Economic and Environmental human rights have come sharply into focus in the 21st century, as inequity and ecological degradation continue to surge in the so called liberal democracies like India which was supposed to be committed to political freedoms, including freedom of expression and assembly. The twin problems of Covid-19 pandemic and climate change have seriously threatened the life, livelihood and sustainability of the human development process all over the world in recent times. This paper discusses these issues by using the  lenses of entropy in physical sense of the term.  Such  application of  the concept of  entropy helps us to address the challenges — and explore the remedies — for ensuring sustainability of the development process and guaranteeing economic and environmental human rights.

 

These problems when situated in the entropy perspective of economic processes point to the ecological links of these phenomena with the functioning of an economy. The concept of physical entropy   and its applicability in the context of extreme events of disease pandemic or climate extreme events  can be illustrated with reference to  their ecological linkage with the physical phenomenon of biodiversity loss or with that of  heating of the earth causing such extreme  health related or  climate related  events. This paper  gives an overview of  these interrelated interdisciplinary issues concerning such events and shows how the rise of entropy as induced by the processes of economic growth lead to scarcities  of resources and income which threaten to raise in turn the social disorder or social entropy. The policy issues that emerge from such analyses are required to address economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainability of development from a holistic scientific perspective and warrant revisiting the Human Rights System in the Indian context. 

 

Join from the meeting link

https://nipfp.webex.com/nipfp/j.php?MTID=m054a4b3667f14d5cec496722fbb28dc8

 

Join by meeting number

Meeting number (access code): 2513 682 2382

Meeting password: E8PqmKy66mN (38776596 when dialing from a video system)