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Zonal Councils

Why in News?
Union Home and Cooperation Minister presided over the 25th Eastern Zonal Council meeting in Kolkata.

What are Zonal Councils?

• Zonal Councils are advisory councils and are made up of the states of India that have been grouped into five zones to foster cooperation among them. These were set up vide Part-III of the States Reorganization Act, 1956.
• The Zonal Councils are the statutory (and not the constitutional) bodies.
  • They are established by an Act of the Parliament, that is, States Reorganization Act of 1956.
• The act divided the country into five zones (Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern) and provided a zonal council for each zone.
• The Union Home Minister is the common chairman of the five Zonal Councils.
• Each chief minister acts as a vice-chairman of the council by rotation, holding office for a period of one year at a time.
• While forming these zones, several factors have been taken into account which include  the natural divisions of the country, the river systems and means of communication, the cultural and linguistic affinity and the requirements of economic development, security and law and order.
• In addition to the above Zonal Councils, a North-Eastern Council was created by a separate Act of Parliament i.e. the North-Eastern Council Act of 1971.
• These are advisory bodies that will discuss and make recommendations with regard to any matter of common interest in the field of economic and social planning between the Centre and States.

Each zonal council consists of the following members

• Home minister of Central government.
• Chief ministers of all the States in the zone.
• Two other ministers from each state in the zone.
• Administrator of each union territory in the zone.

Composition

• The Northern Zonal Council: It comprises the States of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh,
• The Central Zonal Council: It comprises the States of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh,
• The Eastern Zonal Council: It comprises the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Sikkim and West Bengal,
• The Western Zonal Council: It comprises the States of Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli,
• The Southern Zonal Council: It comprises the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

Objectives of the zonal councils

• To achieve an emotional integration of the country.
• To help in arresting the growth of acute state-consciousness, regionalism, linguism and particularistic trends.
• To help in removing the after-effects of separation in some cases so that the process of re- organisation, integration and economic advancement may synchronise.
• To enable the Centre and states to cooperate with each other in social and economic matters and exchange ideas and experience in order to evolve uniform policies.
• To cooperate with each other in the successful and speedy execution of major development projects.
• To secure some kind of political equilibrium between different regions of the country.

Social Progress Index (SPI) Report

Why in News?
Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister (EAC-PM) released the Social Progress Index (SPI) for states and districts of India.

Highlights of the report

• Puducherry has the highest SPI score of 65.99 in the country, attributable to its remarkable performance across components like Personal Freedom and Choice, Shelter, and Water and Sanitation.
• Lakshadweep and Goa closely follow it with scores of 65.89 and 65.53, respectively. Jharkhand and Bihar scored the lowest, 43.95 and 44.47, respectively.
• For the dimension of Basic Human Needs, Goa, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, and Chandigarh are the top four states with the best performance in Water and Sanitation and Shelter as compared to the other states and union territories.
• In addition, Goa has the highest component score for Water and Sanitation, followed by Kerala, scoring the highest across the Nutrition and Basic Medical Care component.
• For Shelter and Personal Safety, Chandigarh and Nagaland have emerged as the front-runners, respectively.
• Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, and Goa have emerged as the best-performing states for the Foundations of Wellbeing.
• Within the dimension for the Access to Basic Knowledge component, Punjab has the highest component score of 62.92, while Delhi has topped the list for Access to Information and Communication with a score of 71.30.
• For Health and Wellness, Rajasthan has the highest component score of 73.74. For Environmental Quality, the top three states belong to the northeast region, namely, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Meghalaya.
• Tamil Nadu has achieved the highest component score of 72.00 for the Opportunity dimension.
• Within this dimension, Andaman and Nicobar Islands have the highest component score for Personal Rights, while Sikkim has topped the list for Inclusiveness.
• It is commendable to witness Puducherry attaining the highest scores across two components in this dimension, i.e., Personal Freedom and Choice and Access to Advanced Education.

Social Progress Index (SPI) Report

• SPI is a broad tool designed to provide a thorough assessment of the social progress the nation has made at the national and sub-national levels.
• The Social Progress Imperative, led by Michael Green, and the Institute for Competitiveness, under the direction of Dr. Amit Kapoor, prepared the report.
• It was mandated by Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India.

Objectives

• The report attempts to present a systematic assessment of the social progress made in the nation at all levels, with state and district-level rankings and scorecards.
• The paper also discusses the accomplishments of the districts that scored highly on the index and how states contribute to societal advancement.
• An examination of India’s Aspirational Districts is presented in a separate section of the report, which helps readers gain a deeper knowledge of socioeconomic advancement at the local level.
• For policymakers to achieve sustained socio-economic growth in the upcoming years, the study will be a vital facilitator and tool.

Components of SPI

• Basic Human Needs: It assesses the performance of states and districts in terms of Nutrition and Basic Medical Care, Water and Sanitation, Personal Safety and Shelter.
• Foundations of Wellbeing: It evaluates the progress made by the country across the components of Access to Basic Knowledge, Access to Information and Communication, Health and Wellness, and Environmental Quality.
• Opportunity: It focuses on aspects of Personal Rights, Personal Freedom and Choice, Inclusiveness, and Access to Advanced Education.

Black Carbon

Why in news?
In Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change outlined the various measures taken to counter black carbon.

What is Black Carbon?

• Black carbon is a potent climate-warming component of particulate matter formed by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, wood and other fuels.
• Complete combustion would turn all carbon in the fuel into carbon dioxide (CO2), but combustion is never complete and CO2, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and organic carbon and black carbon particles are all formed in the process.
• The complex mixture of particulate matter resulting from incomplete combustion is often referred to as soot.
• BC is a short-lived pollutant that is the second-largest contributor to warming the planet behind carbon dioxide (CO2). Unlike other greenhouse gas emissions, BC is quickly washed out and can be eliminated from the atmosphere if emissions stop.
• Deposits of BC act in two ways hastening the pace of glacier melt: by decreasing surface reflectance of sunlight and by raising air temperature.
  

Adverse Effects of Black Carbon

• Black carbon is a short-lived climate pollutant with a lifetime of only days to weeks after release in the atmosphere.
• During this short period of time, black carbon can have significant direct and indirect impacts on the climate, glacial regions, agriculture and human health.
• Several studies have demonstrated that measures to prevent black carbon emissions can reduce near-term warming of the climate, increase crop yields and prevent premature deaths.
• Black carbon absorbs solar energy and warms the atmosphere.
• When it falls to earth with precipitation, it darkens the surface of snow and ice, reducing their albedo (the reflecting power of a surface), warming the snow, and hastening melting.