Happy Nowruz. New day.
Forest. An ecosystem of trees and vegetation that supports diverse plant and animal life and microorganisms; plays a vital role in global food security, medicine, livelihoods, climate regulation, and biodiversity. Critical for absorbing carbon dioxide, and supplying oxygen; food, fuel, wood and other resources; habitat for life; soil protection, fertility. FAO says: Forest is a land more than 0.5 ha; with trees higher than 5m; and canopy cover more than 10% in situ. Forests cover 4.06 billion ha. – 31% of the world’s land. ~3 trillion trees in these forests. 45% of forest is in tropics. 75% of gross primary production, 80% biomass of the Earth, comes from forests. It is some 660 gigatons. It is said the first forests arose some 400 million years ago. Of late, forests are being lost through net deforestation, more than 10 million ha a year, 0.25%. Can we arrest deforestation and add more foresting every year?
Forest dependent families exceed 20% in India. Forest living families account for less than 5%. They are the indigenous people, protecting their habitats, forests. Can we be grateful and pay for the ecoservices of these people? Can we be with them?
Justice. Budgets for Justice report. We spend some 0.3% of GSDP on justice – this is about 4% of the state budgets on an average – 2% to 5%. Rs.389 per person a year is the spending on the justice system (judiciary, prisons, and legal aid), not including police. With police included, this goes to Rs.2,056. Data says: we have 21 judges per a million Indians. 5,000+ vacancies in district and lower courts. 369 vacancies in High Courts and Supreme Court. 45 million cases in districts. 6 million in High Courts. Of the 500,000+ prisoners, 75% are undertrials. 1% of police budget goes for forensics. 40% of forensic positions are vacant. Can the justice budgets go up? Can we become more qualitative, effective, efficient, and timely?
Economics Nobel laureate, Princeton University psychologist, the author of ‘thinking, fast and slow’, Daniel Kahneman, rested a year ago in March. He sent an email to his friends saying that he was choosing to end his own life in Switzerland. It was an assisted suicide. For long, we had assumed that human beings are rational; people’s beliefs are internally consistent; they make decisions based on all the relevant information they have. Kahneman refuted this. His research conclusion argued: People are inconsistent; emotional; easily fooled, by themselves. People are neither rational nor irrational. They are simply human. In his calculus, the burden of life begins to outweigh the benefits as we age beyond a critical stage. And that life would be decreasingly enjoyable thereafter, causing increasing pain to others. At this juncture, there is no need to be afraid of not existing and that death is like going to sleep and not waking up. Can we live life fully, usefully, as long as we can?
Fasting a day in a week or a fortnight, or eating in a restricted window every day, skipping a meal, particularly dinner helps. We should avoid overkill; and we need to be hydrated fully. And some exceptions in the nature of fasting are perfectly fine. Can we get going then?
Can we plan, increase time with the indigenous? Can we lead, encourage ‘natural’ life? For our joy.
Yes, we can. If we coexist, flowing. In the original course, as much as possible. In N? pramodyoga for 7L.
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