10 March 2017

Cast(e) reservations for higher education in a different mould?

Cast(e) reservations for higher education in a different mould?

Implementation of reservation has been beset with a number of challenges such as correct identification of beneficiaries and uncontested interpretation of constitutional provisions
In recent times several relatively better-off social groups such as Jats, Patels, and Marathas, that do not belong to the scheduled castes or tribes, have been agitating for reservations in higher education and jobs. Often, state governments have responded positively by trying to implement new reservation regimes for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Although it may be too early to pass judgement on the merits of reservation for OBCs, a recent study by G. Sen and Rakesh Basant (Working Paper No. 2016-07-01 of IIM Ahmedabad) has shown that reservation has not had a significant impact on the participation of OBC in higher education.
The share of currently enrolled persons in higher education courses (under-graduate and above) in the relevant age cohort of a social group provides a good measure of its current status in higher education participation. A higher share signifies higher participation, and if the share in the total population for a specific group is higher than its share in the enrolled, the group suffers from a “deficit” in participation.
But the interpretation of this measure may be misleading if one does not consider eligibility for participating in higher education. To be eligible to enrol in higher education, one has to complete higher secondary education. Thus, instead of only focusing on the entire population in the relevant age group, measures of participation should also consider the segment that has crossed the threshold of higher secondary education and is thus eligible to go to college. A focus on the eligible population brings the links between secondary and tertiary education explicitly into policy discussions.
Measures of higher education participation for Socio-Religious Categories (SRCs), such as Hindu Scheduled Caste (SC), Hindu Scheduled Tribe (ST), Hindu Other Backward Classes (OBC), Hindu Upper Castes (UC), Muslims, and Other Minorities show some interesting patterns. There are no deficits for UC and other minorities and virtually none for Hindu OBCs. The deficits are very low for STs as well, when one looks at the eligible population. In 2009-10, the share of Hindu OBC in the total population in the relevant age cohort was 34%; it was 33.8% among the enrolled and 34.1% among the eligible population. For STs, the share in total population was 7.6% and 3.1% in enrolled population, showing a deficit of 4.5%. But their share in eligible population was 3.7%, indicating an effective deficit of only 0.6%.
Eligibility is a critical factor for participation in higher education. Deficits for the under-privileged SRCs (SC, ST, and Muslims) are significantly lower among the eligible population. Thus, once persons from under-privileged groups cross the school threshold, the chances of their going to college are comparable to other SRCs. This suggests that a better understanding of the constraints on school education is critical if participation in higher education is to be enhanced.
Detailed analyses show that once other factors, such as economic status, region, and parental education are controlled for, inter-SRC differences in the probability of participation in higher education decline significantly. Interestingly, chances of participation in higher education increase significantly with parental education, especially parental graduate education. This effect persists even after controlling for household economic status, region (state), gender, and socio-religious affiliation (caste and religion, which forms the basis for reservation or discussions around reservation). The impact of parental education (higher secondary and above) is greater than that of SRC status in both rural and urban areas!
Given these results, should affirmative action be linked to deficits of respective groups? And if yes, what type of deficits should one go by? For example, the deficits for Hindu OBC are non-existent when one looks at the currently studying or eligible population. Moreover, once other factors are controlled for, inter-SRC differences decline dramatically and the “hierarchy of deprivation” is not clear empirically.
Alternatively, should policy focus on ensuring eligibility for higher education? The chances of going to college for the under-privileged are quite high once they cross the school threshold. Other studies suggest that the supply of schools positively affects the participation of various groups in higher education, presumably through the process of enhancing eligibility. Therefore, policy needs to focus on the factors relating to school education that adversely affect the completion of schooling.
Arguably, reservation in higher education is an incentive to cross the threshold. Similarly, job reservation can potentially enhance the incentives to participate in higher education. Are these adequate? Apparently not. Evidence shows that the efficacy of reservation policies depends on other complementary instruments that ensure better academic preparation and financial support.
These findings raise questions about the efficacy of socio-religious affiliation as the sole focus of affirmative action. Since factors other than socio-religious affiliation influence participation in higher education significantly, an exclusive focus on such affiliation for affirmative action seems inappropriate. The importance of economic background as well as of location highlight the role of the supply side factors in affecting participation of various groups in higher education.
Implementation of reservation policies has been beset with a number of challenges, such as the correct identification of beneficiaries and uncontested interpretation of constitutional provisions. High information needs for caste-based reservation make implementation of reservation policies difficult. If reservation is considered an appropriate form of affirmative action, parental education can be a good criterion, as it is easy to measure and, unlike caste categories, does not present problems associated with designation.
Children of illiterate parents would then form the most backward category, followed by those whose parents possess less than secondary education. Children with parents having graduate education would be outside the purview of affirmative action. Such a programme will not suffer from information failures and will be self-limiting as only one generation can benefit from it. But the share of state institutions in higher education is on the decline and reservation, even if effective, can at best help a small population. Reservation in private higher education institutions is beset with a variety of knotty issues. Clearly, affirmative action must go beyond reservation.

Is globalization in retreat?

Is globalization in retreat?

Production and investment have now become more global and interconnected and services are increasingly being traded across borders
The 45th president of the US has declared war on globalization. The Brexit vote did something similar in Great Britain. The two countries underwriting the postwar international order have declared their intention of putting their national interest above all else. Multilateral trading, investment, and even visa, agreements face new threats. Might this assault succeed? 
Globalizing forces have been rampant ever since the first men migrated out of Africa. The Roman empire was a globalizing force in the classical age, as was the expansion of Islam during the Middle Ages, and the British empire in more recent times. So was the overland silk route and Indian Ocean trade, from China, via India to the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean, trans-Atlantic trade, and more recently the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The cost and risk of travelling long distances through little-known lands or seas on slow animal and wind-propelled power constrained the pace of globalization. Most people lived and died near their place of birth. Only ruling elites could afford to buy the small quantities of international goods, such as Chinese silk and porcelain, or Indian muslin and pepper, transported over long distances in modest quantities. This trade nevertheless enhanced the incomes of the artisans producing these high-value goods, and the quality of life of those consuming them. Countries connected to this international trade, such as China and India, were the most affluent. There were ebbs and flows on account of war and invasions, but world exports and imports together never exceeded 10% of global gross domestic product (GDP) till the 19th century.
The technology of the industrial revolution enabled rapid movement of large volumes of factory-produced goods, and people, over long distances at sharply reduced costs. International trade made rapid strides in the 19th century, peaking at around 30% of global GDP on the eve of World War I. There was, however, a dramatic retreat in the interwar period, as it plummeted back to around 10%. But it resumed its triumphal march in the postwar era, recovering to 30% by the 1970s, and crossing 60% in the first decade of the 21st century. 
The benefits of globalization could now be more widely shared. First, industrial products were produced more cheaply and available in greater abundance than those produced by local artisans. Second, the range and quality of goods increased, enriching material life, with even the poorest enjoying a better material life than pre-industrial elites. Third, large external demand raised the prospect of hyper growth and, therefore, a more rapid rise in the standard of living, which had inched forward at a glacial pace for millennia.

But there were also losers over the short term. Traditional industry became uncompetitive and unviable. A large number of people in the colonies lost a source of income through ‘deindustrialization’. At a time when agriculturists in industrializing countries were moving into more productive and higher income yielding jobs, workers in the colonies were compelled to fall back exclusively on low-productivity agriculture. Their material life nevertheless improved as they shared the productivity gains through the increased availability of cheap industrial wage goods.
The spread of the industrial revolution to the erstwhile colonies in the postwar era is slowly reversing this great divergence because it is now cheaper to produce there. This has accelerated growth even as it has fallen off in advanced countries, improved overall well-being and facilitated the spread of liberal democracy. With declining growth in advanced countries has come higher structural unemployment and a declining labour participation rate. This is fuelling a backlash against globalization and undermining liberal democracy. It was older and semi-skilled workers in outlying, less cosmopolitan areas who voted to leave the European Union. Likewise, Donald Trump’s most trenchant supporters are relatively less-educated blue-collar poor white males in rural backwaters and crumbling industrial areas. 
Ironically, this backlash is occurring at a time when the argument for extending the scope of globalization beyond free movement of goods to movement of people across borders, has never been stronger, owing to the ageing of advanced economies. It is easy to forget that the current losers were among the first beneficiaries of globalization during the colonial era, and even today their material life continues to improve despite stagnant real incomes. Like their former colonial counterparts, they also share in the productivity gains through free trade such as cheaper wage goods, and, increasingly, services enabled by the communications revolution.

The anti-globalization movement and the retreat of liberal democracy are reminiscent of the economic nationalism that brought the colonial era to an end, culminating with the unsustainable high cost ‘Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI)’ model of growth that turned its back on free trade. Unsurprisingly, it was the East Asian Tigers, and then China, who returned to the welfare-enhancing embrace of international trade that forged ahead. History seems to have turned full circle, with the former colonies defending globalization even as the original proponents turn their backs on it. There is a lesson in this for the anti-globalization movement, as a low-growing, high-cost economy is the inexorable outcome of turning our backs on international trade. 
The march of history is rarely linear. But long-term trends are nevertheless discernible. The origin and persistence of international trade, and its bounce-back with renewed vigour each time it retreated, lies in the undeniable case for its welfare effects, made over two centuries ago by the economist David Ricardo. Its expansion has been accompanied by robust growth, and its retreat, with stagnation. Its welfare benefits outweigh short-term disruptive effects, which often make the former counter-intuitive. The future is unlikely to be any different, the current tide against globalization notwithstanding. Production and investment have now become more global and interconnected, services are increasingly being traded across borders, and social media is spawning a global civil society. Attempts to roll this back are as likely to succeed as the abortive Luddite assault on industrialization. The world awaits new statesmen who can articulate the counter-intuitive case for globalization to domestic constituencies, and harness its benefits.

The degradation of Indian universities through politics

The degradation of Indian universities through politics

Political intrusion in universities gathered momentum in the past 25 years, and has now reached a stage that could be the edge of the precipice for public universities
Universities are in the news. Yet again, for the wrong reasons. It would seem that February is jinxed for universities in the Capital. This year, it was the violence in Delhi University’s (DU’s) Ramjas College. Last year, it was the storm in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
There have also been several instances elsewhere in India during the past 12 months, sparked by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), where harassment, intimidation or violence have been used to stifle independent voices. Invitations have been withdrawn. Events have been cancelled. Meetings have been disrupted. Sometimes, university administrations have taken action against the organizers, after the event, as in Jodhpur last month.
It is no coincidence that the aggressive, often militant, posture of ABVP on campuses surfaced following the election of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments in states. This has now been reinforced by the comfort of a BJP government at the Centre. In such episodes, university administrations have been silent spectators or have acted against those targeted by the ABVP.
These occurrences negate the essential concept of universities as autonomous spaces, where freedom of expression, exploration of ideas and advancement of knowledge are an integral part of the learning process. There are bound to be differences in views, but these must be addressed through discussion, with open minds. In this, there must be respect—not contempt—for the other. The attitude of the ABVP is the opposite, as it seems to believe that those who are not with them are against them, or worse, anti-national. And its behaviour is simply unacceptable. The ABVP has a right to disagree. It should pose questions, engage in debate, or organize events to articulate its views, but it cannot and must not seek to silence others. Universities are, above all, about reason and tolerance.
Such political intrusion in universities is not new. It began almost five decades ago, has gathered momentum in the past 25 years, and has now reached a stage that could be the edge of the precipice for public universities in India.
Starting in the late 1960s, state governments began to interfere in universities. For one, it was about dispensing patronage and exercising power in appointments of vice-chancellors (VCs), faculty and non-teaching staff. For another, it was about extending the political influence of ruling parties. Unions of students, teachers and employees became instruments in political battles. Campuses were turned into spheres of influence for political parties. Provincial politics also played a role, with an implicit rejection of national elites and an explicit focus on regional identities. Just as important, political parties and leaders were uncomfortable with, if not insecure about, independent voices and critical evaluation that could come from universities.
It was not long before similar reasons began to influence the attitudes of Central governments towards universities. Similar actions were a natural outcome. The turning point, perhaps, was 1977, the end of the era of majority governments and one-party rule. It gathered momentum after 1989. There were short-lived coalition governments. And there were regime changes after almost every general election. The competitive politics unleashed by changes in governments soon spilt over to universities not only as spheres of influence but also as arenas for political contests. The discomfiture with independent or critical voices, even if few, grew rapidly. Central universities were no longer immune.
The decline of public universities in India has been an inevitable consequence of this process. The first set to bear the brunt were the universities of national standing in states. The obvious examples are Allahabad, Lucknow and Patna among the old, with Baroda and Rajasthan among the new. These are not even pale shadows of what they were until around 1980. The next set to be progressively damaged were the oldest national universities in the states—Bombay, Calcutta and Madras—established more than 150 years ago. Their drop in quality is alarming. DU and JNU continued to look good in comparison, not because they got better but because others declined so rapidly. Unfolding reality suggests that they cannot be exceptions for long.
This downward trajectory might just gather pace. It takes years, even decades, to build institutions. But it takes much less time to damage them. What is more, short-term actions have long-term consequences, so that revival is a difficult task. Indeed, we are simply mortgaging the future of public universities in India.
It would seem that the political class and the ruling elite do not have an understanding of the critical role of universities in society and democracy. It is a serious mistake to think of universities as campuses or classrooms that teach young people to pass examinations, obtain degrees, and become employable, where research is subsidiary or does not matter. Universities are about far more. For students, there is so much learning outside the classroom that makes them good citizens of society. For faculty, apart from commitment to their teaching and their research, there is a role in society as intellectuals who can provide an independent, credible, voice in evaluating governments, parliament, legislatures, or the judiciary, as guardians of society. This role is particularly important in a political democracy.
Thus, academic freedom is primary because universities are places for raising doubts and asking questions about everything. Exploring ideas, debating issues and thinking independently are essential in the quest for excellence. It would enable universities to be the conscience-keepers of economy, polity and society. Hence, the autonomy of this space is sacrosanct. Of course, this cannot suffice where quality is poor or standards are low. That needs reform and change within universities.
Alas, the political process, parties and governments alike, meddle in universities. In India, this has become more and more intrusive with the passage of time. Micromanagement by governments is widespread. Interventions are purposive and partisan. These can be direct, or indirect, through the University Grants Commission and pliant VCs. The motives are political. Such interventions are characteristic of all governments, whether at the Centre or in the states, and every political party, irrespective of ideology. There are no exceptions. The cadre-based parties are worse: the Communist Party of India (Marxist), mostly in the past, and the BJP, on the rise, at present. Of course, the Congress is almost the same, much experienced through long practice. The irony of double standards is striking. The same political parties when in government invoke public interest and when in opposition wax eloquent about autonomy and freedom for universities.
It is essential for governments to recognize that the provision of resources to universities does not endow them with a right to exercise control. The resources are public money for public universities, which are accountable to students and society through institutional mechanisms that exist or can be created. Every government laments the absence of world-class universities, without realizing that it is attributable in part to their interventions and the growing intrusion of political processes. Where politics is largely kept out—as in Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management or the Indian Institute of Science—institutions thrive.
The blame for the present state of our universities cannot be laid at the door of politics and governments alone. Universities as communities, and as institutions, are just as much to blame. The quality of leadership at universities has declined rapidly, in part because of partisan appointments by governments of VCs who are simply not good enough as academics or administrators, and in part because most VCs simply do not have the courage and the integrity to stand up to governments but have an eye on the next job they might get. The professoriate is mostly either complicit, as part of the political process in teachers’ unions, or just silent, preferring to look the other way, engaged in their narrow academic pursuits. Those who stand up are too few. The students are either caught up in the same party-political unions or opt out to concentrate on their academic tasks.
For university communities, it is imperative to recognize that such compromises are self-destructive as acts of commission. So is opting out, as an act of omission. Indeed, if universities want autonomy, it will not be conferred on them by benevolent governments. They have to claim their autonomy. In this quest, solidarity within universities—leadership, faculty and students—and among universities—is absolutely essential. The whole is greater than the sum total of parts. And its voice cannot go unheard.
Structures of governance in universities must be conducive to autonomy. The best model would be a board of governors, to which governments could nominate at the most one-third the total number. The other members, two-thirds or more, should be independent, of whom one-half should be distinguished academics while one-half should be drawn from industry, civil society or professions. The chairman should be an eminent academic with administrative experience. Members of the board should have a term of six years, with one-third retiring every two years. The VC, to be appointed by the board with a six-year tenure, would be an ex-officio member. Except for nominees of governments, the board should decide on replacements for its retiring members.
Such institutional mechanisms are necessary but not sufficient. A better world will become possible if we can make two radical departures from our past. Governments and political parties must stop playing politics in universities and stop turning them into arenas for political battles. Universities must reclaim their autonomy from governments, for which university communities need to come together, and just focus on raising academic standards in pursuit of academic excellence.

How far has India come in its digitization journey?

How far has India come in its digitization journey?

Technology experts unravel India’s digitization journey on the opening day of emerging technology conference EmTech India 2017
How is India becoming digital? This was the question that eight technology experts addressed on the first day of EmTech India 2017—an emerging technology conference organized by Mint and MIT Technology Review.
R. Chandrashekhar, president of software industry group Nasscom, said while the journey to digitization has begun, it is a matter of accelerating the pace at which it is happening.
“There is a World Bank report which says that a 10% increase in broadband penetration (in India) can lead to a 1.4% increase in GDP (gross domestic product), making Internet important for enhancing the growth of the economy.”
However, this won’t be possible without government participation. “Regulation is not a driving force for growth, but it can be a roadblock. So, government plays a critical role for creating appropriate policy framework and provide infrastructure and enable a secure and safe environment for digital transactions to take place,” he said.
So far, innovation has been for ‘India 1’—the first 100 million Indians—said Rajan Anandan, vice-president India and south-east Asia at Google Inc. “These are consumers who have high personal disposable income, they are well connected and well educated. Way forward, we will see problems being solved for ‘India 2’ and ‘India 3’—the next 200 million to 600 million Indians,” Anandan said.
He explained, “the next wave will be of great companies that are must-have solutions. For instance, healthcare challenges cannot be solved by an app. These companies are going to be full-stack, that will include hardware and software. They will require new kinds of technical skills and deep domain expertise, who will require different kinds of capital in larger quantums and which is patient.”
In India, Google has so far made 120 railway stations Internet-enabled, through a partnership with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp. (IRCTC). Anandan said Google registers about 15,000 people daily who are using Internet for the first time through this medium.
In two to three years, about 600 million Indians will access internet through broadband, Anandan said.
The government has launched a National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) that has penetrated rural areas, Chandrashekhar said. “Under the initiative, 8.2 million people have already been trained by 2016, surpassing the target of NDLM training 5.2 million by 2018,” he added.
“By 2015, 2.7 billion people were live on Internet; we saw internet use increase 60 times, largely from Asia Pacific. Market capitalization of consumer internet companies rose by 150X and innovation investments shot up 6x,” said Boston Consulting Group’s Marc Schuuring (partner and managing director, Amsterdam) and Rajiv Gupta (partner and director, New Delhi) in a presentation.
“Come 2017, GDP growth is flat, internet growth is down by 40%, population growth (rate is down) by 50%, smartphones growth is -65%, but internet user growth in India is at 40%,” they added.
This trend is a confirmation that mobile has become the first source of accessing Internet in India, skipping computers or laptops.
BCG forecasts technology will make a deep dive into artificial intelligence: customer support service chatbots, advanced forecasting, talent acquisition and AI-enabled psychometric profiling.
Facebook sees over one billion user generated posts every day, over 100 million hours of video consumed and over two billion photos shared, said Umang Bedi, the company’s managing director, India and south Asia. The company claims to have the highest personalized newsfeed for any user owing to its robust artificial intelligence and machine learning technology.
But innovation is not limited to the likes of Facebook Inc, Google Inc, Apple Inc. or Microsoft Corp. Tata Sons Ltd presented a series of technology-led solutions the group is working on.
“We have newly launched Tata Insights and Quants (built on Big Data analytics, currently for internal use), Tata Digital Health (technology to connect patient with doctors and create healthcare based solutions) and Tata Cliq (the group’s foray into e-commerce). Those are business incubation being carried out from the group and we’re careful moving into the future and creating the future as we speak.” said Gopichand Katragadda, group technology and innovation officer, Tata Sons.

Lok Sabha passes bill to raise paid maternity leave to six months

Lok Sabha passes bill to raise paid maternity leave to six months

The Maternity Benefit Amendment Bill 2016 had been pending in Parliament for nearly nine months
Women employees in the organized sector will now get six months of paid maternity leave, more than double the entitlement so far, after the Lok Sabha on Thursday amended the law on maternity benefits.
Terming the move a “gift on International Women’s Day”, labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said the legislation will have far reaching consequences both in terms of child care and female work force participation in India.
The Maternity Benefit Amendment Bill 2016 had been pending in Parliament for nearly nine months.
The labour force participation rate (LFPR) in India is around 40%, but for females, it is only 22.5%. The gap in male-female LFPR is such that the LFPR for rural women above 15 years is only 35.8%, while for rural males it is more than double at 81.3%, according to a 2015 research paper by the government policy think tank NITI Aayog.
To be sure, the 26 weeks of paid leave will be available to women for the first two children, after which they will be entitled to just 12 weeks of paid leave.
Besides working women, the move will also be beneficial for children’s health. “This will enable them (women) to exclusively breast-feed the child for 6 months, which is critical for the good health of the child. The mother will also be able to take care of her own health and fully recuperate before she returns to work. This benefit will be available for two children,” Union child development minister Maneka Gandhi said in an online post.
N.K. Premachandran, a member of parliament from the Revolutionary Socialist Party, while supporting the six-month leave provision, said by limiting the enhanced benefit to two children, the Union government was “indirectly putting restrictions on the number of children one can have”.
Commissioning and adopting mothers will get three months of maternity leave, a first in India, as per the legislation.
The new legislation also mandates the opening of crèches in all companies that have 50 employees or 30 women employees, whichever is lower, and facilitate “working from home” for new mothers.
The Union government is expected to formally notify the new legislation in the next few days after obtaining the signature of the President. Rajya Sabha passed the bill in August 2016.
Dattatreya, meanwhile, said states could amend the central law and allow women employees more than six months of paid leave if they wished.

8 March 2017

How to tame our forest fires

The roots of the crisis lie in the implementation of India’s no-fire forest policy

Come March every year, the print media is filled with reports of fires in the dry deciduous forests of India, particularly in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha. This year has been no different. The death of Murigeppa Tammangol, a forest guard who served in Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka, in a forest fire last month, is a sombre reminder of the danger posed by forest fires to our front-line forest staff.

Fighting fires with minimal equipment in challenging terrain is a thankless task that poses grave risks. It is perhaps time to ask whether a strict no-fire policy is relevant in ecological and societal contexts, rather than raise ineffective questions about how forest fires can be controlled or prevented through technology.
The bulk of forest fires in India occurs in the tropical dry forests of our country, an umbrella category encompassing scrub, savanna grassland, dry and moist-deciduous forests. Almost 70% of forests in India are composed of these types.
Recent research on the ecology and bio-geographical origin of these forests indicates that fire occurrence and light availability are important factors that maintain the ecosystem. However, forest management still suffers from a colonial hangover intent on keeping production forestry systems free from fire in order to prevent the loss of 'stock'. It is no surprise, therefore, that even today, the aftermath of a forest fire is accompanied by reports of how trees in hundreds of acres have been 'destroyed'. Field ecological research, on the other hand, indicates that many tree species distinct to dry forests have co-evolved with fires and have developed fire-resistance features like thick, spongy bark, and can re-sprout from rootstock in response to fire.

Blanket ban woes

The roots of our current fire crisis lie squarely in the blanket implementation of a no-fire forest policy. This 'one-size-fits-all' approach of fire protection is perhaps incompatible with the ecology of India’s tropical dry forests. For example, the fires in Bandipur Tiger Reserve were immensely difficult to control because of ample fuel supplied by the alien invasive species Lantana camara. Recent ethnographic and empirical research from the neighbouring Biligiri Rangaswamy Tiger Reserve indicates that a no-fire policy was likely responsible for the spread of Lantana in the first place.
Additionally, frequent, low-intensity forest fires possibly prevented the proliferation of Lantana in the past, a time when fires were not yet anathema for forest managers. Tribal elders of the area predict that future forest fires will be difficult to control unless Lantana biomass is physically reduced first.
Are frequent, small forest fires preferable to infrequent, catastrophic fires? Forest-dwellers of the area clearly seem to favour the former. Findings from conventional scientific studies also support these insights from indigenous knowledge, and indicate that early dry season fires burn less hot, and are far less detrimental to vegetation than peak dry season fires which burn much hotter.
Who has the power to wield fire in India’s tropical dry forests? The answer exposes the fault lines among contesting groups of stakeholders. Forest dwellers set fire to forests to clear walking paths, to collect non-timber forest products like gooseberry and mahua flowers, and to encourage the fresh growth of grass for their livestock, and sometimes as a part of ritual practice.
Agriculturists set fire to hill forests so that the fertilising ash from fire washes down to their fields with the monsoon rains. For the forest dweller, therefore, fires have cultural and livelihood significance. The forest department, on the other hand, has historically prevented fire in order to protect timber stocks, and initiated a system of fire-lines around valuable timber ‘compartments’ or coupes. By burning the fire-lines before the onset of summer, forest fires, if they occurred, could be confined to a few compartments. More recently however, fire has been used as a management tool to increase the density of herbivores in tropical dry forests.
The logic for this kind of burning is also related to the creation of fresh grass, but this time for consumption by wild herbivores rather than by cattle. In a centralised, top-down hierarchical system, these two broad ways of wielding fire are clearly incompatible. By enacting legislation that made the setting of forest fires an offence, the forest department gradually legitimised one world view of forests as timber and wildlife production systems and ignored other world views that envisioned forests as cultural and livelihood spaces.
Instead of viewing forest fires as being purely destructive in nature, forest managers should perhaps expand their world view and be more inclusive to information from ecological and local knowledge systems that view fires as being both rejuvenating and revitalising.

Price control is a blunt instrument in healthcare There must be a comprehensive regulatory framework that looks beyond price caps to ensure quality healthcare coverage for all citizens

With the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) venturing into new territory, from essential medicines to medical devices, the spotlight has returned to India’s long-standing drug-pricing dilemma. On 14 February, NPPA significantly lowered the price of stents—a tiny tube-shaped device placed in narrowed or blocked coronary arteries to maintain blood supply—for which hospitals would previously charge anything between Rs50,000 and Rs2.5 lakh. The price of bare metal stents has now been fixed at Rs7,260 and of drug-eluting stents at Rs29,600. And more recently, on Monday, NPPA reduced the price of cancer drugs by up to 86% and diabetes drugs by up to 42%.
The public has naturally welcomed these decisions. But it is important to keep in mind that while the government must ensure that the common man has access to proper healthcare, it also cannot undercut market dynamics entirely. If companies do not have the resources to invest in research and innovation, it is ultimately the public that will suffer. This is not to make a case for no regulation at all but to argue for a more comprehensive regulatory framework that looks beyond price caps to ensure quality healthcare coverage for all citizens. Remember that India already has some of the lowest drug prices in the world and yet the average Indian’s out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare is as high as 61%, not to mention the millions who are routinely deprived of life-saving drugs. Clearly, there is a mismatch in the policy framework.
Take the example of stents: After the NPPA slashed prices, there were genuine concerns that manufacturers in India would exit the field and there would be shortages at hospitals. Subsequent reports indicate that such a situation has been averted for the moment but there’s no telling how this will unravel in the long term. When the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) was issued in 1995, it forced producers out of the Indian market. Its successor, the DPCO 2013, has only served to encourage oligopolistic behaviour that almost always hurts consumers. Today, the active pharmaceutical ingredient in many commonly used drugs and front-line medications come from China. A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group and the Confederation of Indian Industry has flagged the risks of such dependence on Chinese imports and noted that any threat to the supply chain in China, as evidenced before the Beijing Olympics, could affect the manufacture of critical drugs.
Is India repeating its drug-manufacturing mistakes with medical-device manufacturing? The latter is valued at $2.5 billion currently, according to Ficci, but as a Deloitte analysis shows, the medical-devices sector is growing at a healthy CAGR of around 15%, which is significantly higher than global industry growth of 4-6%, and is expected to become a $25-30 billion industry in India by 2025. This will also feed into the overall Indian healthcare industry, which is expected to be at $280 billion by 2025.
The current government, with its focus on developing India as a global manufacturing hub (including for medical devices and pharmaceuticals), has sought to walk the fine line between providing reasonably priced medicines (and now medical devices) to the public and having a business- and innovation-friendly environment for the healthcare industry. But like its predecessors, it too has struggled to find a balance. In 2014, it lent its weight to industry and nudged the NPPA to withdraw an internal guideline that fixed the prices of 108 non-essential drugs. Then, in 2016, NITI Aayog toyed with the idea of either dismantling or revamping the NPPA—but this week the Prime Minister himself underlined the agency’s price-reduction decision at a recent election rally.
To be sure, this is a complicated matter and India is not the only country that is struggling to get a handle on it. In the US, for example, President Donald Trump campaigned on the issue and there have been quite a few drug-pricing scandals in recent years—from Martin Shkreli, who raised the price of the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim from $13.5 to $750, to Heather Bresch, under whose watch Mylan NV increased the price of EpiPen, used to treat children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, by 400-600%. Across the world, in Japan, which has traditionally supported multinational pharmaceutical companies by spending about ¥10 trillion annually on medications through a national insurance scheme, the government has now begun more frequent reviews of drug prices. In November, it unexpectedly halved the price of a cancer drug that was estimated to cost the national health system about $15 billion annually—eating into the manufacturer’s profit estimates.
In India, as policymakers grapple with the issue of supporting public welfare versus medical innovation on limited resources, they will do well to look at other key elements of the healthcare matrix, such as extending the insurance coverage (currently at 25%) and shoring up healthcare infrastructure. At the same time, the manufacturing industry should also reach out to the public and explain how there is more to its pricing strategy than just profits. This year, Johnson & Johnson has led the way with a report detailing its medicines’ price increases, while Allergan, Novo Nordisk and AbbVie have all pledged to limit price increases to a certain percentage. A little bit of transparency can go a long way.
What impact do you think price caps on medical devices will have on patients and the healthcare industry?

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