India now pays more attention to environment: Venkaiah Naidu
Dehradun, April 25: Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday said India now pays much more attention to environment than earlier.
Addressing the convocation of 2016 Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers at Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy here, Naidu said states must be incentivised for increasing forest cover, adding that Niti Aayog and the Centre must have provisions to encouraging states doing well.
"India is among the fastest growing economies in the world today... It is now paying much more attention to environment than earlier," Naidu said, adding while 15,000 hectares of forest land was anually diverted to non-forest activities before 1980, it was then reduced to 15,500 hectares.
Addressing the trainee officers, Naidu said: "You are entering the forest service at a crucial time in which India is trying to carve out an important and rightful position in the world."
The Vice President also pointed out how management strategies were changed over time.
"I have been told that scientific forest management in India is more than a century old We have come a long way in changing the management strategies from keeping people away from the forests for protection purposes to managing the forest with cooperation of people," he said, asking the batch of IFS, comprising two trainee officers from Bhutan, to keep an approach to balance national interest and welfare of people.
He said top most priority must be given to the forest, rivers, adding that environment protection and economic development must go together.
As per the India State of Forest Report, 2017, India is ranked 10th in the world with 24.4 per cent of land under forest and tree cover. Between 2015 to 2017, India has recorded one per cent growth in forest cover.
Naidu stressed that overgrazing, shifting cultivation and fires have resulted in elimination of many species.
"We need to work with local communities to rehabilitate the degenerated forests and encourage farmers to adopt ecologically sustainable practices. This is not an easy job and best brains and hearts are needed to make this fine balance," he said.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
