PENGUINS ARE TALKING ABOUT US....

CLIMATE CHANGE & World Peace

Two penguins are sitting over ice and worried about human Beings. No, human are not making them as prey or selling their beautiful skin in market. They are talking on us and thinking over phrase “Man is most intelligent creature on this earth.” Let’s read what they are talking..

Penguin 1: Environment has become a hot topic in last few decades and..

and Penguin 2interrupted and speak: climate change is now source of revenue for many companies and people (Exception is always there].

Penguin 1: Ya! I have read WHO report which say- These climate changes killed around 150000 people and invited five million illnesses.

Penguin 2: I am sure WHO do not have statistics for those creatures who are part of ecological system and dying beneath sea or any part of earth. What do you think about Kyoto protocol???

Penguin 1: Kyoto protocol was a failure and reason of failure is inaction of so called big and developed countries. Let’s see what happens next, all eyes are on meet on Copenhagen meet in December. Few years ago,

Penguin 2: Do these billion of people still think that countries are studying penguins?

Penguin 1: I do not think , they have any clue about what is going on this dead land??

Penguin 2: Do not say it a dead land. It is our mother land..

Penguin 1; I did not mean that. I have heard in our penguin folklores. Arctic and Antarctic were never colonized because of its climatic condition. Climate change is reason for melting of these regions. Some of countries are trying to exploit these regions. Do u know about it???

Penguin 2: ya! I know dude!! I was very fast like any news channel in india. Take Case of North Pole: it is known that arctic is melting very rapidly. It is estimated over 50% of ice cover in arctic region has disappeared since last 2-3 years.

Penguin 1: How did you get this statistics::

Penguin 2: I am GOD ..Just joking folk …According to US ecological survey and Statoilhydro [Norway based Company] -–Arctic region has 25 % of world’s undiscovered oil and gas deposit. It can be around 86 trillion cubic feet of gas and 9 bn barrels of oil. The countries who are trying to part of this commercial exploitation are: Russia, Norway, Denmark & Canada

Penguin 1: I thought these countries are top on HDI index and they do not care about these rat race of oil.

Penguin 2; either You are fool or you do not know human nature. They are clever and these countries also discovered sea routes which are saving lot of money for these countries. Many companies are using breakers ship to cut ice.

Penguin 1(shocked): Clever or shrewd?? I have heard they have invented internet and they can communicate to any part of the world..

Penguin 2: You are right bloke…..But we are wondering from our conversation….Do you know about their activity in other pole..

Penguin 1: I know, they are doing some mining but I like to be away from thses complex creature…after listening your word..I am scared.

Penguin 2; Do not be scare dude…man is enemy of himself…GOD made them like that …leave it
..While taking the case of South Pole, Antarctic region holds fresh water- 30 mn cubic kilometers of ice equivalent to 35% of earth’s water. It is also found by seismic test that there could be around 60 bn oil beneath Antarctic Ocean floor.

Penguin 1: Ya!! I have heard about it from my grandpa.. He died few years ago and said that one day human will come to this dead land and exploit the land..

Penguin 2: Your grandpa was visionary… You know -Tweleve countries have signed Antarctic treaty. Argentina and Brazilian control over various areas. Chile also claimed his part of land recently

Penguin 1: I have read in Penguin history book in my college days.

Recently, Seven countries [France,Chile,Australia, Argentina, brazil, New Zealand, Norway] made eight territorial claims and these claims are recognized by only these self-proclaimed countries.

Penguin2: I too read that news in penguin times.

Penguin 1: Imagine, Uncle sam enters in this dead land and claim a valuable part of these two regions and say it will go to war with any countries which will oppose him.

Penguin 2 : will they treat them as AFGHANISTAN or IRAQ??

Penguin 1:World peace is already in danger but such exploitation will be lead it to next level of chaos. Poor men!!

Penguin 2: They are not only killing themselves but also taking our freedom…Huhh!!

Both penguins giggled and came down....

Talking Walking

Everyday Traffic jam in urban cities has become a way of life. The average person spends three years of their lifein traffic. it is not a joke ,it is matter of concern.

So, What is more important in your life- Walking or Driving??? Conventionally,It is found that personal motor vehicle travel is far more important than walking, So waht about walkability??? Are Walking or walkability same??

Walking is the activity- a minor mode of travel, While Walkability is -the quality of walking conditions, including safety, comfort and convenience deserves only modest public support. walkability is about urban density,public transport & spaces.

It is found that that walking plays an important role even as vehicles are increasing everyday, and that many people want to walk for both transportation and recreational purposes.Walking is undervalued because it is:

• Difficult to measure
• Consider as lower status activity
• Taken for Granted by decision maker

There can be lot of benefit from walkability - It can Be Economic, Social & Environmental. Economically, it can Improved accessibility-particularly for non-drivers,Reduced transportation costs,Increased parking efficiency (parking facilities can serve more destinations). Socially-Increased neighborhood interaction and community cohesion,Improved accessibility for people
who are transport disadvantaged,Reduced external transportation costs (crash risk, pollution, etc.).Environmentally- Reduced land needed for roads and parking facilities,Reduced energy consumption and pollution emissions & heat island effect.if You take example of big cities like - london, Singapore,Paris- all of them are walkable at core while in india walkability is rarely considered in urban planning.

From health point of view- these days people (esp: children) lack regular physical activity. this inactivity inviting disease like- Heart Disease,obesity, hypertension,depression,diabetes Although there are many ways to be physically active, walking is one of the most practical ways to increase physical activity among a broad population.


In many situations the best way to improve urban transport is to improve walking and cycling conditions and reduce automobile movement. It iill improve convenience, comfort and affordability of access to destinations.






P.S:Wilbur Smith Associates indicated that around 40 % of all trips in urban india involved no motorised vehicles at all- 28% walked & 11% Cycled.

Migration- An Overview

Discussions about migration typically start from the perspective of flows from developing countries into the rich countries of Europe, North America and Australasia. Yet most movement in the world does not take place between developing and developed countries; it does not even take place between countries. The overwhelming majority of people who move do so inside their own country. Using a conservative definition, we estimate that approximately 740 million people are internal migrants—almost four times as many asthose who have moved internationally. Amongpeople who have moved across national borders,just over a third moved from a developing to a developed country—fewer than 70 million people.Most of the world’s 200 million international migrants moved from one developing country to another or between developed countries.Most migrants, internal and international,reap gains in the form of higher incomes, better access to education and health, and improved prospects for their children. Surveys of migrants report that most are happy in their destination,despite the range of adjustments and obstacles typically involved in moving. Once established,migrants are often more likely than local residents to join unions or religious and other groups. Yet there are trade-offs and the gains from mobility are unequally distributed.People displaced by insecurity and conflictface special challenges. There are an estimated 14 million refugees living outside their country of citizenship, representing about 7 percent of the world’s migrants. Most remain near the country they fled, typically living in camps until conditions at home allow their return, but around half a million per year travel to developed countries and seek asylum there. A much larger number,some 26 million, have been internally displaced.They have crossed no frontiers, but may face special difficulties away from home in a country riven by conflict or racked by natural disasters. Another
vulnerable group consists of people—mainly young women—who have been trafficked. Often duped with promises of a better life, their movement is not one of free will but of duress, sometimes accompanied by violence and sexual abuse. In general, however, people move of their
own volition, to better-off places. More than three quarters of international migrants go to a country with a higher level of human development than their country of origin. Yet they are significantly constrained, both by policies that impose barriers to entry and by the resources they have available to enable their move. People in poor countries are the least mobile: for example,fewer than 1 percent of Africans have moved to Europe. Indeed, history and contemporary evidence suggest that development and migration go hand in hand: the median emigration rate in a country with low human development is below 4 percent, compared to more than 8 percent from countries with high levels of human development.Barriers to movement The share of international migrants in the world’s population has remained remarkably stable at around 3 percent over the past 50 years, despite factors that could have been expected to increase flows. Demographic trends—an aging population in developed countries and young, still-rising populations in developing countries—and growing employment opportunities, combined with cheaper communications and transport, have increased the ‘demand’ for migration. However, those wishing to migrate have increasingly come up against government-imposed barriers to movement.Over the past century, the number of nation states has quadrupled to almost 200,creating more borders to cross, while policy changes have further limited the scale of migration even as barriers to trade fell. Barriers to mobility are especially high for people with low skills, despite the demand for their labour in many rich countries. Policies generally favour the admission of the better educated, for instance by allowing students to stay after graduation and inviting professionals to settle with their families. But governments tend to be far more ambivalent with respect to low-skilled workers, whose status and treatment often leave much to be desired. In many countries,agriculture, construction, manufacturing and service sectors have jobs that are filled by such migrants. Yet governments often try to rotate less educated people in and out of the country,sometimes treating temporary and irregular workers like water from a tap that can be turned on and off at will. An estimated 50 million people today are living and working abroad with irregular status. Some countries, such as Thailand and the United States, tolerate large numbers of unauthorized workers. This may allow those individuals to access better paying jobs than at home, but although they often do the same work and pay the same taxes as local residents, they may lack access to basic services and face the risk of being deported. Some governments, such as those of Italy and Spain, have recognized that unskilled migrants contribute to their societies and have regularized the status of those in work,while other countries, such as Canada and New Zealand, have well designed seasonal migrant programmes for sectors such as agriculture.

Most migrants, internal and international, reap gains in the form of higher incomes, better access to education and health, and improved prospects for their children While there is broad consensus about the value of skilled migration to destination countries, low-skilled migrant workers generate much controversy. It is widely believed that, while these migrants fill vacant jobs, they also displace local workers and reduce wages. Other concerns posed by migrant inflows include heightened risk of crime, added burdens on local services and the fear of losing social and cultural cohesion. But these concerns are often exaggerated.While research has found that migration can, in certain circumstances, have negative effects on locally born workers with comparable skills, the body of evidence suggests that these effects are generally small and may, in some contexts, be entirely absent.

The case for mobility
This report argues that migrants boost economic output, at little or no cost to locals. Indeed, there may be broader positive effects, for instance when the availability of migrants for childcare allows resident mothers to work outside the home. As migrants acquire the language and other skills needed to move up the income ladder, many integrate quite naturally, making fears about inassimilable foreigners—similar to those expressed early in the 20th century in America about the Irish, for example—seem equally unwarranted with respect to newcomers today. Yet it is also true that many migrants face systemic disadvantages, making it difficult or impossible for them to access local services on equal terms with local people. And these problems are especially severe for temporary and irregular workers. In migrants’ countries of origin, the impacts of movement are felt in higher incomes and consumption, better education and improved health, as well as at a broader cultural and social level. Moving generally brings benefits, most directly in the form of remittances sent to immediate family members. However, the benefits are also spread more broadly as remittances are spent—thereby generating jobs for local workers—and as behaviour changes in response to ideas from abroad. Women, in particular, may be liberated from traditional roles. The nature and extent of these impacts depend on who moves, how they fare abroad and whether they stay connected to their roots through flows of money, knowledge and ideas.Because migrants tend to come in large numbers from specific places—for example, Kerala in India or Fujian Province in China—community-level effects can typically be larger than national ones. However, over the longer term, the flow of ideas from human movement can have far-reaching effects on social norms and class structures across a whole country. The outflow of skills is sometimes seen as negative, particularly for the delivery of services such as education or health. Yet, even when this is the case, the best response is policies that address underlying structural problems, such as low pay, inadequate financing and weak institutions. Blaming the loss of skilled workers on the workers themselves largely misses the point, and restraints on their mobility are likely to be counter-productive— not to mention the fact that they deny the basic human right to leave one’s own country.However, international migration, even if well managed, does not amount to a national human development strategy. With few exceptions (mainly small island states where more than 40 percent of inhabitants move abroad),emigration is unlikely to shape the development prospects of an entire nation. Migration is at best an avenue that complements broader local and national efforts to reduce poverty and improve human development. These efforts remain as critical as ever. At the time of writing, the world is undergoing the most severe economic crisis in over half a century. Shrinking economies and layoffs are affecting millions of workers, including migrants.We believe that the current downturn should be seized as an opportunity to institute a new deal for migrants—one that will benefit workers at home and abroad while guarding against aprotectionist backlash. With recovery, many of the same underlying trends that have been driving movement during the past half-century will resurface, attracting more people to move. It is vital that governments put in place the necessary measures to prepare for this.

An Overview :UNDP's HDR report 2009