Protection of Jarawa Tribes

Protection of Jarawa Tribes
National Commission of Scheduled Tribes (NCST) had written letters to the Secretaries of Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of I&B, Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Chief Secretary, A&N islands for taking strict action against those who upload inappropriate video films/ photos on You Tube.

A&N Administration, vide Press Release dated 16.10.2017 has clarified that posting/ uploading of pictures/ videos of tribes of A&N Islands in any social networking sites is punishable with imprisonment upto three years as per Section 7 of the A&N (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Amendment Regulation, 2012 and also attracts Section 3 (i) ® of the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. It further advised all to refrain themselves from posting/ uploading of pictures / videos of tribes of A&N Islands in the social networking sites, in the interest of tribes of A&N Islands.

Deputy Superintendent (CID), Port Blair had registered case vide FIR under Section 3(1) 9 R SC&ST (Prevention of Atrocities )Act, 2016 against unknown persons. Further, an Advisory Note dated 16.10.2017 has also been issued hat any person who enters into the reserved area without permission for the purpose of taking photographs or making videos of aboriginal tribes shall be liable for punishment with imprisonment which may extend to three years and fine which may extend to Rs. 10,000/-

Anxieties of the dominant

Anxieties of the dominant
At the root of the insecurities of Marathas, Jats and Patels lies lack of education and employability
The recent clash in Pune district between the Mahars and Marathas reflects the anti-Dalit prejudice of the latter, but it needs to be analysed in the context of the changing status of dominant castes, not only in Maharashtra but across India. The claims of Patels, Jats and Marathas to be considered as OBCs have been dismissed by many observers simply because these dominant castes are not socially backward. Certainly, they are ahead of lower castes in terms of income. But this socio-economic reality needs to be qualified from two perspectives. First, poor Patels, Jats and Marathas are now lagging behind affluent OBCs (sometimes even the Dalits). Second, their demand for quotas reflects anxieties regarding education and jobs. This is evident from the Indian Human Development Survey. While dominant castes do well in terms of income, they systematically lag behind other forward castes in terms of education, largely because of their rural background.

In Maharashtra, in 2011-12, the percentage of Brahmins who were graduates and above was about 26 per cent, against 8.1 per cent among the Marathas. The Dalits stood at 5.1 per cent and the OBCs at 7.6 per cent, but among the latter, the Malis had reached 9.5 per cent. More importantly, from 2004-05 to 2011-12, the Dalits and OBCs have gained at a faster rate in education. The percentage of graduates among the Dalits in 2004-05 was 1.9 per cent and has more than doubled to 5.1 per cent in 2011-12. The corresponding figure for the OBCs was 3.5 per cent and has doubled to 7.6 per cent in 2011-12, while the Marathas were at 4.6 per cent in 2004-05 and have come up to only 8 per cent in 2011-12.

The Marathas not only resent the rise of the OBCs and the Dalits in the educational system because of reservations, they also cannot compete with upper castes because of their under-representation in the English-medium colleges. As a result, the Marathas have not benefited as much as upper castes from the rise of the services, including IT, in post-1991 liberalised India. And only the richest among them could profit by the government’s support to export-oriented agriculturists.

The Patels are similarly affected, despite their increasing presence in expensive private universities. The percentage of graduates among the Patels was 9.8 per cent in 2011-12, against 19.1 per cent for the Brahmins and 11.7 per cent for other forward castes. The OBCs and SCs were far below, at 2.4 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively. But the OBCs have gained in education during 2004-05 to 2011-12. The percentage of graduates among them was abysmally low at 1.1 per cent in 2004-05 and went up to 2.4 per cent in 2011-12. Although it appears a marginal increment in terms of percentage, the actual number of graduates has doubled among the OBCs. The SCs have almost doubled their percentage of graduates too, from 2.7 per cent in 2004-05 to 4.8 per cent in 2011-12. The Dalit mobilisation sparked by the Una incident has to be seen in this light.

In Haryana, the percentage of graduates among the Jats, at 5.1 per cent, is not only lower than that of the Brahmins (15.7 per cent) and other forward castes (14.4 per cent), but also of the OBCs (5.4 per cent). And the SCs and OBCs have gained in education more than the Jats from 2004-05 to 2011-12. The percentage of graduates among the Dalits has more than doubled from 0.8 per cent in 2004-05 to 2.1per cent in 2011-12. The Jats pay the price for their historical neglect of education even more than other dominant castes.

To sum up: During 2004-05 to 2011-12, the percentage of graduates among the SCs, OBCs and Marathas/Patels/Jats has respectively increased by 171 per cent, 121 per cent and 71 per cent in Maharashtra; 94 per cent, 114 per cent and 38 per cent in Gujarat; and 135 per cent, 77 per cent and 70 per cent in Haryana. These dominant castes feel threatened, more so because they could not get as many salaried jobs as they would like.

The current services-led economic growth demands a certain level of education, social skills and attributes. The dominant castes often lack these assets, and while the SCs and OBCs miss them too, they partly make up for this because of reservations. The salaried jobs they get are often valued because of the stability and the average income they offer compared to the informal sector and agriculture. For instance, the average annual per capita income in a household headed by a cultivator is Rs 37,818 in Haryana whereas, for the salaried, it is Rs 54,899. Any salaried job is placed over casual labour or petty self-employment as a surer way of mobility.

The percentage of salaried people among SCs is about 28 per cent in Maharashtra, 27 per cent in Gujarat and 21 per cent in Haryana, as against 30 per cent among Marathas, 19 per cent among Patels and just 11 per cent among Jats. The OBCs are also doing rather well. The salaried among them are 23 per cent in Maharashtra, about 17 per cent in Gujarat and 19 per cent in Haryana.

This rise of the SCs and OBCs in salaried jobs has generated resentment among many dominant castes which are still over-represented in agriculture, at a time agriculture is becoming increasingly unviable and incomes are less than from other occupations in rural areas. For instance, about 63 per cent Kunbi Marathas and 44 per cent Marathas in Maharashtra, 40 per cent Patels in Gujarat and 67 per cent Jats in Haryana were agriculturists in 2011-12. The corresponding figures for OBCs for these states were 31 per cent, 28 per cent and 26 per cent. The percentage of cultivators among the SCs is even lower as they hardly own land — a blessing in disguise. They are about 11 per cent in Maharashtra, 20 per cent in Gujarat and 6 per cent in Haryana.

These data throw light on the dominant castes’ mobilisation but do not legitimise their demand for reservations. First, only a fraction of their members are lagging in socio-economic terms. Second, job reservations are no solution: How can the state provide enough work to 60 per cent of society, even if the judiciary permitted it? The priorities lie in improving the employability of the youth, and, in the short term, a genuine promotion of agriculture, a sector that has been neglected in public policies, as evident from the low MSPs that farmers get. But is the government prepared to attenuate its pro-urban consumer bias?

Delivering pro-poor development

Delivering pro-poor development
The government must take appropriate steps to reinvigorate the rural economy for both economic and political reasons
But for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s relentless campaigning, inability of the Congress to highlight limitations in the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’s) urban development model, the role of None of the Above (NOTA) option, and copious amount of luck, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would have lost its Gujarat bastion. While it has traditionally been a darling in urban areas, the poor performance of the BJP in rural areas is telling. In predominantly rural areas, the Congress won 62 seats, against the BJP’s 43. This is despite the pro-poor rhetoric of the government.

While the BJP might have saved face owing to urban support in Gujarat, this was substantially due to the personal connect of the prime minister and the lack of alternatives, which may not be the case in the forthcoming state elections in 2018, particularly in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka, and more importantly, in the general election of 2019. Creating a connect with urban and semi-urban trading community may particularly be difficult owing to continuing challenges with the goods and services tax (GST) regime.

It also appears that more young and first time voters are, albeit unsurprisingly, getting disenchanted with the BJP and attracted to other options. It is this set of voters which also migrates from the rural to urban belts in search of employment opportunities, putting pressure on urban resources. The competition for opportunities available in urban areas is expected to increase, which might add fuel to the building discontent, costing the BJP its urban support base. Coupled with this, an already dissatisfied rural voter might cost it an election.

A two-fold strategy would be required to avoid such collapse. First, the government should stop testing the patience of its urban voters. It needs to address genuine challenges faced by small and medium-sized traders in compliance with GST- related procedures, claiming refunds and credits, and address concerns around potential hounding by the National Anti-Profiteering Agency, and the e-way Bill. While the government has claimed making significant advancements in ease of doing business, the ground realities do not appear to support such claims. Availability of land, skilled labour and finance is still a challenge and avoidable compliance costs put immense burden on small industries and traders. Government obsession with technology-enabled start-ups, wherein success stories are few and far between, has completely ignored small-scale frugal innovation, such as low-cost farm mechanization equipment, which is awaiting support to scale up.

Second, the government must take appropriate steps to reinvigorate the rural economy for both economic and political reasons. This involves removing artificial barriers to growth of agriculture, and ensuring adequate opportunities exist for income generation in rural non-farm sector. Investments must be made in export-oriented agriculture value chains, modern storage and warehousing facilities, and knee-jerk reactions adversely affecting agriculture export must be avoided. The distortions in pricing of fertilizers and agriculture procurement, and restrictions on agriculture futures, need immediate review and correction.

In summary, the government will need to dismantle the disincentives to prosperity in rural and urban areas. Both areas suffer from different types of disincentives and thus, different strategies will need to be devised to deal with each of them.

So, is the government working in this direction? It appears not. Recently, the government has decided to reimburse banks the merchant discount rate (MDR) in respect of debit card/ BHIM Unified Payments Interface/AEPS (Aadhaar enabled payment system) transactions of less than Rs2,000 for a period of two years, with the objective of promoting adoption and usage of digital payments. It is estimated that the total MDR support would be Rs2,512 crore.

This measure assumes awareness and willingness of consumers and merchants to adopt digital payments, availability of basic infrastructure, and existence of payment acceptance infrastructure, which is unfortunately not the case. A deeper analysis would reveal that such distortion of market-based incentives might be counter-productive in the long term. As realized on the first anniversary of demonetization, the digital villages have reverted to old ways of using cash.

Despite digitization being a laudable objective, the country is currently grappling with more serious challenges, such as employment generation. And the government has recently announced a paltry package of Rs2,600 crore for a period of three years for employment generation in the leather and footwear industry, a move which clearly indicates its priorities.

At best, the government appears to be playing to the gallery and score points for its short-sighted efforts to promote digital payments in predominantly urban areas. The government must realize that tinkering with processes of doing business resulting in gains on global indices is not enough.

If it really wants to recover lost ground, it will need to help the rural and urban poor populace realize its untapped potential by implementing transformational changes in social sectors. This would include investment in areas like education, health and social security. Without these, India’s growth story is expected to be non-inclusive and short lived, similar to the fate which the government is staring at currently.

we should make it world class winter game complex in future

we should make it world class winter game complex in future

Myanmar at 70: the burden of a flawed legacy

Myanmar at 70: the burden of a flawed legacy
Myanmar has witnessed long-running civil wars and is currently in the news for the Rohingya crisis
Myanmar celebrates the 70th anniversary of its independence on 4 January. It’s a good occasion to examine its flawed legacies. The country has witnessed long-running civil wars and is currently in the news for the Rohingya crisis. This unending turbulence is seen both as cause and consequence of weak political institutions—which explains why the generals were in command for so many decades after the military coup in 1962 that ended Myanmar’s first experiment with democracy. Even today, the military continues to wield political influence—although over the past decade, the military-drafted 2008 constitution has enabled piecemeal empowerment of civilian leaders following two general elections in 2010 and 2015.

Indeed, since last August, the Rohingya crisis overwhelmed Aung San Suu Kyi, once a global icon of the democratic struggle against Myanmar’s military regime. She is seen to be acquiescing, if not conniving, with the military’s treatment of the Rohingyas. One online petition calling for revocation of her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize has accrued nearly 4,36,000 signatures. Oxford University’s St Hugh’s College—where Suu Kyi earned her degree in politics—has decided to take down her portrait and remove her name from the title of its common room. Britain’s second largest trade union, Unison, has suspended Suu Kyi’s honorary membership. Journalists shout questions at her as she refuses to meet the press. Given that India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) have decided to keep a safe distance from the entire affair, a desperate Suu Kyi is compelled to seek support from the same China that had backed Myanmar’s military junta which kept her under house arrest for 15 years.

The Myanmar military too continues to engage Beijing, which has thwarted UN fact-finding missions from investigating human rights violations in Rakhine state that was home to 1.3 million Rohingyas. Of these, some 750,000 have been displaced. The UN calls it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” with secretary-general António Guterres making personal appeals to Myanmar to end the violence.

Yet, commemorating 70 years of the Myanmar air force last month, senior general Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar armed forces, commissioned 10 aircraft provided by Russia, France and the Netherlands. A week later, he oversaw the induction of seven new naval vessels. In February, the Myanmar military will participate as an observer at the US Pacific Command sponsored multinational annual Cobra Gold military exercises in Thailand. As Asia’s oldest and largest military exercise, Cobra Gold involves thousands of military personnel. Last year, 29 nations participated in it. All this leaves no doubt as to the fact that Myanmar continues to enjoy the major powers’ blessings.

Exuding that confidence in his 15 December speech last year on modernizing the army, Hlaing shared plans to procure new weapons, build relationships with foreign militaries and improve recruitment and training. This enthusiasm on the part of one of South-East Asia’s largest armed forces—numbering around 400,000—is bound to further undermine any hope of change in the Myanmar civil-military equation. This weakens the country’s experiment with installing a popularly elected civilian government. What lessons can be drawn from this?

“The truth is that only some form of dictatorship, either of a man or a party, can bring order to Burma and maintain it”, is how the 9 April 1947 edition of The Times (page 5) had prophesied Burma’s (known as Myanmar since 1988) future. It was the day of elections for its Constituent Assembly as per the January 1947 agreement that Britain had signed with Burma’s interim government. The latter consisted almost entirely of members of the Anti-Facist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) led by the youthful Aung San who had fielded 200 candidates for 210 seats. Of this, 56 were elected unopposed and the rest were pre-decided as the opposition chose not to participate.

Just like Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Pakistan and M.K. Gandhi in India, Aung San did not live long enough to participate in building his newly liberated nation. The last seven decades of Britain’s former colonies in South Asia clearly highlight the significance of grooming a second rung of leadership and their role in building and maintaining strong political norms and institutions. At the young age of 32, Aung San was assassinated along with six others of the AFPFL. The burden of leading the freedom struggle fell upon his compatriot U Nu, who guided the process of a new constitution being adopted in September 1947. Burma became independent on 4 January 1948.

A pious Buddhist and former schoolteacher, U Nu was popular for his personal integrity. Yet, intra-AFPFL factionalism contributed to his failures with economic planning as also in dealing with communists, ethnic minority revolts and the Kuomintang that had been driven out from China to eastern Burma. This dissipated his energies and empowered the armed forces. In 1958, U Nu asked general Ne Win to be the prime minister of a “caretaker government” until the elections. It was the same Ne Win who overthrew U Nu’s elected government in 1962.

In short, in these 70 years, the Burmese people have witnessed a democratic experiment during 1948-1962, a revolutionary period during 1962-74 and a socialist phase during 1974-88 which ended with the military’s brutal crackdown killing several thousand protesting students, monks and children. Unfortunately, there is no respite for ordinary Burmese yet in sight.

Electronics manufacturing needs a policy push

Electronics manufacturing needs a policy push
India’s electronics manufacturing has been unable to respond to the rising demand, increasing the import bill while the country loses an opportunity to create employment for millions
A growing middle class, rising disposable incomes, declining prices of electronics and a number of government initiatives have led to a fast-growing market for electronics and hardware products. However, India’s weak manufacturing base has not been able to respond to this increasing demand, leading to a growing trade deficit.

Of the country’s total demand for electronics, between 50-60% of the products and 70-80% of the components are imported. India’s imports of electronic goods grew 31% between April and October 2017 to $29.8 billion. Meanwhile, the trade deficit reached close to $100 billion during the April-November period of 2017, against $67 billion in the same eight-month period a year ago.

This is an ominous sign. If the situation doesn’t change, a report by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu states, expenses on electronics imports could surpass those on oil imports by 2020. Moreover, the industry has the potential to provide millions of jobs, directly and indirectly.

In order to deal with the problem, the government has listed the electronics industry as a priority sector under its Make In India campaign. There are various government schemes to encourage domestic manufacturing which provide tax and tariff concessions, investment subsidies, preferential market access in government procurement and export subsidy. In fact, as recently as December, the government increased the import duty on various electronic items like smartphones, LED bulbs and microwave ovens—for most products, the rate increased from 10% to either 15% or 20%.

But, as this paper has often argued, the way forward is to increase the country’s general competitiveness in the export market instead of pursuing sectoral policies. India’s share in the global electronics market was a minuscule 1.6% of the market in 2015 that is currently valued over $1.75 trillion. With a large domestic market and a number of trained engineers, India’s absence in the electronics manufacturing supply chain is an anomaly that better policies can correct. Instead of preserving our market for domestic manufacturers, the goal should be to capture a larger piece of this global market. There are various factors that have kept these goals from being met.

First is the inverted tax structure for electronic goods. Due to a limited base of local component suppliers, manufacturers are dependent on importing parts. Under the World Trade Organisation’s information technology agreement of 1995 (ITA-1), tariffs on 217 IT products were set at zero. However, the positive custom duties on the components (or parts) used in electronic products make it expensive for domestic manufacturers to compete with foreign competitors who can access the components at lower prices. The solution is to bring the duties on components down to the level of the product. Some parts might be used for multiple products that may have different duties, but it’s important to rule in favour of simple rules and apply the rate-cut regardless of use. It’s not difficult to imagine a rule for assessing the eligibility for the duty-concession depending on the use to which a component is put—it is precisely this kind of paperwork that needs to be avoided.

Second, foreign direct investment (FDI) in electronics is less than 1% of the total FDI inflow because of onerous labour laws, delays in land-acquisition and the uncertain tax regime have kept investors at bay. While the labour laws may be reformed in 2018, and we might be past the times of retrospective taxation, the memory of the Vodafone and Nokia cases is still fresh in investors’ memory. In order to inspire confidence, laws need to be liberal and predictable. In the case of taxation, it is important to clearly establish the tax liabilities under different circumstances in full detail. A possible experiment could be special economic zones like the Dubai International Financial Centre—Dubai’s normal civil and commercial laws do not apply in this area and a British chief justice ensures the practice of British common law.

Third, the procedures for cross-border trade work against the competitiveness of Indian producers as shown by the Doing Business rankings—India ranks 146 in the category of trading across borders due to the high costs of compliance. The numerous forms, fees, inspections and the associated time discourage domestic producers from exporting and keep them out of the international supply chain.

Between 2000 and 2015, hardware production in India increased from Rs31,100 crore to Rs1.02 trillion. Meanwhile, information technology (IT) services revenue increased from Rs37,750 crore to Rs8.4 trillion. This shows that India is capable of producing globally competitive products. But while the non-material nature of IT services has constrained the state’s grabbing hand, the electronics manufacturing industry did not have that privilege.

China, with its rising labour costs, will soon not be the global manufacturing hub it is today. This is an opportunity for countries like India, the Philippines, Thailand, etc., to attract companies to move their plants to their country. Despite its low costs of labour, India might lose this race if it doesn’t reform the key sectors of the economy.

This is not to suggest that the government is oblivious to these challenges. In fact, much has been done in the past couple of years to suggest that we are moving in the right direction. Introduction of the landmark goods and services tax (GST) has increased the distance that trucks are travelling by about 30%. GST has also reduced the confusion associated with various state and local taxes. And the government seems determined to improve the condition of highways and ports.

Yet, much needs to be done towards removing barriers that discourage exports and creating a reputation for stable and predictable rules.

How can India’s electronics manufacturing industry be made globally competitive?

Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the country have got more autonomy in their functioning with restricted government’s role in their functioning and power to award degrees instead of diplomas to their graduates, according to a new law.

President Ram Nath Kovind has given assent to the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017, on Sunday, and it has now become a law. The new law—which was passed in the Lok Sabha in July, 2017 and by Rajya Sabha on 19 December—grants statutory powers to the IIMs in their running, including the appointment of directors and faculty members.

The Indian Institute of Management Act, 2017, gives the IIMs powers to award degrees instead of postgraduate diplomas. “The bill offers autonomy to these institutes. Through this bill we will remove all interference of the government, bureaucracy in the functioning of the IIMs. They will themselves decide how to manage and run these premier institutes,” HRD minister Prakash Javadekar had said while initiating a discussion on Rajya Sabha last month.

As per the provisions of the Act, the board of governors of each institute shall be the principal executive body comprising up to 19 members. It will consist a chairperson from amongst eminent persons distinguished in the field of industry or education or science or technology or management or public administration, to be appointed by the board; one nominee of the central government having charge of the management education or his representative and a nominee of the respective state government or representative of such nominees, within whose territorial jurisdiction the institute is located.

The board will appoint the director of each IIM, who will be the chief executive officer of the institute.