case study3/2015

You are the Secretary of the Environment Department in Kalahandi district of Orissa. Presently you are involved in looking at the impact of the infrastructure projects on the environment, natural flora and fauna and tribal population.

About 20 km away from the district headquarters, your department have given the clearance to built a road of breadth 30 feet. Since the road run through the local forests area thus there is no permission to built road boarder than 30 feet. Soon after the road is built you come to know that the road accidents in the area have increase manifold, especially near the school. As a result many school children have lost their lives in past few months.

When you order an enquiry into the issue you found that the traffic on the 30 feet road is very high.  The cases of accidents of school children on this 30 feet road are increasing day by day.  The official permission to broaden the road would be difficult under the present norms and even if given would take no less than 2 months.

What should you do?

Learning from one another

Indian research was deeply influenced by the knowledge of foreign works on the subject, and in turn, Indian maths influenced mathematical work in other countries

The skill of doing research, the hard preparation needed for doing new and original work — going beyond the old established knowledge, and indeed the courage to think in novel and daring lines — are all immensely helped by good and exciting teaching. For me, this began at home. My grandfather Kshiti Mohan Sen, who taught at Santiniketan, could excite my interest in Sanskrit studies, including heretical texts in Sanskrit, which still inspire my engagement in that wonderful language, as I pick up a book in Sanskrit today. Sanskrit, we have to remember, is not only the language in which the Hindu and many of the Buddhist texts came; it is also the vehicle, among many other radical thoughts, of comprehensive doubts about the supernatural expressed in the Lokayata texts, and also the medium in which the questioning of class and caste and legitimacy of power would be expressed with spectacular eloquence by Shudraka in his profound play, “Mricchakatikam” (“The Little Clay Cart”). It was great for me to be taught at a very early age the distinction between a great language as a general vehicle of thought and the specific ideas — religious or sceptical — that may be expressed in that language. That distinction remains important today.

I also have to acknowledge my debt to my other teachers — in Santiniketan, at Presidency College, and at Trinity College in Cambridge — in helping me to find my way. I am delighted that the Infosys Foundation has initiated a new scheme for the training of rural teachers of mathematics and science. Since our school education is the basis of all our education — no matter how “high” our higher education maybe — the fruits of investment in good school education can be extraordinarily high. Narayana Murthy, who like me grew up in a family of teachers, knows that with visionary insight.

Wider role of teaching

I also want to say a few things about the wider role of teaching — in linking different nations and different cultures together. Teaching is not just a matter of instruction given by teachers to their individual students. The progress of science and of knowledge depends in general on the learning that one nation, one group of people, derives from what has been achieved by other nations and other groups of people.

For example, the golden age of Indian mathematics, which changed the face of mathematics in the world, was roughly from the fifth to the 12th century, and its beginning was directly inspired by what we Indians were learning from work done in Babylon, Greece and Rome. To be sure, there was an Indian tradition of analytical thinking going back much further, on which the stellar outbursts of mathematical work in India from around the fifth century drew, but we learned a lot about theorems and proofs and rigorous mathematical reasoning from the Greeks and the Romans and the Babylonians. There is no shame in learning from others, and then putting what we have learned to good use, and going on to create new knowledge, new understanding, and thrillingly novel ideas and results.

Indians of course were teaching other Indians. Perhaps the most powerful mathematician of ancient India, Brahmagupta, would not have been able to do such dazzling work without his having been influenced by the ideas of his own teachers, in particular Aryabhata, the pioneering leader of the Indian school of mathematics. Alberuni, the Iranian mathematician, who spent many years in India from the end of the 10th to the early years of the 11th century (and helped to make Arab mathematicians learn even more from Indian mathematics than they were already doing) thought that Brahmagupta was perhaps the finest mathematician and astronomer in India, and possibly in the world, and yet (argued Alberuni), Brahmagupta could be so productive only by standing on the shoulders of the great Aryabhata, who was not only an extraordinary scientist and mathematician, but also a superb teacher. Learning from each other continued over centuries, involving — in addition to Aryabhata and Brahmagupta — Varahamihira and Bhaskara, among many others.

And just as Indian mathematicians learned something from Babylonians, Greeks and Romans, they also taught some brilliantly new ideas to mathematicians elsewhere in the world. For example, Yi Xing [I-Hsing], who lived in China between the seventh and the eighth century, and who was, as Joseph Needham describes him, probably the finest Chinese mathematician of his time, knew all the relevant Indian texts. The Chinese mathematicians as well as the pioneering Arab mathematicians, including Al Khwarazmi (from whose name the term “algorithm” is derived), all knew Sanskrit and the Sanskritic literature in maths. What we are admiring here is not Indian mathematics done in splendid isolation (that rarely occurs anywhere in the world), but mathematics done with a huge role of international and interregional exchange of ideas. Indian research was deeply influenced by the knowledge of foreign works on the subject, and in turn, Indian maths influenced mathematical work even in those countries, including Greece and Rome and Baghdad, from where Indians themselves had learned many things.

Interconnections of traditions

Let me end with an example. The history of the term “sine” in Trigonometry illustrates how we learn from each other. That trigonometric idea was well developed by Aryabhata, who called it jya-ardha, and sometimes shortened it to jya. The Arab mathematicians, using Aryabhata’s idea, called it “jiba,” which is phonetically close. But jiba is a meaningless sound in Arabic, but jaib, which has the same consonants, is a good Arabic word, and since the Arabic script does not specify vowels, the later generation of Arab mathematicians used the term jaib, which means a bay or a cove. Then in 1150, when the Italian mathematician, Gherardo of Cremona, translated the word into Latin, he used the Latin word “sinus,” which means a bay or a cove in Latin. And it is from this — the Latin sinus — that the modern trigonometric terms “sine” is derived. In this one word we see the interconnection of three mathematical traditions — Indian, Arabic and European.

Teaching and learning are activities that link people together. Even as we celebrate science and research, we have to recognise the role of teaching and that of learning from each other — from our teachers, from our colleagues, from our students, from our friends, and from our fellow human beings. There is something extraordinarily great in these interconnections.

Cash transfers, the lazy short cut

Alleviating poverty in India requires not only cash transfers but also other enabling changes

Advocates of unconditional cash transfers claim that they can be both emancipatory and transformative. They argue that people are quite capable of making rational decisions. And that this kind of basic income support can improve their lives.

I have no quarrel with the claim that we must trust the poor. Such suspicion is part of an elite mindset, which we must firmly reject. However, what is equally true is Babasaheb Ambedkar’s reminder that we must not romanticise the poor. We need to bear in mind that historically Indian society has had more than its share of prejudice and discrimination, based especially on caste and gender. Robust empirical evidence suggests that access to food, rather than cash, favours children rather than just adults, and girls, not just boys. Income support goes a long way in providing a modicum of security to those left out of the mainstream development process. But the problem with regarding unconditional cash transfers as transformative silver bullets in themselves is that we may leave unattended many fundamental requirements of poverty elimination, without which cash transfers will just not work.

What will cash do without essential capabilities and skills? Development is much more about empowering the poor and creating concomitant conditions that allow them to translate their aspirations into tangible outcomes. A key part of these conditions is possessing requisite capabilities to be relevant in a rapidly evolving economy. Transmitting these skills is a completely different ball game than just transferring cash to the poor.

Providing linkages

What will cash do without forward and backward linkages? Poverty elimination demands sustainable livelihood options and these require not just cash but vital inputs (such as water or raw materials or veterinary services) and a market, where the outputs produced could be sold. It is good to see the National Rural Livelihoods Mission working not only on skills, but also on assuring these forward and backward linkages.

Can cash work for the unorganised poor when faced with exploitative markets? As any student of the poor in India knows, when individual small and marginal farmers enter any market, they face extremely onerous conditions. The nexus of interlocked markets presents grievously unfair terms for them and most of the time they end up making distress sales, getting even deeper into debt. It is for this reason that recent work on farmers’ poverty has focussed so much on building powerful economic institutions of the poor such as Self-Help Group Federations or Farmer Producer Organisations, so that they can compete on better terms in the market. A mere transfer of cash without this major innovation will do the poor little good.

Can cash work for the unorganised poor when faced with unresponsive governments? Another reason why the poor need to be organised is to generate greater accountability of systems of governance that are the weakest in our most deprived regions. When the poor get organised, especially when led by women, we get much higher quality of mid-day meals and primary health centres. Removing poverty without strengthening systems of public health delivery is almost inconceivable in the poorest regions of India. And without strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions, governance reform and better public service delivery will continue to remain a pipe dream. The 12th Plan Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan is a source of much hope in this direction.

What will people do with cash where there are no options? One of the fundamental requirements for cash transfers to succeed is the availability of affordable high quality options for the poor so that they can choose the best service provider. But as the repeated experience of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana shows, the poor have hardly any options for proper health care or for any other basic requirements of life. Indeed, the danger, as I have witnessed over the last 25 years first-hand, is that the poor are caught in a terrible web of low quality local, private providers of health and education. Cash transfers without strengthening quality of service provision could end up even making things worse in this respect.

In large parts of rural India, market failure is rampant. Here, a range of public goods and infrastructure need urgent provisioning. The trustworthy beneficiary of our direct cash transfer cannot arrange for this all by herself. No one has ever stopped the private sector from going there but there is no incentive for a profit-seeking capitalist to travel to these impoverished regions of India. What the markets cannot do, what the private sector will not do, the State must.

The Indian challenge

Governments in all developed nations in Europe, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and many others have provided their citizens social security, education, health care, mass transport etc. Such public investments also generate many positive externalities and spur private investment; they are indeed, a precondition for it. Cash transfers cannot be a substitute for this. The challenge we face in India is of massive government failure in these crucial sectors. We need to extend the process of reform to these key parts of the economy, where the state is in close interface with our most vulnerable regions and people.

The almost irresistible seductiveness to the idea of cash transfers is a reflection of great intellectual, policy and political ennui. Since real change is hard to come by, why not go with a lazy short cut? Just give everyone a dole. Which is what unconditional cash transfers are. In fact, cash transfers are just one element of India’s anti-poverty programmes. They work only when they are accompanied by other enabling changes, each of which addresses key elements of the poverty syndrome in India. We have many such conditional cash transfer schemes, which I strongly support because their success is contingent upon something more than mere cash transfer: such as the creation of durable assets under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act; incentivising education of girls and disincentivising their early marriage in the Ladli Lakshmi Yojanas of many States; or the Janani Suraksha Yojana that incentivises institutional deliveries. The real challenge is to reform their functioning and improve their quality, learning creatively from best practices set up by many States, so that these programmes can deliver up to their real potential.

World Bank says slow economic recovery underway in India

The World Bank said on Tuesday a "slow economic recovery" was on in India. It estimated growth at 6.4 per cent in 2015-16 and then to seven per cent in each of the next two financial years, compared to an estimated 5.6 per cent for the current year, 2014-15.

The projected economic expansion from consecutive years of sub-five per cent growth (2012-13 and 2013-14) would be slower if reforms are stalled and faster if the process is expedited, it has said in its first two chapters in 'Global Economic Prospects'.

It had already come out with growth estimates for FY14 and FY16. India's economy clocked 5.5 per cent growth in the first half of this financial year and the government is hopeful it would be a bit higher in the second half. It was a decadal low growth of 4.5 per cent in 2012-13 and a bit higher at 4.7 per cent in 2013-14. These were the first occasions in two decades that India's economy expanded below five per cent in successive years.

"A slow economic recovery is underway, helped by a sharp slide in inflation to multi-year lows and improving export momentum, in line with rising demand from the US, a major trading partner," the Bank said.

Inflation
It recognised that falling inflation had left room for the central bank to loosen monetary policy but pointed towards not-so-low food inflation.

Weakening global oil prices, fading pass-through from currency depreciation in 2013 and the lagged effect of monetary tightening in 2013 made for lower headline inflation in South Asia, including India.

In India and Pakistan, part of the decline in inflation also stemmed from favourable base effects, which drove the moderation in food price pressures in the second half of the year, despite poor monsoons in both countries and drought in Sri Lanka.

"Nevertheless food inflation, which tends to have large second round effects on core inflation, remains elevated, particularly in India and Bangladesh," the Bank said, citing a study.

According to data issued on Monday, Consumer Price Index-based inflation in India rose to five per cent in December from 4.38 per cent in November, primarily due to a rise in food prices. In December, inflation for food items was 4.78 per cent, against 3.14 per cent in November. In December 2013, food inflation was 12.49 per cent.

Hurdles
On economic expansion, the Bank cautioned that weak bank balance sheets continued to impede financing for an upturn in the investment cycle.

"Stressed bank loans (including restructured loans) exceed 10 per cent of loans in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Pakistan. Restructured and problem loans need to be recognised as non-performing, even though this would impair capital (with possible need for fiscal support)," it said.

Banking system reforms, in particular aimed at strengthening human resources, improving non-performing loan management, and raising capital ratios would help to improve financial intermediation.

"Such reforms are especially needed in India, where state-owned banks account for close to three-quarters of banking assets," it added.

Besides, power generation is unlikely to keep pace with growing demand in India, among other South Asian countries.

"In India, stagnating coal production has already resulted in repeated shortages in supplies to power plants. In both India and Pakistan, substantial transmission and distribution losses, insufficiently high user prices, and subsidies to special interest groups have resulted in repeated bailouts for the energy sector," it said.

In India, these represented a fiscal cost of 1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001, the Bank said.

A stagnant or declining share of manufacturing in Indian GDP is symptomatic of substantial supply-side bottlenecks and lagging reforms, said the Bank. "Onerous labour regulations, cumbersome bureaucracies, under-investment in human capital and large infrastructure deficits have undermined the region's competitiveness, making it hard for low-cost and labour-intensive manufacturing to thrive and to compete against the more flexible economies of East Asia."

Plus, cyclical weakness in recent years has meant industrial output expanded slowly in the post-crisis period, posing challenges of coping with a rapidly growing labour force. "As a consequence, manufacturing's share of economic output in India has stagnated over the past decade," says the report.

The Bank pointed to a narrow tax base in India as coming in the way of augmenting revenue. "Only three per cent of the population in India pays the personal income tax," it said.

It added that the proposed national goods and services tax was likely to boost revenue by reducing distortions and creating a single market for goods and services.

Learning outcomes in schools low in rural India, says study

Ringing the alarm bell, a study says reading and learning outcomes in schools in rural India continue to remain low, with most children in lower classes unable to do simple mathematics or read a sentence in English. It said only 25 per cent of children enrolled in Class-V could read simple English sentences and around 26 per cent of Class-IIIstudents could do a two-digit subtraction.

The Annual Status of Education Report-2014 by non-governmental organisation Pratham, widely followed by policymakers and educationists, covered 15,000 government schools, of which 8,844 were primary schools and 6,362 were upper primary.

Lack of flexibility in the system to help children catch up with others and mismatch between the syllabus and the children's ability to learn were attributed as some of the plausible factors for the learning level by the Director of Pratham, Rukmini Banerji.

The report said the percentage of children in Class-II who still cannot recognise numbers up to nine had increased from 11.3 per cent in 2009 to 19.5 per cent in 2014.

Similarly, the ability to do division among Class-VIII students has been dropping since 2010. The proportion of Class-VIII students who could correctly do a three-digit by one digit division problem was 68.3 per cent in 2010 and the number dropped to 44.1 per cent in 2014. It said except Tamil Nadu, where there are some improvements in learning outcome in maths, a poor learning outcome is prevalent in most other states. It said children's ability to read English is relatively unchanged in lower primary grades. In 2014, 25 per cent of children enrolled in Class-V could read simple English sentences and this number is virtually unchanged since 2009.

The report, however, said enrolment has increased over the years and reached 96 per cent or higher in the six-14 age group. "India is close to universal enrollment for the age group of six-14 years, with the percentage of children enrolled at 96 per cent or above for six years in a row," it said. The report highlighted the increased inclination towards private schools in rural India with the figure standing at 30.8 per cent enrollment of six-14 age group. This number is slightly up from the 29 per cent in 2013.

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DENT IN EDUCATION

• Only 25 per cent of the children enrolled in Class-V could read simple English sentences
• Around 26 per cent of Class-III students could do a two-digit subtraction
• Percentage of children in Class-II who still cannot recognise numbers up to 9 has increased from 11.3 per cent in 2009 to 19.5 per cent in 2014
• Enrollment level has increased over the years and has reached 96 per cent or higher in the 6-14 age group

Only 25% of the children enrolled in Class-V could read simple English sentences, around 26% of Class-III students could do a two-digit subtraction

UN Secretary General calls on President

His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations called on President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan today (January 13, 2015).

Welcoming the UN Secretary General to India, the President said the UN is in urgent need of reform for its own credibility and legitimacy of its decisions. The UN should play an effective role in all situations. A reformed and effective UN will be able to respond to the crises afflicting the world in a more decisive manner. The United Nations needs to represent the geo-political realities of today.

The President said it was true there are divergences on the reforms. But the UN has been created to iron out these divergences and find solutions acceptable to the large section of the international community. Reforms of the United Nations should be advanced at least in the 70th year of the UN. India hopes and counts upon the UN Secretary General’s leadership and persuasive skills to steer the discussions for urgent reform of the UN.

Drawing attention to the recent terrorist incidents in Peshawar and Paris, the President said terrorism was no longer a debating issue. Terrorists engage in wanton destruction and show no respect for borders or values. The international community must assert itself and tackle the problem of terrorism. The UN Secretary General should take the initiative in this regard.

The President expressed his happiness that the international community is working to finalise a set of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and a comprehensive post-2015 development agenda. He said tackling the issue of global warming or climate change requires both serious national action and genuine international collaboration. Despite huge development challenges, India is undertaking ambitious climate actions including through lowering of the energy intensity of its economic growth, increasing energy efficiency across sectors and making greater use of renewable energy. Pointing out that India became a member of the UN in 1945 even before we attained independence, the President said Indian Armed Forces participate in 10 out of the 16 UN peacekeeping mission with 8000 plus troops and police personnel. India is firm in its commitment to the UN Charter and support of the UN system.

Responding to the President, the UN Secretary General said India is a critically important global power. He has therefore visited the country regularly in order to forge a stronger partnership between the UN and India. He agreed that the international community should take firm action on the matter of terrorism. There was huge solidarity expressed by the world after the incident in Paris but committed action is even more important.

The UN Secretary General expressed appreciation for the contributions of India to peace keeping operations and the promotion of global democracy. He pointed out that India was the second largest donor to the Democracy Fund, next only to the United States. He also congratulated India for the measures being taken for gender empowerment and appreciated the fact that 25% of the Cabinet were women. He said he was aware of the aspirations of many countries including India for reforms of the UN and their desire to play a leadership role in the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council must become effective, representative, democratic and transparent.

Green building

Green building of the Environment Ministry showcased to the UN Secretary General Shri Prakash Javadekar meets UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

The Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Shri Prakash Javadekar today met the UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon at the New Paryavarn Bhavan Building.  Shri Javadekar showcased to the Secretary General salient features of the Green Building and highlighted that the design philosophy of the New Paryavaran Bhavan  focused  on increasing the efficiency of resource usage i.e. energy, water and materials while minimizing the impact of the building on Human Habitat and the Environment.              Shri Javadekar further said that this had been achieved through careful site planning, most appropriate building form and very low effluent disposal and energy production on-site.  The objective was to have a ‘Green Building’ with a state of art modern amenities and comfort with Intelligent Building Management System which optimizes the energy consumption. The basic design concept of the project was to have a  NET ZERO ENERGY consuming green building.  It was expected to be the flag bearer for ‘Green Buildings’. The building has the highest green building rating of ‘5star’of GRIHA of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and also ‘Platinum’ rating of LEED India of Indian Green Building Council.             The architectural design of the building is primarily based on following concepts. ·     Preservation of maximum possible number of trees standing over the site ·     Solar Passive Architecture with proper orientation and shading of Fenestrations ·     Appropriate building envelope design with envelope insulation to reduce heat intake. ·     Use of permanent, durable and local materials such as sand stone on exterior face, low heat transmission glass, reflective roofing, etc. ·     Priority for pedestrians in the front, with vehicular access on the sides of the building ·     Reduction of conventional lighting load by ensuring 75% day-light use ·     Natural ventilation due to stack effect ·     The building is designed in such a way that there is free ventilation across the entire building. Energy Conservation Measures o       Many energy conservation measures have been adopted to optimize the overall design load. o       Utilization of High Efficiency Solar Panels to achieve Net Zero criteria. Energy efficient T-5 and LED fixtures o       Innovative chilled beam system for cooling o       Pre-cooling of fresh air from exhaust using heat recovery wheel in order to reduce load on chiller plant o       Water cooled chillers o       Double skin air handling units with variable frequency drives o       Geo thermal heat exchange technology used for heat rejection from Air-conditioning system. o       Innovative energy saving regenerative lifts which have been installed for the first time in government institutional building. Mr Ban Ki-moon also planted a sapling at the premises jointly with Shri Prakash Javadekar to mark the occasion.