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ECONOMIC TIMES ARTICLES Why postpone agriculture reforms? Their Altruism Certainly Isnt True to Its Character 28 WOMEN S RIGHTS Govt constitutes Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission What price foreign providers'? K.N. Panikkar ENVIRONMENT What is self-esteem? A new urban reform agenda Column : Inclusive growth, here we come Latest employment trends from the NSSO The Big leap for Indian Industry: Governance, inclusion & skill development big challenges Ratings for Secretaries on the cards 10 commandments against corruption
Why postpone agriculture reforms? In the rapidly transforming Indian economy all the attention has consistently centered on the emerging sectors, almost by default. Though not by design, agriculture has ended up a much neglected sector despite the fact that more than 60% of the population still depend on it for their livelihood. It's time we relooked at the sector in the context of new priorities like controlling food inflation, managing food security, improving productivity, reducing wastages and increasing farmers' income. Economic reforms have done wonders for various sectors in terms of productivity, income generation and consumer welfare. It does not make any sense to deprive agriculture of similar benefits any longer. Since it's not possible to go into all the issues facing the sector in this piece, I would rather limit myself to two most critical areas in the sector crying for reforms. While one relates to the marketing and distribution of agricultural produce, particularly for fresh produce; the other relates to the structure of ownership and leasing of land in the country. Laws and regulations governing these areas were created long time back in a different environment, and were probably relevant at that time. Ironically, a large section of these laws were originally created to protect the small farmers from unscrupulous landlords, moneylenders and traders. They have largely turned dysfunctional and counterproductive in the changed environment. Presently, they are working against the interest of both the farmers and consumers. In fact, agri produce is the only sector where one needs a licence to purchase through the Adhtiyaasin the mandis. First, let's look at trade in agricultural products in the country. Since farmers are prohibited by regulation to sell directly to aggregators, food processing companies and retailers, they are compelled
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to sell their produce to the middlemen at the mandis. The worst part of this arrangement is the lack of transparency in the price discovery process. Small farmers invariably fall prey to the middlemen and Adhtiyaasworking in tandem. The plight of the farmers is aggravated particularly in the case of perishable produce like fruits and vegetables. Distress sale remains a common phenomenon given the farmers' inability to store or transport products at will. Lack of adequate cold storage network in the country clearly remains a big hurdle. There is a very strong case for amending the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) Acts in different states to exempt fruits and vegetables and other perishables like fisheries from the ambit of the law. Exempting them from the restrictions will help streamline the distribution channels of the products, shortening the distance between the producer and consumer. Reducing the number of hands through which the product passes through will have a direct impact on the degree of wastage. It's worth mentioning here that about 25-40% of India's agri produce goes waste due to improper transportation, storage, warehousing and lack of cold chain infrastructure. Eliminating the middlemen's margins and reduction in wastage can have a twin impact; increasing realisation for farmers and decreasing consumer price. Reforming the APMC Acts to allow big organised retailers to buy directly from farmers, I believe, will lead to bigger investments in the cold chain infrastructure in the country. There is a strong case to give complete freedom to farmers to sell perishable produce directly to wholesalers, aggregators, food processing companies and retailers, in addition to selling in mandis. Fragmentation of landholdings in the country is another serious problem facing the sector today. The average size of landholding in the country has declined progressively from 2.63 hectares in 1996 to 1.06 hectares in 2004-05. Around 60% of the households today possess less than one hectare of land for cultivation. This has seriously affected the scale of operations, crop diversification and scope of aggregation of farm produce. Subsistence and marginal farming has unfortunately become the norm. A possible solution to the above problem lies in legalising the leasing of agricultural land on long tenure basis through legislation. Fear of landowners about losing ownership rights while leasing it out to another party remains the biggest obstacle to leasing. Hence, one focal point of any proposed legislation should be to ensure that the landowner is not dispossessed of his land in the process of leasing and that the lessee has no tenancy rights. Prolonging the lease period to 10-15 years and removing any ceiling on size of lease would be two other important requirements for the private sector to contemplate entry into agriculture. Long duration and large size of leases will enable corporates to invest in technology to make the farms more productive. It's time the central government introduces a model land leasing Act in line with the model APMC Act. The state governments also need to align their own land tenure and tenancy Acts accordingly. Proper utilisation of farmland resources will help augment rural employment opportunities, which are
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generally not available, particularly for women. These opportunities will emerge both in cultivation and food processing. Growth of food processing in particular holds important implications for rural employment and income generation, besides acting as a key instrument against ruralurban migration. India has completed two decades of economic reforms. By and large, reforms have taken roots in large swathes of the economy. But the process will clearly remain incomplete as long as the longoverdue reforms in the agri sector are not completed. They are all the more important for being the most powerful instrument of inclusive growth in the country, a clear and unambiguous priority for the government today. (The author is VC & MD, Bharti Enterprises and Chairman, CII National Council for Agriculture)
Their Altruism Certainly Isnt True to Its Character Philanthropic organisations greatly influence public policymaking, to the detriment of future generations NAREN KARUNAKARAN A few years ago, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, had a chance meeting with Som Pal, former member of the Planning Commission and earlier minister of state for agriculture, and was bowled over by his sage-like views on developmental issues. The president promptly invited Som Pal to his blighted country to suggest policy measures to get out of a developmental quagmire. Som Pal travelled to Rwanda; he was hosted at the presidential palace and allocated an entire office during two long stints. Rwanda was sitting on a food security crisis in spite of having fertile land and favourable climatic conditions. A set of policy guidelines and an action plan were quickly crafted. I held out a promise to Kagame Rwanda could be food surplus in a short time, recalls Som Pal. His plans were, however, rendered futile, as a hostile system overwhelmed him, even attempting to buy water handpumps at $12,500 apiece. Most African leaders are only keen on projecting the agony of their people for international support in dollars, laments Som Pal. A complete nexus between institutions, large corporations and narrow, vested interests are at work. Elements of this trend can be seen in India too. Since then, Som Pal has had several brushes with Kenya and Zambia too; the story runs along similar lines. How then would he evaluate the much celebrated Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) an initiative driven by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the oldest and the largest philanthropic repositories, respectively, in the world? The Gates Foundation alone has committed $264.5 million to AGRA. They are using the pitiable condition of the African people to get a foothold into the continent, explains Som Pal. Their large philanthropic resources are being utilised to further the interests of business. In countries with weak governance mechanisms, like those in Africa, it becomes a lot easier. Proponents of chemical-free and GMO-free (genetically modified organisms), sustainable
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agricultural practices like Som Pal are beginning to feel uncomfortable about AGRA and a host of big-ticket philanthropic initiatives across developing countries. As are an increasing number of independent policy wonks and scientists across the world. For instance, the Gates Foundations sheer clout is taking it, intentionally or unintentionally, to places where policy, business and philanthropy intersect. There are its business and investment links with large companies that are driven by the profit motive. There is its growing stranglehold in the policy-making space across emerging markets, especially in education, healthcare and agriculture. MONSANTO IN GATES CLOTHING The $23.1 million investment by the Gates Foundation in Monsanto, the worlds largest producer of GM seeds, is a small example of a trend. Civil society organisations see it as vindication of what they had always suspected: the unstated agenda of pushing GM crops into Africa. In recent times, though, following strident protests, Bill Gates appears to have tempered his views on agriculture; he talks about picking the best from organics and tech-driven agriculture. The Gates Foundations insistence that its investments and grants ought to be seen separately has also attracted considerable flak. Doubts About Gates Larger Motives The question is asked: how can it be a passive investor in companies such as Monsanto when its avowed goal is doing good with philanthropic monies? Doubts about his (Bill Gates) larger motives, despite some good outcomes of his charity, are beginning to cloud my thinking, concedes Mira Shiva, a public health activist. Two emails sent by ET to the Gates Foundation, on December 29 and March 22, went unanswered. In his blog postings and writings, Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of the US-based Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy, labels it Monsanto in Gates clothing. He describes how AGRA, as a prelude to the introduction of GMOs, is laying the ground for a conventional breeding programme labs, experiment stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points out that about 80% of the Gates Foundations allocation to Kenya has gone into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds went into promoting and developing GM seeds. GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business models of those very companies. Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently representing GRAIN, sees a design in the Gates Foundations announcement of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by Bill Gates. The involvement of this set of players in the promotion of GM rice is too well known, she says. AGRA, it is often charged, has been created with little civil society or farmer engagement. Protests are now breaking out across the continent. The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a membership of 65 civil society and farmer organisations, tried to block the import of a 40,000 tonne consignment of GM maize into the country last year. Food First is concerned that US agencies, acting in tandem with MNCs, are gaining muscle by the day. The Casey-Lugar Global Food Security Act a legislation that seeks to tie foreign aid to
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GMOs is often cited. Or, that the newly appointed head of USAID is a former Gates Foundation employee. A set of powerful voices in business and in philanthropy are beginning to talk of a new GM-led green revolution despite the ravages of the previous green revolution techniques, which were grounded in similar principles, in India. In the Punjab, Haryana and western UP belt, soils are degraded, and yields and groundwater levels are plunging, causing deep socio-economic challenges. The onslaught continues despite numerous studies indicating that GM crops are no panacea. A few years ago, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) a multi-stakeholder consultation that lasted three years, and involved 900 experts from 110 countries concluded GM crops are no solution to the worlds food security challenges. SECOND ONLY TO THE US Concerns aired by agriculturists are finding an echo in another arena in which philanthropic capital, in recent years, has catalysed remarkable progress: healthcare. It has delivered results in access to medicines, research in neglected and tropical diseases, development and distribution of vaccines to lowincome countries, maternal, neonatal and child health, and nutrition. The Gates Foundation and its partners have re-invigorated health issues and given them a global profile like never before. Since 1994, the foundation has invested over $13 billion in healthcare alone, representing 60% of its giving to date. In public health, other than the US government, there is no donor as influential as the Gates Foundation. It has emerged as the second largest donor to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This can be seen both ways: donor money has infused life into a nearly bankrupt entity, but it is also causing much consternation. Effects of the structural changes being pushed by the new interests will be seen years or decades down the line. The very mandate and constitution of the WHO is being undermined, says KM Gopakumar, legal advisor and senior researcher of the Third World Network in India. Speaking to the media in Bangalore this week, Warren Buffett, who has committed most of his $50 billion wealth to the Gates Foundation, admitted it takes a long time to see the full results of philanthropic work. Philanthropy is tougher than business as the market system does not give feedback on performance, he said. While it is conceded that it would be downright impudent to look a gift horse in the mouth, the concentration of power in the hands of new philanthro-capitalists is causing alarm; especially on issues around equity and social justice, on the accountability of donors and its impact, maybe unintended, on global institutions and processes. The rapid demise of public sector policy-making in key areas of public health, and the reliance on the Gates family and its staff, is impoverishing debate over public health priorities, says James Love, director, Knowledge Economy International (KEI), a US-based not-forprofit that seeks better outcomes to the management of knowledge resources. It is borne out by occasional outbursts from people within the system. CONCENTRATION OF POWER Some time ago, the head of WHOs malaria research revealed that the increasing dominance of the Gates Foundation was stifling diversity of views among scientists and that it could seriously impede
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the policy-making function of the world body. He was dismayed by the foundations decisionmaking process: A closed, internal processaccountable to none other than itself . More recently, in January 2011, the Peoples Health Movement, a grassroots campaign for health for all, wrote to members of the WHOs executive board, calling attention to a number of issues. This included innovation, intellectual property rights (IPR), millennium development goals, and also the future of financing WHO, especially the unhealthy trend of donor money increasing in proportion to that of contributions from member states. WHOs recent over-reliance on medicines, diagnostics and other technological fixes is being criticised. Allocations to the social determinants of health have shrunk greatly, says Mira Shiva. Water, food, sanitation and other social circumstances have a greater play on the health of the poor. Shiva has been an ardent proponent for the rational use of medicines. In contrast, a humungous push on vaccines is underway. The Gates Foundation, for example, has allocated $10 billion to this field and describes this as the decade of vaccines. However, the GAVI Alliance, and some of the mechanisms it has fostered, is now under fire. One such mechanism is the Advance Market Commitments (AMC), inspired and supported by the Gates Foundation. The AMC seeks to provide pharma companies a captive market for 10 years, provided they agree to develop and supply vaccines to developing countries, in millions of doses, at a deep discount. The pilot AMC of $1.5 billion, funded by the Gates Foundation and G7 countries, for pneumococcal diseases, which kills almost a million children annually, pays $3.50 per dose to the companies in the mechanism (GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer-Wyeth, among others). Recipient countries make a small co-payment. However, instead of developing new vaccines, the AMC brought in vaccines already developed by big pharma, for which costs had been recovered substantially from sales in western markets. Donald W Light, a distinguished academic and visiting professor at Stanford University, was part of the AMC process, but found himself out of it when his views crossed that of big pharma. Light often dubs it the advance procurement commitment for its overwhelming bias towards big pharma and profits. GAVI is basically setting the markets for big pharma, says Leena Menghaney, campaign co-ordinator (India), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a medical humanitarian organisation that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. The GAVI Alliance is already in a deep funding crisis. It is expected to scour for $4.1 billion this year, primarily because of action skewed in favour of big pharma. Leaders of donor nations and GAVI board members should sit with the chairman of Pfizer and GSK to negotiate a new price near $2, says Light. In the longer run, they should negotiate licensing, technology transfer and other ways to foster price-competition from other low-cost producers. The suggestion is indeed relevant for the AMC, which disregards the immense potential of small pharma companies in developing countries to bring cheaper vaccines to the world. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India participates in the AMC, but when it requested funding support during its R&D process for a vaccine, it was turned down. Light is in favour of companies in the Serum Institute mould. INSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCE The Gates influence and stranglehold on global institutions and mechanisms in healthcare are quite
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evident. It doesnt stop here. Numerous proposals for a Medical R&D Treaty as a more egalitarian alternative to the existing one, which links R&D costs to product prices, has been systematically snuffed out. The treaty seeks to place global, and country-specific obligations, on funding medical R&D. Each country is expected to extend support on the basis of its national income. Its regrettable that the Gates Foundation opposes discussions at the WHO on a possible treaty on medical R&D, says James Love. An initiative that can create new global sustainability standards, promote access to knowledge, and usher much-needed transparency and ethical norms. At a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Gates said: I dont know about this treaty. I dont have a position on this. Interestingly, while large organisations such as the WHO bare a tendency to capitulate easily to pressure, smaller, newer outfits show more spunk. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a product development partnership, which also seeks funds from the Gates Foundation, has clear firewalls in place. We limit funds from a single donor to not more than 25% of our total requirement, says Bernard Pecoul, executive director, DNDi, which is seeking to raise euro 274 million by 2014. The Gates Foundation has committed around $40 million to DNDi. It demanded a board position, but DNDi refused. But such instances of refusing to bow to big philanthropy are rare. Its a crisis of accountability today, says Shiva. Its no more accountability of corporations or philanthropists alone; the government too has a lot to answer.
28 WOMEN S RIGHTS Womens Rights: Too Little But Not Too Late Reshmi Dasgupta
Womens rights activists aver that inasmuch as legislations and laws can provide a framework for women's rights, India has reason to feel somewhat pleased about the last 50 years. Thats of course barring the sidestepping of the Supreme Court's Shahbano judgment by passing the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 by the Congress government. Landmarks include the Maternity Benefit Act 1961, Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, the Medical Termination Of Pregnancy Act, 1971, Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act 1994 and the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act eliminating the bias against female inheritors in the original 1956 Act. In 1999, writer Githa Hariharan won the right to give her children her surname instead of that of their father. Indian women are apparently better off than many of their sisters elsewhere. But in spite of all thats been achieved, the landscape for equality is hardly flat. Equal opportunity in a liberalised economy, equality and dignity in workplaces, promotion, career advancement, and personal safety remain live issues. New issues like so-called (dis) honour killings, stalking and sexual harassment have only been partially addressed. The 1997 Vishaka judgement on the gang-rape of the saathin Bhanwari Devi forms the basis for guidelines on prevention of sexual .harassment The Supreme Court held that,
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"each incidence of sexual harassment of women at workplace results in violation of fundamental rights," "gender equality" and the "right to life and liberty". But life and liberty remain constricted as social mores change unevenly. Politically, their status can be seen as triumph or tokenism Today, almost as many women are registered voters as men (33.75 crore to 36 crore in 2009) and they have notched up a 60% turnout in elections, but their numbers in Parliament is well below the 15% average for elected legislatures elsewhere. Their presence in the body politic, due to reservation of 1/3 seats in panchayats and municipalities is unmistakable, as is their ascent to prominent posts.From Indira Gandhi becoming India's first (and so far, only) woman Prime Minister in 1966, to Pratibha Patil becoming the first woman President in 2007 and Meira Kumar the first woman Speaker of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2009, that has 59 women MPs, no post is out of bounds. Yet the Women's Reservation Bill for Parliament has been hanging fire, due to lack of consensus on criteria. In the corporate world, a 2010 study sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank showed that women accounted for just 5.3% of 1,112 directorships in BSE-100 companies 48 women holding 59 directorships. In all, just 46 companies had women on their boards. The 20% reservation being mulled for them in the next Companies Bill as a solution has mixed reactions. In the government sector, lakhs of women make up the workforce of the Integrated Child Development Services and the National Rural Health Mission with honorariums below minimum wage, and no pension or health care benefits. Neither do the 40 crore women workers in the unorganised sector. As for the organised sector and corporate world, the trailblazing path of women bankers, managers, entrepreneurs, technocrats, scientists notwithstanding, women comprise just 32% of the workforce .Can the status of women today be likened to a glass half full or half empty then? Govt constitutes Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission The Central Government on Thursday constituted the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) under the chairmanship of former Justice B. N. Srikrishna to rewrite and harmonise financial sector legislations, rules and regulations. The resolution notifying the constitution of Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) was issued on Thursday, an official statement said while noting that the commission has been set up in pursuance of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's budget announcement last year which was made with a view to rewriting and streamlining the financial sector laws, rules and regulations to bring them in harmony with the requirements of the country's fast growing financial sector. Apart from Justice Srikrishna as the head, other members of the 11-member commission include former PFRDA Chairman D. Swarup, former Axis Bank chief P. J. Nayak and PMEAC member M. Govinda Rao. Headquartered in Delhi, the commission is to hold its first meeting on April 5 and submit its report to the Finance Minister within 24 months. As for the terms of reference, the commission will examine the architecture of the legislative and regulatory system governing the financial sector in the country and also look at the most appropriate means of oversight over regulators and their autonomy from the government.
Alongside, it will also examine if legislation should mandate statement of principles of legislative intent behind every piece of subordinate legislation to make the purposive intent of the legislation clear and transparent to users of the law and to the courts. This apart, the commission will examine the feasibility of whether public feedback for draft subordinate legislation should be made mandatory, with exception for emergency measures and also examine the interplay of exchange controls under FEMA and FDI policy with other regulatory regimes within the financial sector. According to the statement, there are over 60 Acts and multiple rules and regulations dealing with the financial sector and many of them have become archaic. Large number of amendments made in these Acts over time has increased the ambiguity and complexity of the system, it said. There are over 60 Acts and multiple rules and regulations and many of them have become archaic What price foreign providers'? K.N. Panikkar The steps to regulate the operation of foreign educational institutions in India, as contained in a Bill under Parliament's consideration, are welcome initiatives. As the Minister for Human Resource Development pointed out while introducing the Foreign Educational Institution (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill, a large number of foreign educational institutions have been operating in the country and some of them may be resorting to various malpractices to allure and attract students. The absence of a regulatory regime, he said, has given rise to chances of adoption of various unfair practices, besides commercialisation. These institutions function under several disguises, exploiting the obsession of the Indian middle class for certification from foreign institutions. The proposed legislation is intended to restrain such institutions and their malpractices, through administrative, academic and financial regulation. These steps will have universal approval, except from those who are the beneficiaries of such practices. The implications of the Bill, however, go beyond the stated objectives. It will give official approval to what is currently being done surreptitiously, by enabling foreign educational providers' to set up campuses in India. It is possible that this may not attract a large number of quality institutions to invest money and set up campuses. Yet, in the event of even a limited entry of foreign institutions, India's educational system will face certain challenges. The general assumption is that it would improve in quality through competition, and increase access due to the availability of a larger number of institutions. Both these possibilities are attractive to the members of the upper crust of the middle class who have reached positions of power from the colonial times through education in good foreign universities. Even a cursory survey of India's power elite during the last century will indicate that their dominance is primarily rooted in such educational opportunities. The open doors' policy of the government will make foreign education available at the doorsteps, which accounts for the popular support from the intelligentsia and the English- educated middle class. An apprehension among the intelligentsia is about the possibility of the misuse of liberalisation by fly-by-night operators' by using the investment opportunity for quick returns. The Bill seeks to allay
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this genuine fear by providing for administrative control, financial safeguards and academic vigil. To qualify for registration as an educational provider, an institution should have been in the field of educational services for 20 years and have a corpus fund of not less than Rs. 50 crore. Secondly, any surplus revenue can be invested only for the growth and development of educational institutions established in India. The Bill stipulates that the quality of education should be comparable to that imparted on the institution's main campus. It is assumed that these stipulations, along with the administrative formalities to ensure the fitness of the institution to provide quality education, will make the participation of foreign providers' a positive asset to the nation. On the contrary, the Bill, if it is passed by Parliament, is likely to have a long-lasting adverse impact on the national character of education, which has not yet fully emancipated itself from the intellectual influences of colonialism. Nobody expects the foreign education providers to swamp the scene. It is also true that they will not provide mass education. Their operations will by and large be confined to specialised areas. Yet, the open policy will introduce a new stream in Indian educational system. Philip Altbach has brought to our notice that in a couple of countries where branch campuses exist, they are fairly small and almost always specialized in fields that are inexpensive and have a ready clientele. It will be unrealistic to expect these campuses to train undergraduate students in the social sciences or the humanities. Understandably, they are not going to make any substantial improvement in the matter of access to higher education. There is greater expectation in the matter of improvement in the quality of education, as the main rationale for importing' these institutions could only be their superior academic credentials. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect them to help improve the standard of instruction. With this in view, the Bill lays down the following: A foreign education provider shall ensure that a course or programme of study offered and imparted by it in India is in conformity with the standards laid down by the statutory authority and is of quality comparable, as to the curriculum, methods of imparting education, to those offered by it to students enrolled in its main campus in the country in which such institution is established or incorporated. The conditions and quality of education of the mother' institution being replicated on the new campuses is a doubtful proposition. Yet, their presence itself, in however clipped a manner, will have serious cultural and academic implications. The idea of transplanting the curriculum and pedagogy of foreign institutions, as envisioned in the Bill, attributes a universal character and purpose to education. Even when fundamental principles of education are commonly shared, the fact remains that the development of education is integrally linked with the demands of specific societies, and it plays a crucial role in development and nationbuilding. More important, education is a defining factor in moulding a nation's identity. No country can, therefore, entrust the responsibility of educating its citizens, even a part of it, to external agencies that have no stake in the nation except their own self-interest. That foreign educational providers will be required to follow the same curriculum and pedagogy is claimed as a positive factor. In fact, that is the most undesirable part of the scheme, as the cultural assumptions of curriculum and pedagogy differ from nation to nation. The borrowed contents and practice of education may not lead to a cultural invasion', as feared by some critics and dismissed by its defenders. But they will certainly be affected by cultural incompatibility, which in turn will defeat the creative and innovative possibilities inherent in education. Education is an organic process that cannot be borrowed or super-imposed on a society. The main weakness of the new scheme is its externality; this is suggested even in the term education provider.'
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This is not to suggest that Indian academia need no exposure to the global community or relationships with institutions abroad. On the other hand, there is a case for greater professional exposure and institutional collaboration. Before the Bill is passed, the different possibilities for achieving them deserve to be debated. Among the many ways in which international academic linkages can be established, two deserve attention. The first is, as provided in the Bill, to permit foreign universities to start campuses. The second is to establish collaborative arrangements with specialised institutions for the exchange of teachers and students. The first is an easier option and is in consonance with overall state policy. Even if it is successfully implemented, it will only create a few more islands of excellence. It will also deplete the already weak academic resources of the existing institutions. An alternative paradigm is being pursued by Kerala and it has been successfully implemented during the last five years. It is based on a principle of sharing knowledge generated by scholars all over the world. In pursuance of this, a large number of outstanding scholars, including Nobel laureates, have been brought to the State for interaction with teachers and research scholars. Combined with collaborative arrangements with reputed universities and substantial increase in the allocation of funds to universities, higher education in the State is poised for a leap. The perspective is long-term growth from within by invigorating the State's academic resources. In this respect, the manner in which U.S. and European universities have organised their Indian studies programmes is worth emulating. They did not persuade Indian universities to organise their mini-campuses, however competent and reputed they are in Indian studies. Instead, they invited scholars from India to work in these centres to help organise academic programmes. Some of these centres have become reputed institutions of research in Indian studies. So much so that the Government of India has found it necessary to institute endowments in them for the study of Indian civilisation. The proposal to permit foreign educational providers to function in India will do considerable harm to the independent development of Indian education. Instead of contributing to the making of the national identity, it is likely to create a social stratum that is intellectually far removed from the nations' concerns. The immediate response to the Bill generally would have been to scrap it but for the provision to regulate the operation of foreign educational providers. In the circumstances, the best solution will be to refashion the Bill with provision to prevent the operation of foreign educational providers and introduce sufficient space to promote independent interaction and collaboration with global academia. (Dr. Panikkar is Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council: knpanikkar@gmail.com) The proposal to permit foreign educational providers to function in India will do considerable harm to the independent development of Indian education.
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ENVIRONMENT A conservation strategy The use of the concept of Ecologically Sensitive Areas/Ecologically Fragile Areas together with the Environment (Protection) Act is gradually gaining recognition as a strategy for the conservation and sustainable development of sensitive areas. ASHISH KOTHARI A view of the forests of Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra, which constitute an area that was declared ecologically sensitive in 2001. THE legislative framework in India has attempted to create several legal spaces for the protection of fragile ecosystems. Unfortunately, many of these legal spaces remain far removed from the possibilities of use by concerned citizens on account of their complicated language and presentation. Inaccessibility to legislation is also a big impediment. It is crucial that these legal spaces for conservation are demystified and the skills of using them are shared with communities and environmental groups. Slowly but effectively, this process has begun, and today a number of groups that work on environmental issues make optimum use of the available legal spaces. One example is the use of Section 3(2)v of the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA), 1986, and Section 5(1) of the Environment (Protection) Rules (EPR), 1986. These clauses give the Central government the power to restrict "industries, operations, or processes or class of industries" on "the basis of considerations like the biological diversity of an area". The government and nongovernmental sectors have used these clauses to highlight the sensitivity of a region and thus grant it a special status, "to protect and improve quality of the environment". In the more recent instances, these areas have been called Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) or Ecologically Fragile Areas (EFAs). ONE of the earliest recorded instances of the effective use of these clauses was in 1989, as seen in the categorisation of industrial activity in Doon Valley in Uttaranchal. The notification first specified that any mining, tourism and grazing activity and other types of land use can be taken up in the valley only after the management plans were drawn up by the State departments concerned and these were approved by the Central government. It categorised industries as Red, Green and Orange on the basis of the extent of pollution they may cause and its impact on the valley. PANKAJ SEKHSARIA A river in the Nandadevi biosphere reserve. The same year, Murud-Janjira in Maharashtra was notified under the same clause. The objective was to protect the fragile coastal ecology and the historical heritage of Murud-Janjira, which is the site of the palace of the Nawab of Murud; the Janjira caves; and the fort of Janjira built by the Siddis. Constructed on the sea, the massive fort is of immense historical importance. The notification prohibited the location of industries in certain areas along the coast. This was a crucial measure for the region's protection as the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification had not been issued then.
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In 1991, the CRZ notification was issued, with the same clauses as in the EPA. This move marked a radical change in the use of these clauses as the entire coastline of India was brought within the sweep of one notification, while earlier, small pockets were considered separately. On June 30, 1991, Dahanu taluk in Maharashtra was declared an EFA. The notification in that case had a set of guidelines for locating industries. The Maharashtra government was directed to prepare a Master Plan or a Regional Plan for the taluk. There were a few other restrictions on industrial expansion, including a 25-km buffer zone around the outer boundary of the taluk which is to be free of industries. PANKAJ SEKHSARIA An open-billed stork in the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajastan. In 1992, it was the turn of a stretch of the Aravalli mountain ranges in Rajasthan and Haryana. The notification came in response to demands from the local people and environmentalists to prohibit the mining activity that caused massive environmental degradation in the northern Aravallis. The Aravallis, the natural physical barrier between the Thar desert and the rest of the country, had to be granted protection in order to curb the detrimental impact of mining. The Central government prohibited a number of processes and operations, except with its prior permission. In northeastern India, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas proposed a petroleum refinery at Numaligarh, on the eastern side of the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in Assam. The park is home to three-fourths of the global population of the one-horned rhinoceros and the largest single concentration of endangered wild animals such as the swamp deer, the wild buffalo, elephants, tigers and Gangetic dolphins. A notification issued in 1996 declared an area of 15 sq km around the Numaligarh refinery a "No Development Zone" in order to limit the pollution levels. Four years later, in late 2000, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) proposed a notification to protect the unique environment of the Himalayas. The proposed notification put forward certain restrictions and conditions for all future activities in order to "ensure environmentally sound development of hill towns... in the areas in the Himalayan region." The notification emphasised location planning in urban areas in the hills, rainwater harvesting and stable hill roads, all to protect the environment and people of these regions. PANKAJ SEKHSARIA Tourists enjoy the vistas of the Western Ghats at Matheran. The notification declaring the Matheran plateau an Ecologically Sensitive Area was issued in February 2003 after large-scale, unplanned tourism had taken its toll. In the subsequent years, a sustained campaign by environmentalists resulted in the declaration of Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani (2001) and Matheran (2002) in Maharashtra as ESAs. Both these areas had been experiencing the impact of large-scale, unplanned tourism and related development. In both cases, the Supreme Court ordered, among other things, the preparation of a zonal master plan for the area, by the State government, and the appointment of a monitoring committee.
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For the last four years, a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academics have been carrying on a campaign to have a 7,350-sq km stretch of the Western Ghats covering parts of north Karnataka, Goa and south Maharashtra declared as the Sahyadri Ecologically Sensitive Area (SESA). The boundaries have been defined and the proposal, as per a specified format, has been presented to the MoEF. ESAs have the potential to become one of the most innovative and effective manifestations of the EPA/EPR. In 2000, ESAs got a formal status when a comprehensive set of guidelines laying down parameters and criteria for declaring ESAs was approved. A committee constituted by the MoEF put together detailed criteria based on which an area can be declared ecologically sensitive. These criteria are species based (endemism, rarity, and so on), ecosystem based (sacred groves, frontier forests, and so on) and geomorphological-feature-based (uninhabited islands, points of origin of rivers, and so on). Declaring an area an ESA allows for planning by taking into account the livelihoods of the people living in and around such an area. The planning and management of an area notified as an ESA can include the effective participation of local communities. The notification can be based on local needs and priorities on the one hand and sustainable use of natural resources on the other. PANKAJ SEKHSARIA Rhinos in the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. The concept also takes into account the fact that protection of the environment sometimes cannot be within regional and State boundaries, as was demonstrated by the CRZ notification. There are several other advantages that ESA status offers: 1. The notification can allow for planned development and land-use for that particular area. Thus industrial and developmental activities can be regulated on the basis of local priorities. 2. It extends to any kind of ecosystem, such as coasts, forests, plains and islands. 3. It allows for the formation of committees at the level of districts and taluks, with representation to local people besides researchers and members of the agencies concerned to look into the enforcement of the notification. One example of this is the Dahanu Taluka Environmental Protection Authority (DTEPA), 4. All other provisions under the EPA, including the Environment Impact Assessment notification, Hazardous Waste Handling Rules, Siting Rules, and so on are still applicable (wherever relevant) to an ESA/EFA. 5. In relation to biosphere reserves, ESAs seem to be more effective in ensuring protection as they have recognition within the legal framework as against the former, which does not have legal backing. The guidelines of the MoEF on biosphere reserves mainly focus on scientific research and the monitoring of the biodiversity in the region.
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PANKAJ SEKHSARIA An island in the Andaman group. Uninhabited islands such as those in the Andaman and Nicobar groups, which have a high degree of endemism, meet the criteria specified for a region to be declared an ESA. The concept of an ecologically sensitive area is gaining support also from other processes and conservation efforts. For example, the committee for drafting a national wildlife action plan has recommended that an area of 10 to 25 sq km around protected areas, biosphere reserves and heritage sites be considered ESAs. The Final Wildlife Action Plan also contains some relevant recommendations. AS of today, there is little monitoring of the implementation of many of these notifications. Also, modifications are being proposed for a few. Groups and individuals working on coastal issues are disturbed by the string of amendments to the CRZ notification. In the case of Dahanu, there was news of the Central government seeking to disband the DTEPA, the quasi-judicial body constituted under the directive of the Supreme Court. This is despite, or probably because of, the fact that the DTEPA prevented a fuel gas plant, a port and other such projects that would have been disastrous to the ecological security of the region. The declaration of an area as an ESA/EFA should not be viewed as being against the objectives of protection (in case the ESA is inclusive of national parks or sanctuaries) under, say, the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (WLPA). The focus of an ESA is on restricting industrial and developmental processes, while the Forest Conservation Act lays down rules to prevent or allow the diversion of forest areas and the WLPA seeks to protect species of animals or plants and ecosystems which perform functions such as maintaining the micro-climate, water catchments and so on. Therefore, the declaration of an area as ESA could supplement the protection granted to the area by other laws or systems. The use of the concept of ESA/EFA together with the EPA is gradually gaining popularity and is being recognised as an important strategy for the conservation and sustainable development of sensitive and fragile areas. The role of citizens and NGOs as catalysts in this process is essential. There are issues of non-implementation of these clauses and notifications as there are with any other rule. But ultimate success or failure will depend largely on how effectively they are understood and planned for as well as the manner in which the powers and implementation responsibilities are shared among the people who have stakes in protecting the ecology of a region.
What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is the set of beliefs that you have about yourself. It is how good (or bad) you feel about yourself. Example self-beliefs that constitute self-esteem:

Im an excellent writer Im a good human being

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Im great at explaining concepts to others I feel Im ugly Im too fat Im not good with people Im a bad person
As you see above, self-esteem can be both broad (Im a good human being) or specific to a certain field (Im an excellent writer) Also self-esteem is known by many other synonyms such as selfworth, self-respect, self-confidence etc.
Why is self-esteem important? Success in anything we take up in our life is directly linked to the amount of confidence we have in ourselves. Lack of confidence in oneself or low self-esteem prevents us from achieving our full potential in life. A low self-esteem also prevents us from enjoying life fully. By law of attraction, what we believe about ourselves is what the universe shows to us, and thus in order to attract positive things in our life, it is important that our beliefs about ourselves be positive. Self-esteem is an important Level 4 need in the Maslows hierarchy of needs. For more details about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, see earlier article here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/inspirations-by-sudhir-krishnan/maslows-hierarchy-ofneeds/214941885188701 CHECK THAT DIAGROM HIERACHY Where does self-esteem come from? 1. Childhood: A large part of self-esteem comes from our childhood. The quality of relationships we have had with our parents, and the amount of praise you got from them have an effect on self-esteem. It is thus important that we positively acknowledge children for their achievements. 2. Our own thoughts: Some people are naturally more positive than others. The kind of selftalk we do to ourselves is thus a big contributor to our self-esteem. 3. Achievements: Success in anything we take up increases our self-esteem. Failures tend to decrease it. 4. Peers: What people around us say to us affects our self-esteem. This can be people from work, family or those we have romantic relationships with.
How can I find out if my self-esteem is high or low? Here are some general traits of people who have high and low self-esteem. Make a unbiased judgement and find out for yourself.
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People with high self-esteem tend to: 1. Feel confident in their abilities. They do not fear failure and are willing to ask for help when needed. 2. Consider themselves equal to other, regardless of specific talents or outward differences they have. They neither have a superiority complex not inferiority complex. 3. Standup for what they believe, do not feel attacked when they face opposition, and are open to change their beliefs and grow. 4. Trust their own judgement and do not feel guilty when other people do not like the choices they make. 5. They learn from the past and plan for the future. They do not worry too much about the past. 6. Believe that others accept them, love them or at least find them interesting. 7. Are sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. 8. Enjoy their life. Refer to the above as P1 to P8 in order to talk about it. Example - I found myself having P2, P4, and P8
People with low self-esteem tend to: 1. Be pessimistic about their life, future, and themselves. 2. Feel bad about many things and thus tend to be hostile and ready to explode. 3. Are very sensitive to criticism. They feel easily attacked and experience obstinate resentment against critics. 4. Criticize themselves often and are generally dissatisfied with themselves. 5. Be fearful of making mistakes, which leads to a state of chronic indecision. 6. Are unable to say no to others and consequently have an excessive will to please others. 7. Tend to be perfectionistic thanks to their fear of making mistakes. 8. Condem the behaviors of others, exaggerates the magnitude of mistakes and find it difficult to forgive others. 9. Have a general lack of will to enjoy life. Refer to the above as N1 to N9 in order to talk about it. Example - I found myself having N1, N2 and N7
How can I improve my self-esteem? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Be positive. Focus on achievements and talents, rather than shortcomings. Stretch yourself beyond what you do now. Do not be hard on yourself. Let go of any mistakes made in the past. Surround yourself with positive people who encourage you in whatever you take up. Monitor and celebrate your success. Reward yourself when you achieve milestones.
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6. Take good care of yourself - body, mind, heart and spirit. 7. Regularly practice self-love. Look into the mirror each day and say " Wow - How wonderful you are - I Love you !" 8. Work with a professional coach who can quickly point areas of improvement.
A new urban reform agenda All saidand done, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was instrumental in introducing one of the pioneering changes in the way our urban governance system functions. But it's also true that its 23-layer reform stream could not make the expected headway. While some states have done well in implementing a good number of reforms, some have not been able to keep pace. What is the reason for this? This is something the subcommittee of the National Development Council (NDC) comprising state chief ministers should ponder. Let us make a dispassionate review of the reform agenda. But for the insistence by the Centre, would states that still had urban land ceiling legislation in operation have taken action to repeal the legislation and free up costly urban land for development purposes? Would there have been a movement towards a uniform stamp duty across the country? It is a fact that public disclosure and community participation legislations have now entered the charter of urban governance. E-governance is actively on the agenda. At least there are attempts to streamline the building approval process, though state governments have more or less refused to take a call on the need to transfer city planning functions to the elected local bodies. One line of argument could be that the seven-year period of the JNNURM - 2005-12 was not sufficient for the states to have geared themselves up to bring about all these changes. Yet, states and cities have now been introduced to the need for, and the importance of, reforms . At a time when governance is increasingly becoming transparent and the need for delegation is strongly felt, what is to be done is to continue with the emphasis on reforms and take the agenda further forward. Let us list what all still needs to be done in a timebound manner. On water supply, the earlier reform agenda talked only about the levy of reasonable user charges and having bylaws for reuse of recycled water. As bulk water supply improves , thanks to the augmentation projects taken up, and as new beginnings like 24x7 water supply are made, water supply should get fully transferred to the cities. The levy of user charges; ensuring 100% access to drinking water; full recycle and reuse of waste water ; plugging distribution inefficiencies ; implementing the service-level benchmark concept ; taking up energy conservation measures; reducing water wastage to an acceptable 15% level (which currently is about 50%); making the water utilities fully accountable; having an effective grievance redressal mechanism; and committing an assured number of hours of water supply are other important steps. In the case of solid waste management, ensuring 100% collection and proper disposal; making sure cities are garbage-free ; door-to-door daily collection arrangement ; levy of
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user charges ; conversion of waste to energy or other forms; and implementing the city sanitation plan would all need to be mandated . This is an area where public-private partnership (PPP) can work well as has already been demonstrated. To bring about economies of scale in smaller towns, regional arrangements as distinct from the town-specific approach would have to be taken up. Having a master plan for sewerage coverage is also a must. On urban public transport, measures such as drawing up a comprehensive mobility plan; having an pan-city organised public transport where it does not exist; having a properly formulated parking policy; developing enough parking complexes through PPP; laying proper footpaths; a legislated, unified metro transport authority for large cities; and time-bound implementation of the national urban transport policy are all measures to be taken without delay. Housing for the poor and affordable housing for urban migrants need proper strategisation . Today, cities do not seem to be responsible for this. We have to get rid of the current ambiguity and have tasks clearly assigned to the state and urban body. Otherwise , slums will continue to grow, negating all civic facility improvement efforts. Apart from civic amenities , there is another set of areas where changes may take place. Each city must have a futuristic town development plan. What would be the additional forms of raising resources at the city end itself? There will have to be milestones for implementing the recommendations of central as well as state finance commissions. Provision needs to be made to engage eminent citizens in monitoring and overseeing project implementation. Servicelevel benchmarking is a handy tool available now for at least six sectors of urban activity. Constantly benchmarking, evaluating and bringing about improvements would mean a lot in terms of citizen satisfaction. E-governance has to be mandated at all city and town levels, and to start with, all the eight basic services listed - issue of birth and death certificates, payment of property tax and utility bills, grievance redressal, building plan approval, procurement , licences, accounting system and personnel information system - must be available online. Energy conservation has to emerge as a serious agenda in every city through incentivising green buildings, etc. All in all, there is a big agenda of changes still to be taken up. As we get ready for the 12th Five-Year Plan, the NDC must be seriously concerned. It is possible that another version of the urban renewal mission may take shape soon. Let us accept that if the broader reform agenda is not worked out and insisted upon simultaneously as part of the further set of projects and provision of grant, cities will only see more chaos. This is the time to prepare. This period available before the 12th Plan could be utilised to evolve a time schedule for completing the larger reform agenda.
Column : Inclusive growth, here we come : We are so focused on berating ourselves, and often with good reason, were unable to focus on the good news. To be sure, India has a long way to go on any parameter you can think of, but the past
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week has seen a series of good news coming out from two NSSO samples, one on employment and the other on consumption. Both indicate economic growth has begun to deliver results, something even the government has been unwilling to believe, given its sole focus on all manner of anti-poverty programmes.
Take the jobs data first. This is the first time since the reforms began in 1991 that unemployment levels have come down, and mind you this is when 2009-10 was a drought yearindeed, the NSSO has agreed to do another large survey for 2011-12 so that more meaningful results can be got. It is true that 401 million jobs were created in 2009-10 as compared to 383 million in 2004-05 and 338 million in 1999-2000that is, while the NDA government created 45 million jobs, the UPA created just 18 million. Thats on the surface. The reason why less jobs got created by the UPA is that there was less demand for jobs. Keep this in mind and the NSSO data shows unemployment fellafter rising from 6.06% in 1993-94 to 7.31% in 1999-2000, it went up to 8.2% in 2004-05 and then fell to 6.6% in 2009-10, a drought year. Many argue this doesnt wash, that since women are being discriminated against and find it difficult to get jobs, theyre just not entering the labour force (defined as those looking for jobs)so the unemployment numbers, the argument goes, are misleading. Between 2004-05 and 2009-10, the participation rate of women is down from 22% to 18% and that for men is up from 53% to 54%. While theres no explanation given as to what new factor ensured women were suddenly not getting jobs in the last five years, the more likely explanation is that with an increase in schooling levels among girls, more of them are no longer in the labour forcearound 12 million more girls enrolled in schools in this period. The figure for boys is 16 million, implying that 28 million people are not in the labour force out of choice. Indeed, this explanation of less people being available for employment is consistent with the rise in wage levels. In the period 2004-05 to 2009-10, wages and salaries have gone up by 72-102% for men and women in rural and urban areas. For salaried women workers in rural areas, salaries grew at 1.7% per year in the 1999-2000 to 200405 period as compared to a whopping 12.8% between 2004-05 and 2009-10; for urban women, the growth rose from 1.8% to 15.1% in the same two periods. For salaried men in rural areas, salaries grew by 2.6% per year in the first period to 11.5% in the second period. For casual workers who are women, annual growth in wage rates rose from 3.5% to 14.6%; for urban women who were casual workers, income growth was 2.8% per year in urban areas in the first period and this rose to 11.8% in the second period. This hike in employment growth and in wages, logically enough, led to a sharp hike in expenditure levels. In real terms, monthly per capita expenditure in rural areas rose by 0.2% per year between 1987-88 and 1993-94; this rose to 0.8% in the 1993-94 to 2004-05 period, and then to 1.4% per year in the five years from 2004-05 to 2009-10. For urban areas, real per capita expenditures grew by 0.98% in the 1987-88 to 1993-94 period, by 1.47% between 1993-94 and 2004-05, and further to 2.67% between 2004-05 and 2009-10. Given how NSS data capture less and less of consumption in the country (the consumption you get from NSS data is around 40% of the consumption you get from National Accounts or GDP data), the actual growth would be a bit higher.
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As a result, poverty in 2009-10 is likely to have fallen to 32.2% (the real number should be out in a few months), which means poverty levels fell by one percentage point each year since 2004-05 keep in mind 2009-10 was a drought year, with the worst agriculture GDP growth since 2002-03. While poverty fell by one percentage point each year between 2004-05 and 2009-10, it fell by 0.81 percentage points per year between 1993-94 and 2004-05. For some states, the fall was nearly double the national average over the five years9.9% for Andhra Pradesh, 10.6% for Tamil Nadu and 11.7% for Andhra Pradesh. Equally important is the further improvement in health indicators like infant mortality, maternal mortality (17% fall in 5 years) and the under-5 mortality rateall go to show that most states are focusing on health delivery. Nine states have a fertility level that ensures no growth in population (2 children per woman)in 12 years, that will be true of the entire country. As in other cases, theres a long way to go (the UNs Millennium Development Goal for maternal mortality is 109 by 2015; just three states have achieved it and four are close to it), but the improvement is steady. Pity the UPAs not talking about what it has achieved. sunil.jain@expressindia.com Latest employment trends from the NSSO No sooner were the results of the 66th Round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (relating to data collected in 2009-10) released, than they became the subject of great controversy. Surprisingly, the controversy was created not by critics of the government and its statistical system, but from within government circles! Some highly placed officials found that the results of this massively large sample survey conducted by one of the most respected governmental statistical organisations in the developing world contradicted their own presumptions about the pattern of growth of the Indian economy. Instead of therefore questioning their own priors, they decided that the data must be wrong, and castigated the NSSO for its faulty investigative methods (which they had earlier accepted without question). Others pointed to specific problems with the data collection in the 66th Round, such as excessive reliance on outsourced contract investigators, even though this is not a very new problem, but rather has plagued the NSSO during several of its recent rounds. However amusing these official interventions may be, there is no doubt that the results of the latest large survey of the NSSO reveal some very important changes in the labour markets in India, and also in the nature of the growth process that determines these changes. They therefore deserve to be taken seriously and analysed in detail, including by the same policy-makers who otherwise currently choose to be in denial. SLOWDOWN IN JOB CREATION The starkest result relates to the slowdown in overall job creation, which is what has generated the headlines about jobless growth. The NSS surveys are extremely inclusive in their definition of economic activity, trying to capture all kinds of work including self-employed work, part-time work, home-based work, and so on, and therefore it is wrong to think that they automatically exclude work that is outside the formal sector. Even so they indicate a dramatic deceleration in the rate of employment generation.
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The Charts below relate to usual principal status activity, which is the main activity that people declare themselves to be engaged in on a usual basis over the course of the previous year. They also refer to those above the age of 15 years. The employment numbers have been derived by applying the participation rates of the NSSO survey of 2009-10 to interpolated population figures from Censuses 2001 and 2011. Dramatic deceleration Chart 1 shows the dramatic deceleration in total employment growth, from an annual rate of around 2.7 per cent in the previous five-year period to only 0.8 per cent in the latest quinquennium. For females, there was an absolute decline in employment although it is certainly true that this may reflect the lack of recognition of women's work, since the biggest element of the decline relates to women's self-employment. But even male employment shows quite a sharp deceleration. This slowdown in employment generation is evident across both rural and urban areas, though it was especially marked in rural India. Nor should it be assumed that the overall slowdown in employment generation is simply the result of less employment in agriculture, which is, after all, a typical feature of a broad process of industrialisation and development. Rather, as Chart 2 indicates, rates of increase of non-agricultural employment also fell sharply, indeed halved, for all workers taken together. The collapse was sharpest for female workers. But even for male workers, the slowdown in non-agricultural job creation was strongly evident. The remaining charts provide evidence on absolute numbers of people, in the 15+ age group, by gender and residence. These charts include data from the smaller 64th Round of the NSSO, conducted in 2007-08, which was specifically devoted to employment. This is useful because it allows us to check whether the latest round is, indeed, a significant outlier, or part of a trend that was already emerging a few years earlier. From these charts, a more complex picture emerges, which clearly needs to be analysed and understood carefully. It is evident that the latest Round really confirms the trends that were already beginning to show by 2007-08, for most categories of workers. Therefore, claiming that this round specifically was affected by data collection problems is not so convincing. Gender trends Charts 3 and 4 show the distribution of rural females and males respectively, over the recent rounds, in terms of absolute numbers. For rural females, it is certainly true that self-employment has collapsed, showing a decline of more than 20 per cent compared to five years earlier. This is obviously a matter that needs to be delved into, not in terms of the adequacy of investigative methods, but also in terms of questioning whether the forms of self-employment that were said to have emerged were really viable at all. This question becomes significant because it is clear that selfemployment has also fallen for rural male workers. In both categories, the increase has been in casual work.
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This increase is marginal for rural women (some of whom are likely to have withdrawn from the work-force) but quite substantial for men in rural India. Regular employment has been largely stagnant. The good news is that there has been a substantial increase in those engaged in education, for both rural females and rural males. The increase is really quite significant, around 50 per cent over the five-year period for both males and females, and amounting to nearly 20 million more young people (above the age of 15 years) being engaged in education as the principal activity. Could this be related to the evident decline in unemployment? Not really, because it turns out that while unemployment seems to have fallen both in terms of rates and absolute numbers, as is evident from the charts, they have not fallen much for rural males though they have declined slightly for rural females. In urban India, similar trends seem to be at work, as indicated in Charts 5 and 6. Self-employment has decreased for both men and women, and, in fact, the decline is significantly more for urban men. Regular employment has increased marginally for both categories. However, a note of caution is necessary before such a finding gives rise to even minor celebration. In the previous large survey round, the largest increase in regular employment for urban women was in domestic service, as maid-servants and the like, which is not exactly the most desirable form of work. So, obviously, further investigation is necessary before we can adequately interpret this trend. Casual employment for both male and female workers has increased to a greater extent. Specifically for the age cohort 25 to 59 years for all India, there were around 18.2 million more casual workers, compared to 6.4 million additional regular workers and 4 million more self-employed. At the same time, unemployment rates appear to have fallen, especially for this age group. The decline in unemployment even during a period of very low aggregate job creation is a paradox that deserves further examination. Opting for Education The increase in numbers of those engaged in education is so substantial that it clearly requires another look. Chart 7 provides the absolute numbers of increase of those engaged in education as the principal activity, for the age cohorts of 15 to 19 years and 20 to 24 years. While the biggest increases are for those presumably going in for secondary and higher secondary schooling (in the age group 15 to 19 years) there are also substantial increases in the older age group, suggesting involvement in different forms of tertiary education. This is good news, of course: the citizens of India deserve to be better educated and the economy desperately needs a more skilled work force. But it also points to a concern that should surely exercise our policy-makers, if they can bring themselves to look at a dataset that they appear to reject at present. According to these data, there are nearly 30 million more young people putting themselves through more education in the hope of being able to access better jobs. The total numbers of such youth in secondary and tertiary education is at least 55 million.
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Soon, perhaps even within the next five years, these young people will enter the job market and expect to access employment that is at least minimally commensurate with the efforts they have put in to receive more education. But in the previous five-year period, all forms of employment (regular and casual, paid work as well as self-employment) only increased by around 28 million. If this sluggish pace of job creation continues, there will be even larger gaps between aspiration and reality in India's labour markets. That such a combination is a recipe for enhanced social tensions and political unrest is well known and has been reinforced by recent experience across the world. If only for that reason, surely the government should sit up to take notice of its own data? (This article was published on July 12, 2011) The Big leap for Indian Industry: Governance, inclusion & skill development big challenges This week, India completes two decades of economic liberalisation . We now stand at an era of sustained and inclusive high growth, where GDP rates are at 8-9 %, poverty levels are descending and human development indicators are improving rapidly. The economy has successfully withstood several globaleconomic crises and is set to become a top three economies of the world in the next couple of decades. The dramatic statement on Industrial Policy, presented on the same day Dr Manmohan Singh presented his pathbreaking Budget, July 24, 1991, swept away the licensing procedures that had shackledIndian industry since Independence. Companies no longer had to languish in the corridors of Udyog Bhavan for permits and licences to set up new businesses or expand existing ones. This was nothing short of revolutionary. The new industrial policy was accompanied by transformational changes in trade regulations, taxation, banking and finance, competition and foreign exchange that further shifted the entire paradigm for industry. Under the licensing regime, theIndian economy was one of shortages. Customers queued up, sometimes for several years, for items such as gas cylinders, telephone connections, or twowheelers - unbelievable in today's markets. Lack of competition and access to resources had stunted productivity and efficiency of industry, rendering Indian companies uncompetitive . As import duties were slashed dramatically and foreign companies were permitted to enter Indian markets, much of Indian industry was concerned about being swamped by more efficient global companies. It is to the credit of Indian industry that instead of allowing itself to crumble under the new dispensation, it embarked resolutely and with courage on restructuring itself to meet emerging demands. The entire model of doing business that industry had been used to for decades was changed. This was done within a tremendously compressed time-frame . Several trends in industrial evolution mark the two decades of the liberalisation process. First, private sector energy has been released and the corporate sector has greatly expanded its contribution to growth, savings and investment, and taxes. Secondly, competitiveness and productivity of industry attained a new level. Companies have melded family business with professional management styles
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uniquely suited to the Indian context . Many are able to match global benchmarks in quality and efficiency, and indeed are global trendsetters today. Third, several key sectors have taken off decisively, such as IT, telecommunications , automotives, pharma, etc. Fourth, globalisation of the Indian economy is visible in trade in goods, trade in services , especially IT, and fund flows. Most creditable has been the decisive entry of Indian multinationals on to the global industry scene. Just as remarkable are the trends that did not take place. Indian companies were not swept under by a surge of foreign companies. Imported goods did not take over Indian markets. Small enterprises did not collapse under the impact of de-reservation and globalisation. Credit goes to the government for effective management of the reforms process. Despite these successes, there is a long way to go. Going forward, the revolutionary policy decisions of 1991 need to be replicated to achieve development aspirations. Growth now needs to be more inclusive. At the central level, the imperatives of employment generation and integration with the global economy would involve a range of policy measures from reform of labour laws to more flexibility for foreign investments. Taxation reforms have been on the table for several years, while the financial sector should be recalibrated to meet the exigencies of an 8-9 % growth rate. In particular, industry regulation should not impose unwarranted restrictions to expansion. Industry has observed with some concern the debate and discussions on the proposed new Companies Bill, where there are signals of a throwback to the old practices of control and regulation, which might stifle the development of corporate India. In the social sphere, raising worker productivity of the emerging demographic bulge is critical. Education andskill development rollout is urgent through innovative routes leveraging new technologies. Healthcare too can be delivered with public-private partnerships . Further, governance and administrative reforms are part of the economic liberalisation package. On its part, CII's agenda for the year focuses on affirmative action to look at the issue of inclusivity, employability creation to address the issue of skill shortage and governance to ensure that delivery of the policy measures are with the least amount of dilution. These, I believe, are three critical areas that need attention from industry and the government. Importantly, many of the operational issues challenging industrial growth at this juncture are in the domain of the states. Hence, the reform process must shift more decisively to state governments, including in areas such as land acquisition, farming, and infrastructure creation. A new reform revolution is urgently needed now to catalyse the next big leap for Indian economy over the coming twenty years. Above all, the entrepreneurial spirit of India must not be dampened. Governance reform needed to boost economic reforms The law of inertia says that an object will remain in a state of rest or of uniform motion, unless acted upon by an external force. Many people in high office count on this Newtonian insight to safeguard India's two-decade old economic reforms from dissipating momentum. They are wrong. Reform
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needs booster energy , all the time, because they make their way against heavy odds: dead habit and deadly vested interest. And whateconomic reform needs today to sustain momentum and accelerate are governance reforms. And that calls for bold politics. India's power sector is lapsing into a big mess, with the losses of state electricity boards mounting to 1% of GDP, retail prices below the marginal cost for power generated from imported coal. Political patronage of power theft and power give-aways is to blame. Reform has yielded huge tax collections, which are used to fund expansive inclusion projects. But the spending leaks, heavily, thanks essentially to a system that sees looting the exchequer as a routine, expedient means of political funding. Crony capitalism thrives when assets such as mines, land or airwaves have to be allocated among alternative claimants. Blame widespread use of sale of patronage as a viable means of resource mobilisation for politics. India remains one of the worst places for doing business in the world because the complexity and duration of the procedures laid down allows civil servants and their political masters to extort money. The net result is ubiquitous corruption in the citizen's interface with the state, leading to widespread disgust and resentment, failed development and, in some circumstances, armed insurgency. India needs to institutionalise transparency in political funding, reform the police and slash judicial delay by adding thousands to the ranks of the judiciary at different levels and applying information technology to judicial processes. The civil service must be made accountable : files must move without palms being greased, teachers must teach and village doctors heal. For this, politicians must acquire moral authority. India must emerge from venality, for reform to forge ahead. Ratings for Secretaries on the cards PERFORMANCE EVALUATION New Delhi, July 24: For the first time, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is likely to make public the performance rating of 62 departments and their Secretaries for the first full financial year. These ratings will be based on departmental performance against the commitments made in their RFDs (Results Framework Documents) for 2010-11, and are being prepared by the Cabinet Secretariat. Five ratings Official sources told Business Line that there will be five ratings Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. These will help the Government give performance-linked incentives for the Secretary. The rating might also begin to influence post-retirement postings for various constitutional and regulatory positions, added sources. Very Good' and Good' ratings for two consecutive years will make the Secretaries eligible for performance-related incentive, or PRI. It could be as high as 40 per cent of the basic salary of the Secretary.
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Though the PRI scheme for the bureaucrats has been recommended by various Pay Commissions and agreed upon by the Government as far back as 1988, it has not been implemented. Sources said that as various arms of the Government are agreed on the PRI, it is likely to be implemented any time. However, it could take another year to get the PRI as the Government will consider giving PRI to 62 Secretaries based on their performance in financial years 2010-11 and 2011-12. On the other hand, the Secretaries with bad rating may not find it easy to have plum post-retirement careers in the government. This is the Right to Information (RTI) age. Anyone can post a query regarding the previous posting, and if the particular bureaucrat had not performed well the Government would not like to post him/her on key constitutional or regulatory positions postretirement, to save itself from embarrassments, said a senior government official. The criteria The criteria for determining the ratings will be contained in the Result Framework Document. This includes the mandatory creation of a Citizen's Charter and a grievances redress mechanism. The Charter will disclose what kind of services a particular government department will provide to the citizens, how much time it needs to complete the service, how a citizen can complain if he is not satisfied and by when grievances can be redressed. Finally, an independent third party audit will decide whether a certain standard has been achieved or not. An expert committee consisting of a retired Secretary, professors from Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and others will interact with the bureaucrats. Based on all these factors, ratings will be given. Sources said that for the current financial year (2011-12), a total of 74 departments and Secretaries will be rated. The Government did go in for such an exercise last year but the ratings were just for three months. That rating was not made public. But the Cabinet Secretary wrote letters to the top-rated Secretaries. Portal augurs well for transparency data.gov.in will have meta-data, which will facilitate discovery of data and access from portals of ministries The unveiling of an official data access and sharing policy and the commissioning of a data portal (data.gov.in), which is on the anvil, will pave the way for digitally opening up the Central government data to the public. The data portal will be having meta-data [data about data], which will facilitate the discovery of the data and access from the portals of respective government departments/ministries. At present, the data policy is likely to cover the Central government and all activities funded by the Government of India, said R. Siva Kumar, CEO of National Spatial Data Infrastructure, and head of Natural Resources Data Management System, Department of Science and Technology.
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Governmental data-holding organisations will prepare a negative list of non-shareable sensitive data, weighing the need to restrict public access given such considerations as security and privacy, against the obligation to share it with civil society and the scientific community. Apart from this, access to certain categories of data will be restricted. The broad guidelines spelt out in the Right to Information Act will be followed and the list will be periodically reviewed. All data outside the negative list will be proactively disseminated, and an oversight committee will facilitate policy implementation, said Dr. Kumar. But does this mean that the public have to make specific requests for the unlocking of data-sets? Data will be available through the data portal, and there will be no specific unlocking required. However, access to certain data may be through registration/authorisation, he responded. The sharing of such data might be tied to a pricing policy. Pricing will be decided by the respective department/ministry. However, standardised parameters will be made available as guidelines for fixing the price, he said. The draft of the proposed National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy the government published some time ago indicates that the departments themselves can decide whether the data belongs to the open access', registered access,' or restricted access' categories, with the policy neither mandating nor coming up with guidelines on how to do so, said Pranesh Prakash, programme manager, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO. The CIS has recommended that the policy have the same scope as the RTI Act, and that all public authorities,' as defined under the Act, be covered by it. Only the restricted categories (laid down in Sections 8 and 9 of the RTI Act) should be allowable for restricted access.' In a study on open government data in the Indian context, the CIS suggested that any policy be oriented towards meeting the requirements of a broad spectrum of citizenry. Specifically, sections that do not get to immediately benefit from advances in information technology. Data mashing and private sector information products are important goals, but the government itself should be proactive in creating the applications that show potential uses for the data. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the global body that sets web standards, has said governments, by putting their data on the Internet, facilitate greater transparency, deliver more efficient public services and encourage greater public and commercial use and re-use of government information. Anil Bairwal, National Coordinator of the Association for Democratic Reforms, which is involved in disseminating election-related data through its website Electionwatch, says there is huge public interest in data, and that accessibility was of prime importance. For instance, election-related data was made available by the authorities in the PDF/image file formats. This forces us to do a manual interpretation of every affidavit, which consumes a lot of time and energy. It would be helpful if this data was available in a portable open format via an online tool. Other countries have already made strides in furthering open data. Prominent examples are the U.K. government website, data.gov.uk, and the U.S. government's www.data.gov website, which is key to President Barack Obama's Open Government Initiative.
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10 commandments against corruption When citizens go in groups, speak confidently but bluntly and are armed with good knowledge of the law, they make the bribe-taker feel ill at ease Coffee house rants on corruption are predictable these days. Philosophers say that corruption is inevitable, unavoidable and always existed. They argue that cleansing our system of it will require a wholesale change in attitudes and values. They then conclude that nothing can be done if the top is corrupt and corruption is systematic. There are those that argue for corruption, even going to the extent of saying that nothing should be done about it. They say that the concept of corruption is vague and culturally determined, that it is a form of gift consistent with local social mores. They assert that corruption is not harmful and given our dysfunctional service delivery system, it is the grease that moves the economic engine. Finally, the optimists assure usdont worry; with free markets, corruption will eventually fade away. Even as these debates rage, there are individuals, stubbornly intolerant to corruption, who are combating it in their daily lives. They have successfully outsmarted, out-argued or out-waited the corrupt. Having overcome the fear factor, they have refused to be misled or confused, done their homework and been very firm and patient in their resolve. They have often achieved success keeping their sense of humour intact, overcoming the scepticism of those that surround them. In the I didnt pay a bribe section of ipaidabribe.com, 1,250 individuals have posted their experiences of successfully resisting corruption. We gleaned from their successful experiences the 10 commandments against corruption, which can inspire others. Confident approach: Most people who beat the corrupt, exude confidence. They avoid corruption simply by looking and behaving confidently. They are polite, but equally firm and assertive. They often ask for officers and address them by their names, without showing unnecessary respect. Avoiding agents: They often undertake transactions themselves, avoiding touts, agents and middlemen. They do their homework before they approach a government office, scouring websites, reading through FAQs, citizens charters and regulations to understand their entitlements. Written acknowledgement: They always obtain written acknowledgment for any applications or papers they submit. They insist on receipts for all payments and demand acknowledgement for documents/forms submitted.
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Seek reasons: They do not accept verbal rejections of applications and demand in writing to know the reasons, in case the documents they submit are rejected. If any government official speaks of a procedure, they ask him to show the government rule under which he is dealing with any application that they make. They are smart enough to understand that if they are asked to bring some additional papers and then an official offers to do their work without these papers for a bribe, then it is conclusive proof that such papers are unnecessary. The RTI weapon: When officers refuse to provide them with details, they file applications under the Right to Information Act (RTI) to ascertain what the rules are. They also use the RTI Act to find out whether such papers have been demanded from other similarly placed applicants. They note the details of officers who refuse to provide information. Clear and loud refusal: When asked for bribes, they refuse to bribe, speaking openly and clearly so that people around can hear. They talk about going to senior officials of the department, including the vigilance authorities in case their work is not done. They mention the names of senior officials. Filing complaints: They file complaints concerning demands for bribes, unnecessary delays or rudeness to vigilance, public grievance cells and senior officials, regardless of whether these may fall on deaf ears. They keep complaining till their work gets done. Collecting proof: They build evidence by recording conversations on their mobile phones, taking photographs of the corrupt and attaching these to their complaints. Trying Gandhigiri: This has been particularly successful in collective action, such as obtaining property records from municipal corporations. Some corrupt people can be shamed. A tug at the heartstrings of the corrupt can also work. Youngsters have got away when they ask an older person in the government who demands bribes, whether they would tolerate the same treatment if it were meted out to their daughters or sons. Patience pays: For instance, when an official is consistently unavailable in office, leaving a letter that explains that you came to visit the official at the time and date specified but that as he was not available, you will return on another day at a specific time will send the message he cannot trifle with you. Essentially, such steps are successful because they disrupt the normal behaviour pattern that the corrupt expect from citizens. When citizens go in groups, speak confidently but bluntly and are armed with good knowledge of the law, they make the bribe-taker feel ill at ease. Most people who engage in petty corruption are cowards and often back off; they do not want to tangle with knowledgeable people who control the conversation. While there are no short cuts, the 10 commandments of saying no, underscore that much of the cure to corruption, lies within us. Yes, these will not be sufficient to tackle big-time scams, but small steps can lead to big victories too.
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