Uniqueness of India’s smart cities

Uniqueness of India’s smart cities
Indian smart city efforts need to recognize the economic differences between its cities
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bold commitment to build 100 smart cities throughout India is a worthy centrepiece of his urban agenda. The promise of this tech-savvy approach is greater livability, sustainability and improved public accountability. Such an extensive modernization effort would also deliver jobs and attract new investment through several important global partnerships, including a new partnership with the US government and industry. The challenge facing the initiative is to make sure it responds to the unique challenges within India’s cities and not simply clone efforts going on worldwide.

For global firms providing smart city services, the Indian initiative offers a unique opportunity to invest in a rapidly growing market. By one estimate, the smart cities market worldwide is projected to hit $1.5 trillion by 2020. Partly because of its enormous potential, a multitude of experts, analysts, public and private firms are rushing into India with ideas ranging from the use of information and digital infrastructure to manage the energy and water use in buildings, to the creation of intelligent transport networks to minimize congestion.

But a technology-first approach to smart city development, without a clear understanding of local conditions, traditions and realities, will often fail to result in sustained, community-wide change. From the perspective of individual private firms, a smart city is often whatever that firm happens to be selling because local city governments do not have the capacity to be good business partners and navigators of the public interest. If the idea of a “smart” city is limited to the deployment of technology-driven solutions to urban challenges, then it will fail to meet private industry’s ambitions for effective uptake and public leaders’ desires for local impact. With this in mind, the India and the US can act—not top-down but bottom-up—to deliver the true promise of smart cities.

Today, most of the leading global best practices around smart cities are found in developed cities. Places such as Barcelona, Helsinki, Toronto, Singapore and San Francisco are often at the top of most lists of “smart cities” because they have the resources and expertise to be good business partners and navigators of the public interest. But the challenges and opportunities for smart cities in developing countries like India—that are urbanizing at a dizzying pace—need to focus more on the basics: clean and reliable energy, safe and secure streets, transparency and citizen engagement. A better example to watch may be Nairobi because of its focus on broadband, mobile apps and government efficiency.

Governance of cities is critical to the sustained prosperity of their citizens and economy. In this regard, it is important to contrast and recognize the different role of each level of government within India compared to other countries. While globally, most smart cities are governed at the city level, this is not the case in India. Smart cities in India are part of a national effort driven by New Delhi, but it is the states that still wield great authority. At a recent event with Indian members of Parliament in Washington D.C., Kalvakuntla Kavitha, one of the MPs, remarked that nearly 70% of government decisions are made at the state level. State governments are at liberty to engage directly with other countries to attract foreign investment and are largely responsible for all infrastructure development. This is a welcome development that has been driven by the recent devolution of power by the federal government to the states. Further devolution of authority to the cities and local municipalities, however difficult, is critical for the success of the smart cities initiative. Significant and urgent political reforms are required for this to happen in the country.

Nevertheless, the Indian smart city efforts need to recognize the economic differences between its cities because off-the-shelf technology solutions are not viable and will vary in each market. Take the three cities that are part of the US-India smart city partnership, Ajmer, Visakhapatnam (Vizag) and Allahabad. Vizag has, by far, the largest economy (more than twice as large as Allahabad and four times that of Ajmer) of which trade and transport are the largest component. Allahabad has a clear specialization in so-called “unregistered manufacturing” which is driven by small-scale enterprises. Agriculture was the largest industry in Ajmer in 2000 and has remained a relatively stable and core strength of the local economy over the past decade.

These specializations are important because smart cites in India should not be about starting the places over in detached nodes, physically separated from the rest of the city, like in Nairobi and Masdar City. Rather, smart cities require sharp self-awareness: each Indian smart city should develop or update a strategic plan for growth, one that has clear goals towards basic service improvement, job growth and productivity, economic inclusion, and sustainability and resilience. The technological deployments under the smart city rubric should then aim to deliver on those goals.

Make no mistake, India has an opportunity to make the three cities the model for smart city development. But that model means leveraging private resources and working with partners at all levels of government to help the cities define for themselves what their technology-driven future looks like.

IISc Bangalore ranked 16th in emerging nations’ varsity list

IISc Bangalore ranked 16th in emerging nations’ varsity list
IISc and IIT-Bombay are the two scientific research and higher education institutions from India that are among the top 30 in the rankings
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has climbed nine places to 16th spot in a list of the top 200 universities from 35 emerging nations, including the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries.

IISc and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay are the two scientific research and higher education institutions from India that are among the top 30 in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) BRICS and Emerging Economies Ranking 2016. THE is a London-based university ranking agency.

Overall, 16 Indian universities have found place in the top 200 list. “India takes 16 places in this year’s ranking with the IISc making its debut in the top 20 (16th) and IIT Bombay, the top 30 (29th),” THE said in its study released on Wednesday.

IIT Madras (rank 36) has climbed eight places in the ranking compared to last year; its peer IIT-Delhi remained at rank 37. IIT Kharagpur (rank 45) rounds off the list of the top five Indian universities/schools.

“Top institutions including IITs have realized that despite the existing flaws in global rankings, they do influence positioning. So, they are now giving more attention to rankings,” said R. Nagarajan, a professor at IIT Madras and adviser to the institute’s alumni affairs office.

“IITs are now more focused and doing all that is needed to improve themselves in terms of education, research, consulatncy and efforts are on for internationalization. So, eventually, it will show up in international rankings,” Nagarajan added.

With 39 institutions in the top 200 list, China, however, was the clear leader. Chinese institutions occupied the top 2 spots, and captured five positions in the top 10. Taiwan was a distant second with 24 universities in the top 200 and India is the third best represented country, THE said.

Peking University of China is the top university in this year’s ranking among BRICS and emerging economies, followed by Tsinghua University. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia), University of Cape Town (South Africa) and National Taiwan University (Taiwan) round off the top five.

“It is good news for India that 16 of its institutions feature in this year’s list of the best universities in the BRICS nations and emerging economies. However, India will have to work harder to compete with other developing nations, such as Russia, which have a higher proportion of institutions in the upper echelons of the table. India is the only BRICS nation without a university in the top 10,” said Phil Baty, editor of THE World University Rankings.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education, said India has already started working on a national ranking system, which will help its institutions do better in global rankings.

Karthick Sridhar, vice-chairman of Indian Centre for Academic Rankings and Excellence, said developing world-class universities requires commitment of money backed by a strong determination from the government.

“To create world-class capacity in research, resources must not only be abundant, they must also be allocated on the basis of scholarly merit, rather than on the basis of seniority or political influence,” Sridhar added.

Unshackling the states from central schemes

Unshackling the states from central schemes
A large number of central schemes end up curbing the autonomy of states
n some ways, the thunder of finance minister Arun Jaitley’s first full-year budget was stolen by the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) report. Released just a few days before the budget speech was made, the FFC brought in significant changes in state-centre finances by increasing the devolution to states from 32% to 42% of the net Union tax receipts. With fewer funds to disburse, the Union budget delinked as many as eight centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) from the support of the Union government. Many others were now to be implemented with altered financing patterns.
A recent report of a sub-group of chief ministers offers the Union government an institutional framework to further consolidate the salutary trends in fiscal devolution under the new emblem of cooperative federalism. Over the years, proliferation of CSS has greatly curbed the autonomy of the state governments. The greater the devolution through these one-size-fits-all CSS, the lesser is the untied fund available to the state governments. The budget of 2014-15 made provisions for 66 CSS out of which 17 were declared ‘flagship schemes’. The non-flagship schemes received low budgetary provisions spread thin among sectors and between states. The states had to still implement these schemes in order to avail of the matching grant from the centre.
The sub-group constituted under the aegis of NITI Aayog “to examine the current CSS and recommend their suitable rationalization” has suggested a better and lighter framework. The sub-group has recommended pruning the number of CSS down to 30 from 50 in 2015-16 and 66 the year before. This step, if implemented, will be a welcome part of the next budget.
The sub-group has further asked the CSS to be divided into core schemes and optional schemes. The core schemes will require mandatory implementation by the states, and the centre will fund 100% share for the Union territories, 90% for the eight north-eastern (NE) and three Himalayan states, and 60% for the rest of the states. The corresponding figures for the optional schemes are 100%, 80% and 50%, respectively.
In the proposed structure, the states will have the flexibility of choosing the optional schemes they want to implement. The fund meant for the scheme opted out by any state can be used in other schemes. The states will be free to deselect some components of a scheme they are implementing. The sub-group also recommends increasing the flexi-funds—meant to provide greater flexibility to spend on diverse requirements under the overall objective of the scheme—from 10% to 25%. In short, the mantra is to unshackle the states from the firm grip of central schemes.
Interestingly, the use of the phrase “8 NE and 3 Himalayan states” instead of “special category states” has important implications if this report is accepted. One, it means the generous terms of funding from the Union government for central schemes in these states is likely to be retained. Two, the discontinuation of block grants undertaken in 2015-16 seems irreversible. The special category states were disproportionate beneficiaries of the block grants—including Normal Central Assistance, one-time Additional Central Assistance, Special Central Assistance and Special Plan Assistance—which have now been subsumed into the increased FFC devolutions.
Three, the phrase “special category” may eventually be phased out. The formulation of these states as “8 NE and 3 Himalayan states” is an inkling in that direction. Four, this will bring a much-needed end to the practice of states queuing up for special category status. Some sops extended to special category states do not do away with the need for these states to improve their state capacities and public finances. On 29 October, at a press conference in Patna in response to a question on Bihar’s demand for special category status, Jaitley remarked that the era of special category status to states is over. Unsurprisingly, the chief ministers of the special category states—both part of the sub-group and otherwise—are not very pleased.
The constitution of the sub-group was an excellent example of involving the states in the decision-making process. The next budget provides the central government to further empower the states by pruning the number of CSS. The eventual elimination of special category status will also do good to the very states which are the current beneficiaries.
Should the next Union budget further reduce the number of centrally sponsored schemes?

Infosys Prize- 2015

Infosys Prize- 2015
Infosys Science Foundation on 16 November 2015 announced the names of the winners of Infosys Prize for the year 2015.
The Infosys Prize 2015 was announced for six categories, namely, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences.
The winners of the Infosys Prize 2015 were evaluated by a panel of jurors comprising of esteemed scientists and professors from around the world.
The jury chairs of the six categories are: Prof. Pradeep K. Khosla (University of California San Diego) for Engineering and Computer Science; Prof. Amartya Sen (Harvard University) for Humanities; Dr. Inder Verma (Salk Institute of Biological Sciences) for Life Sciences; Prof. Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan (New York University) for Mathematical Sciences; Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni (California Institute of Technology) for Physical Sciences; and Prof. Kaushik Basu (The World Bank) for Social Sciences.
The prize for each category consists of money prize of Rs. 65 Lakhs, a 22 karat gold medallion and a citation certificate.
The winners will be awarded on 13 February 2016 in a ceremony at New Delhi by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee.
List of Winners:
Engineering and Computer Science:Won by Prof. Umesh Waghmare of Theoretical Sciences Unit, of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore.
He was awarded for his innovative use of first-principles theories and modeling in insightful investigations of microscopic mechanisms responsible for specific properties of certain materials such as topological insulators, ferroelectrics, multiferroics and graphene.
Humanities:Won by Prof. Jonardon Ganeri, Global Network Professor of Philosophy, New York University and Recurrent Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, UK.
He was awarded for his originality in interpreting and scrutinizing analytical Indian Philosophy and shedding light on dichotomy between Indian and Greek traditions of philosophical reasoning.
Life Sciences:Won by Dr. Amit Sharma, Group Leader, Structural and Computational Biology Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi.
He was awarded for his pioneering contributions towards deciphering the molecular structure, at the atomic level, of key proteins involved in the biology of pathogenesis of the deadly malaria parasite.
Mathematical Sciences: Won by Prof. Mahan Mj, Professor of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
He was awarded for establishing a central conjecture in the Thurston program to study hyperbolic 3-manifolds and introduced important new tools to study fundamental groups of complex manifolds.
Physical Sciences: Won by Prof. G Ravindra Kumar, Professor in the Department of Nuclear and Atomic Physics (DNAP), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.
He was awarded for his contributions to the physics of high intensity laser matter interactions.
These results have significance to testing stellar and astrophysical scenarios.
Social Sciences: Won by Dr. Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
He was awarded for outstanding research that synthesizes military history, international politics, and strategic analysis into powerful and imaginative perspectives on India in global context.
The Infosys Prize is awarded under the aegis of the Infosys Science Foundation, a not-for-profit trust instituted in February 2009.
The Infosys Science Foundation is funded by a corpus which today stands at over INR 130 Crore (USD 20 million)
The first time in 2008 only Infosys Prize of mathematics was awarded.
After the establishment of Infosys Science Foundation four more categories were included.
The Prize was originally given across five categories: Engineering and Computer Science, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences but a sixth category – the Humanities – was added in 2012.

India Lags in Net Access, Ranks 131 in ICT Index

India Lags in Net Access, Ranks 131 in ICT Index





India has been ranked 131 out of 167 countries by the ICT Development Index of the International Telecommunication Union, which measures countries according to their level of ICT (information, communication and technology) access, use and skills. Although India has made tremendous progress in raising its telecom density, the country remains far behind when it comes to providing internet access. The ITU report, Measuring the Information Society, said that 3.2 billion people are now online, or 43.4% of the global population. In contrast, only 18% Indians have access to the internet. Worldwide, 7.1 billion people are covered by a mobile-cellular signal. By the end of this year, 46% of households globally will have internet access at home, up from 44% last year and just 30% in 2010. In India, 15.3% of households have internet access. Here's a look...

Global Agricultural Transition Under Way to Boost Resilience to Climate Change and Reduce Emissions

Global Agricultural Transition Under Way to Boost Resilience to Climate Change and Reduce Emissions
Six Cooperative Initiatives Driving Climate Resilient, Productive and Low Emissions Agriculture
Paris, 1 December 2015 - Governments and food and agriculture organizations join today at the LPAA Focus on Agriculture to respond to the urgent climate challenges facing agriculture with six cooperative initiatives that will protect the long-term livelihoods of millions of farmer and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Agriculture is one of the sectors most seriously affected by extreme climate but it also accounts for 24 % of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which cause climate change.
The initiatives focus on four key areas: soils in agriculture, the livestock sector, food losses and waste, and sustainable production methods and resilience of farmers.
Together, these partnerships will deploy money and know-how across both developed and developing nations to help hard-pressed farmers become key actors in the global drive to achieve a low-carbon, climate-resilient future.
This exceptional half-day reveals the effective and concrete progress that can be made when a wide, international set of stakeholders work together to build resilience and low-carbon systems of production in agricultural and food systems.
At the heart of the Action Agenda, the six major initiatives supporting farmers include:
The “4/1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate”
Officially launched today by a hundred partners (developed and developing states, international organizations, private foundations, international funds, NGOs and farmers' organization) the 4/1000 Initiative aims to protect and increase carbon stocks in soils. Soils can store huge quantities of carbon and contributing to limitation of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere, supplementing the necessary efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally and generally throughout the economy.The partners decided to reinforce their actions on appropriate soil management, recognizing the importance of soil health for the transition towards productive, highly resilient agriculture. This initiative intends to show that a small increase of 4/1000 per year of the soil carbon stock (agricultural soils, notably grasslands and pastures, and forest soils) is a major leverage in order to improve soil fertility, resilience of farmers and contribute to the long-term objective of keeping the global average temperature increase below 2 degrees.
Life Beef Carbon
Farmers from four European countries are joining forces and taking the lead to reduce the carbon footprint of the livestock sector. Initially launched in October 2015, the “Life Beef Carbon” initiative, inspired by France’s Dairy Carbon Program, aims at promoting innovative livestock farming systems and associated practices to ensure the technical, economic, environmental and social sustainability of beef farms, and thus to reduce the contribution of livestock production to GHG emissions. The initiative aims to reduce the beef carbon footprint by 15% over 10 years in France, Ireland, Italy and Spain.
“Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme” (ASAP)
Through this initiative, IFAD and its partners commit to investing climate finance in poor smallholder farmers in developing countries to generate multiple benefits. Smallholder farmers are among the best possible clients for climate finance. Such investments can increase agricultural productivity while at the same time restoring and maintaining a resilient natural resource base and reducing agriculture's carbon footprint. This initiativeis being reinforced by 12 additional countries joining the current list of 44 country partners, increasing the total amount of committed ASAP funds up to US$285 million. By 2034, this additional funding will avoid or sequester 80 million tons of GHG emissions (CO2e) and will strengthen the resilience of 8 million smallholders.
15 West-African Countries Transitioning to Agro-ecology
The Promotion of Agro-ecology Transition in West Africa is a regional initiative led by ECOWAS and focused on Africa. It concerns 15 countries, including Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Senegal. The main financial partners include the European Union, the World Bank, and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) of the African Union. This impact-full initiative delivers both adaptation and emission mitigation benefit. It will allow the adoption of agro-ecological practices by 25 million households by 2025.
The Blue Growth Initiative (BGI)
A multi-partner initiative led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that supports climate resilience, food security, poverty alleviation and sustainable management of living aquatic resources in coastal communities, especially in small island developing states. The actions aim at a 10% reduction in carbon emissions from fishery value chains in 10 target countries within 5 years (and 25% within 10 years), and the reduction of overfishing by 20% in the target countries within 5 years (50% within 10 years).
The SAVE FOOD Initiative - (the Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction)
Thisis a unique partnership led by FAO, with over 500 companies and organizations from industry and civil society active in food loss and waste reduction. It aims to drive innovations, promote interdisciplinary dialogue and spark debates to generate solutions across the entire value chain, “from field to fork”. This initiative has recently developed a technical platform, that will be launched in the coming days, to measure and reduce food loss and waste. Altogether, this should allow a major reduction in agriculture emissions, as global food waste and loss account for 3.3Gt of CO2 equivalent per year.
To find out more about all the initiatives presented under the Agriculture Focus, please refer to the press kit online.
The 4/1000 initiative
The “Life Beef Carbon” initiative
The “Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme”
The Promotion of agro-ecology transition in West Africa
The Blue Growth Initiative
The “Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction – SAVE FOOD”
ABOUT LPAA
The Lima-Paris Action Agenda is a joint undertaking of the Peruvian and French COP presidencies, the Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the UNFCCC Secretariat. It aims to strengthen climate action throughout 2015, in Paris in December and well beyond through: mobilizing robust global action towards low carbon and resilient societies; providing enhanced support to existing initiatives, such as those launched during the NY SG Climate summit in September 2014; and mobilizing new partners and providing a platform for the visibility of their actions, commitments and results in the run up to COP21.

UPSC 2015 MAINS ADMIT CARD IS OUT

UPSC 2015 MAINS ADMIT CARD IS OUT
CHECK YOUR EXAM CENTRE
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