Farming in a fragmented landscape

Average size of landholding has shrunk to 0.80 hectares during 2010-11

Land available for farming in Tamil Nadu is going down year by year. There seems no end to fragmentation.

According to the latest report of the Department of Evaluation and Applied Research (DEAR) on the State’s economic appraisal for the period from 2011-12 to 2013-14, the average size of landholding has shrunk from 1.45 hectares during 1970-71 to 0.80 hectares during 2010-11.

The report, quoting the last Agricultural Census (2010-11), says the average size of landholding in the State is even lower than the national average, which is 1.16 hectares.

The report states that a combination of factors, such as increasing industrialisation, growing urbanisation and real estate and infrastructure development, has diverted farmland to non-farm use, reducing the area under cultivation.

Marginal and small farmers owning up to two hectares account for 92 per cent of the total number of landholdings. The medium (2-10 hectares) and big (over 10 hectares) farmers possess 8 per cent.

As for area, the share of small and marginal farmers is 61 per cent, whereas the medium and big farmers own 39 per cent. While a marginal farmer holds, on an average, 0.37 hectare, a big farmer owns 20.59 hectares.

The silver lining is that there has been no corresponding fall in grain production. The technological advances and better water management have helped the farmers achieve a fairly reasonable rate of yield: around three tonnes per hectare.

The production was 101.5 lakh tonnes during 2011-12 and 110.65 lakh tonnes during 2013-14. “There is still scope for improvement,” an official says.

In the past 40 years, the share of agriculture in the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has dropped drastically, from 34.79 per cent to 8.81 per cent. Yet, the farm sector remains the biggest employer, accounting for 45 per cent of employment.

The secondary and tertiary sectors, which now contribute 30.5 and 60.6 per cent to the GSDP, employ 27 per cent of the workforce each.

The report has recommended that the marginal and small farmers be motivated to form farmers’ groups so that they get all technical inputs in time and to ensure judicious use of scarce resources.

Device-led distraction

Do not let your mobile phones, tablets or laptops take control of your life.

In the past few weeks, I’ve come across more than one article discussing the presence of mobile devices in the classroom. Some teachers have very clear rules about switching off mobile phones in the classroom, and some do not allow devices of any kind to be used when a lecture is in progress. But there are also quite a few teachers who have a more open attitude to device use in class, as long as it is not disruptive to the group as a whole.

The disturbance

Clay Shirky, who teaches the theory and practice of social media at New York University, talks about how he recently decided to impose a complete ban on laptops and other devices in his classroom. He found that the level of distraction from the use of laptops, tablets and mobile phones was becoming difficult to control. He notes that the quality of engagement and conversation in the class become much higher once the phones and tablets were put away. It was, in his words, “as if someone had let fresh air into the room.” He further describes the challenges faced by the teacher who is competing against an entire machinery — hardware and software — that is “designed to distract” because “attention is the substance that makes the whole consumer Internet go”.

Losing concentration

The distraction-by-device factor may be somewhat possible to control inside a classroom, where the teacher’s orders rule, but what about other places — in our hostel rooms, at our study tables and in discussion groups at the canteen? How do we draw ourselves away from those flickering screens, the beeping mobiles, the pings on our tablets and the status updates on open Facebook and Instagram feeds? Most of us keep our browsers open while we are working on documents or reading a soft copy of a document. We open the laptop in complete earnestness, planning to finish an assignment, and before we know it, we’ve allowed our fingers to click here and there, scrolling down a dozen screens in pursuit of a momentary interest and a whole hour has just vanished! (Confession: I found myself going off to check various open windows no less than five times between the start and end of this paragraph!)

It takes a lot of discipline to put our devices away when we are by ourselves — or even when we are with others. And then, it takes even more discipline to stay on one screen when we’re immersed in our computers. It may begin with a valid reason — that you need to check something periodically for your assignment. But then it turns into a search without purpose, where you flit from site to site for no reason other than idle curiosity.

The lurking danger

The most dangerous aspect of all this is that we do not even realise we are being distracted. When there is noise or physical discomfort, we find ways to deal with it so that we can continue our work. But when the distraction comes from inside our heads, it’s much, much harder to control. It takes us a while to even recognise it as distraction, as taking us away from something. Sometimes, it seems as if being distracted has become the normal state. It’s common to find people checking their messages or answering their phones right in the middle of a conversation. When we are working on our computers too, we routinely “multitask” across several open windows.

By focusing on several different things at the same time, we fail to give our full attention — and, therefore, our best — to the main task at hand. While multitasking may be useful and even necessary at times, it is not something that is desirable when we are doing a task that requires concentration. Reading class notes, listening to a lecture, writing a paper, taking part in discussions that lead us to understand challenging concepts — these are activities that demand our full attention and intellectual engagement.

Finding focus

Distraction is hard enough to fight even without our electronic devices. All of us know how difficult it is to keep our minds on something that we are not very interested in, or that we are forced to do (like listening to lectures!). But maybe this natural inclination to let our minds wander is being fuelled by the presence of these digital devices that pull our attention away from the here and now? This is a distraction we can work to fight, if we become conscious of it. Once we are aware of it, we need to ask ourselves some simple questions: What is it that we need to be focusing on right now? Why do we need to check our messages every few minutes? What will we really gain by staying online during the time we are working on something?

The answers to these questions are (usually) surprisingly simple.

I’d suggest that even if you have a teacher who does not ban laptops, tablets and phones from class, you do it yourself. And when you’re alone, working on that assignment that refuses to get done, try finishing your reading, gathering your notes together, and then consciously shutting down all windows but one — the one you actually need to be working on!

Childhood, peace and development

The Nobel Peace prize for 2014 has been awarded to two South Asian activists in the field of child rights, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi. The first is a thoughtful and fearless teenager who, despite deadly opposition, lit a path to learning and liberation for girls in Pakistan. The second is a 60-year old campaigner from India who has worked to liberate children from the shackles of compulsory labour and bondage. In choosing them, the Nobel Committee may appear to have chosen unusually. Malala is, at 17, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever, and Mr. Satyarthi a relatively unknown name outside the region and his field of work. However, the Committee’s choice has been hailed as both bold and necessary. It has sought to underscore a crucial but widely disregarded prerequisite for development and peace in our times, namely, the responsibility of nations to provide the means of formal education, leisure, safety, and care for all children. As this year’s citation says, “It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation.” Growing up in the Swat Valley of Pakistan under the brute rule of religious bigots opposed to education for girls, Malala grasped the link between school education — and particularly education for girls — and larger social change early in life. How an outspoken child fought a public campaign for the right to education, surviving even an attempt on her life, is well known. She continues to lead the battle for girls’ education from her current location in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Satyarthi, a founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Campaign), has led the rescue of over 78,500 children from bondage. He gave shape to the Global March Against Child Labour, a coalition of national campaign groups. He too sees education as the key instrument for the liberation of children from poverty, exploitation and neglect. In his pioneering work on child labour and school education in India, the late political scientist Myron Weiner wrote: “Modern states regard education as a legal duty, not merely a right: parents are required to send their children to school, children are required to attend school, and the state is obliged to enforce compulsory education ... This is not the view held in India. Primary education is not compulsory, nor is child labour illegal.” The Nobel Peace Prize this year recognises the crucial links among child rights, labour, and school education and, in doing so, recognises one of the most fundamental prerequisites of a better tomorrow for millions of children everywhere.

Six labour schemes launched in 'Make in India'

After inviting domestic and foreign firms to make in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to unveil half a dozen schemes on October 16 that would bring much needed relief to manufacturers from the country’s cumbersome labour laws as well as provide skilled manpower to these factories.
The labour ministry is organising an event titled ‘Shrameva Jayate’ to launch six of its revamped schemes including the universal account number (UAN) for subscribers of the EPFO, on-line compliance system for labour laws, a new labour inspection system, revamped Industrial Training Institutes(ITIs), apprenticeship scheme and health insurance plan for unorganised sector workers.
“The event planned for October 16 is aimed to address the requirements of all — employers as well as workers from the cumbersome labour laws. While we have been working on these schemes for long, they will be formally launched next week,” said a senior labour ministry official.
The event has been titled keeping in mind the Prime Minister’s emphasis on providing empowerment and dignity of labour, said the official, adding that it will be part of the birth celebrations of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.
For employers, the event will unveil a unified web portal to simplify compliance of labour laws where employers can submit a single common return on compliance of 16 Central labour laws. “State labour ministers will also be present at the event and will be invited to provide similar facilities so that all compliance returns can be submitted online providing ease of business,” said the official.
The Prime Minister will also launch a new inspection system that will herald the end of the inspector raj in labour laws, benefitting over 13 lakh units that currently have to file compliance returns and undergo inspections.
Four agencies including the EPFO, the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, office of the Chief Labour Commissioner and Director General of Mines Safety will be brought under the new system where in compliance reports filed on the web portal by employers would be analysed by a proposed Central Analysis and Intelligence Unit that would pick up establishments for inspection.
“Each inspector will have to submit his report online within three days, making the process transparent and accountable,” said the official, pointing out that at present 18,000 inspectors are deployed and carry out an annual 2 lakh inspections. “The new facilities of online returns and inspections will make our work also more focused,” he said.
Meanwhile, the labour ministry also plans to showcase its revamped ITIs with up-to-date courses, for which it is keen to coordinate with companies for not only placement of students but also setting up such institutes and tailoring training courses to their needs. “Brand ambassadors for the ITIs will be unveiled and some of the students also felicitated,” said a second official.
With the passage of the amendments to the Apprenticeship Act in the Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister will also inaugurate a new scheme for apprentices that will provide training in trades apart from manufacturing. Further, to make the scheme more attractive, stipends will have to meet the minimum wages in each state. The government will compensate employers by chipping in 50 per cent of the stipend amount, the official said.
For workers, the labour ministry will launch the UAN for members of the EPFO will mean that workers will have permanent account numbers despite changing jobs.
It will also announce a revamped Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana with centralised issuance of smart cards, third party audits and a call centre. “These will make the scheme, which has over 3 crore members from the unorganised sector, more transparent,” said another official.
In the second stage, the scheme will be merged with the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme to provide comprehensive health insurance to unorganised sector workers.

Politics 4.0

History teaches us that minorities can sustain unjust equilibriums for many years. But it also teaches us that discrete events create fertile mental possibilities that combine with one big event and change history. I’d like to make the case that the prosecution of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in a disproportionate assets case makes 2014, like 1919, a year that marks the end of a joint venture between a political minorities and their chosen constituencies. In 1919, 62 years after the British empire officially began, Indian life expectancy was 27 years and only 11 per cent of men and 1.1 per cent of women could read. This empire was a joint venture with narcissist maharajas; Rajendra Singh of Patiala told a viceroy’s representative that “he worked hard spending an hour and a half every day on state business and at the end of it he was exhausted”. An extract from Bikaner’s annual budget from that period symbolises royal priorities — prince’s wedding, Rs 8.25 lakh, palace repairs, Rs 4.26 lakh, royal family, Rs 2.24 lakh, public works Rs 0.30 lakh and sanitation Rs 0.05 lakh. The turning point for our freedom struggle was Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. But the run-up was important: Gandhiji returned to India in 1915, the rift between reformists and extremists from the 1906 Surat Congress session healed in 1916, and the Bolsheviks got rid of the tsar in 1917. Historians suggest that Jallianwala Bagh happened because Indian soldiers returning from the First World War, having fought with and killed white people, asked deep questions about racial superiority that made independence mentally possible. Similarly, Jayalalithaa’s prosecution combines with recent events to make a new politics possible.

The prosecution of a sitting chief minister in a disproportionate assets case is a decision with long shadows. Accountability for corruption at high levels has been difficult because there are often no fingerprints on the murder weapon. This is not a uniquely Indian problem; even American gangster Al Capone could finally only be convicted for income tax fraud. Lately, Indian politicians have dropped the narrative of frugality and left footprints in their assets and lifestyle that are difficult to erase. Many families in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Telangana and other states must be worried. Over the last two decades, politics has been the Indian business with the highest EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margins and returns on invested capital. It is silly when a former Bangalore ward corporator with no previous job and a low salary declares he has more assets than Nancy Pelosi, who received a substantial salary as former head of the US Democratic Party.

Hopefully, this conviction will also make frugality fashionable in publicagain. It is a myth that political dynasties are sustained because of brand; the primary weapon for most sexually transmitted political positions is treasure. Finding money to fight elections without corruption is complicated but not impossible, and if we dry the swamp, we make it feasible to fight elections on keeping promises. Simplifying things substantially, we have had three phases in Indian politics. Politics 1.0 was the Independence struggle, which created a mass movement along with vibrant inner-party democracy for the Congress. Politics 2.0 began in 1947 and lasted till Indira Gandhi became PM; the idealism of an independent nation glowed brightly, politicians led frugal lives and political legitimacy came from building institutions. Politics 3.0 started in 1968; inner-party democracy vanished in the Congress party, the politics of poverty meant populism, corruption was necessary to sustain your political machinery, frugality became old-fashioned, so ostentatious weddings, houses and cars became common. A series of recent events — the Aam Aadmi Party, corruption investigations in telecom and coal, a massive divergence between real and nominal wages, and agriculture employing 50 per cent of workers but only generating 15 per cent of the GDP — created the churn that crystallised in a 2014 national election that was not won on populism. Combine that outcome with the prosecution of a sitting chief minister for disproportionate assets and the contours of politics 4.0 start emerging; a politics anchored in execution and keeping promises. The 2014 election was lost on positioning the state as the solution to poverty and won on the promise of keeping promises. The results were magnificently described by a British columnist as “the day the British finally left India”. Even the populist Rajasthan state government lost the assembly elections badly. Populism matters but only works if it seems sustainable. As the quip goes, you campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Populism is about governing in poetry and it isn’t working well because voters now understand that free power means no power. Central government priorities are emerging: Make in India, Skill India, Digital India, and Clean India. And the state government in Rajasthan has initiated labour law and school reform, and is building roads. Policy outcomes in the past have been patchy on the ground because governments are organised vertically but these problems are horizontal. This government’s fewer goals, clearer strategies and stronger leadership show promise. Of course, populism, corruption as a source of campaign finance and religious manipulation will not go away as political strategies in the next few elections. But I believe serious religious trouble will be avoided because this government knows that its biggest vulnerability, and its best bet, is most Indian Muslims agreeing with what Naseeruddin Shah says in his wonderful recent biography, And then One Day: “My father did not move to Pakistan because he was not a gambler. As it happened, he was not wrong in his assessment of our future chances in India”. Politicians sabotaging corruption prosecutions and offering populism not only sound like the maharaja of Patiala opposing1929 Congress resolution for Purna Swaraj, but will also be left behind by politicians focusing on execution. Like 1919, 2014 is turning out to be a great year for Indian democracy. - 

World Bank Launches Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF)

The World Bank (WB) has launched the GIF to specifically cater to the infrastructure needs of the emerging economies and developing countries. The GIF will channel money towards bankable infrastructure project in such countries. GIF also places importance on sustainable development. Its key focus will be on climate friendly infrastructureinvestments and projects that will boost trade.

The GIF will collaborate with other international and multilateral agencies which provide loans and financial assistance to countries across the globe. It will also help these agencies with its expertise in financing, supervising and implementing projects. Another areas where GIF could provide assistance it ensuring that all regulatory, environmental and social safeguards are met with while investing in large scale infrastructure projects. GIF will also work with private entities like asset management companies, private equity firms, pensions and insurance funds and commercial banks to tap into multiple sources of funding.

The risks that e-cigarettes hold

It is not a device that helps quit smoking and delivers nicotine. What the aerosol spews is not water vapour.It must be regulated quickly

In recent years the global electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) industry has evolved into a $3-billion business with 466 brands: there was only one manufacturer in 2005. Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), of which e-cigarettes are the most common prototype, are battery-powered devices that use electricity to aerosolise a nicotine-containing fluid for inhalation. Nicotine is addictive and is not harmless. But as ENDS are not made from tobacco leaves, they have largely escaped regulation. The global growth of ENDS represents an evolving frontier filled with both promise and threat for tobacco control. There is a need to regulate the use of ENDS to maximise their potential and minimise health threats.

ENDS are frequently marketed by the industry as an aid to quit smoking or as a healthier alternative to tobacco. The argument is that they don’t contain the toxic by-products found in cigarettes, such as tar, and do not produce smoke. But there has been very little research on ENDS and no convincing evidence that they are effective as a “quit-smoking device”. In fact, with almost 8000 different flavours added, including fruit and candy-like flavours, there is legitimate concern that instead of reducing the number of smokers they will serve as a gateway to nicotine addiction, and ultimately, smoking, particularly for young people. Evidence supports this — experimentation with e-cigarettes is growing among adolescents, the figures doubling between 2008 and 2012.

Existing evidence shows that ENDS aerosol is not merely “water vapour”. It contains cancer-causing agents, such as formaldehyde, which in some brands reach concentrations close to that of conventional cigarettes. They deliver nicotine, which we know is a potent vasoconstrictor that may contribute to cardiovascular disease. There is sufficient evidence to show that nicotine itself, and not just the smoke from cigarettes, can affect brain development in foetuses and among adolescents just from passive inhalation. ENDS contain varying levels of nicotine. Frequently, these levels are similar to those in cigarettes, and without regulation there is no way to control this amount. There is also evidence that the use of ENDS indoors increases second-hand exposure of non-smokers and bystanders to nicotine and a number of toxicants. While some evidence does show that ENDS are likely to be less toxic than conventional cigarettes, it is not known how much less toxic they are. Until we have sufficient evidence to determine the extent of their health impacts, the industry must be regulated. If we wait to implement regulations till research findings are available, it may be too late.

While some steps have been taken to regulate ENDS, there are huge policy variations among countries. Singapore and Brazil have banned e-cigarettes. In the WHO South-East Asia Region, many countries are considering regulations. In India, a governmental round table discussion in July 2014 decided to consider banning ENDS. While these are steps in the right direction, several countries in the developing world have no regulations or measures to regulate e-cigarettes.

It is for this reason that WHO recently released a Report on the Regulation of ENDS. It will be the primary topic of discussion at the Sixth Session of the Conference of the Parties to Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), to be held from October 13 to 18 in Moscow. In the report, WHO calls for regulations to prohibit the addition of flavours that may make ENDS more attractive to youth, ban the use of ENDS indoors and in public and workplaces, and restrict its advertising, promotion, and sponsorship to ensure that adolescents and non-smokers are not targeted. The regulations should impede ENDS promotion to non-smokers and young people, minimise potential health risks to users and non-users, prohibit the dissemination of unproven health claims, and protect existing tobacco control efforts.

WHO is urging countries to choose the best regulatory framework available to implement the regulatory objectives. In some cases, this might be the existing tobacco control legislation, or medicines and medical devices regulations. In other cases it may be elsewhere in the government sector. Regardless, the regulations must be implemented in a timely manner to protect the public from any potential ill-harm while more tests regards the health impacts of ENDS are carried out. The regulations should be adaptable to new data as they are gathered on the health impact of ENDS.

We have made remarkable progress in terms of tobacco control, but the increasing popularity of e-cigarettes threatens to undermine years of hard work. There is urgent need therefore to act now, to protect public health.