Section-I

1 Analyse the conceptual framework of disaster management and also explain its
paradigm shift.
Answer- Disasters, which occur globally with regular periodicity, are either natural such as
floods, droughts, cyclones and earthquakes or human-induced such as conflicts, riots,
environmental and industrial accidents. Irrespective of whether it is an 'act of God' or human-
induced, disasters create mass destruction and impede developmental work. The approach
towards management of disasters has undergone a radical change over the last few years. The
I ways of tackling the occurrence of disasters, earlier have been reactive in nature. The course
of action basically used to be emergency management and provision of relief and
rehabilitation. Efforts are always directed towards bringing back the situation to the
normal. But presently, governments all over the world are adopting a holistic approach to
disaster management.

The disaster management activity attempts to integrate several interrelated components in an

orderly and coordinated manner, This includes activities before or pre-disaster, during and after
the occurrence of a disaster. Hence there is a growing realisation universally to operationalise
and formulate appropriate legal and institutional framework to deal with disasters. Disaster
management as an activity involves measures to:

Reduce the risks associated with disasters through timely measures, short-term and
long-term policies;
To Provide required assistance to communities during and after the disasters; and

-to Ensure rapid, sustained recovery and rehabilitation after the occurrence of disasters.

Disaster management activity comprises certain key components as indicated in the Figure
below:

The above cycle indicates that the activities supplement each other. Prevention aims at
impending the occurrence of a disaster event, while mitigation attempts to prevent some and
reduce the effects of certain disasters. Preparedness comprises measures, which equip
governments at various levels, organisations. communities and individuals to handle and
respond effectively to disaster situations. The phase of response begins after the disaster
impact, which is aimed at saving the lives and property, disruption and damage caused by
disasters. The recovery encompassing restoration, rehabilitation and reconstruction intends to
bring back the people, and the country affected to their proper levels of functioning. The short-
term and long-term activities taken LIP in the aftermath of disasters need to aim at holistic
development and bring within their purview, the prevention, mitigation and preparedness
aspects of disasters. Developmental plans need to include
disaster management as one of the components.

Disaster management, which earlier relied on reactive mechanisms and processes, is now
adopting a preventive and mitigation-based approach. It is becoming multidisciplinary covering
wider aspects such as forecasting, warning, search and rescue, evacuation, relief,
reconstruction and rehabilitation, education, training and awareness. Disaster management,
earlier perceived to be the primary responsibility of the government is getting diversified with the
non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, educational institutions,
media, and community playing vital roles in disaster mitigation and prevention.

5. Discuss the role of central government ministries in disaster preparedness.

Answer- In India, the frequency of the occurrence of famines, and other natural calamities has
led to an institutionalised set up to deal with the disasters. The subject of natural calamities,
initially after independence was dealt with by the Ministry of Hotne. The earlier scarcity
relief division was later shifted to the Ministry of Agriculture. This division has been upgraded to
Natural Disaster Management Division. Presently, the Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal
Ministry for coordination of all disaster preparedness activities, except the disasters specifically
allocated to other ministries as given below: - - - - - - - -

The Central Government bodies responsible for disaster preparedness are as follows: -

The Union Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister.

Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister.

The National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) under the chairmanship of the Cabinet
Secretary.
The other members of this include the Secretary to the Prime Minister;Secretaries of Ministries
of Home Affairs, Defence, Research and Analysis Wing and Agriculture and Cooperation along
with Director Intelligence Bureau and an officer of Cabinet Secretariat.

The Crisis Management Group (CMG), under the chairmanship of the Central Relief
Commissioner, who is also Joint Secretary. Disaster Management in Home Ministry. This group
consists of senior officers from the various ministries and concerned departments and reviews
disaster preparedness plans and coordinates among themselves and State governments.

The CMG, in the event of a disaster, meets frequently to review the relief operations and
extends all possible assistance required by the affected states to overcome the situation
effectively. The Resident Commissioner of the affected state is also associated with such
meetings.

The recently constituted National Disaster Management Authority headed by the

Prime Minister,

The National Contingency Action Plan (CAP) becomes operational, on the onset of a disaster
that facilitates the relief and resource operations. It outlines the action to be taken by various
central Ministries and Departments and determines focal points in the administrative
machinery.

The Technical organisations, such as the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Central Water
Commission (CWC), Indian Space Research Organisation, Building and Material Promotion
Council, Bureau of Indian Standards, Defence Research and
Development Organisation, Director General of Civil Defence. Generally, whenever a natural
disaster is about to strike, the Central Relief Commissioner receives information from the IMD,
CWC, which is conveyed to the Secretary (Home), Home Minister, Cabinet Secretary, the Prime
Minister, Cabinet and the NCMC. The information is also disseminated to central government
ministries and departments, and also to the respective state governments for taking necessary
action.

A 200 bedded mobile hospital, fully trained and equipped is being set up by the Ministry of
Health and attached to a leading government hospital in Delhi. Three additional mobile hospitals
attached to leading government hospitals of the country are proposed to be located in different
parts of the country. These mobile hospitals will be airlifted during emergencies to the site of
disaster.
Agriculture in India is largely monsoon-dependent. Some areas of the country frequently face
droughts, The Ministry of Agriculture has launched a number OF programmes to mitigate the
impact of drought in the long run. These include Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP),
Desert Development Programme (DDP), National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed
Areas (NWDPRA), Watershed Development Programme for Shifting Cultivation (WDPSC), and
Integrated Afforestation and Eco-development Project Scheme (IAEPS).
 Section-II

8. Explain the concept of mitigation and highlight its importance.

Answer- Mitigation- Mitigation is the effort to reduce loss of life and property by lessening the
impact of disasters. In order for mitigation to be effective we need to take action now—before
the next disaster—to reduce human and financial consequences later (analyzing risk, reducing
risk, and insuring against risk). It is important to know that disasters can happen at any time and
any place and if we are not prepared, consequences can be fatal.

Effective mitigation requires that we all understand local risks, address the hard choices, and
invest in long-term community well-being. Without mitigation actions, we jeopardize our safety,
financial security and self-reliance. Disasters can happen at anytime and anyplace; their human
and financial consequences are hard to predict.
The number of disasters each year is increasing but only 50% of events trigger Federal
assistance. FEMA's mitigation programs help reduce the impact of events—and our
dependence on taxpayers and the Treasury for disaster relief.
FEMA's Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) manages the National Flood
Insurance Program (NFIP) and implements a variety of programs authorized by Congress to
reduce losses that may result from natural disasters.

Effective mitigation efforts can break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated
damage. FEMA's mitigation and insurance efforts are organized into three primary activities that
help states, tribes, territories and localities achieve the highest level of mitigation: Risk Analysis,
Risk Reduction, and Risk Insurance. Through these activities and FEMA's day-to-day work
across the country, communities are able to make better mitigation decisions before, during,
and after disasters.

Importance of Mitigation - The worst effects of any natural disaster are loss of human life,
injuries and health problems of the affected people apart from loss of property and livelihood.
Understanding the way that people are killed and injured in a particular disaster is a prerequisite
for reducing casualties.

In an Earthquake, 90% of the casualties are caused by house collapse. Hence, saving the lives
in earthquakes means focusing on prevention of building collapse. Similarly, in floods, most of
the deaths are because of drowning in fast flowing or turbulent waters. Reducing loss of life by
floods is possible by preventing or minimizing the extent of water flow or keeping people out of
the track of potential water flow.

Mitigation is planned after studying the elements at risk. Saving human life is of the highest
priority in mitigation plans, followed by those of animals. Next comes safety of crops,
infrastructure, and other elements at risk. Identification of elements most at risk indicates
priorities for mitigation.
Mitigation also entails the protection of the economy from disasters.

9 Write a note on Sustainable Development.

Answer- Sustainable development is a way for people to use resources without the resources
running out . The term used by the Brundtland Commission defined it as development with
sustainability that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs."[1]

Everyone wants a better place to live. Some people want better homes and housing, while other
people want better schools, more jobs, better shops, or cleaner and safer streets. Others may
want all these things. Whatever the problems in any neighbourhood, they can usually be
grouped into three issues. People need:

a better environment – that means green spaces, play areas, no litter, nice gardens, decent
houses, less noise and pollution. The resources used should renew over generations.
a better economy – that means jobs, reasonable prices, cheaper heat and light, no loan sharks
better social conditions – that means good leisure facilities, lots of community groups offering
sports and arts, friendly neighbours.

Graphic explanation from UNHCR

But many people now realise that if we are to tackle one issue, then we’ll probably have to
tackle the others as well. For instance, new shops are unlikely to open in an area where crime
and poverty levels are very high. Similarly crime is unlikely to fall in an area where the housing
has been improved unless there are jobs available. People may move into an area where
housing and jobs are available, but if the surroundings are run-down and public transport is
poor, they may well not want to stay.

This is not just a local issue. The same problems are faced at a national level. If the
governments of the world are to deal with poverty, they do not just need to provide money and
food aid, they need to help local people get educated and get jobs. People also need a safe
environment with adequate homes and drinking water. To make these things work,
governments also need to make sure that people have an effective voice in deciding what
happens where they live.

This approach is called ‘sustainable development’. While this phrase can be confusing, it’s now
used in many government documents and in funding programmes. Sustainable development
has three parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical
sustainability.

At the core of this idea is the matter of meeting people’s needs – for a home, for a decent job,
for education for their children, for good health care, and for a safe and healthy neighbourhood
to live in.

Most people in the rich nations have most of these needs, but there are still many people living
in poverty and in poor quality homes. Even if these basic needs are met there are still plenty of
ways in which their ‘quality of life’ is under threat: from crime, from pollution, or from living in
neighbourhoods where no-one in authority seems to care.

10. Analyse the role of Media in disaster management.

Answer- Social media and mobile phones have become essential for managing emergencies,
but mainstream media provide the immediate reports for early damage and needs assessments
Ever since the Haiti earthquake in 2010, social media has become an essential tool for
managing emergencies as the combined power of social networks, mobile phones and mapping
technology provides citizens with an unprecedented opportunity to seek help in a disaster.

Using Twitter as a basis for crisis maps is now commonplace, while news media have become
increasingly digital and can be analysed in real time for disaster management purposes.

But as Patrick Meier, a leading expert on the use of new technologies for crisis early warning
and humanitarian response, points out, non-digital media are sometimes at the forefront of
providing vital life-saving information.

“Twitter added little value during the recent Pakistan earthquake, for example,” Meier writes on
his iRevolution blog. “Instead, it was the Pakistani mainstream media that provided the
immediate situational awareness necessary for a preliminary damage and needs assessment.
“This means that our humanitarian technologies need to ingest both social media and
mainstream media feeds.”

Local community media, in particular radio, played a vital in the humanitarian response to the
2011 Japan earthquake, a report by Internews published earlier this year showed. Combining
the monitoring of mainstream media as well as user-generated content helped to provide a
more complete crisis map of Kenya during the 2007/08 election violence, Meier showed in a
study.

But while this used to mean ploughing manually through masses of news sources, a new tool –
the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) – makes linking information from
social and mainstream media easier, Meier writes.

GDELT, launched earlier this year, contains almost a quarter of a billion records from news
sources on events ranging from riots and protests to diplomatic efforts and peace appeals. It is
the single largest public and global event data catalogue ever developed, according to Meier.

GDELT covers all countries from 1979 to the present day with daily updates and is based on a
cross-section of all major international, national, regional, as well as local and hyper-local news
sources, both print and broadcast, and in English and local languages, according to its website.

All records in the open database are georeferenced to the city or landmark mentioned in the
article, and all records include ethnic and religious affiliation of both actors as provided in the
text.

The GDELT team has just launched its Global Knowledge Graph (GKG), which aims to connect
“every person, organisation, location, count, theme, news source, and event across the planet
into a single massive network that captures what is happening around the world, what its
context is and who’s involved, and how the world is feeling about it, every single day”, according
to its website.

Meier points out that a customized version of the graph could potentially prove useful for Who
Does What Where (3Ws), a directory of actors involved in humanitarian emergency response
run by the United Nations emergency response coordination office (UN OCHA).