Climate change costs. Unpredictable weather may impact 30 per cent of the harvest

India has been hit by unusual weather. Much of the country has endured unseasonal rain, even hailstorms. In the process, nearly 30 per cent of the rabi planting seems to have been spoiled, with adverse implications for food availability and inflation, as well as farmer distress. The first half of March has been unusually cool, besides being the wettest for 100 years; this weirdness is likely a product of climate change. The weather has played havoc with the mainrabi crops, like wheat, mustard and gram, as well as many vegetable and fruit crops on over 18 million hectares in almost all the Indian states. The loss in production is bound to be substantial, feared to be worth around Rs 65,000 crore in wheat alone. Oddly, some tracts, such as those in Vidarbha and Marathwada in Maharashtra, have had to first cope with drought and then excessive rains. The key agricultural belt in the northwest, too, has suffered extensive losses due to this climate change-induced peculiar weather. And both theIndia Meteorological Department (IMD) and the private weather forecaster Skymet warn of another wet spell in north India in the last week of March and early April. If that happens, which seems probable considering the improved short-range weather prediction skills of these agencies, it might spell further disaster for rabi crops, most of which would, by then, be ready for harvest. The impact on food inflation, particularly vegetable prices, will likely be sharp.

This year's uncharacteristic weather can by no means be dismissed as a one-off phenomenon. Abnormalities of this kind have been witnessed fairly often in recent years. The Sholapur region in Maharashtra was lashed by hailstorms last February-end as well. Hill states have been victims of unprecedented cloudbursts and the floods that followed. Even the pattern of monsoon rainfall seems to have undergone a perceptible change. Most of the year's rains fall in the second half of the four-month-long monsoon season, with the agriculturally more critical first half (June-July) being drier. And the withdrawal of the monsoon quite often begins much later.

India's high vulnerability to climate change is well known. This is so especially because of its large agriculture-dependent population, excessive pressure on natural resources, particularly land and water, and the inability of the poor to cope with natural disasters. This makes it imperative to have in place well-crafted short-term and long-term strategies to deal with weather-related contingencies. Development of climate-resilient technologies is vital for this purpose. However, since many of the outcomes of climate change are difficult to foresee and may also be hard to undo through mitigation efforts, it may be essential to adapt to these changes to minimise their adverse fallout. Luckily, Indian farm scientists seem well aware of the agricultural sector's vulnerability and have begun working on adaptive technological and agronomic practices to reduce weather-induced damages to crops, livestock and fisheries. They have already achieved some success in evolving crop varieties and their planting and harvesting schedules that can help rabi crops to escape the heat stress that often occurs towards the end of the rabi season due to an abrupt rise in temperature. Similar strategies are needed for other probable weather abnormalities, especially of the type encountered this year.

NITI Aayog plays safe on poverty

Taking note of some hard lessons learnt by its predecessor, the National Institution for Transforming India (#NITI) Aayog would not estimate either #poverty lines or the number of the poor in the country.

The erstwhile #Planning Commission, replaced by the Aayog, had got into a big controversy on these issues, with its calculations on the basis of the National Consumption Expenditure Surveys.

A task force under Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariyaon poverty alleviation is to not define or compute poverty as an aggregate measure but will look at social indicators to assess the impact of social schemes on the poor.

“We won’t determine or decide what is the poverty line as was done by the Rangarajan panel or others before that. The task force would not like to fall into the Rs 33-27 debate, as earlier,” a key source said.

He noted states were already undertaking a Socio Economic Caste Census. “What we need to know is whether the programmes launched by the new government are having tangible impact, in terms of tangible outcomes. For this, we need to look at indicators,” the source said.

The number of poor as calculated by the socio-caste census would give a rough idea of the poverty line in each state.

It has been decided to include households without shelter, destitutes/living on alms, manual scavengers, primitive tribal groups and legally released bonded labourers in the Below Poverty Line list. These households will have the highest priority for inclusion in the list. Other households will be identified as poor from the angle of deprivation they are subject to.

C Rangarajan, chairman of the former prime minister's economic advisory council, and who headed a panel to come out with a methodology to define poverty and estimate the number of poor after the Planning Commission courted controversy, said: "I think for implementation of programmes, different determinants can be calculated and programmes can, thus, be monitored."

However, if one wants to measure the change in poverty, one needs the poverty line, he said. This could be the official one or one used by different agencies or academicians, depending on the approach.

One can use the World Bank's poverty line of $1 a day or $1.25 a day, he said but cautioned that these are not based on any specific study of a country.

Saumitra Chaudhuri, former member of the Planning Commission, said the NITI Aayog ideally should not do poverty computation. The whole idea should be on how to make the lives of the poor better through short-term and long-term measures.

"If you have an absolute measurement of poverty, say, anyone spending less than $1 dollar a day is poor, you need not change it after every five years. If anyone wants to focus socio-economic policies towards elimination of poverty, they should target the absolute number and not get caught in the debate of who is poor and who is not," he said.

The Rangarajan panel had found 29.5% of India's population was poor in 2011-12 against 21.9% estimated under the previous methodology which had drawn sharp criticism from various quarters. In absolute terms, 363 million people were below the poverty line that year, higher by about 93 million over the 269.8 million estimated earlier.

However, the poverty rate - the number of poor as a proportion of the population - came down swifter in the estimates of the Rangarajan panel than calculated earlier on the Suresh Tendulkar methodology.

A greater number of people were classified under poverty in 2011-12 as the Rangarajan committee raised the poverty line compared to that fixed earlier. The Rangarajan panel had said anyone spending up to Rs 47 a day in urban areas and Rs 32 in villages would be considered poor as of 2011-12. The Tendulkar methodology had pegged these levels at Rs 33 in urban areas and Rs 27 in villages. By either method, poverty was reduced during 2009-10 to 2011-12 (the first three years of the second UPA government).

For 2009-10, the Tendulkar methodology had pegged the poverty line at Rs 22 in villages and Rs 29 in urban areas. These were raised to Rs 27 and Rs 40, respectively, by the Rangarajan committee.

All these numbers had stirred controversies, with political parties and social activists poking fun at the Planning Commission over these numbers.

Kerala bags award for e-governance

Kerala Tourism was today conferred the national Web Ratna Award for 2014 for exemplary e-governance initiative through the Internet.

The Kerala Tourism website (www.keralatourism.org) won the Golden Icon award in the ‘Outstanding Content’ category of the Web Ratna Awards, instituted by the Union government under the ambit of the National Portal of India.

Kerala Tourism Secretary G. Kamala Vardhana Rao received the award from Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad at the award ceremony held at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.

The Kerala Tourism website, designed and maintained by Invis Multimedia, is among the top tourism portals in the world.

The Kerala Tourism website has won several national and international awards, including five national awards and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold award, for its innovative use of information technology to promote tourism across the world.

Launched in 1998, the Kerala Tourism website today receives around 4.2 million visits and 14 million page views annually.

I & B Ministry bags Platinum icon in Web Ratna Awards 2014

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has been awarded the Platinum icon award for the Comprehensive Web presence in the Web Ratna Awards 2014. The award today was conferred by the Minister for Communications & Information Technology in the presence of Secretary, M/o C&IT, Shri R.S. Sharma. The award was received by Ms. R. Jaya, Joint Secretary on behalf of Secretary (I&B), Shri Bimal Julka along with the New Media Wing team of the Ministry.

The award was presented to Ministry of Information & Broadcasting for having a significant presence on all social media sites which makes it accessible for users through multiple online platforms. The website follows GIGW guidelines. It caters to the information needs of various stakeholders by providing access to all the policies and guidelines issued by the Ministry. The home page of MIB website has timestamp, giving last update details. The website has a dedicated Hindi version besides regular English version. The portal has a Google enabled search facility to search within the HTML content. The website is based on Content Management System (CMS).

Web Ratna Awards have been instituted by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, acknowledges unique initiatives/practices of various states/UTs in the realm of e-governance. The Government of India has been bracing for innovation and transformation in delivery of information/services with adoption of best ICT practices. Web Ratna Awards recognize these e-governance initiatives. Web Ratna Awards were instituted to appreciate and acknowledge the initiatives and contributions of individuals & institutions and their innovations, which have empowered the Government in achieving the vision of good governance. Web Ratna Awards was instituted in the year 2009.

Avoid Indiscriminate Use of #Urea

Constant decline in soil fertility status, mainly due to nutrient removal by intensive cropping systems in amounts far-exceeding their replenishment through fertilizers and manures during past few decades, is considered one of the serious second-generation problems of Green Revolution.  Farmers often use nitrogenous fertilizers (mostly urea) or nitrogenous and complex fertilizers (mostly urea and DAP), ignoring the application of potash and other deficient nutrients. 

On the other hand, multi-nutrient deficiencies have already emerged and expanded in most of the soils. Soil analysis under different projects revealed widespread deficiency of at least six nutrients viz., Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potash (K), Sulphur (S), Zinc (Zn) and Boron (B) in different parts of the country.  Some diagnostic surveys carried out in rice-wheat growing areas of north-western India revealed that farmers often apply greater than recommended rates of N to sustain the yield levels that were attained earlier with even less fertilizer use. 

Urea, being most common N fertilizer, is indiscriminately used irrespective of scientific prescriptions.  Excessive use of urea leads to several adverse implications on soil, crop quality and overall ecosystem.  Some major disadvantages of excessive/indiscriminate use of urea are listed as under:

It enhances mining of soil nutrients that are not applied or applied inadequately, thus leading to deterioration of soil fertility.   Such soils may require more fertilizers over time to produce optimum yields. 

Nitrogen applied in excess of crop demand is lost through volatilization, denitrification and leaching.

Excessive use of N (urea) encourages climate change (when lost through denitrification) and groundwater pollution (when lost through leaching).  Increase in nitrate content of groundwater in some intensively-cropped areas has been reported, which is obviously due to leaching of nitrates beyond crop root zone.  Increase in nitrate content of groundwater is potentially harmful, as it is used for drinking purposes in most of the rural areas.

Fertilizer N (urea) application beyond recommended rates enhances crop succulence, thus making the plants prone to disease and pest infestation, and to lodging.

Unbalanced use of urea decreases N use efficiency, thus leads to increase in cost of production and lowering of net profits.

For increasing use efficiency of N and other nutrients, profitability and environmental safety, fertilizer N (urea) application needs to be rationalized.  A few guidelines for rational use of N fertilizers are indicated below:

Fertilizer N (urea) application should be invariably balanced not only with P and K but also with deficient secondary and micronutrients.

Soil test-based fertilizer prescriptions have to be adopted.  Farmers should insist for S and micronutrient testing, as NPK alone (without S and micronutrients) is no longer balanced fertilizer prescription.

Neem oil coated urea should be preferred over pilled urea, especially for basal dressing. 

Losses of N are usually less when urea is top-dressed before irrigation.

Modified N scheduling using leaf color chart (LCC) gives better N use efficiency in crops.  LCC-based real-time N application needs to be promoted in the crops (like rice and wheat) for which LCC thresholds are available.

Conjoint use of organic manures and fertilizers may help curtailing the application of fertilizers including that of urea.

Inclusion of legumes may curtail fertilizer N (urea) requirement by 25-50%. Depending on cropping system and availability of irrigation, legumes could be introduced as catch crop, green manures, forage crop, break crop or as short duration grain crop.

#InsuranceReform – A Game Changer

Insurance industry in India is a $250 billion industry, equivalent to four-fifth of the country’s foreign exchange reserves. But its growth has been hampered because of the unusual delay in the passage of Insurance amendment bill, which 10 years after it was conceived was passed by Parliament recently.

Life insurance has potential to grow at 12 per cent annually and general insurance by 22 per cent in the next ten years as insurance penetration is one of the lowest in the world. But what was standing in the way was infusion of fresh capital, particularly foreign, which was possible only if the foreign direct investment cap is raised. The Insurance amendment bill has precisely done that by raising the FDI cap to 49 per cent from the present 26 per cent.

The last few years have been challenging for the industry with declining growth in life insurance premiums and significant challenges in non-life profitability. This was driven by a combination of macro-economic factors and structural challenges inherent in the insurance industry. Confederation of Indian Industry is of the view that this can be reversed by concerted action by industry players. The Insurance amendment bill also brings in regulatory reforms.

A CII report prepared in partnership with global consultancy firm McKinsey says the Insurance industry in India is at an inflexion point in its development. With Government’s reformative drive and resolve, the industry can jointly achieve the vision of building a customer centric and value-creating industry over the next decade. The inclusive growth will enable India to become a global top 10 insurance market with a total Gross Written Premium size of $250 billion.

India had very poor penetration of life insurance cover accounting for less than one per cent of population. With the opening up of the sector to private players and foreign direct investment up to 26 per cent in the late 1990s, the life insurance cover has more than trebled to 3.7 per cent of the population by 2012. With FDI cap being raised up to 49 per cent now, the life insurance cover will nearly double to 6 per cent of population in the next five years and to more than 10 per cent by 2025. It is also not true to say that state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India’s growth has been stunted with the opening up. In fact opening up has helped LIC as new technologies and methods have come into the sector now and competition had made the state owned organization more aggressive. LIC’s annual premium on life insurance has increased from Rs 19,000 crore at the turn of the century to 3.64 lakh crore by 2012

To achieve the targets set for next five years, India needs nearly Rs 50,000 crore of additional capital in the sector, of which nearly half would have to come by way of foreign investment.

The Life Insurance industry has around 380 million policies in force and pays claims for around 12 per cent of the total deaths in the country. It has a critical role given the limited social security avenues available and has also played a crucial role in inculcating the savings habit among a large mass of the population which has limited access to other forms of savings, the CII study says.

Over the last five decades, the industry has developed significantly on dimensions related to access, efficiency and structure. However, much of the gains of the first 10 years of insurance sector liberalisation have been wiped out in the past 4 years as the industry has been impacted significantly by macro-economic, regulatory and internal structural challenges. The industry is at the crossroads today, with a real risk of losing its relevance if the status quo continues. The insurance reform bill has therefore come at an appropriate time.

Take for instance health insurance cover. The amount of money individuals spent on medical treatment totaled to around Rs 3 lakh crore annually in India, of which only Rs 20,000 crore is through insurance cover. The rest Rs 2.8 lakh crore is spent on medical treatment particularly by the poor and lower middle class through their hard-earned savings or borrowing at high cost or by selling family silver. The general insurance cover, of which health and motor vehicle insurance formed part of it accounted for only 0.7 per cent of the population. It is expected to double to nearly 2 percent in the next five years. With life and general insurance cover doubling in the next five to 10 years more than 700 million lives can be covered providing much needed social safety net hitherto not available to vast majority of the population. With Jan-Dhan Yojana, which has a mandatory accident insurance cover, can help in insurance penetration. Crop insurance is yet another area where there is a lot of potential.

The General Insurance industry has witnessed a strong performance with 18 per cent growth between 2005 and 2014 and is now a $13 billion industry breaking into the top 20 industry globally. It currently provides cover of more than $ 17,000 billion.

But home insurance penetration is less than 1 per cent; there is significant under-insurance in segments such as two-wheelers and personal health; corporate (property and indemnity), SME and rural risk coverage are substantially lower than global benchmarks. These are areas in which there could be significant growth in the next 5-10 years.

The government sponsored Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) provides coverage to the population below the poverty line. The health insurance cover provided to poor in Tamil Nadu has worked wonders. It has not only helped poor get treatment but also helped government earn money through insurance claim. The Tamil Nadu government’s popular health card scheme that provided insurance up to 2 lakh per family or individual has helped General Hospital in Chennai alone earn Rs 18 crore last year by way insurance claim for treatment of poor people covered under the scheme. This scheme could win-win for both government and poor people. 

The government has recently announced that it would promote universal health coverage. There are several learnings from other markets as well. In Brazil 40 per cent of the spending on health is through health insurance unlike in India where it is just 6-7 per cent. Health insurance has potential to penetrate to more than 75 per cent of 1.2 billion population in the country.

The Insurance Amendment Bill, passed by parliament also safeguards Indian ownership and control and provided Insurance regulator, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) flexibility to discharge its functions more effectively and efficiently. The Bill amends the Insurance Act, 1938, the General Insurance Business (Nationalization) Act, 1972 and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Act, 1999.

The amended law, which replaces an ordinance enacted in December 2014, also enables foreign reinsurers to set up branches in India including top global re-insurance company Llyods.

It is not India alone opening up its insurance sector. Many countries allow foreign direct investment in the insurance sector as domestic companies do not have the wherewithal or resourced to meet insurance requirement of the entire population. Also reinsurance is critical for sharing the risk cover involving billions of dollars in the event of natural calamities and large accidents.  In US, UK, Japan, France and Germany, FDI up to 100 per cent is allowed in the sector. Even in China up to 50 per cent FDI is allowed. In case of Indonesia it is 80 per cent and Malaysia, it is 51 per cent. Even after the opening up only up to 49 per cent FDI is allowed in India.

Apart from deepening penetration, the opening up of insurance and pension sector helps Indian government and companies to access long-term funding for infrastructure projects, which require investment up to $1 trillion in the next five years.  Only pension and insurance funds can provide long-term capital of 10-30 years duration as only they have access to such long term deposits. Unfortunately in India commercial banks fund infrastructure projects because access to long-term capital is now limited. Banks by nature get deposits short-to-medium term and hence lend short-to-medium term. Now by lending long term, banks in India have asset-liability mis-match. Access to pension and insurance funds will make it easier for long term funding of infra projects. Foreign insurance players operating in India will now provide access to pension and insurance funds of their parent companies. The US and Canadian pension and insurance funds are waiting to invest their huge capital in countries like India this insurance reform will pave the way.

#‎ukpcs2012mainstestseries‬

Amnesty International human rights award 2015

Amnesty International has given its top 2015 human rights award to both Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, a fierce critic of Beijing, who has been banned from leaving China after an 81-day detention in 2011, and U.S. folksinger Joan Baez.

The Ambassador of Conscience Award recognises "those who have shown exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights, through their life and work", Amnesty said in a statement on Tuesday.

Previous winners include Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela and Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Through his work Ai Weiwei reminds us that the right of every individual to express their self must be protected, not just for the sake of society, but also for art and humanity," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's Secretary-General, in the statement.

Mr. Shetty said of Mr. Baez: "With her mesmerising voice and unwavering commitment to peaceful protest and human rights for all, Joan Baez has been a formidable force for good over more than five decades".

The joint award will be presented at a ceremony in Berlin on May 21, the statement said.

But it is almost certain that Mr. Ai, 57, will not be able to collect it as he remains under close surveillance and is unable to leave China.

In 2011, Mr. Ai was detained without any charge and held mainly in solitary confinement, sparking an international outcry. A court later upheld a $2.4 million fine against Ai for tax evasion.

The world-renowned artist maintains the charges were trumped up in retaliation for his criticism of the government.