On camera, nun blocks Kerala minister's car. She had a jumbo complaint

New Delhi, Jun 15: Average temperature of India experienced a rise of 0.7 degree Celsius, along with decline in rainfall, significant increase in frequency of very severe cyclonic storms and droughts in over a decade due to human activities, the Ministry of Earth Sciences in its research report said.

The contentions were made in a report issued by the ministry on the impact of climate change. It will be published by Union Minister Harsh Vardhan on June 19.

According to the report, "Since the middle of the twentieth century, India witnessed rise in temperature; decrease in monsoon; rise in extreme temperature and rainfall, droughts, and sea levels; and increase intensity of severe cyclones.

The report, prepared by researchers of the Centre for Climate Change Research, a cell under The Ministry's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, further stated that there is compelling scientific evidence that human activities have influenced these changes in regional climate.

India's average temperature has risen by around 0.7 degrees Celsius during 1901-2018, it said, adding that the rise is largely on account of GHG-induced warming and partially offset by forcing due to anthropogenic aerosols.

It states that the average temperature over India is projected to rise by 4.4 degrees Celsius, while the intensity of heat waves is likely to increase by 3-4 times by the end of the century.

In the 30-year period between 1986 and 2015, temperatures of the warmest day and the coldest night of the year have risen by about 0.63 degrees Celsius and 0.4 degree Celsius.

According to the report, by the end of the century, the temperatures of the warmest day and the coldest night are projected to rise by approximately 4.7 degrees Celsius and 5.5 degrees Celsius, respectively.

Alarmingly, sea surface temperature of the tropical Indian Ocean has also risen by one degrees Celsius on average during 1951-2015.

"The frequency of very severe cyclonic storms during the post-monsoon season has increased significantly (+1 event per decade) during the last two decades (2000-2018)," it added.

This came in the backdrop of Cyclone 'Amphan' and 'Nisarga' which made landfalls on May 20 and June 3 and killed several people, flattened villages, and destroyed farms.

"This is the first-ever climate change assessment report for India. This report will be very useful for policy makers, researchers, social scientists, economists, and students," said M. Rajeevan, secretary, the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Besides this, the report also highlighted various other unnerving data on climate change in the country. Both the frequency and extent of droughts have increased significantly during 1951-2016.

The overall decrease of seasonal "summer monsoon rainfall" during the last 6-7 decades has led to an increased propensity for droughts over India.

"In particular, areas over central India, southwest coast, southern peninsula and north-eastern India have experienced more than 2 droughts per decade, on average, during this period. The area affected by drought has also increased by 1.3 per cent per decade over the same period."

The Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) also experienced a temperature rise of about 1.3 degree Celsius during 1951-2014.

Several areas of the Himalayas have experienced a declining trend in snowfall and also retreat of glaciers in recent decades. By the end of the twenty-first century, its annual mean surface temperature is projected to increase by about 5.2 degree Celsius.

The summer monsoon precipitation from June to September over India has also declined by around 6 per cent from 1951 to 2015, with notable decreases over the Indo-Gangetic Plains and the Western Ghats, the report further states.

New Delhi, Apr 11: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with chief ministers, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday urged CMs of states where the party is in power to unanimously demand for transfer of cash to every poor family.

He said the poor have lost their jobs and have exhausted their savings. They are now standing in lines to get free food, the former Union finance minister said.

Chidambaram said remonetising the poor would cost only Rs 65,000 crore, which is economically viable.

"Chief ministers Amarinder Singh, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, V Narayanasami, Uddhav Thackeray and E Palaniswani should tell the prime minister today that just as LIVES are important LIVELIHOOD of the poor is important, he tweeted.

"The poor have lost their jobs or self-employment in the last 18 days. They have exhausted their meagre savings. Many are standing in line for food," Chidambaram said.

Can the state stand by and watch them go hungry," he asked, adding that chief ministers should demand that cash be transferred to every poor family immediately.

"Remonetise the poor should be their unanimous demand," Chidambaram said.

New Delhi, Jan 31: Substantial competition and low tariff rates by telecom operators since 2016 have led to a financial stress in the sector, the Economic Survey said on Friday.

The data price in the country came down by over 99 per cent during 2016-2019, making it among the lowest tariff in the world, according to the survey.

"Since 2016, the sector has witnessed substantial competition and price cutting by the telecom service providers (TSPs), creating financial stress in the sector. As a result, the sector is experiencing consolidation. While some operators have filed for bankruptcy, others have merged, in their quest to improve viability," the survey report said.

In April-June 2019, the price of data was Rs 7.7 per gigabyte (GB) as compared to Rs 200 per GB in June 2016, it added.

"The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM based mobile services has also gone down substantially from Rs 126 in June 2016 to Rs 74.30 in June 2019," the survey said.

The tariff war started in the market with entry of new telecom operator Reliance Jio in September 2016.

"BSNL and MTNL are also affected by the tariff war that has impacted their cash flow resulting in mounting losses," the survey said.

The financial health of the public sector telecom firms plummeted to a level where they have been finding hard to pay employees salaries in time.

The government has drawn up a plan to revive these PSUs which is still in works.

The revival plan consists of several measures, including reduction of staff cost through voluntary retirement scheme, allotment of spectrum for 4G services, monetisation of land and building, tower and fibre assets of BSNL and MTNL, debt restructuring through sovereign guarantee bonds and ''in-principle'' approval for merger of BSNL and MTNL.

The survey said that the wireless telephony now constitutes 98.27 per cent of all subscriptions whereas share of landline telephones now stands at only 1.73 per cent where market share is dominated by private sector players.

"The overall tele-density in India stands at 90.45 per cent, the rural tele-density being 57.35 per cent and urban teledensity being 160.71 per cent at the end of September 2019. The private sector dominates with a share of 88.81 per cent (106.06 crore connections) at the end of September, 2019 while the share of public sector was 11.19 per cent (13.36 crore connections)," the survey said.

The lower price of data has also lead in surge of broadband connections and average consumption of the internet.

Total broadband connections increased by about ten times, from 6.1 crore in 2014 to 59.46 crore in June 2019, the survey said.

The number of internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) stood at 66.53 crore at the end of June 2019 as compared to 25.16 crore in 2014.

The number of mobile internet subscribers was 64.36 lakh at the end of June 2019 while the number of wireline internet subscribers was 2.17 crore.

"India is now the global leader in monthly data consumption, with average consumption per subscriber per month increasing 157 times from 62 MB in 2014 to 9.8 GB in June 2019. The cost of data has also reduced substantially, enabling affordable internet access for millions of citizens," the survey said.