Thinking about philanthropy

Thinking about philanthropy
Bill and Melinda Gates talk about the importance of philanthropy in the world today

“Well, it’s the most fulfilling thing we’ve ever done…you can’t take it with you and if it’s not good for the kids, let’s get together and brainstorm about what can be done. The world is a far better place because of the philanthropists of the past, and the US tradition here, which is the strongest, is the envy of the world. And part of the reason I’m so optimistic is because I do think philanthropy is going to grow and take some of these things government’s not good at working on…discovering and shining some light in the right direction,” says Bill Gates, the world’s greatest philanthropist.

This is an interview of the couple who while vacationing on the beach decided that they had to do something about the inequities in the world. They saw so much poverty that it touched them. The idea grew into a foundation and Melinda says, “…there are people who have created their own businesses, put their own ingenuity behind incredible ideas. If they put their ideas and their brain behind philanthropy, they can change the world. And they start to see others doing it, and saying, “Wow, I want to do that with my money.” To me that’s the piece that’s incredible…”

Bill Gates adds, “We decided we’d pick two causes, whatever the biggest inequity was globally, and there we looked at children dying, children not having enough nutrition to ever develop and countries that were really stuck with that level of death…parents would have so many kids that they’d get huge population growth, and that the kids were so sick that they really could not be educated and lift themselves up. So that was our global thing. In the US we…both of us have had amazing education and we saw that as a way that the US could live up to its promise of equal opportunity is by having a phenomenal education system. And the ore we learned, the more we realized we are not really fulfilling that promise…and so we picked up those two things and everything the foundation does is focused on them.”

Melinda has all the details in her head like she talks of the need to make contraceptives available to women saying that, “We knew 210 million women were saying they wanted access to contraceptives…and we weren’t providing them because of the political controversy in our country, and to me that was just a crime and I kept looking around to find the person that would get this back on the global stage and I finally realized I just had to do it.Even though I am Catholic, I believe in contraceptives just like most of the Catholic women in the Unites States who report using contraceptives…so we got global consensus and raised 2.6 billion dollars around exactly this issue for women.”

Melinda Gates recounts many of her experiences saying if a woman is not able to get condoms or to convince her husband to use them, then what is the use of talking about them? We have to provide alternatives. Similarly she says it is not the size of the school that matters but the motivation of the teacher. We have place good teachers facing the class. “…I come at it from intuition. I meet lots of people on the ground…and I feel actual delivery is as important.”

Bill Gates gets at it through statistics and the global data; Melinda Gates through being hands on at the grass roots. They both together match the pictures and take decisions.

On a lighter note they find it is not difficult to work together, though they do not spend every moment with each other. They travel separately, they work independently but touch base to share and decide together.

Now they feel it is time to show the world hat their children also believe in what they are doing and so the richest parents are giving their children more compassion and less fortune to weave their future on

A new economic agenda
To become a developed country, India’s GDP will have to grow at 12 per cent per year for at least a decade. Technically this is within reach, since it would require the rate of investment to rise from the present 28 per cent of GDP to 36 per cent

The question before a probable Narendra Modi-led government in 2014 is whether the statistically undeniable economic slide of thelast decade can be halted and a fresh impetus be given to growth in the Indian economy.

The answer is “yes” if good governance norms are properly enforced to enable the Indian economy to grow at 12 per cent per year in GDP for a decade which means efficiently deploying resources to reduce the current incremental capital output ratio from 4.0 to 3.0, and by incentivising the people to save more to increase the current rate of investment (which is domestic saving plus net foreign investment).

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, judged statistically by the dangerous level of fiscal and capital accounts deficit indicators, has squandered national financial and physical resources mainly due to a lack of accountability, corruption and high transaction costs arising for archaic bureaucratic procedures.

Modest goals within reach
This picture emerges from comparative statistics of National Democratic Alliance (1998-2004) and UPA (2004-2014) rule.

Efficient, corruption-free deployment of existing resources that implies a reduction in the capital-output ratio, means a 12 per cent GDP growth rate per year, i.e., a doubling of GDP every six years, and that of per capita income doubling every seven years.

This growth rate over a five-year period can take us into the league of the top three most populated nations of the world, i.e., of the United States, China and India — that is by 2020. Thereafter, India would be able to overtake China over the next decade. That should be the goal of governance for us today.

India is not yet an economically developed nation. India has demonstrated its prowess in the IT, biotech and pharmaceutical sectors and has accelerated its growth rate to nine per cent per year in the first decade of this century, up from an earlier 40-year (1950-90) socialist era average annual growth rate of a mere 3.5 per cent, to become the third largest nation in terms of GDP at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rates.

However, it still has a backward agricultural sector of 62 per cent of the people, where there are farmer suicides because of inability to repay loans. There is a national unemployment rate that is of over 15 per cent of the adult labour force, a prevalence of child labour arising out of nearly 50 per cent of children not making it to school beyond standard five, a deeply malfunctioning primary and secondary educational system, and 300 million illiterates and 250 million people in dire poverty.

India’s infrastructure is pathetic, with frequent electric power breakdowns even in metropolitan cities, dangerously unhealthy water supply in urban areas, a galloping rate of HIV infection, and gaping potholes that dot our national highways.

For a second generation of reforms
To become a developed country, therefore, India’s GDP will have to grow at 12 per cent per year for at least a decade. Technically this is within India’s reach, since it would require the rate of investment to rise from the present 28 per cent of GDP to 36 per cent, while productivity growth will have to ensure that the incremental output-capital ratio declines from the present 4.0 to 3.0.

These are modest goals that can be attained by an efficient decision-making structure, tackling corruption, increased Foreign direct investment (FDI) and use of IT software in the domestic industry. But for that to happen, what is required are more vigorous market-centric economic reforms to dismantle the remaining vestiges of the Soviet model in Indian planning, especially at the provincial level.

The Indian financial system also suffers from a hangover of cronyism and corruption which has left government budgets on the verge of bankruptcy. This too needs fixing. It cannot be rectified by a Reserve Bank of India vitiating the investment climate with an obsession to contain inflationary pressure. It is like killing a patient to lower his body temperature.

India’s infrastructure requires about $150 billion to make it world class, while a new innovation climate requires investment in the education system of six per cent of GDP instead of 2.8 per cent today. But an open competitive market system can find these resources provided the quality of governance and accountability is improved. Auctioning of natural resources such as spectrum, coal, oilfields, and land for commercial exploitation can largely substitute for tax impositions. Obviously, a wide-ranging second generation of reforms is necessary for all this to accelerate India’s growth rate to 12 per cent per year. India has many advantages today to achieve a booming economy. We have a young population (an average of 28 years compared to the U.S.’ 38 years, and Japan’s 49 years) that could be the base for it to usher in innovation in our production process (a demographic dividend); an agriculture sector that has internationally the lowest yield in land and livestock-based products, and also, at the lowest cost of production, a full 12 months a year of farm-friendly weather, and an internationally competitive, skilled and low wage rate, semi-skilled labour at the national level. The advantages are already being proved to the world by the outsourcing phenomenon of skills in the developed world and the cheap supply of labour to oil-rich countries.

Demography as an advantage
Since the world view of economic development has now completely changed, economic development is no more thought of as being capital-driven, but knowledge-driven instead.

For application of knowledge, we need innovations, which means more original research which in turn needs more fresh young minds — the cream of the youth — to be imbibed with learning and at the frontier of research.

For decades since independence in 1947 we had been told that India’s demography was its main liability, that India’s population was growing too fast, and what India needed most was to control its population, even if by coercive methods.

Globally, India today leads in the supply of youth, i.e., persons in the age group of 15 to 35 years, and this lead will last for another 40 years. Therefore, we should not squander away this “natural resource.” We must, by proper policy for the young, realise and harvest this demographic potential.

China is today the second largest world leader in terms of having a young population. But the youth population there will start shrinking from 2015, i.e., less than a decade from now because of a lagged effect of the one-child policy. Japanese and European populations are already fast aging. The U.S. will however hold a steady trend thanks to a liberal policy of immigration, especially from Mexico and the Philippines. But, even then, the U.S. will have a demographic shortage in skilled personnel. All developed countries will experience a demographic deficit. India will not have to experience this if we empower our youth with multiple intelligences. Our past liability, by a fortuitous turn of fate, has now become our potential asset.

Thus, India — by unintended consequences of a relatively unfettered population growth — is now gifted with a young population. If we educate this youth to develop cognitive intelligence to become original thinkers, imbibe emotional intelligence to have a team spirit and develop a rational risk-taking attitude, inculcate moral intelligence to blend personal ambition with national goals, cultivate social intelligence to defend the civic rights of the weak, gender equality, have the courage to fight injustice, and the spiritual intelligence to tap into the cosmic energy (Brahmand) that surrounds the earth, we can then develop an intellectually more advanced species of human being; an Indian youth who can be relied on to contribute to make India a global power within two decades. Only then will our demographic dividend not be wasted.

This goal thus has to be at the core of the economic agenda for the rest of this decade for a new government in 2014.

Politics of identity and location
The people from India’s northeast face severe discrimination in Delhi and elsewhere. But how does the northeast treat the ‘outsiders’?

Every now and again we hear of a person from one or the other of the north-eastern States of India being harassed, sexually molested or beaten up by irate landlords, mostly in Delhi. If we go by statistics then it appears that people from Manipur are most discriminated against in Delhi. But it is also true that every second north-easterner in Delhi, working in malls and retail outlets or the hospitality services is from Manipur. The protracted militancy and complete failure of the Manipur government to create meaningful employment for its youth have pushed them to a desperate edge from where the only escape route is a ticket to Delhi to find some job; any job to keep body and soul together.

The last horrific crime against a person of north-eastern origin happened on January 29 this year when Nido Tania, a 19-year-old student from Arunachal Pradesh, was beaten black and blue because he protested against being ridiculed for his hairstyle. Nido succumbed to his injuries. Following this incident, a beleaguered UPA government set up a committee to inquire into this incident and suggest measures to prevent similar outrageous acts against people from the eight north-eastern States working and studying in Delhi. Funnily, the committee consists of retired bureaucrats, many of whom don’t have any inkling about what it is to be a woman travelling through the dark lanes of Delhi’s non-Lutyens’ areas.

For the first time a television channel labelled the Nido Tania episode a racial crime. After that the word “racism” gained currency in the media. And that is not far from the truth. The people of the northeast are racially different. They look different; they have different eating habits and cuisines that can be scrumptious for some and repulsive to others. Their dances are myriad and their socialisation processes are different too. They choose their own life partners and dowry is unknown. Racially there are the Tibeto-Burman groups such as the Nagas, Mizos, Bodos, Garos, etc, and the Mon-Khmer group (Khasis and Jaintias). This is the reason why India is called a diverse country. But while it is easy to use jargon like “celebrating diversity,” or to term northeast a “rainbow country” it is much more difficult to assimilate and appreciate these diverse cultures and not to be disdainful of the cultural mores of people from this region.

The plight of ‘outsiders’
But people of the eight north-eastern States are themselves ethnically divided. There are major tribes and minor tribes. The so-called major tribes such as the Nyishis of Arunachal Pradesh or the Ao and Angami tribes of Nagaland lord it over the smaller tribes who live on the peripheries of development because even development is skewed and happens along these ethno-centric fault-lines. It would be erroneous to assume that the people of the eight States are socially homogenous and that they coexist happily with each other. Within the States there are ferments for greater autonomy. For instance, Meghalaya has three major tribes — the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo. The first two are of Mon-Khmer origin and the last a part of the Tibeto-Burman race. The Garos have always felt neglected and have now demanded a separate State. These demands for greater autonomy are not always peaceful. In fact the idiom of engagement with the state has always been violent and insurrectionary because the insurgents claim that the state does not understand the language and metaphor of non-violent assertions.

And in this horrifyingly complex situation we have the non-tribals who have lived in the region for three to four generations and have contributed their mite to the local economy. In Meghalaya, in the late 1970s, the Khasi Students Union — a body that is anything but student-like and has in its fold members who have either dropped out of school or are too long in the tooth to be considered students — launched an insidious attack on the Bengalis living in Shillong. Their reason for doing so is simplistic — the non-tribals are responsible for all the ills that afflict Khasi society. So attractive was the slogan “Khasi by birth, Indian by accident” that the words were splattered across public walls in the city. Claiming to be the vanguard of Khasi society, the KSU then went on a rampage, pulling non-tribals out of buses and lynching them. A pregnant woman, Gouri Dey was lynched in public but no one was nabbed and the case died a natural death since no one would give evidence. The next phase of communal violence saw a new set of victims — the Nepali settlers who have also lived in the State since it was a part of Assam, and the Biharis who kept cows and supplied milk to the residents. Another time, a number of Bihari families were burnt alive in the dead of night. The culprits were never caught and no one has been indicted in any of the acts of communal carnage that happened in Meghalaya.

The rise of civil society
The KSU is avowedly political, having spawned a political party — the Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM). The acronym actually means an arrow and the expanded term means the “awakening of the children of the seven huts.” The Khasis believe they used to move freely between heaven and earth over a divine umbilical cord, until one day sin entered the world and the cord was snapped. Of the 16 families that were originally a part of the whole, seven families remained on earth and nine families continued to live in the sinless world. The word “Hynniewtrep” is a much-used jargon by politicians and all sorts of self-appointed guardians of Khasi society. It’s a word that ignites jingoistic feelings and motivates young people to commit excesses against “others” who don’t belong to the Hynniewtrep fold.

The KSU stance against non-tribals had to have an alibi. The alibi is simplistic. Raucous public meetings where the non-tribals are accused of taking away all “our” jobs, “our” land and “our” women became the order of the day. A non-tribal seen with a Khasi woman is taboo. Such a person would be beaten up immediately. At one point the KSU warned Khasi women not to wear the “salwar kameez.” Those who wore them were stopped and their clothes torn. This was in the early 1990s. Thankfully at the time, a leading women’s organisation, Synjuk Kynthei challenged this diktat by the KSU and warned it not to lay its hands on any Khasi girl. It was the first time that anyone had stood up to what the media terms as the “powerful students union.” But it worked and the KSU has since then not dared to tread into the domain of setting a dress code for women.

Ironically, the Synjuk Kynthei comprising some renowned women leaders, who have made a mark for themselves, did not assert itself when the violence was directed at non-tribals although they discussed the matter in their meetings and condemned the violence. By the mid-1990s, some radical members of the KSU left to form a militant organisation called the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC). For over a decade the HNLC intimidated, extorted and eliminated non-tribal business persons in broad daylight. The only civil society group that stood up and condemned the militant violence and extortion upfront was “Shillong We Care (SWC).” Shillong was then very tense and fear and violence was palpable. Members of SWC engaged with the police and pushed them to create an anonymous helpline so that people who were threatened and extorted could call for help. SWC also provided a public platform where people could speak up and share their concerns. Many who were extorted could not sum up enough courage to speak. But SWC persisted and also enlisted many young people to stage street shows to demonstrate the diminishing returns of militancy.

It was only when the Khasi business community also began getting extortion notices and some Khasi business persons were kidnapped and killed that society began to speak up and condemn the HNLC rampage. Seeing that the civil society movement had gained momentum, the Shillong police came down hard on the HNLC and filed FIRs against businessmen suspected to be paying the outfit. This gave a handle to the business community to refuse to pay the HNLC. Many took anticipatory bail. A number of the HNLC militants surrendered. Its chairman Julius Dorphang also surrendered and is now an MLA.

Life without the rights
But the non-tribals continue to remain insecure and vulnerable. In the latest round of violence when several pressure groups demanded the imposition of an Inner Line Permit (ILP) to enter Meghalaya, along the lines of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, at least two non-tribals were burnt to death. The police have arrested some pro-ILP activists but the case seems weak and the suspects are out on bail. Non-tribals have lost the right to speak up and dissent. They live like third class citizens. Those who survive to do business do so by paying protection money to these different pressure groups. Non-tribals are debarred form buying land in tribal areas after the Land Transfer Act was passed in 1978. Those with self-respect have left Shillong and other parts of Meghalaya to settle elsewhere. Others continue to live here but with almost no rights. At least in Delhi, north-easterners have the freedom to protest the government’s acts. Nido Tania’s killers are in jail. What about the many deaths of non-tribals in Meghalaya since 1979? Will the family members of the deceased ever get justice?

PL480 to NFSA 2013:Achievements of india in food security

PL480 to NFSA 2013:Achievements of india in food security

Many of us would not be even aware that in the 1960s India was forced to import wheat from the US under the PL 480 scheme as it suffered from a severe shortage of food grain. The stories of humiliation and pressure to compromise on India's foreign policy to avail of this facility are now things of the past. The country has moved ahead from the PL 480 phase to a new era of economic reality where it has enacted the National Food Security Act (NFSA)- 2013 which assures food to 67 percent of people in the country who are likely to suffer food deprivation. This indeed marks a giant leap whose impact is going to be multi-dimensional and multi-layered. The guaranteed availability of food to the people, especially those in the below poverty line bracket and belonging to vulnerable section of society will have a significant income effect translating into higher nutritional intake and therefore improved health status. The extra income, it has been argued, could be used for 'medical or educational expenses.. or to supplement expenses for farm inputs'. Indeed for the families struggling for survival, the assured food grain could allow them a 'chance to live with dignity'. We often forget that even now two thirds of India's population hovers around the poverty level. The expenditure on food items is a significant part of their monthly budget. Realising the importance of providing for the basic food requirements of the population, India has a long established Public Distribution System (PDS) which has played a significant role in keeping the chronic hunger at bay and has a strong impact on the reduction of poverty.

Ist women IFS OFFICER

Ist women IFS OFFICER
Trail Blazers: Why should you always remember these 12 women IFS officers
HEARD of Madam Muthamma, India’s first IFS? Or, can you name the first woman spokesperson of India’s foreign office? Or the first pair of sisters in the Indian Foreign Service? And finally, the woman IFS officer who had to resign because she wanted to get married? Here are 12 women officers, taken out of the list of outstanding women IFS prepared by the public diplomacy wing of the MEA, who will always be remembered as trail-blazers in the service. Here it’s why:
CB Muthamma
In 1949, Muthamma joined Indian Foreign Service. And she happens to be India’s first woman IFS officer. She also became the first Indian woman ambassador/high commissioner.

Prof Surjit Mansingh
Sounds odd, but Mansingh had to resign as an IFS officer before she got married. But it was the rule then. There were instances of women IFS officers taking special permission to get married. And women IFS were also paid less than their male counterparts. Mansingh later joined as a professor in Centre for International Politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Arundhati Ghose
This 1963 batch IFS officer was India’s first permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. She had also served as India’s Ambassador to Egypt.

Chokila Iyer
This 1964 batch IFS officer holds the distinction of being India’s first woman foreign secretary. Later, she worked as the vice-chairperson of National Commission for Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes.

Meira Kumar
This 1973 batch IFS officer becomes India’s first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha, India's lower house of Parliament. During her service as an IFS, she worked in Indian missions of Spain, United Kingdom and Mauritius. She was also a cabinet minister in Manmohan Singh government.

Leela K Ponappa
She is a 1970 batch IFS officer who has the distinction of being India’s first female deputy National Security Adviser, and secretary of the National Security Council Secretariat. She was also India’s ambassador to Thailand and the Netherlands.

Nirupama Rao
Rao, a 1973 batch IFS, became the first woman spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) in 2001 and then India’s first woman ambassador to China. Later, she became India’s foreign secretary, and then India’s ambassador to US.

Meera Shankar
A batch-mate of Nirupama Rao, Shankar became the first woman career diplomat to serve as India’s ambassador to United States (2009 to 2011). She was also India’s ambassador to Germany, and held the post of Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Ruchira Kamboj
Currently the chief of protocol to the Government of India, Kamboj is the first woman IFS to hold this coveted position. This 1987 batch IFS had served as the deputy head in the office of the commonwealth secretary-general, London.

Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa
She is an Indian Foreign Service officer of 1979 batch. She was the first woman ambassador to any Gulf state. Currently, Wadhwa is Indian ambassador to Japan.

Sudhi Choudhary and Nidhi Choudhary
The Choudhary sisters are the first pair of sisters in the Indian Foreign Service. Whereas Sudhi Choudhary is of 2009 batch, Nidhi belongs to 2012 batch IFS.

Justice RM Lodha sworn in as Chief Justice of India
Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha was on Sunday sworn in as the 41st Chief Justice of India.

Justice Lodha (64) will have a brief tenure of five months as CJI and will retire on September 27 this year.

Justice Lodha heads the bench which is monitoring CBI's probe into the coal blocks allocation scam. He was also instrumental in passing orders making the CBI independent from political clutches. The bench headed by him had said that CBI does not require sanction of the government to prosecute senior officials in cases being monitored by courts.

It was Justice Lodha's bench which had ordered that the CBI will not share information with the political executive on coalgate probe. The judgment had led to the resignation of Ashwani Kumar as the law minister in May last year.

He is part of a constitutional bench looking into the mode of education of minority schools.

Last month, a bench headed by him had allowed defence personnel in "peace stations" to vote in constituencies where they are posted, saying "compulsions of their job" shouldn't come in the way of a basic right.

Another bench headed by him had stopped clinical trials in the country saying the interests of the people were more important than those of pharmaceutical companies.

Later, the government framed rules for monitoring of clinical trials and for paying compensation to people affected in the process.

IIFA AWARD LIST
The IIFA Awards have been announced. The winners are:

Best Film: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Actor: Farhan Akhtar for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Actress: Deepika Padukone for Chennai Express
Best Entertainer of the Year: Deepika Padukone
Best Debutant: Dhanush for Raanjhanaa
Best Supporting Actress: Divya Dutta for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Supporting Actor: Aditya Roy Kapur for Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani
Best Male Playback Singer: Arijit Singh for Tum Hi Ho from Aashiqui 2
Best Female Playback Singer: Shreya Ghoshal for Tum Hi Ho from Aashiqui 2
Best Lyrics Writer: Mithoon for Tum Hi Ho from Aashiqui 2
Best Story: Prashoon Joshi for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Performance in a Comic Role: Arshad Warsi for Jolly LLB
Best Performance in Negative Role: Rishi Kapoor for D Day
Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema: Shatrughan Sinha
Best Cinematography: Binod Pradhan for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Screenplay: Prasoon Joshi for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Dialogue: Prasoon Joshi for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Editing: P S Bharti for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Production Design: Wasiq Khan for Goliyon Ki Rasleela- Ramleela
Best Choreography: Remo D'souza for Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani
Best Action: Sham Kaushal & Tony Ching Siu Tung for Krrish 3
Best Sound Design: Nakul Kamte for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Song Recording: Vinod Verma for Lungi Dance
Best Sound Mixing: Anup Dev for Chennai Express, Debajit Changmai for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Background Score: Shankar-Ehsaan- Loy for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Special Effects: Keitan Yadav & Haresh Hingorani - Red Chillies VFX
Best Costume Designing: Dolly Ahluwalia for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Best Make-up: Vikram Gaikwad for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag