Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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Article 81 of the Indian Constitution stipulates that Lok Sabha constituencies in the country should be equal by the size of population.
- *The 42nd Amendment Act of 1976 froze the delimitation of constituencies for elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies until after the 2001 Census of India.
- The 42nd Amendment Act decreed that the population to be taken into consideration for the next 25 years would be the number in the 1971 census.
- The government decided to undertake readjustment and rationalization of territorial constituencies in the States, without altering the number of seats allotted to each State.
- *The 91st amendment to the Constitution, extending the 25-year-old freeze on the total number and state-wise distribution of seats in the Lok Sabha till the year 2026.
The Current Problem
The five southern States have effectively controlled their population and should not be penalised through reduced political representation
What does Statistics say
The population growth rates differ between the non-Hindi speaking southern States and the Hindi-speaking northern States.
- Between 1971 and 2011, the proportion of the population of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh increased from 44% to 48.2%
- the northern States will gain 37
- Whereas the proportion of population of the five southern States (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana) declined from 24.9% to 21.1%.
- The five southern States will lose 23 seats
- The proportion of political representation of northern States will increase by 6.81% and that of southern States will decline by 4.24%.
GLACIAL LAKE OUTBURST FLOOD
Recent NEWS
Flash floods occurred in north Sikkim after the South Lhonak Lake burst due to incessant rains.
- When an unstable natural dam breaks, huge amounts of water rush down mountains causing floods in downstream areas. These floods are called glacial lake outburst floods.
How it occurs?
When a glacier retreats it leaves behind a large depression filled with water forming a glacial lake. These lakes get deposited with large amounts of debris and buried ice. Here terminal moraines act as dams for these lakes forming moraine lakes. These weaken over time with action of rising water levels and retreating glacial ice tongue and may crumble causing GLOF. These can also be triggered by earthquake, landslide and avalanches.
Issues related to GLOF
- Glacial lakes are an important source of freshwater but also pose risk of potential natural disaster. GLOFs can be highly destructive and can arrive with little prior warning, causing significant damage to property, infrastructure, and agricultural land, and resulting in extensive loss of life.
- Research has shown that due to global climate change and retreating glaciers, there is an escalated risk in GLOFs worldwide. According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), glacial retreat due to climate change occurring in most parts of the Hindu Kush Himalaya has given rise to the formation of numerous new glacial lakes, which are the major cause of GLOFs.
Mitigation measures
- Identification and mapping of glacial lakes
- Strengthen the borders of glacial lakes to reduce risk of breakage
- Use of satellite images to identify and detect changes in water levels in these lakes
- NDMA recommends decreasing the volume of water with methods like controlled breaching, pumping or siphoning out water, and making a tunnel through the moraine barrier or under an ice dam.
- Restrict construction in GLOF prone areas and relocate existing population
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