Supportive governments are an imperative to kick-start development in the least developed states

How to fast forward the backward states

Supportive governments are an imperative to kick-start development in the least developed states

The recent Bihar election was a fierce contest for political space. The stakes were high, and there were national implications. The campaign sought to focus on development, but it was also about caste and religion. Even so, development outcomes over the past decade, attributed to the Nitish Kumar-led governments, probably did exercise a significant influence on the election verdict.

Yet, in 2015, Bihar is among the poorest and least developed states of India. Its larger neighbour Uttar Pradesh, which goes to the polls in 2017, is about the same. So is Odisha. This group also includes Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, despite some change for the better. Once upon a time, the five were described as BIMARU states, which is no longer politically correct. It is, in effect, the Hindi heartland plus Odisha. For India to progress fast, and more evenly, these states need to catch up with the richer ones.

Taken together, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha, account for 45% of India’s population and 35% of its land area. But they contribute only 28% of national income and are home to 53% of the people who live below the official poverty line in India. This represents an underutilization of our most abundant resource, people, and also our most scarce resource, land. It also suggests that there is a vast potential for development, which could transform India if only it can be mobilized.

Observers and analysts have highlighted the impressive growth performance of these states since the early 2000s, as average annual output growth rates, in real terms, were close to double-digit levels, until the downturn in the national economy. Did this help them reduce the wide income gap with other states? The answer is a clear no, at least partly because they grew from low bases.

Click here for enlarge

Figure 1 compares the population-weighted Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) per capita in these five states with that in the top five states, at decadal intervals, from 1980-81 to 2010-11. For the purpose of comparison over time, in this exercise, Bihar includes Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh includes Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh includes Chhattisgarh. This comparison also excludes the small states in the North-east and the Union territories. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were the bottom five throughout the period. The top five included Haryana and Maharashtra throughout, Punjab, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thrice, and Kerala twice, in the four selected years. It reveals a widening gap. Output per capita in the bottom five states as a percentage of that in the top five states dropped from 56% in 1980-81 to 39% in 2010-11.

Similarly, figure 2 shows that per capita income in the poorest state, Bihar throughout the period, as a percentage of that in the richest state, Punjab thrice and Haryana once, in the four selected years, fell from 35% in 1980-81 to 25% in 2010-11.

There are two reasons for this divergence in incomes between rich states and poor states, despite rapid growth in the latter. For one, output growth was rapid even in the richer states, while population growth rates were significantly higher in the poorer states so that the growth in their income per capita was distinctly lower, leading to the widening gap. For another, the distribution of increments in output attributable to growth was unequal between regions.

This is neither surprising nor altogether new. It is in the logic of markets, accentuated by liberalization, which tends to widen regional disparities because of a cumulative causation that creates market-driven virtuous or vicious circles. Regions that are better endowed with natural resources, physical infrastructure, skilled labour or educated people, experience rapid growth. Like magnets, they attract resources and people from elsewhere. In contrast, disadvantaged regions tend to lag behind and become even more disadvantaged. Over time, the gap widens through such cumulative causation. This has happened in most developing countries that have experienced rapid growth, whether China and Indonesia in Asia or Brazil and Mexico in Latin America.

Growth matters because it is cumulative. If output growth, in real terms, is 10% a year, output doubles in seven years. If per capita income growth, in real terms, is 7% (or 5%) a year, per capita income doubles in 10 or (14 years). But the complexity of economic growth cannot be reduced to a simple arithmetic of compound growth rates. It is also important to consider what drives and sustains economic growth.

In this context, it might be interesting to consider international development experience. There are rich and poor countries in the world economy, just as there are rich and poor states in India. The laggard states in India are large enough in terms of population size (and geographical size) to be countries. Uttar Pradesh (200 million people) compares with Brazil (205) million or Nigeria (180 million). Bihar (104 million) compares with the Philippines (105 million) or Vietnam (93 million). Madhya Pradesh (73 million) and Rajasthan (69 million) are comparable with Turkey (76 million) or Thailand (70 million). Odisha (42 million) is comparable with South Korea (48 million) or Argentina (40 million).

My research on developing countries in the world economy reveals some catching up by Asia, Latin America and Africa taken together, with the industrialized world, which gathered momentum circa 1980, in terms of their share in world output, manufacturing and trade. The divergence in per capita incomes stopped and a very modest convergence started after 2000. But this process was distributed in an unequal manner between regions and between countries within regions. Even so, there are lessons that emerge from this experience.

There were three common factors underlying the success of latecomers to industrialization and development: initial conditions, enabling institutions and supportive governments. I believe that these are important pointers from which the underdeveloped states of India can learn something about how to kick-start development.

There are two aspects of initial conditions. The first is the creation of a physical infrastructure, led by the government, through public investment in power, roads, transport and communications. The infrastructure that exists is simply inadequate if not verging on collapse. The second is the spread of education in society, where primary and secondary education should be the focus, with an emphasis on learning outcomes. This will need a massive overhaul of public schooling systems that have atrophied with the passage of time.

Institutions are not pre-conditions that can be created in a vacuum but evolve in the process of development. Yet, some enabling institutions and institutional changes are essential to break the stranglehold of inertia and the status quo.

The most important, perhaps, is the administrative systems of government. Corruption and rents, patronage and exploitation, or arbitrariness or inefficiency, are deeply embedded flaws. These can be controlled and must be minimized by making ministers, legislators and administrators responsive and accountable to people, so that performance is rewarded and incompetence is penalized. This means preservation rather than subversion of the rule of law. This means transparency in information and decisions. This means introducing institutionalized checks and balances.

The other sphere, almost as important, is the agricultural sector and rural development. It cries out for attention after prolonged neglect. In Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha, the share of the rural population in total population, even now, is in the range of 75-90%. There is a desperate need to rejuvenate or establish institutions that can provide extension services (administrative reform), access to credit (agricultural bank), or irrigation facilities (in mission mode), for farmers. The availability of energy and credit in rural areas would also foster rural industrialization and non-agricultural employment through entrepreneurship.

Supportive governments are an imperative to kick-start development in the least developed states. This has multiple dimensions. But there are three that deserve emphasis.

Insofar as development is about the well-being of people, these state governments should concentrate on safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, and public health in rural areas, to support social consumption for those who cannot meet these basic human needs through private incomes.

Insofar as development is about transforming the production capabilities of economies, there is a role for these state governments in evolving policies, developing institutions and making strategic interventions, whether as a catalyst or a leader. Given the near zero output elasticity of employment in agriculture, the only potential for creating employment and raising productivity lies in manufacturing or services. But it is only low-productivity consumer services that are likely to be located in such states.

The obvious strategic choice in the medium-term would be to develop manufacturing. For this purpose, the creation of a physical infrastructure and creating a milieu that is conducive to, or attractive for private investment, whether domestic or foreign, are necessary conditions. This quest for industrialization would benefit from imparting vocational education for skill development, setting up an institutional framework, say in the form of a board chaired by the chief minister, to formulate industrial policy, and establishing a state industrial development bank to help finance investment.

The third dimension, good governance, is critical. Governance capabilities do matter. Indeed, the quality of governance is an important determinant of success or failure at development. The most striking illustration of this proposition is provided by the wide diversity in economic performance across states in India, despite common policies, similar institutions, and the economic union. Public perceptions about governance shape electoral outcomes as people re-elect, or oust, incumbent governments.

Some of this might be easier said than done. But a better world is possible for these states and, hence, for India.

Voters are changing politics. Politicians must reform the civil services.

State of the service

Voters are changing politics. Politicians must reform the civil services.

The latest pay commission report was a disappointment. Any organisation that cares about performance would be delusional to carry out a compensation review without a simultaneous review of organisation structure and human capital. But a commission member felt “such a review falls well beyond the mandate of this commission”. Even if that is literally true, most impactful mandates are not given physically but taken spiritually; the most exasperating but perhaps most common response of civil servants is “above my pay grade” and “outside my job description”. We currently treat our best bureaucrats badly because we don’t punish bad ones; our government has become too big for small things and too small for big things; and the state is unable to deliver on its own intentions.

Blaming India’s bureaucracy for all this is silly. India and Pakistan, born on the same night, have had very different democratic destinies for many reasons, but one of them has been our national civil service cadre (notables include V.P. Menon for the integration of princely states and Sukumar Sen for our first election). On the other hand, India and China, with the same per capita GDPs in 1970, have had very different economic, education and health destinies for many reasons, but one of them has been the monopoly of the permanent, generalist civil services. The only job of the civil services is execution, but not only is the bureaucracy’s collective performance on that narrow metric painful, many bureaucrats don’t have the specialisation to deliver the 12 projects detailed in Nandan Nilekani’s wonderful new co-authored book, Rebooting India. Further, the notion that bureaucrats must protect India from its politicians is wrong and not dissimilar to academic Daniel Bell’s case in his recent book, The China Model, that choosing country leadership without elections delivers superior policy outcomes. The book is interesting but irrelevant. In a democracy, policy is a child of politics.

The first avatar of India’s bureaucracy was the Indian Civil Service (ICS), which Subhas Chandra Bose refused to join because “the ICS perpetuates the British empire” and Jawaharlal Nehru felt “was neither Indian nor Civil nor Service”. The second avatar began after Independence. Sardar Patel convinced Nehru of the importance of a “uniform national administrative structure with considerable central control”. Ironically, assimilating 562 British franchise operations — the princely states — along with Partition made a system designed to control 300 million subjects seem like the right configuration to govern 300 million citizens. It was the right call: A permanent generalist civil services staffed by a highly meritocratic selection process led to a golden period for the civil services because politicians and bureaucrats were idealistic and frugal, one-party democracy kept the political economy simple, and the primary goal was nation-building. The third avatar began in the 1970s, when the national political monopoly broke down, politics became the country’s highest EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margin business, idealism diminished and bureaucrats began taking sides (the biggest surprise for me in Coomi Kapoor’s great book, The Emergency: A Personal History was how civil servants fell in line). This led to them losing their independence, retaining their permanence and amplifying their “generalness”. It also coincided with the start of the period — 25 years after Independence — when nation-building skills became less important than poverty reduction skills.

The fourth avatar of the bureaucracy should be about creating an adventurous and accountable state focused on execution. Moving to a cost-to-government structure that monetises all benefits, like houses and cars, and enrols everybody in the employee state insurance and provident fund schemes will enable a more liquid and fluid civil servant labour market. Sharper performance management will end the “outstanding” ranking for 95 per cent of civil servants, which punishes the good and honest ones. This will also enable giving top jobs to 45-year-olds. Then, it will replicate the up-or-out colonel threshold of the army, which prevents the pyramid from becoming a cylinder; people not shortlisted for promotion beyond joint secretary should retire early. It will create a UPSC-administered lateral entry process at the level of joint secretary, equal to 30 per cent of staff. It will introduce an equivalent of Australia’s senior executive service, under which all appointments after joint secretary will be done on five-year contracts through an open application process.

It will enable 25 per cent of all senior positions to be co-terminus political appointees confirmed by a standard and transparent vetting process. It will create a culture of bold decision-making with explicit legal protections; the backseat drivers and post-mortems of the last decade have created an understandable preference for following rules over doing the right thing. It will reduce the physical and spiritual distance from normal people — largely adopted from the British — like red lights/ stars/ flags on cars, drivers, off-book government-paid armies at home, an excessive security apparatus, peons, separate lines, etc, because state legitimacy is corroded by the pedestal narrative. It will reduce the size of the Central government by accelerating the transfer of funds, functions and functionaries to state capitals. It will separate regulator, shareholder and policymaker roles in all areas, and shift government ownership of all PSUs from line ministries to a single holding company tasked with governance and human capital.

The Indian state is not designed for the scale, complexity and accountability it faces. This is not the bureaucracy’s fault. Change will be most sustainable and effective if it comes from inside the civil services, but their senior leadership often spend their final years trying to get post-retirement jobs, rather than caring about systemic reform or their younger colleagues. Change from outside is a second-best choice, but it is unrealistic to expect people to cut the tree they are sitting on. We need a new configuration of the capabilities and relationship between siyasat (the politics), hukumat (the state) and awaam (the people). Voters are massively changing politics. But only politicians can do civil service reform.

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current affairs 0n 11th dec

Anti-dengue vaccine brings hope

At a time when India is struggling with rising number of dengue cases with each passing year, the Mexican government has approved the world’s first anti-dengue vaccine which is designed to protect people in the 9-45 age group from nine to 45 years from all four subtypes of the virus.

Called Dengvaxia, the vaccine has been developed by France-based Sanofi Pasteur and is the result of an extensive clinical development programme running for almost two decades.

“Today, with this first marketing authorisation of Dengvaxia, we have achieved our goal of making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease,” said Olivier Brandicourt, Sanofi’s managing director and CEO said on Wednesday. “This is a historic milestone for our company, for the global public health community and, most importantly, for half the world’s population who lives at risk of dengue,” he added

Kerala to be declared first digital State

Kerala is expected to be declared the first digital State in the country shortly, on the strength of its digital infrastructure and e-governance initiatives. Discussions are on to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make the declaration, Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson said here on Thursday.

Delivering the inaugural address at the Knowledge Sharing Summit organised by the Kerala State IT Mission and Computer Society of India, he said the State had succeeded in leveraging ICT for economic growth and making government services affordable and accessible for the masses. Bridging the digital divide is our priority, he said.

Mr. Thomson highlighted several initiatives under the Digital Kerala programme. Principal Secretary, IT , P.H. Kuriansaid the high mobile and Internet penetration and the increasing use of smart phones had hastened the evolution of Kerala as a digital society.

Supreme Court upholds Haryana panchayat law

It disqualifiesilliterate people from contesting polls

In what may be a precedent preventing illiterate persons from participating in grass roots democracy, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Haryana State law mandating that only those having “minimum” educational qualifications will be eligible to contest panchayat elections in the State.

The other grounds for disqualification from contesting polls under the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 are failure to pay arrears to any primary agriculture co-operative society or agriculture co-operative banks, failure to pay electricity bill arrears and not having a functional toilet at home.

The “minimum” education required for eligibility to contest in a panchayat election is completion of matriculation in case of general candidates; completion of Class 8 for a woman candidate or a candidate belonging to Scheduled Caste; and completion of Class 5 pass for a Scheduled Caste woman candidate contesting for the post of ‘Panch’.

The law leaves 68 per cent of the Scheduled Caste women and 41 per cent of the Scheduled Caste men in Haryana ineligible to contest panchayat elections. The judgment may become a rallying point for other States also to amend their laws in the same fashion.

The verdict by a Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre agrees that the Haryana law creates “two classes of voters,” that is, “those who are qualified by virtue of their educational accomplishment to contest the elections to the panchayats and those who are not.”

But Justice Chelameswar, who authored the verdict, reasons there is nothing “irrational or illegal or unconnected” if the law prescribes minimum educational qualification for candidates. Simply put, the court feels that basic education would “enable the candidates to effectively discharge duties of the panchayat.”

“It is only education which gives a human being the power to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, prescription of an educational qualification is not irrelevant for better administration ,” Justice Chelameswar reasoned.

The court completely agreed with Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi’s submissions during the hearings that the law was meant to elect “model representatives for local self government for better administrative efficiency.”

The apex court failed to find any merit in the argument of three women candidates, spurned by Haryana’s new poll law and who moved the Supreme Court, that “people do not choose to be illiterate.”

Those with minimum educational qualification alone can contest polls

Why high-speed rail is viable

Given that it is a low-energy, low-emission mode of transportation that can reduce costs significantly, India should not miss the opportunity to develop high-speed rail

t has been reported that Japan has offered to finance the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail (HSR) corridor, estimated to cost about Rs 90,000 crore, at an interest rate of less than one per cent. Whenever any news item on HSR appears, questions revolving around whether India really needs HSR are raised. Without cogent and coherent answers to these questions, it will be impossible for HSR projects to gain larger acceptance. This article attempts to consolidate the doubts generally raised about HSR in India and provide comprehensive explanations.

The first question is: Why should we develop HSR when air travel exists for faster travel between cities? India's transport demand will triple or quadruple in the next three decades, and given that the negative externalities in terms of energy consumption and emissions are high for air travel, it is a great opportunity for India to go for low-energy and low-emission modes such as HSR. HSR is comparable with air travel in terms of end-to-end travel time for most inter-city trips of distances up to 600 km in case of HSR and 1,300 km in case of super-HSR such as maglev. In addition, India can also claim carbon credits for resorting to low-carbon transport - without losing on travel time. Thus, HSR is a better option in terms of energy efficiency, carbon footprint and inter-city travel time than air travel.

The second question is: Why can't we upgrade railway lines to provide semi-HSR, such as the one proposed for the Delhi-Agra link, with a maximum speed of 160 km per hour? Our existing railway lines are used by different trains of different speeds, due to variances in the capacity of locomotives and stoppages for passenger trains. This cannot practicably be changed. Operating a few trains at 160 kmph might showcase our ability but it would further reduce the throughput of our railway tracks due to huge differentials in speed. To meet India's rail transport demand, there should be three sets of double tracks: the first one for conventional trains, the second for freight trains, and the third for HSR in the high-traffic-density corridors such as Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) and its diagonals. Ignoring this ground reality would escalate our internal and external costs of transport. This is evident from the fact that in the absence of sufficient rail capacity, both passenger and freight business has moved to road transport - and this trend would continue unabated.

The third question: Is India at the state of economic development where it could build HSR? The rule of thumb for the timing of investment is that in the first year of construction of HSR, the country's real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) has to be at least $5,000. As reported by the World Bank, India's real per capita GDP at PPP was $5,244 in 2014. So India has reached the economic level where it is appropriate to time investment into HSR. Moreover, there has been continuous upward mobility in terms of demanding more comfortable and faster travel across all sections of society in India.

The preliminary work in terms of preparation of detailed project report and the tendering process may take about two years, the land acquisition may take about two years more and the actual construction, testing and commissioning may take another five years. So the first HSR train would not be ready earlier than 2024. Given the current growth rate, the average per capita real income would be at least 50 per cent more in 2024 than what it is in 2015. This would ensure willingness and affordability to pay for faster travel with comfort. HSR is the best bet to meet this requirement.

The fourth question is: Why should the government splurge on HSR when there are other pressing needs, including developing conventional rail infrastructure and social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals? HSR has been planned on GQ and its diagonal routes of North-South and East-West corridors (NSEW), which are high-density corridors for both passenger and freight traffic. Indian Railways has planned HSR only on these high-demand routes. The government has no intention of developing HSR using its own funds - it would remain the facilitator in the execution of the project. As and when the corridors become financially viable, they would be taken up for HSR execution either with 100 per cent foreign direct investment or through public-private partnerships, or some other format where the government funding would be nil. Thus the question of splurging taxpayer's money on HSR projects does not arise at all.

The fifth question is: How do we handle land requirement and fencing of HSR lines? According to the International Union of Railways, to construct one kilometre of HSR (two lines), 3.2 hectares per km is required, whereas to construct a six-lane highway, 9.3 hectares per km is required. Given the difficulties associated with land acquisition in India for infrastructure projects and the compensation being introduced with the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the lower land requirement of HSR for a transport corridor with higher passenger carrying capacity is a boon. The cost of about Rs 165 crore per km for HSR includes underground and elevated tracks in congested urban areas as well as provisions for fencing, centralised safety monitoring and other safety-related costs, among other things.

HSR would also reduce our crude oil import and dependency, energy consumption, carbon emissions and pollution and increase the overall supply of rail transport. By diverting people from travelling by road, HSR would also reduce road accidents. It would be a great loss to the country as a whole, if the construction of HSR is delayed indefinitely.

NGT bans plastics from Gomukh to Haridwar

In a push to one of Narendra Modi-led government’s top campaigns, the country’s green tribunal has said there would be a complete ban on procurement, storage and use of plastics along the stretch of Ganga from Uttarakhand’s Gomukh to Haridwar. The tribunal said the ban would be in force from February, but did not spell out any penalty.

The government had allocated  Rs 20,000 crore for its Clean Ganga Mission over five years.

The ban means restriction on use of plastic bottles, including beverage bottles and plastic wrappings of some of the top companies. None of the companies was available for comment.

“Production per se is unlikely to be affected, but companies will have to invest more in pollution control mechanisms. While cost of fresh investment will have to be taken on the profit and loss account, the producers of environment saving equipment will see a growth in business. What starts in Uttarakhand today will be sooner or later extended to other states, too, like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal, which have similar challenges and huge industries along the river,” said D R Dogra, chief executive and managing director of Care Ratings.

The industries that have to invest in pollution control measures include chemicals, dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, leather, handicrafts, engineering, textiles and power. "While most of those that will be affected would be smaller companies that have not built structures for waste disposal till now, the larger ones would have to invest more in such processes. Further, if units are shut, the labour employed could face consequences. However, one would expect that most units would comply or seek an extension until such time that they are compliant,” Dogra added.

PUSH TO GANGA REJUVENATION

Use of plastics of any thickness, including carry bags, plates and allied items, banned from Feb The ban means restrictions on the use of plastic bottles, including beverage bottles and plastic wrappings of some of the top companies Production is unlikely to be affected, but firms will have to invest more in pollution control mechanisms Panel divides cleaning work into different segments, the first segment being Gomukh to Haridwar Other segments are Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to UP border, UP border of Jharkhand & from there to Bay of Bengal

The panel divided the cleaning work of Ganga into different segments — Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to UP border, UP border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal. “There shall be a complete prohibition on use of plastic, including carry bags, plates, glasses, spoons, packages and allied items, in all cities falling on the river Ganga and its tributaries in Gomukh to Haridwar. Under no circumstances, plastic carry bags of any thickness would be permitted,” a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said.

The NGT also spelt out a series of other pollution control measures in the area. Corporate analysts said the NGT's orders are significant, as the country gets ready to meet global pollution control norms.

NGT ORDERS BENEFIT DELHI

NGT on Thursday fixed the penalties for persistent defaulters of crop residue burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh While small landholders having less than two acres of land will have to pay Rs 2500, medium landholders having between two to five acres will have to pay Rs 5,000. Those owning over five acres will have to pay Rs 15,000 per incident of crop burning towards environment compensation State governments to provide machinery free of cost to the farmers having less than two acres of land, to farmers having medium land owners at a cost of Rs 5,000 and for the large land holding farmers at Rs 15,000 NGT also directed Delhi authorities in Delhi to ensure strict adherence to guidelines on noise pollution, special restrictions on noise pollution which are currently in place in Palam and other areas, to be extended to other areas as well NGT ordered Delhi government to increase the strength of the forest department and procure better equipments to prevent illegal felling of trees in the national capital

The tribunal, which did not pass any order with regard to nine hydro-power projects in Uttarakhand as the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, said all the projects would build their own sewage treatment plants and make them operational within three months. JSW Group had taken over few of these hydro power projects from Jaypee group for Rs 9,700 crore and it will have to invest in pollution control equipment.

Besides the plastics ban, the NGT also prohibited throwing of any municipal waste, construction and demolition wastes into Ganga and its tributaries, while announcing that violators will have to pay an environmental compensation at the rate of Rs 5,000 per incident.

The green bench held that all the seriously polluting industries, which are operating without consent from Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board, shall be closed immediately.

On the issue of mining on the river bed, the tribunal said it shall be carried on in a highly regulated manner and under strict supervision.

“No mechanised river bed mining would be permitted. No mechanical excavators would be permitted to operate on the river bed,”it said.

Measures taken by the Government for gender equality/socio-economic development/empowerment of women

Measures taken by the Government for gender equality/socio-economic development/empowerment of women

According to the National Sample Survey Report (2011-12), the workforce participation rates of male is 54.4% and female is 21.9%. As per the India Country Report, 2015 by Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation on the Millennium Development Goals, the percentage share of females in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector during 2011-12 increased to 19.3% which is higher than 18.6% reported during 2009-10 by National Sample Survey Organisation.

Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner and Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation are involved in collection and dissemination of data covering wide range of issues that affect women’s empowerment. The report titled “Women and Men in India – 2015” by Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Government of India highlights the status of women covering health, education, work and decision making along with social obstacles in women’s empowerment.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development is administering following schemes for gender equality/socio-economic development/empowerment of women:

i. Swadhar and Short Stay Homes to provide relief and rehabilitation to destitute women and women in distress.

ii. Working Women Hostels for ensuring safe accommodation for working women away from their place of residence.

iii. Support to Training and Employment Program for Women (STEP) to ensure sustainable employment and income generation for marginalised and asset-less rural and urban poor women across the country.

iv. Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) to provide micro-finance services to bring about the socio-economic upliftment of poor women.

v. National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) to strengthen the overall processes that promote all-round Development of Women

vi. Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for Children of Working Mothers (including single mother) to provide day care facilities for running a crèche of 25 children in the age group 0-6 years from families having monthly income of less than Rs 12,000.

vii. One Stop Centre to provide integrated support and assistance to women affected by violence.

viii. Scheme for Universalisation of Women Helpline intended to provide 24 hours immediate and emergency response to women affected by violence.

ix. Sabla Scheme for holistic development of adolescent girls in the age group of 11-18 years.

x. In order to strengthen the process of gender budgeting the Ministry of Women and Child Development has been undertaking various capacity building measures for the officials of the State Governments by organising training programs/workshops regularly.

In order to improve employability a separate Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has been created.

Equal Remuneration Act, 1973 provides for payment of equal remuneration to men and women workers for the same work of similar nature without any discrimination. In order to ensure social security to the workers including women in the unorganised sector, the Government has enacted the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act 2008.

The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 regulates employment of women in certain establishments for a certain period (12 weeks) before and after childbirth and provides for maternity and other benefits.

Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) Scheme is being implemented as Conditional Maternity Benefit for pregnant and lactating women to improve health and nutrition status to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives to pregnant and nursing mothers to partly compensate wage loss both prior to and after delivery.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 has been enacted, which covers all women, irrespective of their age or employment status and protect them against sexual harassment at all workplaces both in public and private sector, whether organised or unorganised.

- See more at: http://samvegias.com/measures-taken-government-gender-equalitysocio-economic-developmentempowerment-women/#sthash.9di6a7f5.dpuf

The same old script of India-Pakistan ties

Even if the ties seem to be on an upswing, the process can derail anytime

As a young British diplomat, Sir Harold George Nicolson participated in the Paris Peace Conference (1919) held in the aftermath of the World War I. Giving an account of the conference in his book Peacemaking 1919, Nicolson writes: “I learnt from this erratic but brilliant statesman [David Lloyd George] that apparent opportunism is not always irreconcilable with vision… that volatility of method is not always indicative of volatility of intentions.” Lloyd George served as the prime minister of the UK between 1916 and 1922. The current National Democratic Alliance government would require a diplomat-wordsmith like Nicolson to justify the spate of flip-flops on Pakistan.

To be fair, confusion over the Pakistan policy has not been a monopoly of the current government. All the previous governments in recent memory have been equally, if not more, clueless in dealing with India’s most difficult neighbour. The dialogue held between Ajit Doval and Lt General (retd) Naseer Janjua—the national security advisers (NSA) of India and Pakistan respectively—accompanied by the foreign secretaries on 6 December in Bangkok has capped the latest round of the same old game involving recurrent phases of engagement and disengagement.

The NSA-level dialogue was preceded by a “pull aside” meeting between prime ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Paris climate change summit. Sushma Swaraj, the minister of external affairs, is on a trip to Islamabad to attend the Heart of Asia conference, which focuses on regional cooperation with a strong emphasis on stability in Afghanistan. The Bangkok talks were intended to resume the bilateral engagement in order to pave the way for Modi’s participation in the 19th Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in 2016.

The constraints that led to the cancellation of NSA-level dialogue in August were overcome by a mix of improvisations and compromises. The August dialogue was called off because Pakistan was not ready to honour India’s twin conditions of a) no meddling by the Hurriyat, a Kashmir-based organization with a separatist agenda, and b) restriction of the NSA-level talks to terrorism alone (leaving out Kashmir). The former was made clear to Pakistan through the cancellation of foreign secretary talks in August 2014 following the meeting between Hurriyat leaders and Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s high commissioner to India. The latter was enshrined in the joint statement released after the two prime ministers met in Ufa, Russia, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit held in July this year. There was also a third issue. The Pakistan Army was not confident about pitting Sartaj Aziz, the former NSA of Pakistan who is an economist by training, to face Doval, a career intelligence officer with a sterling reputation.

The venue of Bangkok helped Pakistan avoid the political compulsions of meeting the Hurriyat leaders. India yielded—and this simply cannot be stated differently—on Kashmir. New Delhi realized—after the experience of Ufa—that avoiding Kashmir in any joint statement is politically untenable for the Pakistani establishment. The third issue was resolved by replacing Aziz with Janjua as the NSA.

It is being claimed by many that the ‘Bangkok process’ was decided in the brief meeting held between Modi and Sharif in Paris. This is highly unlikely because the only Sharif who takes these decisions in Pakistan is Raheel Sharif, the Chief of Army Staff. Moreover, the resumption of NSA-level dialogue had been on the cards since the appointment of Janjua—believed to be close to Raheel Sharif.

With the initial hurdles now overcome, it will not be surprising to see the resumption of the composite dialogue process—the template for full-fledged bilateral talks—in due course of time. Aziz, who retains his role as foreign affairs adviser to prime minister Sharif, has said that he will explore such possibilities in his meeting with Swaraj on her Islamabad trip.

Even though things may seem to be on an upswing, the process can derail anytime. It is unrealistic to expect Pakistan to withdraw support to anti-India terrorists in the near future or to expedite the 26/11 trials. The lack of clarity over the objectives on the Indian side does not help either. The government should achieve some results quickly or else hire a Nicolson to offer better explanations than the verbal jugglery on display by the current lot of spokespersons.

Will the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan help address issues of terrorism?

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