task 3

Task 3

Water is a essential thing for living all the living species in the earth. It is also believed that the life is originated from the water and therefore the other name of water is “life”. It is a great irony that although 3/4 of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, there is still an acute water crisis in some parts of the world. The problem is due to that 97.5 % of all water is salty ocean water and rest 2.5 % water if fresh water. Among the fresh water, only 30 % is available for use, and consequently only 1 % of all the earth’s water is available for use. Moreover, all the available water is not clean water and it also has competitors.  Roughly one-sixth of the world’s population, about 1 billion people, do not have access to pure drinking water. Some 2.3 million people in developing countries, most of them are children; suffer every year due to the diseases associated with the lack of access to pure water.
In pace with the development, the use of water also increasing very rapidly, at instance the use of water is almost double in 2000 than the water used in 1960. The causes for increasing of water use are population growth, rapid urbanization, change of consumption pattern, climate change etc. The water distribution is not uniform around the globe; some parts suffer more scarcity than others. Particularly, North Africa and Middle East suffer more water crisis due the unavailability of the underground water in the swallow depth. In South Asia on the other hand, though the water is available in comparatively swallow depth but Arsenic contamination in water is causing the water unsafe.
Another regional water  issue is that the countries which are situated in the down stream of the common rivers is suffering from the discrimination by the upstream countries when they build  DAM, Barrage etc for electricity production and irrigation. A real example of this phenomenon is Bangladesh that suffers droughts and floods due to construction of Farakka barrage on Ganga River.

Summary task

The overall contents and teaching procedure were fully new from the conventional other courses. At post graduate stage such procedure and contents of discussion were very new to me and I have gained a new dimension about how to share each others knowledge and how to coping with group discussion to reach a conclusion. The global burning issues what are not under unique consensus could be handled with such a practice what we did in the class. The open mind is a must phenomenon for achieving public consensus and what we have been trained in this course.

The contents of the course were chosen nicely as almost all the global burning issues what are related to technology, development, climate, environment were included. These contents are clearly assumed not to be solved by one hand only like researcher, government, academicians etc rather it needs all stake holders participation in reaching a common consensus. Stakeholders opinion are important to produce a acceptable result  which relates multidimensional and complex issues like climate, housing for the slum dwellers, water & sanitation, pollution, waste management, public transport, energy etc. In developing countries, governments are understandingly very hurry to reduce the poverty by facilitating infrastructure like roads, bridges, dams, power plants, industries etc. These infrastructures are considered very essential not for attaining the luxury but to eliminate  the unbearable hunger of their citizens by creating jobs. These are the priority issues  for the government and therefore  are paying less attention to the sustainability and environment. How to balance these  development trends to get rid of hungry for the billions and also to save the environment are a trillion dollar issue in the global debate.

The development issues should be given proper attention in the developing countries in one hand, the environmental vulnerability and sustainable perspective also need to be kept in mind for the sake of the earth planet existence on the other hand. Balancing of these issues are need to be discussed in a broad perspective taking stakeholders opinion. Developed and rich are usually asked just to cut some of their luxury to produce less GHG ( green house gas) but on the other hand poor are not dreamt to luxury rather are busy for a handful of food, basic housing, clothing etc for their children.

Responsibilities of the sides just  ask for some cut down of luxury and sides who are getting tired just to have a bunch of food are need not to be same degree?

In this course we were trying to look where the answers are lying at and how to find it.

Task 9

ICT

We came to know from the lecture of Mr. Matti Sinko how the ICT can help a country or region towards revolutionary development. ICT can change the world in a drastic way towards knowledge base and hunger free society. The ICT has a versatile impact for development of the all sectors and sub-sectors. The sector itself consists of  telecommunications, mobile technologies, ICT industry, services and uses but it has the ability to play role on all the other sectors also. It makes the business dynamic by implying e-business, e-commerce, e-banking, m-business etc. It also brings transparence in the government sector by introducing e-governance and it lessen corruption, red tape bureaucracy  and public hassle and brings dynamism in the government.  It also facilitating e-learning to improve the knowledge level of the mass people, spread information and e-health, telemedicine  that brings the service to the door step of the people. The efficiency of  communication and transport system is improved by incorporating ICT. The neglected agriculture has given a great thrust by implying e-marketing, technology adaptation etc.

In the video named “Africa goes digital” we wonder to know how a country like Uganda

realized the great importance of ICT to build the country towards sustainable economy. People supposed that Africa  already missed out agriculture and industrial revolution due to colonial rule on them but they are  not ready  to further miss out ICT revolution. Government had taken different policies and approaches to bridge gap between local and international in digital sector and public also are being aware to the blessing of the ICT. It is amazing to see even a 78 years old woman is carrying responsibility to spread computer knowledge to the village people of Uganda.  

In the second video named “Rwandas 2020: ICT in action in Rwanda” is explored how the government  incorporated ICT to develop different sector in a knowledge base way.

Government realized ICT has a  great role to reach to mile stones of good governance, human resource development, private sector development, infrastructure development, regional integration and productive agriculture. ICT  acts as a enabling tool to reach to these miles stones. It also brings the country from agriculture domination to knowledge base economy.  To enhance ICT, government set NICI programme (National Information and Communication Infrastructure). ICT also is being used to fight against  HIV by real time information sharing.

In conclusion, as ICT is going, it is not far away when the poverty, hungry, women repression, child mortality will be found in the museum not in the society.    

Task 8

Challenges for transportation planning in Asia, Europe and North America
In this lecture, Dr. Khan discussed the transport issues by segmenting in three different subtitles; urban transport planning, sustainable urban transportation and three regions Asia, Europe and North America. First discussed what the urban transportation planning is? The urban transportation planning consists of many identical activities and settings. The main segment of the urban transport planning are establishing a vision, understanding the required measure to implement the vision, assessing opportunity and limitations, consequences analysis, checking of alternative options, presentation of the planning activities, setting of priority and investment model.

In that lecture, also some transportation facts are presented in global perspective. The passenger cars are doing this job mostly as 75 % of the total passenger-km movements are implemented by passenger car. So rest only 25 % of the passenger-km are being carrying out by the train, by-cycle, foot walk etc. The number of private car also increasing day by day in Europe and all over the world, though 50 % of the car are having trip less than 5 Km and 30 % less than 3 Km. Less than 10 % journey are covered by public transport. The by-cycling and foot walking also are decreasing as per the statistics.
From 2000 to 2030, the passenger-km are also increasing in high pace with 42 % increases expected by the year 2030. Also discussed what the major challenges are to be faced for urban transport systems. These are increasing the number of cars in cities, GHG emissions, air pollutions, road safety, noise pollutions, high energy consumptions etc. To overcome these challenges, urban transport system must be sustainable. What are the major task related to the sustainable urban transport (SUT) planning, these are; access and mobility rather than movement, transport accessibility for all, non-compromising of economic growth, improve quality of life, combination of technical and nontechnical measures. The sustainable urban transport system should meet all these context like; environment, economy, social, governance and technology issues. 

 For the betterment of our planet and for the human being, a sustainable urban transport is drawing much attention from the different stakeholders.