win-win situation for everyone. This approach will not only result in the improvement of the economic indicator, but also significantly better living conditions. As per the UN Report, the population of India is expected to grow by another 300 million within the next couple of decades; this rapid growth will cause a large number of challenges, as resources will be inadequate to meet the demands of future generation.

There is no dearth of legislations on environmental retention in India but their enforcement has been far from satisfactory, there is a need for the effective and efficient enforcement of the Constitutional mandate and other environmental legislations. Hence, this paper would critically examine the implementation of the current laws and policy measures adopted by the Indian Government regarding the environment protection like The National Environment Policy, 2006 and the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010.

Though India has taken some major steps on the international stage and is a party to most multilateral environmental agreements like UNFROCK and CB, but to what extent they are yielding exults would be discussed in this paper. Through this paper, a comprehensive comparative study of laws and different policies regarding environment protection of different nations will be revealed, with the purpose of finding loopholes in the Indian system.

Apart from this, the new and emerging challenges that are likely to affect most significantly Indian’s prospects for sustainable development are Arbitration and migration, Health challenges, Regional disparity, Sanitation and drinking water related issues. Though there has been reduction in poverty levels in the country, but till there is a need to step up efforts for further poverty eradication and inclusive development, as protection of health and livelihood needs of poor is also necessary.

Also, this paper discusses financial provisioning, institutional mechanism and engagement with major groups that contribute to the objective of sustainable development. “The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself” – Speech of the Indian Chief of Seattle in 1984 Boot Human Klan Ana nature are a part AT single ecosystem Ana tenet concern Tort them is indivisible, such that when harm is inflicted on one part, I. . Nature, it ultimately harms the other, I. E. Humans. The inception for the concern of environment protection at the International stage was all started with the First UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 in Stockholm, which was the result of several years of environmental movements. The Conference had the effect of initiating worldwide participation [1], ‘by urging government all over the world to insider that the environment must be protected in order to operational the right to life’ [2].

This Stockholm declaration had many important principles and suggestion which were later incorporated and reflected in the national policies of various countries including India. After this conference, a study was made on the causes of environmental degradation and how development must be organized without further damaging the environment. This report named Borderland Report by World Commission on Environment and Development coined the term ‘sustainable development’, it defined the term as “development, which meets the needs of the resent without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [3].

This concept aids economic and social development and at the same time underlines the importance of protecting the environment. The Caring for the Earth document defines sustainability as ‘a characteristics or state that can be maintained indefinitely whereas development is defined as the increasing capacity to meet human needs and improve the quality of human life’. This means that sustainable development would imply improving the quality of human life within the carrying capacities of supporting ecosystems [4].

The 1992 Earth Summit in ROI De Jeannie put the concept of sustainable development on the national and International policy agendas and with UNCLE, it made sustainable development a legal and executable principle. Then after a decade the World Summit on Sustainable Development which was held at Johannesburg in 2002, gave a new approach to sustainable development by integrating basic human needs like food, sanitation and water priority over other concern. A consensus was arrived among the countries who participated, to eradicate poverty and to provide the human population with basic needs.

But what made this incept of sustainable development so important, why suddenly all the Institutions and conventions start discussing about the sustainable development. Its need has arisen because of the growth in environmental problems as a result of rapid development since the Industrial Revolutions. As a result of this unstoppable development in the industrialized sector, our ecosystem starts getting degraded, species are threatened and pollution reached at its peak.