Volunteer Ramblings

US Supreme Court & Corporations

2007-06-21T16:44:00.000-07:00

In the last two weeks or so US supreme court has given 4 judgements pro-corporations against investors/consumers. And they are very plainly pro-corporation - you dont require to stretch your imagination to any degree. All make tougher to sue corporations for things like plain fraud to wage dicrimination to
1. Supreme Court sides with business again
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/06/21/PM200706211.html
An 8-1 Supreme Court ruling will make it more difficult for investors to bring class action lawsuits that allege they've been ripped off by companies committing securities fraud.

2.
Supreme Court sides with banks
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/06/18/PM200706182.html
Supreme Court justices have ruled that Wall Street investment banks and stock brokers are immune from antitrust lawsuits that challenge the banks' and brokers' cooperation when they float IPOs.

3.
A big day for business at the Supreme Court
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/06/11/PM200706111.html?refid=0
The Supreme Court released four, unanimous business-related opinions today. There was some bad news for Big Tobacco. And, as Steve Henn reports, it wasn't such a good day for unions either.

4.
High Court Vs. Working Women
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/09/1765/
On May 29, the Bush Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts delivered what could be a devastating blow to women experiencing discrimination in pay and promotion.

All due to pro-corporate justices choices made over the years.

private-sector-shining-govt-tarnished ??

2007-06-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

http://policymusings.blogspot.com/2007/06/private-sector-shining-govt-tarnished.html

Walmart's Health Insurance for Employees

2007-01-13T07:43:00.000-08:00

According to a report released by walmart " less than half of its 1.3 million workers -- 47.4 percent -- are enrolled in Wal-Mart's own health program"

To read in more detail read this blogpost.

Friedman: Free to Choose Part 1

2007-01-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Posted from: http://policymusings.blogpost.com

The video is part 1 of documentary series "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman, followed by a discussion between Friedman and others about free markets/capitalism/government intervention/corporate power/freedoms. The discussion is good and brings up lots of points in the debate as compared to the documentary which shows only part of view points.

In the documentary Friedman purports various benefits of free markets. He stresses the point that free markets provide economic freedom to everybody and even though in sweat shops the conditions maybe bad, people choose it over other options and they move on to better futures after the hard work. Here he is making a big assumption that people are free to choose which is debatable. In my opinion people who "choose" sweatshop labor have a very constrained set of choices - maybe between a tyrannical government or sweatshops. The goal should not be to find which is the better option among these choices but rather to find policy options to broaden and enchance the set of options in order to make a truly "free" choice.

He goes over the neo-classical economic theories of "Magic of Prices" and how they provide incentives. He seems to be a great beleiver that free markets lead to more freedoms both political and social and for this he uses example of Hong Kong which has almost zero tariffs, low or non-existent government regulation but which is thriving. But the fact is that HK with all the prosperity has huge disparities in income with the inequality index of 0.46 in 1996.

I would question his premise the free markets help everybody and is the solution to poverty. Free markets are not level playing fields and dont provide equal freedom to all. They are highly skewed in favor of the rich who get more votes - in terms of voting with their checkbooks - while poor get less votes as they have only so much to spend. Free Markets are definately good for the rich as they get more votes, their voices are heard. Like for example pharamecutical industry comes up with drugs for the illnesses of the rich but rarely comes with new drugs for the illnesses of the billions of poor like malaria etc as shown by recent new medicines introductions.

He is a strong proponent of reducing government regulation. He says govt regulation tends to work for the industralist and government anyway cant do anything good so its better when they intervene the lease. He tends to believe government regulation restricts indiviual freedom. Again this point is highly debetable. Absence of government regulation in my opinion instead of freeing the poor, empower the rich as they have more voting power in this new setup. I understand over government regulation stifles innovation and leads to a bureucratic power strucutre where again the rich seek benefits. But this does not mean complete de-regulation and no government oversight as that leads to corporations exploitation of labor, communities, enviornment. There needs to be a balance between the two and only government where - one person, one vote holds true to a large degree can represent interest of the poor.

The discussion which follows brings up series of interesting points. Though in theory if everybody has equal power than free markets will benefit everybody but power strucutres are too squewed towards corporations & the rich for a free market setup to benefit everybody. The challenge I think is to device government regulation and control upto extent where the less powerful are represented, without giving the rich additional powers. I would highly recommend the documentary, especially the discussion.

Case Study: City of Atlanta Water Privatization

2007-01-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

Cross Posted @ http://policymusings.blogspot.com

This case study of city of Atlanta water privatization analyzes the reasons for the failure of water privatization in Atlanta and lessons to be learned from the failure for other cities which are considering privatizing their water services. It was done in collaboration with a bunch of folks.

Case Study @

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ddnrwjjv_7f5msvf

Posts on corporations

2007-01-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

Here are two new posts which are first among several case studies to be collected over time about corporations, privatization, development, international institutions ...

New Worker Scheduling at Walmart - Another way to exploit workers and be more "efficient"

Corporations: Human Lives vs Profit? Winner: Profit

Schools, reservations, vouchers and us

2006-06-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

While the bogey of reservations in higher education has created many entrenched groups clamoring for or against it (with apparently little middle ground), many interesting developments have passed quietly in the primary and basic education sector, which perhaps needs the most urgent reform.

The Free and Compulsory Education Bill, which, if executed well could have truly made a difference to the mass of underprivileged, undereducated children of India, has pretty much been scuttled by our lawmakers. The Central government has washed its hands off the bill, and instead the current proposal intends to pass on the proposals to the states, which can then individually act on it. There was also a proposal to reserve 25% of all seats in private schools in India for children from disadvantaged/underprivileged sections.

The proposal concedes the fact that the government schooling system is in shambles, and parents, if they can afford it, will send their kids to a hole-in-the-wall private school rather than a government school. Gone are the days when people could expect a good education in government schools (many of our parents went to government schools, and went on to become engineers, doctors, academics, scientists and the like). Yet this new proposal (of 25% reservations in private schools) has its own concerns.

This proposal though typically invokes three types of reactions amongst people. One is outright dismissal of the idea, and the dogged refusal to concede that all is not well with primary education in India, that social inequities are entrenched and perhaps even reinforced in schools, and that often getting an education in a government school is as good as no education at all. However, many people belong to one of two other groups. Both groups are in complete agreement that the primary education sector is in an unhealthy state, and that government schools are failing miserably to impart a quality education. This is not due to teachers’ salaries (see an earlier post). It is also not due to the government not being capable of imparting good education. The Kendriya Vidyalayas, Sainik schools and some central schools still do a good job. But most schools are terrible. The need for reform and new alternatives is apparent to both groups. Yet one of these groups favors the reservation being extended in to private schools, the other does not.

Those who oppose it instead suggest an incentive based model. Their argument is that any coercion is not acceptable, and will result in further dividing the haves and have-nots. It is also the government’s job to provide good education to the masses, not the role of a private school (though educational institutions in India cannot be “for profit). Instead, if the government provided economic incentives to private schools to become more inclusive, they believe the schools might. An incentive might perhaps be some form of tax-breaks to schools for percentages of underprivileged students studying in it. Another proposal is a “voucher scheme”, where poor parents are given government vouchers that can be “cashed” only by schools, as fee payments. Even if private schools deny opportunities for kids of parents with vouchers, the market will observe that there is a clear opportunity for new schools that accept vouchers to be built, and these will serve the purpose of providing good education to the underprivileged.

Those who would accept it do not accept it outright, as an only solution. But, in this case, it is mostly “some effort is better than no effort”. They also raise some valid points. In an ideal world, the government would move towards a good central schooling system, where schools serve areas, and all children from the area study there. This would enforce social mixing of all children in the area, and “have-nots” will study with “haves”, decreasing discrimination. There is a greater likelihood of better education being imparted. However, in the absence of any government effort to do any such thing, extending reservations in private schools might ensure that at least there’s a chance of underprivileged students getting a decent education. Most also agree that the school should not bear the expense of these students, but the state must. They believe economic incentive or voucher system, though conceptually good, will fail in an Indian system. In the Indian system, with its still very rigid and prevalent class mores, educational institutions are unlikely to voluntarily accept any inclusion. The urban middle class will baulk at the though of their kids studying with kids from slums, and will not allow schools to include these children, even if the government gives schools some economic incentives. They will be willing to pay more than voucher amounts to schools, to ensure that the schools their kids study in remain “elite”, or “better”. Even if new schools come up that accept vouchers, it may be that only underprivileged kids with vouchers will study in it, creating or perpetuating a class system, without assimilation or mixing of groups. 25% reservations in schools might still perpetuate inequities (since the underprivileged will remain a minority), but some effort is better than nothing.

My own take is that in both these stands undoubtedly have valid and forceful arguments. However, both are based on anecdotal reasoning, or arguments by analogy. By saying “the Indian middle class will not accept poor students studying with their kids”, you are only creating a hypothesis. It remains the same if you say “vouchers will provide incentives for schools to accept all students”. Again, a hypothesis.

Now, a hypothesis is not just a statement or opinion. It is a reasoned explanation of a phenomena or observation, usually based on some evidence. However, any hypothesis needs to be tested to be proven to be correct. In this case, both arguments could even fall in to the trap of Occams Razor. The Indian middle class thinks it is beneath them to mix with the lowest strata, therefore all schools that use vouchers to enroll underprivileged students will not have a mix of students from all classes is fallacious. Similarly, saying that vouchers will enable all students to gain access to education is also not as straightforward as it sounds. My own view is that the only way we’ll know is if there is an independent verification of both suggestions, perhaps by selecting say two districts with similar socio-economic conditions, and trying these two systems for a sufficient period of time (five years? Ten?). Or use other means of data collection, with data that will simulate the Indian system the closest. But these things take time, commitment and effort. Do we have that?

Any views (except flaming) are welcome.

Some (quick reading) on the topic here, here, here

TISS report on farmer suicide in Maharastra

2006-05-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

A TISS study on farmer suicide on request of High Court. It has some important conclusions about minimum support prices in India (which are lower than cost of production in India, in many cases 50% less), investment in agriculture by govt (which has been steadily decreased to 1.6% of GDP), rural credit system in India (even today more than 50% of agri. loans are from private sources).

It touches some of the broader macroeconomic issues but not in detail.
http://www.tiss.edu/Causes%20of%20Farmer%20Suicides%20in%20Maharashtra.pdf

Meeting the challenge of Mandal II

2006-05-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is a two part series looking into
a) Social distribution of current graduates 20 or above
b) Defining "merit"
c) Proposing a new model for affirmative action.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/22/stories/2006052202261100.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/23/stories/2006052305841100.htm

World Trade Talks & Agricultural Subsidy

2006-05-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

Recently in Sangati we started discussions on World Trade Policy, especially how it impacts developing and third world countries. Its a very interesting topic and one of great importance to almost everyone as these talks have the potential of changing livelihood options for millions (maybe billions).

Brief History:
After the second world war numerous world-wide institutions came into existence. The important ones relating to trade/finance were the World Bank, IMF and GATT. All these institutions were set up by the developed nations with different objectives. The objectives varied from funding post-war recovery to opening up trade among nations. GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) was designed to provide an international forum that encouraged free trade between member states by regulating and reducing tariffs on traded goods and by providing a common mechanism for resolving trade disputes. Intially only developed countries were part of GATT. By 1980's most of the developing countries were members of GATT but the discussion agenda was dominated by developed countries. Developed countries wanted developing countries to lower tariffs and other barriers so that their corporations could trade in develping countries more easily. GATT's intial agenda dealt only with trade in goods The last round for GATT talks - the Uruguray round - increased the scope of GATT by signing an agreement on Intellectual Property Rights at the behest of the developed nations. By mid-1990's GATT gave away to WTO (World Trade Organization). WTO covers trade in goods, services, IPR and almost everything. Almost all countries in the world - barring few are part of WTO. As per WTO site its a platform for multi-lateral trade talks and its goal is to improve welfare of people pf member countries.

More detailes about GATT can be found at http://www.ciesin.org/TG/PI/TRADE/gatt.html

Developed vs Developing Countries

Developed countries are interested in opening up services like financial services, goods trade and in imposing intellectual property rights through WTO. The developing world has a nascent or almost non-existent services industry + they are technological disadvantage to developed world. So they are opposed to opening up services, because developed world corporations will crush the local industry. Developing world wants that developed countries open up agriculture and low end manufacturing trade for them. These are sectors where developing countries have an advantage and most of their population is involved in. But developed nations have maintained very high argiculture tariffs making it almost impossible to export to them. But they are more bigger issues in agriculture trade as explained below.

WTO Round of Talks:

The Doha round of talks seem to be stuck on agriculture. In its last few meetings WTO members havent being able to come up with an agreement on this issue because of strong disagreements between developed and developing world. So whats the crux of the problem?

In short, a farmer in developed world gets huge subsides through their respective gevernements and can afford to sell their products in international market at substantially low rates. A farmer in developing country or under-developed countries doesnt get these level of subsidies and is unable to sell their produce in international market at rates offered by developed countries farmers. So their produce is not competetive to be sold in international market. So they are forced to sell at very low profits or below their production costs.

Plus, developed countries have very high barriers in form of tariffs for imported agricultural produce. So these markets are virtually closed for many agricultural goods for the entire world.

In addition, import tarrifs for agricultural goods in many developing countries are not high. So local farmers have to compete with imported subsidized produce from developed countries.
This means farmers lose out on their local markets also.

Why is this a BIG problem?

In developing countries and especially the under-developed countries agriculture is one of the main occupations and more than 50% of the population is dependent on that. These farmers have very few alternate livelihood options and lack of social security incentives. Subsides offered in developed world kill the only area of trade where they have more expertise as compared to developed world.

In upcoming blogs I will go in detail on specific case studies like, EU & Sugar Subsidy, US & Cotton Subsidy, Japan & Rice Subsidy. The issue is far more intricate than the above explanation implies and hopefully details will try to clear those. Once its clear how the subsidies impact poor in the developing world, we will try to look at reasons why developed world govt are so opposed to removing them.

Corporate Subsidy - SEZ land allotment

2006-05-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

Humongous amount of land are being allocated at concessional rates for setting up SEZ's by corporations. Another example of "unmentioned" corporate subsidy.

SEZs give rise to new-age landlords- The Economic Times

Corporate Subsidy

2006-05-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

All across India, in name of development/jobs, private corporations are given land at concessional rates or free. This is true from software parks in South or industries in Orissa or the topic of discussion below Reliance in Punjab. One example of corporate subsidy being offered by the poor state/central governments.

Earlier I had pointed on blog about SEZ (Special Economic Zones) bill, which is full of corporate subsidies.

Who pays for this? Ultimately the state, the tax payers.

At what Cost? State govts which cant fund "agraian crisis" due to lack of funds (Maharastra), who have huge budget deficits pay these subsidies.

Who cares? Almost no one, because very few seem to be directly affected. This though smaller in proportion earlier has been rapidly rising with the new wave of "development".

I am not against development or new industrial parks or things coming up. But these are for-profit corporations and if they really feel worth it they can invest the money and buy up land at market rates. After all corporations are all for market to work and no government interference so why doesnt the principle apply here.

These are some arguments for doing this: like new jobs are created in the area, new taxes will be collected and so on. Agreed. But there should be transparency in how much subsidy the govt gives for these purposes and needs to be evaluated is it worth it?.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060508/main4.htm

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Main News: "Punjab out to ‘gift’ land to Reliance
Crucial meeting today
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 7
The Punjab Government is all set to offer the premium land worth several hundred crores to Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for a song. A high- level meeting in this regard has been convened by the Chief Secretary, Mr K.R. Lakhanpal, tomorrow in his office.

Among others, who have been asked to attend the meeting include the Principal Secretary, Industries, the Managing Director of the Punjab Agro Industries and the Secretary of the Punjab Mandi Board.

What is being offered on a platter to the RIL is a piece of a 20-acre land at Mohali. The land belongs to the Punjab Mandi Board and was purchased by it about 18 years ago. The land is just close to the railway station, a prime location.

Of course, the Punjab Mandi Board is opposing the sale of the land to the RIL at a price it was acquired 18 years ago. “At present the worth of the land, if it is sold by earmarking plots, is worth Rs 200 crore. However, if the land is developed as a commercial site and sold for showrooms, it can fetch a price up to Rs 1,000 crore', say real estate analysts.

However, when this land was acquired by the Mandi Board, its price was only Rs 2 crore. The government has"

Electricity Privatization in Delhi

2006-05-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

Jan Sunwai on power, water crisis sought

Power privatization in the Capital a `miserable failure'

Option for consumers to choose new meter demanded

Selling price of power `exorbitantly' high

The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Of hi-tech, low efficiency, and malls

2006-05-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

A good articulation of development debate in India.

The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Of hi-tech, low efficiency, and malls

Some thoughts on corporate funding

2006-04-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, the issue of approaching corporations for funds came up at an Asha meeting. What was interesting about it was the absence of much discussion on the issue. Very little was said, most people didn’t seem very opposed to the idea and probably had not thought about it enough.

What's wrong with corporate funding, the question arises. Clearly, more funding means more projects, higher levels of monetary involvement in various aspects of our projects including infrastructure and so on. And corporate funding is just another source of funding, the argument goes. More dollars in the bank using which we can do more things. I suspect many of us would see no issue here. What indeed is the problem with corporate funding? Oh sure, there are those who hate corporations and all that, but darn, they’re just raging leftists who can never take a balanced, objective view of things, who think with their heart more than their brain.

Yet the issue is critical in my opinion. Let me state my position first – I am opposed to corporate funding. Since there are many doctrinally assumed reasons for why one might be opposed to corporate funding, let me start with what are not some of the reasons for my position. No, it's not out of ethical considerations, even though I am opposed to corporations as an institution. They are fascist structures, totalitarian institutions of the worst kind, vested with enormous power by the state. However, owing to this very power, they are omnipresent. They dominate every walk of life. If I were to make a list of how dependent my life is on them, the list would be endless - beginning with food to medicine to where I work to search engines to book stores to sources of entertainment, etc. At the risk of digressing, let me hasten to add that my opposition to corporations coupled with my rather direct dependence on them does not make me a hypocrite. Why am I raising this issue, you might ask. Well, there are many that hold what is to me a rather strange point of view – that since one is so dependent on this magnificent institution, one must therefore feel obliged to not oppose or criticize it (I will leave you to reflect upon the deep-rooted totalitarian strains behind this point of view).

Back to the original point, I do hate 'em. But that is not why I'm opposed to their funding. In fact, I have no problem with using matching funds, using corporate resources such as machines, office-space and software for non-profit work (imagine doing our non-profit work without the web, google and all!). We cannot choose the world we live in, after all. Since the world is dominated by an institution and since we have to live in this world, it follows quite naturally that we use the institution to our ends as much as possible.

No, that is not the point at all. My opposition to corporate funding stems from something different. Note first that all said and done, funding is important. After all, it does substantially widen the scope of things you can do. It helps you dream bigger. It helps broaden the impact of our work. But, and this is often missed, this comes with a price. I strongly feel once an organization grows accustomed to a certain level of funding and the things that go with it, it makes it much harder to accept or even consider a lower level of funding. The threat of donors withdrawing, of the same money not being raised the next year, becomes real. Whether we like it or not, this becomes a big consideration in whatever we do. In other words, there is a rather significant hidden cost that we must bear in mind in planning our funding strategies, namely the burden of renewability – how easily can the funds be renewed?

It is especially critical to keep this in mind if as an organization, we seek to constantly challenge our approach and even change strategy if needed (in short, if we’re serious about socio-economic change). Just imagine the constraints that funding would impose on you should you wish to change direction. Taking the example of Asha, say we wish to switch to a more activist role as an organization. Say we wish to broaden our focus, to go beyond education. Say we wish to allow Asha volunteers to be grass-root social workers. Well, these are all significant changes in the way the organization is structured and we have to understand that these changes will be that much harder to achieve if the burden of fund renewability is high. No matter that an overwhelming majority of volunteers feels it is the right thing to do.

Now, corporate funding is usually huge and unlike individual donations which are spread out among many individuals, corporate funding can easily be concentrated in few hands. Moreover, it is worth recalling that corporations never donate out of philanthropic motivations. That is legally prohibited. No, I’m not kidding. That is legally prohibited. To them, it is a public-relations exercise. Why does this matter, you ask. We get the money, who cares what the donor’s motives were; perhaps it was tax deductions; who cares? Again that is not the point. The issue is that the corporation’s commitment to the cause is weak, by its very definition. Well, that clearly implies the corporation might easily switch the cause to which it is contributing. The switch is determined purely by public relations, things like what is a hot topic, where is media attention higher, etc.

As a result, the burden of renewability that corporate funding carries is much, much, much more. We will be effectively held hostage to it. That to me is the crux of why corporate funding is undesirable. And this applies not just to dollar contributions. Say tomorrow Asha decides to seriously take up sending learning aids, on a large scale, to all its projects. And say a corporation is willing to contribute for free. We ought to be very careful before accepting, for exactly the above reasons. In fact, I would oppose it.

The Price Of Being A Woman: Slavery In Modern India

2006-04-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

The Price Of Being A Woman: Slavery In Modern Iindia By Justin Huggler: "

The desire for sons has created a severe shortage of marriageable young women. As their value rises, unscrupulous men are trading them around the subcontinent and beyond as if they were a mere commodity

Water Management: As disputes over water linger, India faces a sponge bath future

2006-03-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

India Together: As disputes over water linger, India faces a sponge bath future - 20 March 2006: "WATER MANAGEMENT
Sponge bath future
Maharashtra's latest step towards water management has raised a large controversy, pitting strong views against one another. But lost amidst the arguments is an important fact - the solutions for our water crises are not going to be easy, because we've left ourselves very few options."

SEZ: The high cost of 'easy' foreign exchange - 9 March 2006

2006-03-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

India Together: The high cost of 'easy' foreign exchange - 9 March 2006

A new sop came into effect for net-foreign exchange earning businesses in designated export zones from February 10 -- a 15-year income tax holiday. But are the costs of the revenues foregone worth the claimed benefits of more investment and jobs? M Suchitra examines the reality and does not find a rosy picture.

A study in contrast - SEZ bill and RTE bill

2006-02-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

Some background:

SEZ (Special Economic Zone) Act:
Special Economic Zone Act 2005, is a act which stipulates rules for setting up these zones and incentives offered by the government. SEZ can be established anywhere within the country (there are some size restrictions) and units setup within these will get special incentives. The major incentives include: 1. Single window clearance for central and State laws. 2. Special infrastrucutre within SEZ. 3. SEZ are "foreign" for the purpose of custom duty. There wont be any duties on items exported to SEZ from India. 4. Units setup within the SEZ do not pay any income taxes and many other taxes for the next 10 years.
Most of the incentives for the Act are listed out in the bill itself.

http://sezindia.nic.in/sez-rules2006.pdf
http://www.sezindia.nic.in/SEZ%20Act,%202005.pdf

RTE (Right to Education) draft bill:
This is bill to provide fundamental right to education to children aged 6-14 years of age. Its lists out what it means to have fundamental right to education. The bill is very vague and lacks details. My opinion, is that is not at all remarkable enough to change the education system or status in India. There is nothing new in the bill.

There are several points I want to make:
a) SEZ bill is a business friendly bill which is utterly unjustifiable. Why should SEZ units, which dont pay any taxes, get better infrastrucute and incentives while other businesses pay taxes and get bad infrastructure?. Doesnt this equate to what middle class say about slums. Middle class claim that slums dont pay any taxes and use the infrastructure (water, sanitation) and hence should be demolished. Why should we encourage SEZ's then?

b) There are only size restictions on what cant be an SEZ. So all big businesses and projects will now be setup in an SEZ and get all tax benefits (pay no taxes). So where will govt get its taxes from? Only the indiviuals?

c) I think of the SEZ bill as a huge corporate subsidy. Economists talk about reducing the various social subsidies. I dont see that much oppostion to this type of subsidy. Rather none of the articles refer to as subsidy. Isnt this a subsidy given to profit making businesses and why is it justified?

Now I come to the contrast between the two bills mentioned before:
1. SEZ bill has passed parliament and came into effect on Fb 10th.
RTE bill is in draft form and there is no set time frame of when it will be presented. In 1993 Supreme court declared education as fundamental right and only in 2002 was the constitution changed and 2005 a draft bill prepared.
Infact in SEZ case some 117 SEZ's are already approved.
This shows how much govt has commitment towards the bill.

2. SEZ bill is specific and all incentive details are listed out in it. RTE bill is vague and details are onitted. It omits things as to what provisions will be made for special children or what does it mean by neighbourhood or equitable education.

3. There have been massive protests to get RTE bill out by many public groups and still govt hasnt moved. People are suffering and children lives are at stake. While SEZ bill will provide incentives to industry which is still growing at a healthy rate of > 10% (Industrial growth in India for past few years has been > 10%). So why the urgency to get the SEZ bill?.

4. There are huge discussions in the planning commission on the financial impact of the RTE bill. State governments are opposed to funding the bill. But there havent been any committees set up to determine the financial loss in terms of lost taxes or businesses moving to SEZ's. No state govt are complaning. Infact state governments are eager to provide additional incentives. Our Commerce ministry is talking only about additional investment which this will bring and nothing about lost taxes.

Though not a systematic study, this clearly shows how govts work/ busineeses work. Businesses when given subsidy are happy but when subsidy is given to poor or money spent on social sector they call it "populist" and talk about federal prudence and budget deficits.
Govts. (even our democratic one) work by means of lobbying and for busineeses. They only look after constituencies for short while at time of elections.

This needs to change.

I might look into doing a more systematic study of this later.

Analysis: Right to Education Bill

2006-02-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

Over the previous few weeks we in Asha have been discussing the Draft Right to Education Bill, 2005. The goal of this excercise is to come up with a Asha Seattle's stance on the bill. Different opinions were expressed in the discussions which were interesting to listen at times. In this multi-part blog entry I would put forth my opinions and discuss several background documents.

Some background info:
Draft Bill
CABE Committee report on free and Compulsory Education
CABE Committee Report on Girls’ Education and Common School System
Short good read on the bill & analysis by PRS.

My critique of the bill is based on the following points:
1. Childrens Age Group:
Current Position:
The draft bill and the 93rd ammendment defines fundamental right to free and compulsory education for children in age group 6-14.
My View:
I think the right should include all children upto the age of 18 or until they have completed 12th grade.
Why:

0-6 age group:
Education for the 0-6 age group might mean providing basic health and nurtrituion facilites to this age group. It might mean providing anganwadi and creches (day care facilites).
In India more than 45% of the children suffer from malnutrition in this age group. Scientifically it has been proved that this is among the most important period in a childs brain development.
The aim of the bill is to provide everybody with equitable quality of education. If this age group is not addressed in the bill a large propotion of the children will not get opputrunity of quality education as they are disadvantaged before they reach the age of 6.

14-18 age group:
One of the goals of education is to equip children with means to live a fulfilling life which includes providing some sort of skills to earn livelihood. Education for 14-18 age group can be tailored to provide such skills in form of education to go for higher studies or additional vocational education.

There are several other reasons like:
- In the 1993 Supreme Court Judgement in case of Unnikrishnan vs State of Andrha Pradesh the court recognized the right of education for upto 14 years of age and from 14-18 age group depending on the financial ability of the state.
- India is signatory to the United Nations Resolution on Rights of the Child which recognizes the right to education for everybody upto 18 years of age.

Critics of my argument may agrue that the govt. currently addresses the 0-6 age group through various schemes like ICDE scheme and its also part of the constitution as part of Article 45. But this doesnt make it a fundamental right for 0-6 age group children which the state is liable to. Is there any valid reason for this age group not being addressed in the bill?. None. Its just lack of political will. The financial commitment on the govt by extending the bill to include 0-18 age group is not signficant if there is political will.

2. Government's Commitment:
Current Stand:
The government will provide neighorbood schools in all areas within 3 years and till then provide transportation charges for children to the schools.
Free education is vaguely defined as govt schools will not charge any fees.
Quality of education is defined mostly in terms of accesibility to schools.

My View:
I think the government should provide quality neighborhood schools in all areas within 1 year.
I think governement should in addition provide a) free textbooks b) uniform c) transportaion charges if any d) any other expenses incurred on education by children of lower income families.
Within one year government should ensure that all govt schools are of the same level in terms of insfrastructure (building, teacher's education, teacher-student ratio etc) as today's Kendriya Vidyalaya schools. Within 3 years per-child expenses on education in all schools should be comparable to KV schools today. Govt should setup strict evaluation mechanism for monitoring how schools are performing in terms of imparting education. This will mean looking beyond infrastructure to things like children learning standards in schools. The bill should include provisions by which Govt can be held responsible if it doesnt acheive the above in stated time frame.

Why:
I believe "Everybody should get equal opportunity for education". No child should be denied quality education. Education for all should be a priority as it has been ignored for many years.
Critics may argue that this is overly ambitious. Is it?. Just look at the Golden Quadrilateral project or the National Highway project. The govt considered it a priority and within a few years we have roads comparable to free ways in America. So I am sure it can be done.
Oh we dont have money, the other argument will go. Do we really dont have money?. The government is spending a lot on various infrastructure projects. I think education being the most important priority funds can be diverted towards that for 1-2 years. Also I beleive we dont really need that much money that other sectors will be completely ignored. A few places where untargeted subsidies are reduced/restructured (LPG!, fertilizer! ...) or special incentives given to rich industries (Special economic zones!, free/subsidized land!) removed will provide with the needed money. If Govt commits I am sure there wont be any trouble finding the money.

In the next part I will cover my other criticisms to the bill. Comments/questions are welcome.

India Together: The first Annual Survey of Education report - 31 January 2006

2006-01-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

India Together: The first Annual Survey of Education report - 31 January 2006

And how do teachers become accountable?

2006-01-09T18:10:00.000-08:00

Most of us know that the state of education (or even literacy, which is a very different thing) in India is abysmal. The literacy rate (which comes with the usual fudge factor, and “if you can sign your name you’re literate”) in India is still around 70% for men, and 55 or so percent for women. Most of us have different opinions on why this is so, and different opinions on how to fix it.

There are grand suggestions that all education in India be privatized (since parents prefer private schools anyway, given that most government schools are pathetic). Others want a rapid and massive increase in the money spent on education (currently ~4% of the GDP), or private schools bearing the burden and expense of mass education. Some others want higher salaries and better options for teachers. The first suggestion, of superceding the government completely in all education is quite impractical. In fact, the countries with the best educational levels have excellent public school systems (even the United States) which does serve especially the neglected or poorest sections of society. As far as spending goes, India’s spending is decent (when compared to most countries), and falls in between the middle spenders and the high spenders. And there’s no reason to believe that the same bureaucracy that hasn’t delivered in 58 years is suddenly going to do so. The money spent is probably not going to reach its destination. It hasn’t so far. Even though on paper there’s a primary school within 5 km of every village in most of the country the results are not impressive. And it would be against basic liberties to require private schools to bear the burden of mass education. As far as the third goes, actually government teachers are rather well paid. A teacher can expect to earn about Rs. 10000 a month, with some additional perks. Surprisingly, most private school teachers (especially in smaller schools, which form the vast majority) earn between Rs. 3000-Rs. 6000. Yet, their performance is far better. Why is that?

At a very basic level (with out going in to other aspects) it boils down to two factors: accountability and power.

Government schoolteacher jobs are highly coveted positions, and here’s why. If you are a government teacher in a village, you’re amongst the most well off, and the most powerful. And you don’t need to do any teaching in your life if you don’t want to.

The position is yours for keeps. Appointments are highly affected by political or organizational connections. Once appointed, it’s almost impossible for you to be dismissed from service. There is little in place in terms of inspections (with inspectors actually having the power to dismiss teachers). Teachers are transferred routinely, but if the teacher is “connected”, he/she can avoid transfers, or transfer himself to the neighboring village, 3 kilometers away, and continue to be incompetent. There is no requirement that the teacher actually completes any part of the syllabus given, nor is there any incentive for students of a teacher to “pass” or “fail”. There are many reports of teachers never attending a single day of school, or even them having hired proxy’s to teach in the class (while they run their family business or whatever). Teacher absenteeism is massive (in some states absenteeism is up to 40%, with even more teachers present but not teaching). In contrast, in a private school, even for a teacher earning Rs 3000 a month, if the students perform badly, or there are clear cases of incompetence, the teacher is sacked. There’s no shortage of graduates in the country who want to teach. How good the education they impart is, that is a different matter. But we’ll keep the litmus test for now to students “passing” or being functionally literate.

Accountability.

Government school teachers also happen to be extremely powerful. Why? Because amongst other things, they become election poll officials during elections. And the schools under them become election polling booths. Clearly, the power they wield during an election is obvious. The teacher’s union is not just a small vote bank, but can actually determine the outcome of elections.

Power, and no accountability.

But how can this be fixed? The government has a number of proven and successful options. The first is obviously greater involvement of parents in the running of schools. If there is a parent association (at village levels) actively involved in the school’s functioning, with the power to question or even suspend teachers who do not attend classes or teach, teachers will be forced to do their jobs. Accountability is enforced, and learning indexes dramatically improve. Another proven method are different types of “voucher systems”. An example of a voucher system would be that all poor parents are given a “cash voucher”, with the clause that it can only be redeemed (for it’s value) as school fees for their kids. The parents would be free to enroll their kids in any school, but those vouchers can only be used in lieu of school fees. If there is a surplus, it cannot be encashed. This way the money is used in education alone.

There may be other options as well, that are just as successful. These have been successfully implemented in different parts of the world to varying degrees, and have been successful. Gurucharan Das and Amartya Sen are just a few amongst many who have argued for such reform in their columns or writing.

But how can any such policy be pushed forward in the Indian "system"? The teachers (as a single entity) are important for politicians, who are likely to be disinclined towards giving parents more control (this could cost them their seats). If parent bodies are formed in villages, will they be truly democratic? Will the bureaucracy honestly handle a voucher scheme, or will it be mired in inefficiency and corruption? Will teachers themselves try to oppose a voucher scheme (since that means the school will have to shape up or close down).

Open forum: How can these basic changes be implemented within the Indian system? These changes (I believe) are far more important and effective and likely to have bigger consequences than privatizing all education, or doubling the spending on education.

Legislative Brief: Right to Education Bill

2005-12-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

Legislative Brief: Right to Education Bill - 28 : "Right to Education Bill, 2005
The constitution now guarantees the right to education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14, but how is this to be upheld? This legislative brief by M R Madhavan and Ruchita Manghnani presents the many questions before Parliament, as it discusses the Right to Education Bill that will give effect to the guarantee. "

Some Excerpts:

Key Features

* Right of Every Child

Every child between the age of 6 and 14 years has the right to full-time free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school.

Non-enrolled children of age group 7-9 years have the right to be admitted in an age-appropriate grade within one year of the commencement of the Act, and of age group 9-14 years have the right to be provided special programmes that will enable them to attend such grade within three years.

Children with severe or profound disability, who are unable to attend a neighbourhood school, have the right to be provided education in an appropriate environment.

A child cannot be held back in any grade or expelled from a school till Class VIII. Any expulsion requires an order of the School Management Committee (SMC), which will be given only after all other corrective measures have been exhausted, and parents/guardians have been heard. The local authority will take steps to enroll such a child in another neighbourhood school.
* Responsibility of the State

The State shall ensure availability of a neighbourhood school for every child within three years. In case of non-availability, free transport or free residential facilities shall be provided. The state/UT government shall determine every year the requirement of schools, facilities, and their locations; establish additional schools as required; deploy teachers and create facilities for their training.

The State shall develop a mechanism to monitor enrolment, participation and attainment status of every child, and take corrective steps wherever required. Information in this regard will be made available in the public domain, including on an on-line basis.
* School Admissions

State schools and fully aided schools shall provide free education to all admitted children. Partly aided schools shall provide free education to at least such proportion of admitted children to the extent that government funds its annual expenses, subject to a minimum of 25%. Unaided schools and special category schools shall provide free education to at least 25% students; the government shall reimburse the school to the extent of the per child expenditure in government schools or the school fee, whichever is lower.

No school can conduct any screening procedure of any child or parents at the time of admission. Children will be selected for admission in a random manner. Capitation fees are prohibited.
* School Management

All non-government schools have to be recognized by a Competent Authority or shut down. The Bill specifies certain norms (such as teacher-student ratio, physical infrastructure etc) to be fulfilled by all schools as a pre-requisite for being recognized.

All State and aided schools are required to form School Management Committees (SMCs) with at least 75% of the members being parents/guardians, and the other members representing teachers, the community and the local authority. SMCs will manage the school, including the sanction of leave and disbursal of salary to teachers. The SMC/local authority shall also have the power to assess teachers' performance and impose minor punishment.

Teachers of state schools will be appointed to a specific school, and teachers already serving will be assigned to a specific school within two years. They will not be transferred from the school so assigned.

The teacher has the duty to transact and complete the curriculum, regularly assess the learning level of each child, provide supplementary instruction if required, and apprise every parent/guardian about the progress of learning and development of the child.

Teachers are prohibited from giving private tuitions. Teachers shall not be deployed for any non-educational purpose other than census, election and disaster relief duties.

* Content and Process

Schools and academic authorities formulating curriculum shall conform to the values enshrined in the Constitution. Schools should operate in a child friendly and child centred manner.

No child shall be required to appear at a public examination before completing Grade VIII. No child shall be awarded physical punishment in any form in school.

* National Commission for Elementary Education (NCEE)

NCEE shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Speaker of Lok Sabha, Minister for Human Resources Development and Leaders of Opposition in the two Houses of Parliament.

NCEE shall monitor all aspects, including quality of education. It will act as Ombudsman for this Act.

* Other Major Provisions

No person shall prevent a child from participating in elementary education. No person shall employ or engage a child in a manner that renders her a working child.

It is the responsibility of every parent/guardian to enroll his child/ward who has attained the age of 6 years and above in a school and facilitate her completion of elementary education (till Grade VIII). If a parent/guardian persistently defaults in discharging this responsibility, the SMC may direct him to perform compulsory community service by way of child care in the school.

Any person who has a grievance about the establishment, provisioning and management of a school may submit a written representation to the SMC/ local authority, which shall take appropriate action and inform the applicant within 90 days. If the applicant is unsatisfied with such action, she may submit a representation to such authority as prescribed (by the state/UT/central government), which shall take appropriate action and inform the applicant within 90 days.

The state/UT government may form a State-level Regulatory Authority for inquiring into grievances which remain unredressed even after the steps mentioned above.

A child shall be admitted in Grade I only after attaining the age of five years and ten months before the beginning of the academic year.

The Bill specifies penalties for persons and schools contravening the provisions regarding capitation fees, screening tests, recognition and preventing children from participating in elementary education.

* Finances

The central government shall provide financial assistance to state governments in accordance with such formula regarding sharing of costs as determined in consultation with state governments. The state government shall provide financial assistance to local authorities.

Though the draft Bill does not specify cost implications, a paper by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee indicates a tentative estimation of total additional costs between Rs 3,21,000 crore and Rs 4,36,000 crore over six years.

PART B: KEY ISSUES AND ANALYSIS

Objectives of the Bill

The Bill has a clear objective that every child between the age of 6 and 14 years has the right to elementary education that is (a) free, (b) compulsory, (c) of equitable quality, and (d) available in her neighbourhood. This education will be available between Grade I and VIII, and provided at a recognized school satisfying specified norms. The Bill implies that there will be no non-formal schools and teachers will have to possess qualifications as defined in the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993.

Another School Barrier for African Girls: No Toilet

2005-12-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

The same problem is present in virtually every developing country. A good article which looks at the problem from sub-saharan girls perspective, but the same things apply to girls in India, South East Asia, other places.

BALIZENDA, Ethiopia - Fatimah Bamun dropped out of Balizenda Primary School in first grade, more than three years ago, when her father refused to buy her pencils and paper. Only after teachers convinced him that his daughter showed unusual promise did he relent. Today Fatimah, 14, tall and slender, studies math and Amharic, Ethiopia's official language, in a dirt-floored fourth-grade classroom.

Whether she will reach fifth grade is another matter. Fatimah is facing the onset of puberty, and with it the realities of menstruation in a school with no latrine, no water, no hope of privacy other than the shadow of a bush, and no girlfriends with whom to commiserate. Fatimah is the only girl of the 23 students in her class. In fact, in a school of 178 students, she is one of only three girls who has made it past third grade.

Even the women among the school's teachers say they have no choice but to use the thorny scrub, in plain sight of classrooms, as a toilet.

"It is really too difficult," said Azeb Beyene, who arrived here in September to teach fifth grade. Here and throughout sub-Saharan Africa, schoolgirls can only empathize. In a region where poverty, tradition and ignorance deprive an estimated 24 million girls even of an elementary school education, the lack of school toilets and water is one of many obstacles to girls' attendance, and until recently was considered unfit for discussion. In some rural communities in the region, menstruation itself is so taboo that girls are prohibited from cooking or even banished to the countryside during their periods.

Photos

But that impact is substantial. Researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa have documented that lack of sanitary pads, a clean, girls-only latrine and water for washing hands drives a significant number of girls from school. The United Nations Children's Fund, for example, estimates that one in 10 school-age African girls either skips school during menstruation or drops out entirely because of lack of sanitation.

The average schoolgirl's struggle for privacy is emblematic of the uphill battle for public education in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among girls. With slightly more than 6 in 10 eligible children enrolled in primary school, the region's enrollment rates are the lowest in the world.

Beyond that, enrollment among primary school-aged girls is 8 percent lower than among boys, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef. And of those girls who enroll, 9 percent more drop out before the end of sixth grade than boys.

African girls in poor, rural areas like Balizenda are even more likely to lose out. The World Bank estimated in 1999 that only one in four of them was enrolled in primary school.

The issue, advocates for children say, is not merely fairness. The World Bank contends that if women in sub-Saharan Africa had equal access to education, land, credit and other assets like fertilizer, the region's gross national product could increase by almost one additional percentage point annually. Mark Blackden, one of the bank's lead analysts, said Africa's progress was inextricably linked to the fate of girls.

"There is a connection between growth in Africa and gender equality," he said. "It is of great importance but still ignored by so many."

The pressure on girls to drop out peaks with the advent of puberty and the problems that accompany maturity, like sexual harassment by male teachers, ever growing responsibilities at home and parental pressure to marry. Female teachers who could act as role models are also in short supply in sub-Saharan Africa: they make up a quarter or less of the primary school teachers in 12 nations, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Florence Kanyike, the Uganda coordinator for the Forum of Women Educationalists, a Nairobi-based organization that lobbies for education for girls, said the harsh inconvenience of menstruation in schools without sanitation was just one more reason for girls to stay home.

WTO Hongkong - "Absymal" Failure?

2005-12-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

Last week ended the WTO talks at Hong Kong - a part of the "Development Round" of talks. The write-up tries to cover in short what was achieved and what was lost - I will give a brief and people can dig into new stories for more detail. (I wont necessarily cover all the points & not to 100% accuracy as Trade is way too complicated).

Before that guess an answer to these questions (taken from BBC Quiz) and mail back to me:
1. How much of the price of a jar of instant coffee purchased in a supermarket goes to the coffee grower? Options A. 50% B. 20% C. 10% D.1%
2. How much do rich countries spend on subsidising their farmers everyday? Options A. $100m B. $500m C. $1 billion D. $3 billion

Goals:
Overall the goals of the "Doha" or "Development" round of talks was to focus on developing countries/their demands. The round overall has been not being going good after failures and deadlock at Seattle, Cancun, Singapore ...

Most of the goals focused on reducing/eliminating the "agricultural" subsidies in the developed world - US, Japan & Europe mainly. A quote african delegation gave after the talks was illustrative of the amount of subsidies given in the developed world - "The situation will remain that it would be better to be a cow in Japan, subsidised for $7 per day, than to be a human being living in Africa". These subsidies have a whole lot of tampering affects - lots which are too difficult to even imagine.

Hong Kong talks were meant to break deadlock on agricultural subsidies. Even before the talks started Europe was not ready to reduce these to a large extent - mainly France was opposing this. Though blame was given to Europe neither US or Japan wanted to cut subsidies sustantially. Infact US eliminated some subsides but through a back door created even more subsidies, saying technically they are not subsidies.

What Happened:

Almost everybody expected the talks to fail from starting. Europe came up with a new proposal to allow poorest countries (42 or so) to trade without any tarrifs. The proposal saw opposition from US and Japan as they wanted to protect Cotton & rice repectively for local market. It was passed with many exemptions to US/Japan. So its little help but not much. And guess who opposed this deal?. Some of the carrabiean and other poor countries - why? Figure out.

Europe agreed to end "export" subsides(which are only 3.5% of Europe total subsidies) by 2013. But most poor countries felt this was too less.

Some services & non-agricultural market were opened up in developing world. But not much. This was demand by the developed world. The poor countries opposed this but some fast developing countries like India/Brazil supported this.

Protests: There were strong protests outside WTO talks with around 10,000 people participating. Some groups which had protested previously were now inside the conference room as they were invited and their views also heard.

Going Forward:

WTO atleast hasnt become completely irrelevant - though lost most of it credibility. This is bad in my opinion. If WTO falters the poor & developing world loses a platform where they can negotiate hard with the developed world. Bilateral/Multi-lateral trade agreements like NAFTA/CAFTA/ASEAN etc will become more prominent. In these platforms poor countries have less power to bargain or ask for anything and rich countries get huge benefits.

This does not mean that poor/developing world should accept unfair agreements at WTO. But it means that they need to stand together and bargain harder and get agreements with developed world at this forum.

Articles:
http://www.oxfam.org/en/programs/campaigns/maketradefair/index.htm
Deal at WTO - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4539108.stm
In Depth Coverage - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2004/world_trade/default.stm

There are many other articles all over the press - if you want anything specific and cant find ping me, I might be able to help.

Save Bandhyali School (Digantar, Jaipur)

2005-12-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

The Bandhyali School (run by Digantar) offers path-breaking education to children from underprivileged families in the outskirts of the city Jaipur (in Rajasthan, India). On 2nd December 2005, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA), has sent an eviction notice to the school to vacate the land in three days. This is an unjust action taken by government. Many people across countries are involved in an effort to convince the governement to not take this action.

Details of the Digantar which is one of Asha-Seattle's partners for past several years are here:

http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=56

Details on Jaipur Development Association Action are here:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/56/JDAprefersprivateeducation.pdf
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/56/CanwesaveBandhyaliSchool.pdf

Please read through the documents and if convinced please sign the petition located here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Digantar/petition.html

In addition please call up/fax the petition to the numbers listed in the petition.

Blog tracking progress of this effort can be found here: http://digantar.blogspot.com/

If you have any questions please post them as comments and I will make sure I get answers for all of them.

The EPF Rate Debate

2005-12-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

Quick Background: EPF (Employee Provident Fund) is a savings/investment instrument for retirment for the salaried class in India (organized sector). Govt Runs the scheme and gives fixed intrest rate which is declared each year by EPF Board. in some sense similar to 401-K) For more in-depth details visit: http://www.epfindia.com/Index.htm
Guide to what EPF is?

Every year there is a controvery (soap opera) on what the rate of interest should be for the scheme. This year the EPF Board has recommended rate to be decreased to 8.5% from 9.5%. The returns EPF Board gets are 8.0%, so they are paying out more than they are earning. EPF is one of the major contributors for retirment amount for employed.

I want people to comment on what they think about the rates. Left in India is opposing the rate cut. It surely doesnt make any economic sense but does it make social sense?

There are several opinions expressed by various people:

http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=9134

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83560

I will comment later on my position. Lets discuss this - put your views as comments.

The 'other' food crisis

2005-12-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

Below is the article from Down to Earth.
It highlights several things:
1. Number of rural problems India is unaware of.
2. Importance of Water
3. Common Property Resources & how they are to be managed.

The 'other' food crisis

=================================

There is so much about rural India that escapes notice that one more
area of neglect will not break the camel's back. I am talking about
the crisis of fodder for livestock. A grim silence surrounds it. 'Grim
', because in rural India, domestic animals aren't 'pets' but engines
that drive the economy. They provide resilience and wealth -- people
cope with adverse conditions because of their livestock. But no policy
exists on how to feed these 500 million or so animals. Rural India
today isn't fodder-secure, and the grim reality is that food security
in this country is not possible without fodder security.

Fodder insecurity begins with the question: where are these animals to
get their food from? In India, less land has been set aside for
domestic livestock than for 'flora and fauna': protected areas such as
sanctuaries and national parks sprawl over 15 million hectares (ha),
while land classified as 'permanent pastures' cover 11 million ha.
Moreover, over the years, these 'permanent pastures' have shrunk or
simply degraded.

In addition, there officially exists 13 million ha of land classified
as 'culturable wasteland'. Couldn't such land provide fodder? Yes, but
not country-wide: only two states, Rajasthan and Gujarat (both
livestock-dependent), account for roughly half such land. Also,
'culturable wastelands' are controlled by state revenue departments:
usually, the rich are allowed to encroach upon them, or politicians
distribute them as 'largesse' under so-called land reform programmes.
If these lands, critical for rural life-support, don't get gobbled up,
they remain neglected and degraded.

Animals survive by foraging on available land and on agricultural
residues. But the productivity of our common lands -- forest and
revenue land -- are pathetic; grass yields on these are mostly
illusionary. Sheer grazing pressure ensures animals literally nibble
away a pasture's productivity, suppressing regeneration of grasses and
tree fodder. Add to these the fact that agricultural production is
stagnating, or that farmers are shifting to crops that do not yield
fodder. The result? Crisis.

How serious is this crisis? We don't know, empirically. What we know
is that unlike most other neglected issues -- be it fuelwood to cook
food or water to drink or food to avert famine or malnutrition
deaths -- this is a crisis about many kinds of neglect. First, it
concerns the very poor that depend on livestock to survive another
tomorrow. Second, it relates to the country's most neglected lands:
common forests. Third, it is about neglected animals.

So it is that I say: we must know now, to find the ways ahead. Trying
to put together a fodder-scenario is literally like catching straws in
the wind. Every time I travel to villages in dry and drought-prone
areas, or forested areas, I enquire about fodder. Poor people, living
within what we would believe is a non-cash economy, tell me what they
spend on buying fodder. That in the dry months, of peak shortage, they
end up spending as much as Rs 6,000 - 7,000 of their household income,
buying fodder at Rs 500-800 per tonne.

Ghazala Shahabuddin and her colleagues, studying villages in and
around the Sariska Tiger Reserve, find similar trends. They report
that even in villages located within forests, pastoral households
spend 31 per cent of their household expenditure on buying fodder -
commercial and farm fodder. This is the single largest expenditure
after food. In times of fodder stress, it costs a livestock owner Rs
600 - 1,000 per month to feed a buffalo. When milk yields improve, and
the buffalo owner gets an average daily yield of two litres per
buffalo, then selling this milk at Rs 10 per litre provides Rs 3,000
per month. But such yield is seasonal, so this earning is temporary;
expenditure on fodder, on the other hand, remains constant year-round.

Couldn't the solution to the above problem be animals with higher
milk-yields? The problem is also that animals with higher milk
yields -- the crossbred cows our planners are fond of -- need better
quality fodder. These animals do not forage on degraded land; they
require stall-feeding. Improving the animal economy, then, demands
improving the quality and quantity of fodder available to livestock.
But this has simply not been planned for, or done.

The fact is that the fodder crisis is part of the larger land and
water crisis of rural India. Better agricultural productivity on
private lands is a sure-shot source of additional fodder. But this
productivity is limited by the non-availability of water to irrigate
crops. Every time I ask people why they persist in taking their
animals to graze in forestlands, I am told that part of the problem is
there is no water to grow crops, and so, no agricultural residues for
animals to eat. Water then becomes the first enabling tool. It is,
therefore, imperative that we link fodder security to water
security -- building water recharge structures for irrigation.

But this is still half the story. The other half relates to the
largest grazing lands -- the common lands -- degraded through sheer
pressure. It is understood these lands ought to be regenerated. But
what needs to be further understood is that such regeneration is not
possible without factoring in the animal economy. Building boundary
walls to keep grazing animals out will not succeed; the pressure is
too great. Planting non-browsable species will also not work. In the
past, this has always led to greater shortage of fodder and,
domino-like, to greater pressure on forestlands. It has always led to
an unproductive stalemate between the forester and the grazier. It is,
therefore, clear we also need to link fodder security with forest
security -- replanting and regenerating our vast common lands.

But all this is still not the real story. The real story is that this
is an 'other' food crisis, raging through a forgotten animal world.

-- Written by Sunita Narain

Getting to the top

2005-12-05T13:35:00.000-08:00

Narendra Jadhav is one of India’s foremost and finest economists. He’s currently Principal Advisor and Chief Economist of the Reserve Bank of India. He’s also quite strongly against the old quasi-socialist system that prevailed in India till the mid nineties, and has lucidly pointed out how the closed economy of the past hurt India the most.

Jadhav is also a Dalit, and author of the book ”Untouchables : My Family's Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India”.

Here is an excellent interview of Jadhav by Subbu Vincent. Here he talks about currencies (and why the dollar vs. rupee exchange rate is the way it is), some effects of the Nehruvian era of protectionism, oil’s impact on the economy, and caste.

Some snippets:

A closed economy:
"…. But in 1991, we had a ridiculous situation where we were 15% of the world's population and 7% of the worlds land, and our share in the world's trade was one half of one percent. (Our share of exports plus imports as a proportion of total trade.) A lot of people in India believed that the imperialist powers and capitalist countries were cornering us. That was stupidity. If our share was 0.5% why would the countries with 99.5% of trade share come together to corner us? We were a closed economy.”

Oil and the economy:
"……. Okay. Now, look at it this way. When oil prices are going up, what options do we have? First option, pass on everything to consumers. And force them to adjust. Second, let the oil companies take the hit. And the third one is the government absorbs the difference in the budget. There is no fourth alternative. We can't say we won't let this happen and that happen.”

"………Do you realize how poor our performance in oil conservation is? In India we talk about oil conservation as if it was someone else's problem……………..What is the fuel efficiency we have achieved? That is the disadvantage/side effect of heavy subsidies. If you had passed on the prices to people, then they would be forced to conserve………So giving things under priced is also having side effects. So you have to weigh the pros and cons.”

Caste and reservations:

"……….Reservation for jobs is not like railway reservations…… Reservation, the need for it is coming from the inability of the system as a whole to be fair. It is to guard against that. What reservation means is that if you are a Dalit and I am biased man and therefore I will not give you the job, it is to prevent the kind of injustice which is there because of the psychological problems in non-Dalits towards Dalits; that is the genesis.

"……….I have seen, if there is an inefficient person and if his same is Phadke or Apte, these are all names of the high born, they will be looked upon as inefficient individuals. But if there is a Kamble who is inefficient, you know what is the immediate reaction? It is to the blame the caste and then say "inko tho reservation miltha hai na."

"……… Prejudices are there. They are difficult to erase. These are otherwise very capable people. But whether we hire someone or not should not depend on whether they are Dalit or Muslim or not. Whether they are fit for the job must be the factor.”

Read it all here. It’s well worth your time, and perhaps a way to counter your own prejudices. And people like Narendra Jadhav and the late K.R. Narayanan are just the kind of role models dalit society needs (and not Mayawati).

An Economy Driven By Debt

2005-12-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

Appeared in counterpunch...

An Economy Driven By Debt
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The November payrolls job report was announced Friday with the usual misleading hype. Spinmeisters made the most out of the 215,000 jobs. Looking beyond the glitter at the real facts, this is what we see. 21,000 of those jobs were government jobs supported by taxpayers. There were only 194,000 new jobs in the private sector.
Of those new jobs, 37,000 are in construction and only 11,000 are in manufacturing. The bulk of the new jobs--144,000--are in domestic services.

Wholesale and retail trade account for 20,000. Food services and drinking places (waitresses and bar tenders) account for 38,000.
Health care and social assistance account for 27,000. Professional and business services account for 29,000. Financial activities gained 13,000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing gained 8,000 jobs.

Very few of these jobs result in tradable services that can be exported or help to close the growing gap in the US balance of trade.

The 11,000 new factory jobs and the 15,000 of the previous month are a relief from the usual loss. However, these gains are more than offset by the job cuts recently announced by General Motors and Ford.

Despite the gain in jobs, total hours worked declined as the average workweek fell to 33.7 hours. The decline in the labor force participation rate, a consequence of the shrinkage in well-paying jobs, masks a higher rate of unemployment than the reported 5 percent. The ratio of employment to population fell again in November.

Average hourly earnings (up 3.2 percent over the last year) are not keeping up with the consumer price index (up 4.3 percent).
Consequently, real incomes are falling.

This is not the picture of a healthy economy in which growth in high productivity, high value-added jobs fuel the growth in consumer demand and provide savings to finance Washington's red ink. What we are looking at is an economy that is coming unglued from the loss of jobs that provide ladders of upward mobility and from massive trade and budget deficits that are resulting in unsustainable growth in indebtedness to foreigners.

The consumer price index measures inflation at 4.3 percent over the past year. Many people, experiencing household budgets severely impacted by fuel prices and grocery bills, find this figure unrealistically low. PNC Financial Services has a Christmas price index consisting of the gifts in the song, "The 12 Days of Christmas." The index reports that the cost of the collection of gifts has risen 6 percent since last Christmas. Some of the gifts have risen substantially in price. Gold rings are up 27.5 percent, and pear trees are up 15.4 percent. The cost of labor (drummers drumming, maids-a-milking) has remained the same.

Populations are hard pressed when the prices of goods rise relative to the price of labor, because this makes it impossible for the population to maintain its standard of living.

The US economy has been kept alive by low interest rates, which fueled a real estate boom. Consumers have kept growth alive by refinancing their home mortgages and spending the equity in their houses. Their indebtedness has risen.

Debt-fueled growth is qualitatively different from economic growth that results from an increase in high value-added jobs. Economists who look at the 3+ percent economic growth rate and conclude that things are fine are fooling themselves and the public. When the real estate boom ends, what will be the source of new spending power?

The "Khusboo episode"

2005-11-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

So what do you guys think of the Khusboo controversy?. Havent heard of it, so here is the story in short. Khusboo is a well-known (rather well-worshipped, she had temples for her in south india) actress in South India. Recently she supposedly said that pre-marital sex is ok.

And guess what happened!! It was a huge controvery and there is a court case against her and many in the same film industry didnt support her ... Why did this happen?. Cant she express her views openely? Is she wrong in saying what she said?. did the controversy come along only because she is a woman and expressed her views?. Would this have happened is a guy would have expressed the same views?.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/nov/ksh-kushboo.htm

"Sania Mirza is probably fed up with people giving her advice. But I would like to commend her for being firm earlier this week. According to press reports, she walked out of a press conference in Kochi "in a huff" when faced with persistent questions about what she thought of the Kushboo controversy. Sania was in the city to endorse a line of jewellery. Instead, predictably, when the media met her, the questions had nothing to do with jewellery, or even with tennis at which she has excelled, but her views on an issue that has blown so out of proportion that the original context has been forgotten. For once, she made a sound decision to hold back her opinion on this or any other unrelated subject.

At a media event

We are willing to elevate women to the status of goddesses and worship them. But they must remain obedient and silent.

The reason she was asked this was because of her reported statements on November 16 at an event organised by Hindustan Times on the theme, "Role of the celebrity: Influencing public policy". During the discussion, Sania did not make any comments about pre-marital sex, according to Vir Sanghvi who was moderating the discussion. What she did speak on, in her usual forthright manner, was about the length of her skirt on the tennis court. On this she was quoted as saying, "As long as I am winning, people should not care whether my skirt is six inches long or six feet long." (The Hindustan Times, November 17, 2005).

After the event, she as well as Formula One champion Narain Karthikeyan were asked what they made of the "Kushboo controversy". A news agency reported Sania as saying, "I think there are two separate issues, AIDS and pre-marital sex. Whether it is before or after marriage, people should have safe sex. And about pre-marriage sex, you can't stop people and hence the best way is to play it safe." Karthikeyan was reported saying, "South India is a closed society. There was nothing wrong in what Kushboo said, but it spiralled into a big issue because of the media."

Karthikeyan is a Tamilian but there were no "spontaneous" demonstrations across Tamilnadu condemning his support for Kushboo who has been charged with defaming "the Tamil people". In fact, what Kushboo said was not very different from Sania's remarks. She was speaking in the context of the spread of HIV and advocating safe sex in all situations. It is precisely this kind of celebrity endorsement of safe sex that is used by AIDS activists to create awareness about the issue. Yet, it appears that women celebrities are not entitled to make a "safe" remark about sex." ... Continued on india together.

Slums/Urban Poor - Price Paid for Basic services

2005-11-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

The middle class/upper class attitude towards slums (which is documented in moveies/surveys) is one where they think slum dwellers are of no use and they use up resources and tax payers money. Focussing the aspect of slum dwellers dont pay for basic services, I have blooged earlier that various surveys/studies have shown that slum dwellers pay a lot for services as water, electcrity, rent to stay etc.

This article talks about a study by SPARC on how much is paid by slum dwellers for water in Pune & Mumbai.

Infochange India News Features agenda: The price poor pay in Mumbai & Pune

Daily wage-earners pay up to 20% of their wages on water; slum-dwellers pay Rs 5 per can of water; others tap into water lines illegally, or pay the local mafia for the supply…These are stories that illustrate the political economy of water that operates in the slums of Mumbai and Pune

A report by SPARC, ‘Our Needs, Our Priorities: Men and Women from the Slums of Mumbai and Pune Talk About Their Needs for Water and Sanitation’ (done in 2002-2003) by Meera Bapat and Indu Agarwal, points out how stressful and time-consuming the exercise of accessing water is for half of Mumbai’s population -- those who live in slums and on the city’s pavements. Slum- and pavement-dwellers spend nearly 10-13% of their income on water. In most cases it is either the “private” water mafia that benefits or local civic officials

Continued on the website.

Urban Housing Problem: Rent Control Act - A Blessing ??

2005-11-26T15:21:00.000-08:00

As discussed earlier in this blog urban housing problem is huge. This does not include only the slum issue, was has been detailed here earlier, but also the rental market in big urban centers.

Rent Control Act, freezes the rent a landlord can charge the tenants at 1940 levels as far as tenents stay and also limits the increase in rents per year. Intended to provide low cost housing alternatives to many. But it has caused the rental market to shrink, denying incentives to landlords to maintain their properties causing frequent building collapses , or forceful removal of tenants and in general worsening the situation for the poor.

In this article Dilip argues as to why this act hasnt being touched.
India Together: Nobody touches the Act - 24 November 2005

Strolling through downtown Bombay one day during the recent monsoon, I passed a sign nailed high on an entrance to a building. It said: "This building is dangerous. It may collapse at any time. Enter at your own risk."

An unsettling sign any time. But at the time, it carried a special meaning, because the city was in the midst of what at least two papers called an "epidemic" of building collapses: four in a week. The most recent had been the previous Monday. An 80-year-old edifice near the old Metro cinema crumbled, killing six people.

One more tragedy, in a monsoon season laced with tragedy.

So laced, that even the words took on special meanings. Take "collapse". On that terrible July 26, an entire Saki Naka hillside collapsed, destroying over a hundred huts and 75 or 80 lives. Take "epidemic". Two weeks after the July deluge, people began dying of diseases contracted that day, likely by walking through chest-deep water contaminated with urine and faeces and other random bits of Bombay filth.

Over two hundred people died like that.

And then, the building collapse epidemic.

Yet the truth is that buildings that crumble are an old Bombay tradition. Every monsoon, a few more give up the battle to stay erect. Weakened by years of neglect and disrepair, they come down, invariably taking lives. And behind all this are, as is another Bombay tradition, some intricate and often seedy goings-on.

In 1996, the Tavadia building in Bora Bazaar collapsed, taking 18 lives with it. About six weeks earlier, a man was found dead in a cinema theatre in Pune. One Ramesh Kini, he was a tenant in a building in Dadar owned by one Laxmichand Shah.

Why have I mentioned both these probably forgotten episodes, and in the same paragraph?

Continue reading the article on the India together site.

Forced to Marry Before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price

2005-11-26T15:06:00.000-08:00

Another article showing the vast gender inequality leading to various injustices on females. Child marriages are prevalent in some parts on India, especially Rajasthan as part of custom. More than 50% girls get married before they reach the age of 18. Most of the girls get married between 13-16 ages. It has been seen though that women are more empowered and female education more widespread this happens less. Take for example the state of Tamil Nadu or HP in India.

The article below does not talk about India but about Africa and how girls are forced to marry as repayment of debt.

Forced to Marry Before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price - New York Times: "Forced to Marry Before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price"

CHIKUTU, Malawi - Mapendo Simbeye's problems began early last year when the barren hills along Malawi's northern border with Tanzania rejected his attempts to grow even cassava, the hardiest crop of all. So to feed his wife and five children, he said, he went to his neighbor, Anderson Kalabo, and asked for a loan. Mr. Kalabo gave him 2,000 kwacha, about $16. The family was fed.

But that created another problem: how could Mr. Simbeye, a penniless farmer, repay Mr. Kalabo?

The answer would shock most outsiders, but in sub-Saharan Africa's rural patriarchies, it is deeply ingrained custom. Mr. Simbeye sent his 11-year-old daughter, Mwaka, a shy first grader, down one mangy hillside and up the next to Mr. Kalabo's hut. There she became a servant to his first wife, and, she said, Mr. Kalabo's new bed partner.

Now 12, Mwaka said her parents never told her she was meant to be the second wife of a man roughly three decades her senior. "They said I had to chase birds from the rice garden," she said, studying the ground outside her mud-brick house. "I didn't know anything about marriage."

Mwaka ran away, and her parents took her back after six months. But a week's journey through Malawi's dry and mountainous north suggests that her escape is the exception. In remote lands like this, where boys are valued far more than girls, older men prize young wives, fathers covet dowries and mothers are powerless to intervene, many African girls like Mwaka must leap straight from childhood to marriage at a word from their fathers.

Sometimes that word comes years before they reach puberty.

The consequences of these forced marriages are staggering: adolescence and schooling cut short; early pregnancies and hazardous births; adulthood often condemned to subservience. The list has grown to include exposure to H.I.V. at an age when girls do not grasp the risks of AIDS.
... Contiued on NYTimes.

Make Trade Fair

2005-11-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Long time since I have blogged. Have been busy with lot of personal stuff and will be for a month or so. But till then I would want to share some articles which highlight efforts by some NGO groups.

This effort is pretty important. This raises awareness about the trade policies especially agricultural subsidies offered by the developed world to their farmers. It is well known/documented that these subsidies have several negative imapcts including

1. These lower the world-wide prices for agricultural produce causing farmers from developing/under-developed world to sell in the market at a loss or negligible profit.

2. They promote inefficient production in developing world. A theory which goes quite against the basic principles of capatalism promoted by the developed world.

3. Even in US Mainstream Media it is well documented that these subsidies dont benefit the smaller farmers in US but only the bigger farmers/corporates. People get on average >$125,000 in subsidies for this and most are high net worth indiviuals.

There are several other negative impacts and well documented on Oxfam or WTO or even in main stream media. The article below talks about an Indian NGO doing a public campaign against these. This is specially important in relation to the upcoming WTO talks in Hong Kong.

http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/nov/agr-fairtrade.htm

Hundreds of farmers, students and volunteers worked around the clock to gather one million signatures for a "make trade fair" campaign that ended last week. The drive, concentrating on sugarcane farmers in the region, was to protest dumping of sugar in the country by foreign producers; campaigners hope to make India self-sufficient in sugar production. Muthuvelayudham of CCD says "the main aim is to put an end to export oriented industrialization and to concentrate on self-sufficiency and restoring indigenous farming processes lost due to globalization and liberalization." He argues that the farmers are the biggest losers in the globalization game.

The one-month-long campaign was launched on 16th October simultaneously in Orissa and Tamilnadu. Covenant Centre for Development (CCD), an NGO from Tamilnadu, spearheaded the movement in all south Indian states and in Orissa. Cycle rallies in Sooranam in Madurai and Bhubhaneshwar, Orissa marked the launch.

Developed countries provide high subsidies to their farmers which makes farming financially viable in those nations. Further, by clever manipulation of their subsidy reduction commitments, rich nations have increased the support to farmers in the developed countries. The subsidies allow producers in developed nations to compete globally; trade policies that have forced open the markets of developing countries additionally make Third World farmers vulnerable to the imports of highly subsidised products. India has seen a massive increase in the imports of agricultural commodities and products from about Rs.50 billion in 1995 to over Rs.150 billion in 1999-2000 - a three-fold increase in only a few years.

Students on a bicycle rally during the launch of signature campaign in Sooranam, Tamilnadu.

Trade policies crafted far from their lives nonetheless affect farmers in significant ways; the woes of Indian sugarcane farmers attest to this. With fifteen acres of fertile land, two wells that contain water sufficient for whatever crop one wants to grow, 72-year-old Mookaiah I from Palamedu, Tamilnadu should be in a good position, but he begs to differ. He and his family have been living hand-to-mouth for the last four years. Traditionally a sugarcane farmer, Mookaiah now has no money to cultivate sugarcane or any other crop. His land stands barren. Until the 1950s Mookaiah and his family cultivated sugarcane and used it to make jaggery. And when Tamilnadu government decided to open a cooperative sugar mill at Alanganallur in Madurai, he along with other sugarcane farmers decided to sell their produce to the mills.

Selling cane to sugar mills was the easiest thing, he says. "The mills took care of everything. They gave us the seeds; they told us what kind of fertilizers to use and they arranged labour for harvesting too. We got paid handsomely. We were promised that this arrangement would not be disrupted." This was better than making jaggery, for which the cost of production would be too high and the market prices would vary depending on the quality of jaggery, which in turn depended on the quality of sugarcane. The farmers didn't have to worry about all that if they just sold their sugarcane to the mills.

http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/nov/agr-fairtrade.htm
Continued on India together site. I dont copy/paste the complete article because taht would be wrong and diverting traffic away from india-together site.

El Bloqueo by David Peterson

2005-11-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

Continuing the dumping into the "memory hole"......George Orwell would have a good laugh on reading about all of this....

Raghav

El Bloqueo
Posted by David Peterson
Not sure which gets more comical---in a sick sense---with each passing year: The ever-mounting one-sidedness of the annual vote in the UN General Assembly urging those “States that have and continue to apply [measures against other States that affect the free flow of international trade] to take the necessary steps to repeal or invalidate them as soon as possible”? Or the near-invisibility with which this vote occurs---just as it has been occurring for the past 14 straight years?
After all, the principles affirmed are anything but a “complete exercise in irrelevancy,” here quoting the phrase used by the American Ambassador to the United Nations, dismissing the lot of them. Namely: The “sovereign equality of States, nonintervention and non-interference in their internal affairs and freedom of international trade and navigation....” Or what the Russian Foreign Ministry referred to as the “resort to unilateral exterritorial measures in international relations.” A practice which “contradicts the spirit of our time and the very nature of the contemporary international relations.” But a “left-over of the Cold War and of ideological confrontation.” One that “retards the formation of the new 21st century world order, based on the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and the international law.”
As best I can tell, the New York Times devoted 127 words to the grand event. (Though a few days later, New York’s Daily News did run a sensible commentary on the vote.) The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) a total of 30. The Calgary Sun a whopping 83. While the U.K. print media ran virtually nothing. (Excluding a bona fide outlier such as the Morning Star. Wherein I discovered 408.) The Economist (London) 40. And the Financial Times somewhere on the order of 20. (At the outset of a slightly-longer blurb about how the Governor of the State of Alabama was urging his 49 fellow governors to adopt a boycott of Aruba, “angry about Aruba’s alleged mishandling of an investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama student, on the holiday island in May.” Doubtless one of the most heavily reported incidents on American cable television during 2005. Right up there with Hurricane Katrina. And the Michael Jackson trial.)
Of course I am referring to the General Assembly’s vote on a draft resolution bearing the mouthful of a title: Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.
In case you missed it, the November 8 vote was 182 in favor of the resolution, 4 against (the United States---and Israel, the Marshall Islands, and Palau), 1 State abstaining (the Federates States of Micronesia), and 4 absent (El Salvador, Iraq, Morocco, and Nicaragua).
Just as in every one of the previous 13 years, the votes in favor or against these resolutions have been roughly the same---the one significant difference being in the number of states willing to vote in favor of the resolutions, rather than copping out and abstaining, as used to happen early on.
- 1992 (A/RES/47/19): 59 in favor; 3 against (the U.S., Israel, and Romania); and 79 abstained
- 1993 (A/RES/48/16): 88 to 4 (the U.S., Israel)
- 1994 (A/RES/49/9): 101 to 2
- 1995 (A/RES/50/10): 117 to 3
- 1996 (A/RES/51/17): 137 to 3
- 1997 (A/RES/52/10): 143 to 3
- 1998 (A/RES/53/4): 157 to 2
- 1999 (A/RES/54/21): 155 to 2
- 2000 (A/RES/55/20): 167 to 3
- 2001 (A/RES/56/9): 167 to 3
- 2002 (A/RES/57/11): 173 to 3
- 2003 (A/RES/58/7): 179 to 3
- 2004 (A/RES/59/11) 179 to 4
- 2005: (A/60/L.9): 182 to 4
At no time in the 14 consecutive years that the General Assembly has adopted these resolutions has the U.S. Government voted completely by itself. In fact, in each of the 14 years, the Israeli Government has joined it. As it did this past November 8.
As one Lester D. Mallory, then a Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in the Eisenhower Administration, expressed what would become the unrelenting U.S. policy toward Cuba for the next 45 years (April, 1960---and there were no so-called “Neoconservatives” in sight):
[T]he only foreseeable means to alienate internal support is by creating disillusionment and discouragement based on lack of satisfaction and economical difficulties….We should immediately use any possible measure to…cause hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the Government.
In other words, if somebody can build a house for themselves, U.S. policy is to tear it down. (All the while counting on the educated classes back in the States to lay the blame for the demolition at the feet of the very people who built it in the first place.)
In a State Department briefing the very day the resolution was adopted, Adam Ereli was asked whether he thought “there’s something to be said for the fact that the whole international community disagrees with your policy and thinks other things should....”
Even before the reporter could finish his question, Ereli’s response was as unequivocal as it was unceremonious: “No.”
American history really is no more complicated than this No.
Unless we say so.
Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba (Draft Resolution: A/60/L.9), UN General Assembly, October 24, 2005. [This same draft document was adopted by the General Assembly on November 8.] “General Assembly, for Fourteenth Straight Year, Adopts Text on Ending Decades-Old United States Embargo against Cuba” (GA/10417), November 8, 2005 “General Assembly issues annual call for an end to US embargo against Cuba,” UN News Center, November 8, 2005
STOP Al Bloqueo (Homepage) Report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11 of the United Nations General Assembly (English), Government of Cuba, August 15, 2005
“Trip To Latin America,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 4, 2005 “Fact Sheet: Accomplishments at the Fourth Summit of the Americas,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 5, 2005 “President Bush Discusses Democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 6, 2005 “Daily Press Briefing,” Adam Ereli, U.S. Department of State, November 8, 2005
“Ministerial segment of the 15th Ibero-American Summit ends today,” Nidia Diaz and Jorge Luis Gonzalez, Granma International, October 13, 2005 “Cuba Regards Ibero-American Summit as Victory Over U.S.,” Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com, October 17, 2005 “15th Ibero-American Summit supports Cuba,” W. T. Whitney Jr., People’s Weekly World, October 18, 2005 “Ibero-American summit criticises US policy,” Paul Mitchell, World Socialist Website, October 29, 2005 “Cubans more wary of Bush administration,” David Clarke, Reuters, November 4, 2005 “Cuba obtains overwhelming support for resolution calling for an end to the blockade,” Granma International, November 8, 2005
Strange Logic, ZNet, November 2, 2004

The corridor to hell

2005-11-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

The second part of conversations with Michael Mazgaonkar (the first part, rural innovations, can be found here)..

*******
In addition to their technology innovations, Michael and Swati actively drive the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti which works on environmental issues. They work with other groups in raising awareness, trying to work with the government. In addition, they inform people of their rights and try to ensure that unchecked misuse and abuse does not happen in the name of development.

Now, the region from Ahmedabad to Vapi in Gujarat is called the “Golden corridor”, and is Gujarat’s industrial hub. Though productive, with many industries, almost every single pollution control or environmental law has been flouted here, and now the effects are being felt, and these effects are very, very harsh. Polluted Places (A Blacksmith institute project) describes the (almost unbelievable) amounts of pollution in this region.

Scores of industries illegally dump toxic waste by the Damaganga river. This flows in to the river, polluting the water source, as well as seeps in to the soil, and contaminates the aquifer itself. Michale and co tested the pH (a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of water) in various water sources, and found the pH as low as 3 in one region, and 11.5 in another. To bring things in to context, the natural pH of water (neutral) is just below seven. A pH of 3 makes it as acidic as dilute hydrochloric acid, and a pH of 11.5 that of calcium hydroxide (imagine drinking whitewash). An effluent plant in the region callously discharged untreated water (green, thick and foaming) passing it off as treated water. This plant was going to be funded by the World Bank, but Michael took photographic, videographic and scientific evidence to the officials, who first dismissed it, then incredulously found out that it was all true.

A more publicized case was that of Hema chemicals, a small chemical manufacturer. This company was found to have illegally dumped 300 tons of chromium waste (yes, 300 tons) by water sources, severely contaminating it. It took a very, very long time (faced with typical government apathy) to even counter this problem. In Michael’s own words:

·Over fifteen letters addressed to Pollution Control Board between 30th August '99 and 28th Aug '01 drew blank responses.
·After constant following up by PSS with GPCB they ordered discontinuance of power supply to the company on 3rd August '01 but it was not executed.
·PSS, through letters dated 7th August, 8th August '01 and 16th Aug '01 to GPCB pointed out that the company would use all means to circumvent execution of the order to discontinue its power connection.
·The order dated 3rd Aug '01 for disconnecting power supply was executed only on 17th Aug '01 but the company continued its operations using its private diesel generators.
·The company managed to pull strings in the corridors of power and managed to get its power supply restored on 18th Aug '01.
·GPCB was forced to act only after political interference in the matter was exposed through newspapers. .

The government pretends that the problem does not exist, and their stand is to:

·disregard the fact that 70 % of its groundwater is not potable,
·to hide that there are illegal hazardous waste dumpsites on private, government lands, and river banks as well,
·be oblivious to the fact that major rivers including Sabarmati, Mahi, Narmada, Kolak, Par, Damanganga severely polluted,
·remain blind to the clear and present health threat to communities in the vicinity of industrial estates due to pollution,....

Hema was a small chemical company. A mega company like Aventis was caught red-handed dumping toxic waste illegally (in drums which still contained the company name). There isn’t even talk of taking action against them. In some areas, water from 100 feet deep can be pumped out. It appears clear. Leave it in the open, and it turns yellow, then brown, in 20 minutes.
In some downstream villages, cancer rates have gone up to over 1% of the population (compared to average rates of 0.05 to 0.2% (hotspot rate)). Still, the water continues to be used to grow food, and feed livestock. Most people are aware of these problems, but are unwilling to compel the industries to conform to law or basic safety standards, because they fear a loss of their jobs and livelihood. But as time goes by, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the consequences.
According to Indian law, companies are supposed to hold public hearings, there is a channel to petition, and violations of laws can be taken to court. However, there is now an effort underway, not unlike some of the recent proposals of the Bush administration, to do away with all pollution control laws, and to allow industries to voluntarily adopt non-polluting technology or to clean up. The proposal also takes away the right to a public hearing, or any mandatory disclosures of the industry.
Michael and Swati, with other groups in India, are trying to raise public awareness of this issue, as well as make them aware of their rights, and the consequences.
I have seen pretty bad cases of industrial pollution, but these specific numbers, callousness for the law (with encouragement from the government, in some guise of “development”) and degree of impact affected me deeply.
I also have another question. Many people support allowing industry to voluntarily act. However, here we see that in spite of regulations and (a distant) risk of prosecution, industry remains utterly callous to any such efforts. How then do people believe that industry will voluntarily adopt measures that benefit the locality and their own employees?
A developing country needs to learn from the mistakes made elsewhere. These problems of massive pollution have been faced by industrial Europe, and the United States, and many regions solved these problems the hard way. The technology to prevent these problems exist, and the laws and safety standards also do. Should not a developing country leapfrog towards such technology, rather than cripple itself first, and then heal itself?

Memo to Jon Stewart

2005-11-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

Interesting article, especially for those who admire Jon Stewart...

Raghav

Memo to Jon Stewart
Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You Give Israel a Pass?
By ALISON WEIR
Dear Jon Stewart,
I phoned ABC and left a comment for The Daily Show. I hope you got it. Maybe other people will phone, too (818-460-7477).
I'm glad you're against torture. I just wish you were also against torture by Israel. I was pretty astounded to hear you chatting with John McCain last night, nodding along as AIPAC-buddy McCain explained that the US should emulate Israel, "which doesn't torture people."
Whew!
Jon, you're a really smart guy. Is it possible that you don't know that there are 8,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons right now, and that many of them have been tortured, some of them at this very minute? <
Is it possible that you didn't read the article about Mustafa Dirani testifying in an Israeli court for ten hours about his gruesome torture by Israeli interrogators?
Is it possible you've never ever talked to Palestinians, even Palestinian-Americans, and heard their graphic descriptions of the Israeli prison experience?
Jon, I know you're not dumb, and I'd like to think you're not hypocritical, so maybe you just really have missed the boat on this one. Therefore, in thanks for all the great laughs you've given us, I'd like to help you out a bit and invite you to join us on our next trip to the West Bank and Gaza. That way you can learn about things. The trip's on us, and the humus is great.
Sure, Israeli forces may kill or injure us, like they did Rachel Corrie, James Miller, Tom Hurndall, Brian Avery, and thousands upon thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children but, hey, they probably won't.
Cordially,
Alison Weir
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew. She can be reached at: alisonweir@yahoo.com
P.S. Below is a news report that I think you missed, Jon, but it wasn't really your fault. Although this article can be discovered on some websites, almost no American news media actually printed it.
Militant Says He Was Abused by Israel
By PETER ENAVAssociated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel - A Lebanese guerrilla leader about to be freed in a prisoner swap testified Tuesday that Israeli interrogators raped him, sodomized him with a club and kept him naked for weeks in a round-the-clock effort to extract information on a missing Israeli aviator.
State prosecutor Shamai Becker said interrogators never touched Mustafa Dirani. The prosecutor said Dirani "sang like a bird" and made up allegations of abuse to explain why he gave Israel information.
Human rights groups have accused Israel of routinely mistreating Arab prisoners, but rarely to the extremes Dirani alleged to a Tel Aviv court in his $1.3 million lawsuit against the Israeli government.
Dirani is one of hundreds of Arab prisoners to be released Thursday in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers - all kidnapped by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah in October 2000.
The prisoners to be freed by Israel include 400 Palestinians, 34 people from Arab countries and a German convicted of spying for Hezbollah.
On Tuesday, a white bus filled with prisoners drove into the Sharon Prison in central Israel under heavy guard. Prisoners peeked from tiny wire mesh-covered windows, and some tried unsuccessfully to spread their fingers in V-for-victory signs.
The German-mediated swap is to take place Thursday. Security officials said the prisoners from Arab countries and the German would be flown Wednesday to Germany. Israel will release the Palestinians into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and will hand over 59 bodies of Lebanese militants killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
All the Palestinians had less than three years to serve and were not involved in wounding or killing Israelis, according to a list released Tuesday. About two-thirds were scheduled to be released this year.
Some Palestinians greeted the list with disappointment, noting Israel has often freed prisoners convicted of nonviolent offenses on Muslim holidays or as part of peace talks.
"I look at this like a routine release," said Issa Karake, head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Association.
Dirani is among the most prominent of the prisoners named. Israeli forces burst into his home in Lebanon in 1994, kidnapped him and held him without charges for a decade, yet allowed him access to its court system to sue the government for torture.
On Tuesday, Dirani testified that interrogators kept him naked and shackled in a secret facility for a month as six men tortured him, splashing him with hot and freezing water, shaking him until he fainted and sexually assaulting him as they demanded information about missing airman Ron Arad.
Israel accuses Dirani of helping capture Arad, who was caught alive after ejecting from his plane over Lebanon in 1986.
Israeli and international human rights groups say Israel has mistreated Arab security detainees during interrogation by depriving them of sleep, tying them in painful positions and forcing them to wear hoods.
In 1999, Israel's Supreme Court banned the blanket use of such practices, saying they could be used only in specific instances. Human rights activists said abuse fell off after the ruling but has become more frequent in the past three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Dirani's accusations of torture - which he said took place before the court ruling - were far more severe than those usually reported, said Yael Stein, research director at B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
"Accusations of rape are not common," she said. "If it is true, it is very severe."
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the courtroom. He had to be coaxed into giving details.
Dirani said he was interrogated around the clock for a month by six people, including a man known only as George, who threatened him, cursed him and repeatedly squeezed his testicles "until I felt I would die," Dirani said.
One day a uniformed soldier nicknamed "Kojak" came into the room and dropped his pants, and George told Dirani the soldier would sodomize him if he did not talk, Dirani said.
Days later, Dirani was shackled and pushed down onto a bench, he said. "I couldn't see or resist ... I was raped by the soldier. He said he would rape me, and he did," he told the court.
"Two or three days later they started raping me with a police baton," he said. "It's impossible to describe the pain. I yelled to high heaven."
The interrogators took him to a doctor to stop the bleeding, he said. They also forced him to drink castor oil, which made him incontinent, and gave him large diapers as his only clothing.
Israel's Channel Two TV broadcast an interview with a person, his face in shadows, identified as the interrogator named George. He denied abusing Dirani, but said interrogation is a competition between questioners and detainees.
"You must be innovative," he said, "and you can't always run and get permission in advance."
Becker, the prosecutor, denied Dirani's accusations.
"All the interrogators said you sang like a bird and there was no reason to touch a hair on your head," Becker said as he cross-examined Dirani.
"What's all this about? You are going back to Lebanon. People will ask how could you give out this and that information. You'll answer that you are a heterosexual Muslim. This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tortured and thus forced you to talk," Becker said.

Engineering innovations for rural India

2005-11-08T22:24:00.000-08:00

I spent a wonderful evening listening to and talking to Michael Mazgaonkar today. Michael is an electrical engineer by training. About 15 years ago, he (with his wife and colleague Swati Desai) went and started living in a Bhill village (Juna Mozda) in the Narmada region of Gujarat, and never left. Since then, they have been working with the villagers on environmental, adivasi, watershed, and technology issues for rural areas. This is the first post (of two) about his conversations with us.

The technologist in me couldn’t resist the technological innovations they are enabling in the village, so this post is about technology. The next one will discuss some of the (horrifying) environmental issues of the area.

A major effort of theirs has been on alternative energy. This village (like many others) is without electricity. Now any energy researcher will agree that energy is best managed locally (due to large energy losses in long distance transmission), and given India’s inefficient system, even if electricity comes to this village, it’s likely to be inefficient. But they have made substantial innovations in this area, focusing on local resources, and inculcating abilities in the locals.

A first innovation (which he brought along with him) is a torch. Now, typical torch bulbs are moderately expensive, use a lot of energy (batteries), and burn out quickly. Michael and his local friends (tribals, mostly illiterate) innovated around this. They designed a torch (with the case made out of wood and cloth) using four super-bright LEDs (light emitting diodes). These are (surprisingly) remarkably bright, and use next to no energy (so batteries last 10 times longer). Their lifespans are also thousands of hours. Pretty handy in a dark village!

Another nice innovation was a pedal power generator. They made one of these for the village school. Of course, the concept is simple. The pedals (of a bicycle) charge batteries, which light up the school. All it takes are twenty children, each pedaling for just five minutes a day, to charge the batteries to light up two schoolrooms for five hours daily.

But the most ambitious project was an electricity-generating windmill (which they set up quite recently). The windmill is a10 feet in diameter, 1200-watt creature, which generates 1.3 kWHr of electricity (for 8 months in a year, when the winds are strong). This cost Rs. 76,000 (less than $2000), and was a first prototype, using fiberglass panels. Future windmills will be fashioned locally, using local wood (Teak, which is termite resistant, hard, and extremely durable). This windmill charges batteries in a battery bank. Villagers use these batteries to light up their houses (each battery allows 4 lights in each house), and pay a small fee for this. In just a couple of months, fifteen houses have started using this (and numbers grow by the week, in the village of ~45 houses). To prevent excess discharging of the battery, they innovated a low voltage discharger (to cut off supply when the battery charge runs low). Here’s a WMV clip about their windmill.

Another technological innovation is more mundane. Michael and Swati helped create a womens’ cooperative, where the women process and sell organic dal (lentils; both thoor and channa dal) in cities like Baroda. Now, the dal is traditionally split by a hand-splitter, slow and laborious. Electric or motorized ones of course are expensive. They innovated and improved a hand-ground mill that splits dal about 10 times faster than the traditional mill (at a rate comparable to the electric one), that’s saving a tremendous amount of time and energy for the women.

Another effort of Mozda (for the public domain) is to design Scheffler reflectors for use primarily to sterilize and dispose biological waste in hospitals in the greater area. Now, these reflectors are widely used in mega-temples like Tirupathi, Shiridi or Mount Abu to cook food for thousands of devotees daily. It’s perfectly suited to be modified to autoclave medical waste (usually sloppily done in hospitals in India, often due to erratic electricity supply). Their innovation meets World Health Organization standards. They are now also working on a needle crusher to get rid of hospital sharps.

And all of Michael’s co-innovators are the local tribals.

Someone in the small audience asked Michael if he worked with universities and students on these projects. A definitive yes was the answer. But then he added that most universities and students wanted something cool and flashy (that would be publishable or will result in a thesis) but weren’t interested in making something already known doable at a low cost. They wanted innovations to make things cost $5, not innovations that would cost $150.

I (like many of us) was an engineering student in India too. Sadly, I can’t remember any of us doing any useful projects of this kind. More power to useful technology, that can be adapted for local needs, and more power to innovators like Michael.

Here is an article about Mozda in the Indian Express.

The difficulty of being good

2005-11-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

The excellent South Asia Center at the Henry M.Jackson School of International studies here at the University of Washington has an annual Exchange program, where a distinguished public figure from India would spend an entire quarter in campus as Visiting Scholar, co-teaching a course, and giving some lectures. This year’s visiting scholar was the affable Gurucharan Das, man of many talents, author and superb columnist. He gave his keynote lecture last week, and I tooted down to witness the proceedings, and left after having listened to an excellent lecture.

Smiling, unassuming, poised and articulate, Gurucharan Das spoke on a rather philosophical note, titling his lecture “The difficulty of being good”. He drew on his own rich background in philosophy (after all, he majored in Philosophy at Harvard, and along with Bruce Lee, is the only other person I know who succeeded in his chosen non-philosophical profession with a degree in philosophy!). The lecture discussed governance failure and corporate social responsibility, using the Mahabharata as backdrop, to draw analogies from, and explore sensitivity to Dharma.

“What is the point of doing good, if there are no rewards?” was a question asked to Gurucharan by a social worker somewhere in India. From this question, he takes us to the forest, where Pandavas are in exile, and Draupadi sees that all those who compromise with Dharma prosper, while they (and Yudishtra in particular, who never waives from the path of Dharma) suffer. What does Dharma allow? Did Dharma allow Yudishtra to give Draupadi away after he gave himself away in the game of dice?

We came back to modern India. The economy is growing, the population growth rate has dropped substantially, and there is a steady (though slow) decline in poverty. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s all happening in spite of terrible governance. As examples, we see huge teacher absenteeism in government schools, negligent government doctors, police not functioning, and businesses not transparent. Can behavior based on Dharma lead to economic harmony? Or, as Draupadi declared, “Power is all that matters.”

Coming back to the absent teachers (the specific example constantly explored), there is an over 25% absentee rate in India, and half of those present do not teach. So, 2/3 of ALL government schoolteachers don’t do anything. Even in neighboring Bangladesh, there is only a 14% absentee rate. This abysmal negligence results in very low educational standards and literacy rates, and the poor are forced to enroll their children in more expensive private schools. What’s funny is that government school teachers are quite highly paid (starting salary of Rs. 8500, with perks), while private school teachers usually earn from Rs 2000-5000 (having worked with many of those, I’m more comfortable with these numbers), yet these private teachers deliver higher performance standards (though they may not be spectacular), because they are accountable. In a few states, there were efforts to confront this problem. For example, in MP, Digvijay Singh tried to make teachers more accountable, by making them answerable to the panchayat or local parent associations (who could deduct their salary if they were absent). Guess what, teachers are all-powerful during elections (they are held in rural school classrooms, with teachers supervising). According to Digvijay Singh, his move (extremely unpopular with teachers) resulted in the powerful teachers union working against him, and influencing elections (all held in their classrooms).

Gurucharan Das went on to describe how, in the various education reform meetings (filled with politicians and bureaucrats) there is extensive discussion on resources or targets. But there has never been a discussion on teachers. Now, India spends nearly 4% of its GDP on education. This puts us right in the middle bracket of spending for education. But our performance remains at the bottom of the barrel.

Back to the Mahabharata, during the game of dice, Vidura, who also constantly upheld Dharma, pleads with the blind king. He says, “To save a family, sacrifice an individual. To save a village, sacrifice a family, and to save a country, sacrifice a village”. His words are not heeded, and he walks out of the assembly in rage. Vidura looks at Dharma using a simple cost vs. benefits analysis, and it sums up the greater good. But to Yudishtra, this is unacceptable. He upholds Dharma (as he tells Draupadi) because he must, and because Adharma leads to damnation, and because he sees Dharma as a ship. If people are not good, social order will collapse, and the rules for cooperation will no longer exist.

Back to corporate India, and Dhirubhai Ambani’s story. On one side, it was the glorious rags to riches story. On the other, it is a tale of deceit and manipulation, and the license raj. It has undoubtedly benefited millions of people (almost 8% of India’s taxes are collected from Reliance industries). Yet laws were broken with impunity. In Yudishtra’s words, ends cannot justify means. This brought Das to the topic of corporate social responsibility, and how corporations had excellent internal governance standards and codes, but little mattered to them when dealing with the greater economy.

So with teachers or with corporations, the problem is the same. Can a sense of duty be given to any of these? Plato and Aristotle believed that virtue could be taught. Reform of schools or corporations or greater government is all our work.

While concluding Gurucharan Das mused again, “What is the point of it all, the point of being good? Being good will result in greater rewards by themselves.”

Malnutrituion -Status in Madhya Pradesh

2005-10-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

As noted in blogs earlier infant malnutrition is a very severe problem in India. Greater than 50% (1 in 2 kids) in India is malnourished, > 33% (one in three kids) is born underweight. We are worse than may under-developing country in the world in these terms. This leads to various illnesses causing death of many children, under-development of the brain etc etc. >90% of infant mortality in India is due to malnutrituion which is preventable.

You cant say the dying child that A department cant provide this because its under B department. Bureuracacy shouldnt be an obstacle in such dire needs.

Here is a case study reported in India Together:

Kids steeped in hunger, while officials fiddle
Around 80,000 children in Madhya Pradesh are suffering from severe malnutrition. So stark is the situation that one evaluation report has said that even if the children were saved, they may go blind due to lack of vitamin A. Sachin Kumar Jain chronicles continuing negligence in government departments in M.P.

20 October 2005 - In last two years malnutrition -- an indicator of human development -- has been on the rise in Madhya Pradesh. According to data collected a few months ago by the state government's own Bal Sanjeevni Abiyaan scheme, eighty thousand children are suffering from most severe malnutrition and are on the verge of death.

The Bal Sanjeevni Abhiyan scheme itself was launched by the government to address and control the problem of the severe malnutrition in the state. It has completed its 7 phases since June 2001, but the persistence of malnutrition arises from the manner in which children's issues are vested with the Women and Child Development Department. The Health Department as well as the Panchayat and Rural Development Department do not find themselves responsible and accountable towards previous starvation deaths, even though in reality, they have a responsibility. Civil society organizations in the meantime are raising strong concerns about this but the state government remains unmoved on remedying the situation.

Malnutrition in itself is a multi-dimensional problem because it is related with the process of socio-political transformation like social behaviour, household livelihood, state services, equality and human rights with dignity. It has been observed that immediately after the birth of a child, mother feeds the child for around 6 months and then the child does not get nutritional food for his growth and development due to household food insecurity. A child requires more attention and supplementary nutrition during the first two years immediately after birth because during this period of age, 80 percent physical and mental growth takes place. But due to poverty they don't get qualitative food and after a point, hunger deaths begin.

In Madhya Pradesh 37% deaths registered between 0 to 4 years are due to chronic hunger. The Women and Child Development Department has tried to provide daliya (porridge) and panjiri (bulgar) to children up to the age of 6 years. But this approach has had very limited success. Also, in MP, the under-five mortality rate is 87 per 1000 live births compared to Kerala, which reports 19 per 1,000 live births. Experts say low birth weight babies - 55.1 per cent in MP - are more vulnerable to malnutrition deaths. Madhya Pradesh is one of the most populous states in India and together with Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan and Utter Pradesh will account for 50% of the India' by the year 2012, says the 10th Five-Year Plan, Planning Commission, Government of India. It is also the state with the highest malnutrition.

The Department of Women and Child Development collects data on children with the help of Anganwadi workers from villages related to the children's height and weight and determines which children are malnourished. But the department does not collect data related to the livelihood, social discrimination and household food insecurity.

Under the national Food For Work Program, the state government provides manual work to the all needy persons along with 10 kg of grain. Employment is the responsibility of the panchayats and other government departments. Contractors and use of labour displacing machinery is banned. In Khandwa, the Spandan organization working for Right to Food and Work had made the connection between chronic malnutrition of children and employment of parents. Spandan has been arguing that families having malnourished children should be given employment on priority basis.

In response, the district administration (through the WCD Department) had taken this step at the state level and issued directions to prioritise such families with malnourished children in the Food for Work program. But the implementation of the FFW program is in the discretion of Department of Rural Development which is not responsive towards children's issues. So implementing the concept of priority in the schemes does not happen.

In the meantime, the children are on the brink. They need immediate health services and to provide them 160 grams daliya to make them healthy does not make sense. They digestion capacity decreases during acute malnutrition. There is no system has in place to provide supplementary nutrition in installments and after a break of 3-4 hours. A report prepared by RCVP Narohana Academy of Administration, which evaluated the Bal Sanjeevni Abiyaan affirms that the Health Department is not taking any responsibility and that badly needed vitamin A is also not provided to the affected children. The report also observed that even if children suffering from severe malnutrition were saved they would become blind due to the lack of vitamin A.

Even when an Anganwadi worker identifies a malnourished child, they are not able to help in the absence of the doctors or the health workers. Anganwadi workers always appeal for help from ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse and Mid-wife) and health officials. If ANMs and health officials wished, they could help, but normally they don't do so because they have not been made responsible since they report to the Health Department. Still, the Anganwadi worker gets less respect than ANM from the community because the ANM's work assumed to be technical in nature. This despite the fact that ANMs are not performing their responsibilities at the community level and are usually not interested in taking the children to the hospital. Anganwadi workers on the other hand play a most crucial role, but they don't receive supplies of supplementary nutrition, medicines, support from the state and training even though high expectations are placed on them.

Government officials usually say that children are dying due to TB, diarrhoea and measles and not due to malnutrition. True. But they conveniently forget that malnutrition creates the ground for these diseases. Only 31% of immunization has been done in Madhya Pradesh, for which the health department is responsible. These diseases occur due to the lack of immunization and decrease the life expectancy of children. Again, the Women and Child Development Department is held responsible for children dying, even though the health department has responsibility too.

Amidst all this, the Department of Child Development announced a new scheme in August 2005 called Bal Shakti Yojana. According to the department, severely malnourished children will be hospitalised and state will also make arrangements for their parents taking care of them in the hospital. The scheme uses colourful words -- it says that children suffering would be admitted in the hospitals till they become healthy and the family members would also be provided the facilities to stay there. The government says it is going to spend an amount of Rs. 12 crores under this scheme, but the facts and figures make these colourful dreams dark.

One, according to a perspective document of the Health Department itself, only a tiny Rs 125 per person is being allotted in the annual budget of the department and this includes costs of medicines and other services. Two, in Madhya Pradesh there are only 12407 beds available in the rural hospitals which are always occupied even when services are not available. 80,000 children are to be treated. If we take out all the patients from the illusive hospitals, we can treat only 12 thousand children at a time. Further, there are only 90-child specialists working in the state system. The state health system requires 718 doctors, (428 in community health centres, 48 in district hospitals and 6 in medical colleges) and emergency doctors. But due to the pressure of the government's work culture and unavailability of infrastructural facilities, many doctors are not ready to work in rural areas.

The Balwadi health centre of Sendhwa block in district Badwani covers 30 villages and its total population is 21,000. For the last three years, the post of the doctor in the centre is lying vacant. In this situation 13 children died due to malnutrition and 16% children are currently suffering from severe malnutrition.

It is well known that health officials and doctors do not take any interest in providing expert services to the rural and marginalised communities in the state. The state government recently terminated the services of 900 doctors who were absent from the work for last 3 years. But doctors say that they are only human and without medicines, equipments and other infrastructural support they cannot perform their duties, and in this situation their presence is useless. It in this light that announcement of the new scheme to redress child malnutrition must be seen.

This issue of child malnutrition is also closely related with the government information system. Information that government officials readily want reaches them immediately through informers. If a meeting is ongoing in tribal villages on the issues of forest and land rights then the informer conveys this to the state government and the chief minister without any hurdles. The Home Department tries to then control such meetings and sometimes orders the arrest of activists immediately. It takes only 5-6 hours to complete this process.

Read the complete story at http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/oct/chi-malnour.htm

India Rejects Quake Aid - "False Pride"

2005-10-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

After the recent earthquake in the Kashmir region India was offered Aid by UN and several other countries. Simillarly after Tsunami aid was offered by many organizations/countries but India initially rejected that. Why?. Can India really sufficiently handle the crisis? or in its pride to show it is not a receiver it is not accepting aid?. The article below points that this would mostly be (false) Pride. I agree to most extent. This was also the case after Tsunami specially in A&N region where only few NGO's were allowed to work and Indian army was involved in relief efforts.

Calamities of nature do not just test the capacity of a state. They can also offer unexpected opportunities for political craftsmanship.

=== From NYTimes===
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/international/asia/19quake.html
"In Poonch, 150 miles northwest of the Indian city of Jammu, earthquake survivors await relief that is slow in coming.

Take India. The government has announced that it needs no international aid to recover from the Oct. 8 earthquake that leveled villages in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, killed an estimated 1,300 people there and displaced roughly 30,000 families.

As temperatures fall to near freezing in the hilltop hamlets of Kashmir, the most liberal estimates suggest that fewer than half of the surviving families have tents to sleep in. Yet a full nine days and nights after the quake, Indian officials say they have no need for the United Nations, nor foreign aid agencies, to bring tents from abroad.

Indian officials say that they are able to care for their own, and that tents are coming from private producers and the Indian military. What is more, India has sent aid, including 620 tents, to its neighbor and archrival, Pakistan. "We ourselves are taking care of our victims," said Navtej Sarna, the Foreign Ministry spokesman. "When there are offers by friendly countries and anything is needed, these offers are considered."

It is too early to tell whether India, which seeks a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, can go it alone. Certainly there is anger in Indian-administered Kashmir among people who have been forced to build their own tents out of the wooden beams and tin sheets retrieved from the rubble of their homes. Even so, India's posture says a great deal about the politics of disaster aid, and about India's own ambitions to assert itself as a world power.

India also refused international aid in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, though it later allowed United Nations and private agencies to help. Three years ago, it rebuffed development aid from a number of foreign donors, saying it was no longer necessary. In short, India has been anxious to portray itself as a giver, rather than a receiver. "What we can manage on our own, we do," said Hamid Ansari, a retired Indian diplomat. "There's a certain sense of self-confidence that we can manage it and, let me say, a desire to signal that you are capable of managing things on your own."

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the director of a private research group here called the Center for Policy Research, saw reflected in India's rejection of foreign aid so far a desire to be seen as an emerging global power, or one of what he called "the big boys."

"The risk really is that in our refusal to accept aid I don't think we are keeping people to whom aid might go as central," Mr. Mehta said. "We are playing politics with aid, using aid to make a statement."

Pakistan's approach has been exactly the opposite. Hit a whole lot harder by the Oct. 8 quake - its official death toll stood at 42,000 on Tuesday- Pakistan has appealed for worldwide help and allowed foreigners to travel to its side of Kashmir and to the traditionally well-guarded pockets of North-West Frontier Province, the two areas that suffered the greatest damage.

Pakistan is the world's largest manufacturer of tents, but still cannot produce nearly enough. The United Nations said Tuesday that 350,000 additional tents were urgently needed and that 500,000 earthquake survivors had still not received any medical care, food or other assistance.

There is no agreement on whether India has sufficient tents to care for its own. The Foreign Ministry spokesman said the Indian Army would be able to help make up the shortfall. The army spokesman in Kashmir, Lt. Col. S. K. Batra, cautioned that the military, itself badly hit in the earthquake, could not entirely deplete its own stock. The government's joint secretary of disaster management, Aseem Khurana, vowed that enough tents would be sent within a week. So far, roughly 13,000 of the 30,000 tents required have been distributed, he said, slightly less than half sent by the Indian Army.

State government officials in Kashmir said they were puzzled about the dearth of tents. "It is really eye-opening for us, that in this country with such a large population base, more than a million-strong army, and so many paramilitary forces we just do not have enough tents," said Muzaffar Baig, the Kashmir state finance and planning minister. "Every day we are getting only 300 to 400 tents from the central government."

US troops 'starve Iraqi citizens'

2005-10-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

The following piece appeared in the BBC News World Edition on Saturday, October 15th.

This is an example of a significant news piece simply not covered in the United States so far, except for Boston Globe and LA Times. Certainly no where in the respectable New York Times, America's "newspaper of record", Washington Post, etc. There was a good deal of coverage of the vote for the Iraqi constitution on Saturday.

US troops 'starve Iraqi citizens'

A senior United Nations official has accused US-led coalition troops of depriving Iraqi civilians of food and water in breach of humanitarian law.
Human rights investigator Jean Ziegler said they had driven people out of insurgent strongholds that were about to be attacked by cutting supplies.
Mr Ziegler, a Swiss-born sociologist, said such tactics were in breach of international law.
A US military spokesman in Baghdad denied the allegations.
"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population," Mr Ziegler told a press conference in Geneva.
He said coalition forces were using "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare."
"This is a flagrant violation of international law," he added.
'False allegations'
Mr Ziegler said he understood the "military rationale" when confronting insurgents who do not respect "any law of war".
But he insisted that civilians who could not leave besieged cities and towns for whatever reason should not suffer as a result of this strategy.
Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a US military spokesman, later rejected the accusations.
"Any allegations of us withholding basic needs from the Iraqi people are false," he said.
Even though some supplies had been delayed during fighting, he argued that "all precautions" were being taken to take care of civilians.
"It does not do relief supplies any good if you have them going into a firefight," he said.
The Geneva Conventions forbid depriving civilians of food and water.
Cutting off food supply lines and destroying food stocks is also forbidden.
Mr Ziegler, who opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, said he would urge the UN General Assembly to condemn this practice when he presented his yearly report on 27 October.

A Right to Education Bill, full of wrongs

2005-10-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

As many of you know the draft of right to education bill is being discussed currently. Here is a critique of the bill:

http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/oct/edu-rightedu.htm

Some Excerpts:

"Initially, when the Indian Constitution was framed, Article 45 said free and compulsory education for children up to the age of 14 would be a state responsibility and that it would be implemented within 10 years," he says. "Since then, different schemes have come out with different time-frames." The state's responsibilities have been diluted since then, as has the time-frame, which has moved well beyond the initial, stipulated time period to 2010, 2015 or 2020, depending on which scheme one is looking at. Thus, 55 years after the Constitution was passed, India is no closer to achieving its initial goal of universalising education."

"The draft Bill doesn't make any provision for seeking action against the government authorities. "It's a law without teeth, the authorities can't be hauled up in court for violation," emphasises Sadgopal. The Bill instead lays the blame on parents. It suggests that School Management Committees, to be set up with representatives from parents, teachers and local authorities under the Act to monitor the working of schools, can ask parents or guardians to "provide assistance by way of childcare in the school". Says Sadgopal, "Ninety-nine percent of such parents identified by the school committee will be poor people who don't earn minimum wages, or belong to migrant families." By framing such a rule, the government had failed to recognise poverty as a major reason for children not attending school in the first place. And by asking parents to help in the schools, it would put their daily wages at risk, he adds.

Rakesh Senger, an advocacy coordinator for Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, both of which are NGOs working with child labourers, says that the government doesn't even acknowledge the fact that child labourers and migrants seldom figure in the enrolment surveys it conducts. "The government has to realise that poverty, illiteracy and child labour are part of a triangle paradigm. The children who aren't going to school are the ones who are or go on to become child labourers," he explains.

This is why the government cannot look at education in isolation, say educationists. "The availability of schools, even good schools, cannot ensure that every child will have an education. There are other socio-economic issues that play a role and the success of the Bill depends on changes in other areas - there has to be a complete change in development policies and the education system," points out Tyagi.

Chakrabarti says that the reasons why a child is out of school could include: the fact the child has to work; the caste system in many places such as West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the so-called upper castes don't allow the 'lower castes' to even enter the premises of the school; and the lack of facilities in a school, such as toilets, which deter girls in particular from attending school. The distance at which a school is located is also a factor - in tribal areas, for instance, the rule is that there has to be a school for every 300 people. "In one tribal village, there will be say, 125 people, and from that village to the next, the distance could be five kilometres," says Chakrabarti. It would be difficult for children to negotiate this distance daily.

That any attempt to ensure every child has a right to education should take these factors into consideration is clear from a visit to Viratnagar in Jaipur district, Rajasthan. Gulab Chand Balai, a 17-year-old who attends the Rajkiya Madhyamavik Secondary School here, says that the 'upper castes' would not allow Dalits to enter the school earlier, until BBA activists stepped in. As part of its project for 'child-friendly villages', BBA works in the area, creating awareness among people about child labour - many of the children in the villages are engaged in carpet weaving - and encouraging parents to send children to schools.

It fell upon a panchayat of children, created under the BBA project, to lobby for classes to be introduced up to the 10th standard in the sole school in the area. Earlier, schooling was available only up to the eighth standard. "Girls wouldn't study beyond that because the school was so far away," says 16-year-old Hitendra Kumar Sharma, a tenth standard student. There were no toilets for girls either, which deterred many parents from sending their girl child to school. Today, there are toilets and hand pumps to provide water, but despite all the efforts, the school has only two teachers for all of 500 students. "The older students help the teachers manage the lower classes," says Sharma.

This is precisely the situation that educationists want to avoid. Senger stresses that there is no point in claiming every child has the right to an education if the education provided is in itself wanting. A recent 'school report' of 14 developing countries in the Asia Pacific prepared by the Global Campaign of Education, a coalition of development organisations, ranked India ninth in its support for education, trailing behind Bangladesh, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Says Senger, "There are no women teachers in schools, no water, no blackboards despite Operation Blackboard (a scheme that envisaged providing blackboards in all schools). What is the point of a Bill if such practical problems aren't addressed?"

Advocacy Group - A Formal Introduction

2005-10-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned the advocacy group in the blog before. Some of the members of the group have even posted article on women's status in India. Below is a more formal introduction to the group, its aims and activites written by Raghav and edited by Paramita.

The Asha Advocacy Group: Means of Change

Asha for Education does an excellent job of partnering with various groups in India that perform grass roots work. For this purpose, Asha solicits donations which are then disbursed at zero overhead. A lot of work is involved in this seemingly simple process, such as identifying genuine partner groups, evaluating their proposals, maintenance of regular contact with the partner groups, publicity for various fund drives, keeping accounts of the disbursed amounts for tax auditing, etc. Today, Asha has over sixty chapters world-wide and raises over one million US dollars annually. All of these funds are maximally utilised for grass roots activities for bringing about socio-economic changes through education. Quite impressive indeed!

The time has come to ask whether a large organization such as Asha should merely continue doing what it already is doing, namely being a “slam dunk” charity, or expand the nature and scope of its activities. While what Asha currently does is immensely valuable, it does not directly influence government policy or bring pressure on the government for better implementation of existing policies. Let’s consider the implementation of some Government schemes in schools as an example. Several reports had showed that Government policies such as the mid-day meal program can have a huge impact on education. It is well-known that introducing the mid-day meal program into schools tremendously increased attendance in schools. To quote the renowned development economist, Jean Dreze, "…well-devised school meals have much to contribute to the advancement of elementary education, child nutrition, and social equity". However, while examining the history of the mid-day meal program implementation in India, we learn that this was not done at the behest of well-intentioned government officials. Rather, it was the widespread lobbying of grass root organizations that this scheme finally saw the light of the day.. The “Right to Food” campaign (web site is http://www.righttofoodindia.org) was instrumental in leading upto the Supreme Court ruling on November 28, 2001 asking all states to introduce cooked meals in all government and government-assisted primary schools. There are many other groups working towards policy-level advocacy. Another example is CRY (Child Relief and You) which is engaged in promoting NAFRE, the National Alliance for Fundamental Right to Education.

The Advocacy group at Asha-Seattle was recently initiated with the intention of utilising Asha's influence to lobby for policy-level changes in the educational system of India. While we began by analyzing the current NCERT curriculum framework for middle schools , the topic for future focus that has emerged from our discussion groups is gender-based issues, including education. The rationale for this,, other than the obvious moral imperative, is that studies have shown that women's empowerment has far-reaching consequences on overall development. For example, women's education is the single most influential factor in improving child health and in reducing infant mortality. Women's education also directly impacts the fertility rate, which is the average number of children per couple. A fertility rate of 2.1 is the replacement rate, whereby a population replaces itself. Recent statistics show that India fares very poorly in women's education. As of 2001, only 47% of adult women were literate in India, in contrast to figures like 97% and 88.6% for Cuba and Sri Lanka, respectively. In fact, India is much worse than Bangladesh on several human development factors, even though India’s growth rate (in terms of GDP) is much higher. For instance, maternal mortality rates in India and Bangladesh are 540 and 380 per 100,000 live births, respectively. Several indicators of gender bias, such as the female male ratios in primary education, and labor force participation also place Bangladesh in a more favorable light. Very laudably, Bangladesh actually spends almost double the amount that India does, as a percentage of the GDP, on public health. All of this goes to show the utterly lop-sided and distorted nature of India's development strategy. Even within India, the disparity between the various states is quite striking (please see the following article “Looking Beyond Numbers”). For example, the fertility rates in Kerala and Tamil Nadu are less than 2.1 (the replacement rate), whereas the fertility rate of Rajasthan is 4.2. Similarly, while the overall female male ratio for India is 1058:1000, the corresponding ratio in specific pockets like Haryana is much lower, at 861:1000. Indeed, one of the primary reasons why states such as Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have much higher literacy rates is because these states have ensured empowerment of women through various policy implementations.

It is worth reflecting how a free and open press in a democratic society ought to handle these issues. If we are to believe the often repeated clichéd taglines of media empires, , we would expect these issues to make the headlines of our papers. However, as we know from media reporting today that nothing could be farther from reality. This real picture of India, being far removed from the image of a glitzy, booming software empire that is emerging as a major economic superpower, is simply not newsworthy always! It is preferable or rather “fashionable” to express outrage, instead, at the plight of women under the Taliban while turning a blind eye to the atrocities at home. This ought to tell us a good deal about the intellectual and moral culture of our times.

The Advocacy group continues to study these and other issues. Our findings are posted as referenced blog entries, accompanied by pertinent bibliography (please see http://volunteerthoughts.blogspot.com/). These articles are meant to provide information to the reader and also to intiate discussions. The advocacy group plans to network with other like-minded groups in

India

and US and through petitions, focus on lobbying-based campaigns to bring about changes in exiting policies.The other goal of the group is to spread awareness among the local community and among volunteers. We plan to do this through blogging, public presentations/workshops and discussion fora. If you are interested in joining the group or knowing more about it, please contact asha-seattle-info@yahoogroups.com.

The ideas and views expressed in this article solely belongs to the author and in no way represent Asha for Education’s viewpoints.

The economics of conservation

2005-10-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

Rahul, who is an "energy researcher" studying Natural Gas, asks if there is a conflict between economic viability and sustainable resource utilization, and applies economic theory coupled with science, to suggest that economists might have to change some of their views on the issue.

Now, if only looking at the primary motive of an economic enterprise (direct profitability), it appears as if there isn’t necessarily a direct co-relation between (say) the environment, and the economic aspect. But, if looked at holistically, there is. For example, mining (for lets say steel) is a very profitable industry. It might be that a specific ore rich area is a dense forest on hills. Given its value as a resource, it seems essential to mine it, and of far greater value than that one little forest. But, the resultant deforestation is bound to result in deteriorating air quality in that area. Additionally, the hills serve as catchments for the local water sources, which run dry. The amount of soil erosion substantially increases. This results in local agriculture suffering, and the health of the people deteriorating rapidly. Economists do not consider the costs (in terms of human health, or actual resources lost due to losses in livelihood) due to the factory. The question to be asked is if the total value (of the particular economic enterprise) in absolute monetary terms offsets the losses in revenue due to the losses in health and productivity of an entire region. Rahul suggests incorporating an economic value for these losses, that should be considered in the original projection of the economic enterprise.

But the example I’ve taken largely has anecdotal or speculative evidence. Yet a lot of hard-nosed, practical environmentalists (who value the environment, but realize that economic factors are going to be paramount in human societies) are beginning to study environment and conservation in terms of monetary value (nothing speaks to developers or economists like money). The goals of preserving bio-diversity are difficult, and slippery. For example, the Florida panther is extremely endangered. But the land it lives on in Florida is very valuable for commercial enterprise. Sure, the loss of the panther (a sub-species of the mountain lion/cougar) is terrible, but is it far more important than the economy, economists ask? Anecdotal evidence is not an argument against this. But the more practical environmental researchers have realized this relationship between economics and conservation, and this is being reflected in actual research.

For example, take the coffee industry. It is extremely valuable, and employs millions of people worldwide. Coffee is grown on hillsides that were once lush tropical forests. Obviously, the losses to forests have been massive, but given the demand, the logic went that greater coffee plantation areas are needed. But now, hard-nosed studies are showing otherwise. Coffee can self pollinate, but bee visitation can increase yields of coffee by 15-50%. Now, with decrease in native habitat (read tropical forest), the pollinator diversity and visitation rapidly decreases. So, there is some importance of native habitat to the coffee plantations themselves. A detailed and thorough study (with rather conservative numbers) shows the decrease in visitation of pollinators in plantations due to surrounding forest depletion (2004, Conserv. Biol. 18, 1–10). A more impressive study (PNAS, August 24, 2004, vol. 101, no. 34, 12579-12582) (with more conservative numbers) quantifies the economic losses (in coffee productivity) due to forest depletion. In the study done in Costa Rica, a 1 km range of forest patches (for effective pollination) was taken. In the plantation the first 480 hectares were within 1 km of large forest patches, while the rest were not. In the region with forest patches, the output was 21.5 fa/ha, while in the rest, it was only 17.8 fa/ha. The income losses in the region without forest patches was $62,000 per year. So here, more was not better. This study did not even consider indirect benefits (like carbon sinks or water retention/purification) of forests).

Last year, South Asia was devastated by the tsunami. Anecdotal evidence told us that mangrove forests (that existed along the coast, but had since been depleted) would have protected the region. This was even seen in areas like Pichavaram in Tamil Nadu, that surprisingly had little damage due to the tsunami (due to the forests), but neighboring regions were severely affected. But a quantitative study in the area was missing. A recent report (Current Biology, Volume 15, Issue 12 , 21 June 2005, Pages R443-R447), systematically studied sites in Sri Lanka, with different degrees of degradation, and quantified the damage done by the tsunami in these areas (these were all directly in the path of the tsunami, with similar wave energies). Their results clearly showed that where there were mangroves, there was substantial protection against the tsunami. More surprisingly, the damage to the mangrove forests themselves was minimal (due to their own adaptation for survival in such environments!). There was a clear difference between mangrove forests, and mangrove associates (cryptic ecological degradation), and plantations of mangrove associates didn’t make it. Conversion of mangrove forests in to shrimp farms, resorts, urban or agricultural land contributed to the massive human and economic losses due to the tsunami, worth billions of dollars, and countless human lives.

In both these specific cases (with solid numbers), economists did not consider an economic value to the environment (that was being affected).

Our most recent example of course, is with the devastation Katrina wrought recently. Louisiana has massively depleted wetlands, and unfortunately the city itself was not protected against level 4 hurricanes. On a recent NPR show, a planner from Holland was interviewed. He said that Holland had very strict wetland conservation rules, and also spent a fair bit of money in ensuring level 5 hurricane safety to every inhabited region. Sure, the money spent was fairly large, but, in his own words, compared to the devastation bad economic planning had allowed the hurricane to wreck, it was peanuts.

Here’s Rahul’s solution:
Value Added Tax can be modified to include an exergy cost (sum of exergy consumption from the environment and waste exergy released to the environment).The tax is a measure of the physical value. This would automatically increase the costs of products that have harmful waste products and renewables would get a boost..

(cross posted at Balancing life).

Using Media for empowerment

2005-09-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

Two case studies where local media was used for empowerment.

Excerpt from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4219362.stm

" Here, we speak to Stalin K, a human rights activist who has being running a revolutionary radio programme to expose corruption in India's western Gujarat province.

Stalin K came up with the idea of the programme after, in January 2001, Gujarat suffered one of the worst earthquakes to hit India in half a century.

More than 20,000 people were killed by the 7.9 magnitude quake, and more than a million were made homeless.

Stalin K, who says his father named him in honour of the former Soviet leader, has turned a group of villagers into fearless reporters prepared to challenge people in power.

Stalin K's community-focused programmes are broadcast on state radio in the poor rural region of Kutch, Gujarat's largest district.

In the months following the earthquake, he put together a radio programme called To Be Alive looking into issues relating to compensation, government handouts and shelter programmes.

A few months later, he launched a programme investigating abuses of power that got "under the skin of powerful people," as Stalin K puts it.

"It became very popular," he says.

Empowerment

One case involved a local politician who had gathered all the compensation money destined for the quake victims in a remote Kutch village.

He kept a "princely amount" for himself and handed out the rest to the intended beneficiaries, Stalin K says.

When confronted by Stalin K's reporters, the politician, who was being secretly recorded, denied everything. "

Excerpt from: http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/jul/env-rajpatrik.htm

Media campaign brings hope to desert
Shortage of water has been a tale of woe in Rajasthan for decades. But this year, the state's largest circulated Hindi daily, Rajasthan Patrika, has motivated around 155,000 volunteers to clean up 388 discarded traditional ponds and wells.

Equity and Development

2005-09-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

This is a rather short post.

The World Development report on Equity and Development (2006) is out, and has a tremendous amount of information. This has been discussed by a recent Hindu article; here.

That wonderful blogger, Anand, has taken a deeper look at the Equity and Development reports, and his posts are well worth a read:

1) Applying the Equity lens-I

2) Applying the Equity lens-II

3) Applying the Equity lens-III

4) Applying the Equity lens-IV.

They're well worth the time spent.

A small excerpt from the Hindu article:
"China's extraordinary emergence as an economic powerhouse — GDP per capital has quadrupled over the past 25 years — is also held up as an illustration of the importance of equity in supporting growth. Under Deng Xiaoping's leadership, in the 1980s, economic decision-making was decentralised to local governments and individual businesses and farmers, as the failures of post-war central planning became clear. Although the political stranglehold of the Communist Party over China has not relaxed, Mr. Ferreira says opening markets and spreading wealth more widely has been crucial. "We actually see China, particularly in the early 1980s, as an example of what we argue for here: a combination of equity and markets."

The complete World Development report is here, as a pdf file, and is worth reading in detail.

Quality of Education in India - How many children can read?

2005-09-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

Pratham conducted a study in various north and western Indian cities to look at some simple aspects as "How many children can read simple alphabets/sentences" and guess what are the results. The details of the study are here. (Left side-bar).

Some data from the study:

Nearly half of the all children age 7-14 cannot read simple sentences. And the number who can read only alphabets or nothing is also very bad as shown in below.

In all, 405 slum and low income communities were sampled and 41,328 children were surveyed.

Pratham conducted Reading camps in various parts of India during 2003 and the results were great as shown below.

Percentage of children in summer camps: who can	Baseline	Final test
Read simple text	18.7	56.9
Read simple words & alphabets	45.8	38.1
Unable to recognize alphabets	35.4	5
Total children tested	41633	41162

This lead Pratham and Govt of Maharastra to work together to carry out bigger pilot projects. The results of the pilot (which in itself if quite large) and the mechanism are detailed in this paper. It can also be found here.

Excerpts from the paper:

"A people-government collaborative effort to rapidly enhance the reading skills of children began with a pilot project in January-March 2003 in Maharashtra. School teachers, the Zilla Parishad, the Department of Education of Government of Maharashtra, and Pratham- a non governmental agency have been participating in the effort which has now gone through three phases:

Innovation of a new method and approach for rapid ‘learning to read’ by Pratham Dec 2002. (coverage 170,000 children across India)
Pilots in predominantly tribal Mokhada and Igatpuri talukas of Thane and Nashik districts in Jan-March 2003.
Replicating the taluka pilot to create one pilot taluka per district in 30 out of 33 districts of Maharashtra as a strategic springboard for district-wise scaling up. (coverage: 504,000 children in 5265 schools in as many villages)

Having completed the above three phases, the next phase of scaling up of the taluka pilots to district level has begun in 17 out of the 30 pilot districts. (coverage: approximately 2.5 million children).

Statewide results of district-wise pilots in one taluka in each of the 30 districts:

· Among the std II-IV children, the percentage of those “able to read” at least simple sentences-paragraphs, or more difficult texts, has increased uniformly from about 61% to 93%. Simultaneously, the percentage of those who can read nothing or can just identify alphabets reduced from 28% to 2%/

· Among the std V-VII children the percentage of those “able to read” increased from 71% to 94%, those who can read nothing or can just identify alphabets has dropped from about 13% to about 2%"

Pratham is planning to follow this up with other activites to consolidate the gains made and then improve the arthimetic and other skills.

We have to realize that absymal quality of education is one of the major reasons why children drop out of schools. Such targeted schemes are must to build a momentum in the system. All other NGO's should consider evaluating their projects and the impact they have made. In most educational projects this can be a start at the evaluations.

Some other papers looking at quality of education:
Learning Achivement at End of Primary Cycle in DPEP states

Teachers Absence in schools in India

2005-09-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

A news story about teachers absence from Punjab schools and the lack of teachers in schools there.
Teachers play truant in Punjab schools: WB
Bottom of Class

"A joint survey by Harvard University and World Bank shows that 36 per cent of primary government school teachers in Punjab remain absent every day as against 25 per cent in the rest of India. Worse, even among those who attend school, nearly 49.5 per cent teachers stay away from their classes."

"The report of the Director Public Instruction (DPI) admits that 522 primary schools in the state have closed down because of no teacher, while 1,500 are making do with only one teacher and 7,000 schools have two rooms and teachers each"

The actual study looking at teacher's absence and reasons behind them is here.

From the study absence rates in India are among the second worst from among eight countries for which data was avlaiable.

Peru 11
Ecuador 14
Papua New Guinea 15
Bangladesh 16
Zambia 17
Indonesia 19
India 25
Uganda 27

Among the various states the variation in absence rate is large, from 14% in Maharashtra to 41% in Jharkhand, Bihar 37.8% and 34.4% in Punjab.

Reasons for Teachers Absence:
Quite to the contary perception that teachers salary is the reason for absence, it is not. Infact the more the teachers salary, more the experience they have, the more is the absence rate.
Teacher absence rate is lower in schools with better infrastructure, a potentially important part of working conditions. Infrastructure includes toilets for teachers, electric connection, covered classroom, a library, a paved road to the village.
Schools which have frequent parent-teacher association meetings seem to have lower absence rates. For more details on the reasons and extent to which each affect look at the study.

Summary
India is wasting a lot of education budget due to teacher's absence and wasting an oppurtunity to educate our next generation. India should look at different reforms in this area from improving infrastrucutre in schools, to improving monitoring through local efforts etc. These reforms should be monitored to see what works and what doesnt.

Free Study for lone girl child

2005-09-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

An interesting move on part of HRD ministry.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=78621

"In a bid to correct the male-female sex ratio while promoting population control, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to waive fees and hand scholarships to all girls from single-child families until the post-graduation level."

Not sure of its implications from past expereinces. It has been seen that providing "Anganwadis" where girls who take care of younger sibling can drop their kids before school works to a great extent in increasing school enrollement/attendance. There are several other incentives also. Advocacy group will look into that in detail.

Quiz - Women's development

2005-09-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

[Answers in comments. Try to guess the answers and then proceed to comments to view them.]

I believe that mass public action is critical for underprivileged in India (and all over the world) to have a better life in terms of freedoms they enjoy and quality of life. As Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze put it in there book "India Development and Participation" its about getting the voices of the the disadvantaged groups being heard. The concerns of the rich and powerful tend to command dispropotinate attention from the media, the parliament, the courts and other democratic institutions. We, being the more privileged should show solidarity and make these voices heard.

The quiz below is meant to bring forward the various women's empowerment/health/development numbers and point to the various variations across India. The numbers are from either the UN Human development reports or Census of India, NFHS, NSSO surveys. For more details on why some regions have done better than others watch out this space.

Please put your answers as comments for this blog. For the correct answers either mail me or check this blog on Monday.

When you answer questions, think beyond the numbers as these things actually affect a majority of women throughout India on a day-to-day basis.

1. The adult female literacy rate for the year 2003 (age 15+) in Cuba is ~97%, that in China is 86.5% and Srilanka is 88.6%. What is the female literacy rate overall in India in 2003?

a. Between 25-30%
b. Between 70-75%
c. Between 55-60%
d. Between 45-50%

2. India is characterised by enormous variations in regional expereinces and achivements. These regional variations are a rich source of insights on the interconnections between economic development, public action and social progress. For instance, the district level female literacy rates in 1991
vary from 8% to 94%. The literacy rate among females age 7+ in Himachal Pradesh was 68%, in Gujrat is 59%. What is this rate in Bihar?

a. Between 10-15%
b. Between 55-60%
c. Between 35-40%
d. Between 45-50%

3. In India the public services as schools, infrastructure in schools, number of teachers in schools varies a lot. The propotion of primary schools in Kerala with atmost two teachers in 1999-2000 was 1%, India overall was 58% and in U.P. was 63%!!!. The propotion of males aged 10-12 who have NEVER been enrolled in a school(1992-93) in U.P. was 19%, in Kerala was 1%. What is this % for females in U.P. ?

a. Between 20-25%
b. Between 30-35%
c. Between 40-45%
d. Between 55-60%

4. There is fairly strong medical evidence to the effect that - given similar care - women tend to have lower age-specific mortality rates than men. The ratio of female to male mortality in 1996-98 for the age group 0-4 in West Bengal was 91% (91 female deaths in 0-4 age group for 100 male deaths). Similarly this number in Bihar was 117%. What is this number for Punjab?

a. 111%
b. 120%
c. 130%
d. 150%

5. Inequality between men and women is one of the crucial disparities in many socities and this is particulary so in India. The female-male ratio in defined as number of females per 1000 males. In Kerala the ratio was around 1058 in 2001, in Maharastra it was 922, in Bihar it was 926. What is this ratio for Haryana?

a. 919
b. 903
c. 873
d. 861

6. The legal age for marriage in India is 18 years for females. The % of girls in Himachal Pradesh who were married before 18 years of age was 11%, the same number in Maharastra was 48%. What was this % in Andhra Pradesh?

a. 15-20%
b. 30-35%
c. 50-55%
d. 60-65%

7. Maternal mortality rate is defined as deaths caused during pregnancy per 100,000 live births. In South Korea this number for 1990-99 period is 20, China it is 55, Thailand it is 44, in India it is 410!!!. What is this number for Madhya Pradesh??

a. Between 450-470
b. Between 540-560
c. Between 700-720
d. Between 980-1000

8. Fertility rate is defined as number of children a women has over a lifetime. A fertility rate of 2.1 is considered as replacemtn rate (meaning population growth rate and death rate are the same.). The fertility rate for India is 3.3 for 1996-98. For Kerala this rate is 1.8, for Tamil Nadu its 2.0 (below replacement rate), for Karnatake its 2.5, for Rajasthan its 4.2. What is this rate for Uttar Pradesh?

a. 4.0
b. 4.3
c. 4.6
d. 4.8

9. Antenatal checkup is defined as a routine checkup for pregnant women. Atleast one full antenatal checkup is required by WHO. The propotion of recent births preceded by antenatal check-up in Kerala was 99% and overall in India was 65%. What was this number in Uttar Pradesh?

a. 60%
b. 50%
c. 40%
d. 35%

10. Contraceptive prevalance in 1998-9 in India overall was 48%. This number for west Bengal was 67%, for Madhya Pradesh was 44%. What was this number for Bihar?

a. 25%
b. 32%
c. 40%
d. 46%

Liberal culture?

2005-09-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

In the US, there is always a huge identity issue for people who are well-educated and supposedly aware of what goes on in the world: are you a conservative or a liberal? While these terms aren't exactly models of clarity, "conservative" usually gets associated with opinions like opposing gay marriage and abortion, while "liberal" gets associated with more progressive views like pro-abortion rights and pro-gay marriage. To any one who's been part of the academic community in this country, it would be clear that academicians mostly fall in the "liberal" category.

To me personally, the liberal culture is of primary interest since it provides the "kinder" and more "progressive" end of the mainstream spectrum. So, I was at an NSF (National Science Foundation) panel meeting yesterday - we were deciding among 15 proposals from different universities, which were the best candidates to fund. Each proposal has to not only argue the technical points, but also point out the broader impact on education and outreach. I tend to read these sections with some interest since it shows some interesting attitudes. Witness what I read in one of the proposals. The PI (principal investigator) was arguing about the outreach and impact of his proposal. He had a category called "Inclusion of under-represented minorities". The first sentence in this read "Our database group is actively involved in recruiting under-represented minorities for research....". Very promising so far. Next, he said "Two of our current students are women...." justifying his previous claim.

I am not kidding - he was classifying women as a minority. I had to read it a second time to make sure that was what he was saying. And remember his background - its a liberal, well-educated community of intellectuals with PhDs, doing research and so on.

To those of you who've read the Carter administration's report "Crisis of Democracy", this kind of sensibility would immediately ring a bell. The "Crisis of Democracy" was a book-length report written by the Trilateral Commission, initiated by David Rockefeller, consisting of representatives from three world components of capitalist democracy - US, Japan and Western Europe. Their main concern was the "governability of democracies". The Carter administration was highly liberal - Jimmy Carter is in fact a winner of the Nobel Peace prize (here is a quote attributed to this martyr of peace. Talking about the Vietnam war, he said the US owed no reparations to Vietnam since "the destruction was mutual").

Back to the "crisis of democracy", the authors felt that what is called for "is a greater degree of moderation in democracy" to overcome the "excess of democracy" of the 60s. One of the threats that caused this "excess of democracy" was that "previously passive or unorganized groups in the population," such as "blacks, Indians, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students and WOMEN -- (all of whom) became organized and mobilized in new ways to achieve what they considered to be their appropriate share of the action and of the rewards" (capitals are mine). Of course these groups were classified as "minorities", "some part of the population", etc. This was a serious threat to the governability of democracies since, according to the authors, "The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups," such as women.

This is what liberal thought really is.....

How advertising influences media

2005-09-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

Advertising is usually a covert censor for the editorial board, which is any way educated enough to understand what to say and what not to say. Sometimes, an overt warning is required. Here is a case in point: this appeared in spinwatch a few months ago:

Demands Advance Review of News Content
By Lisa Sanders and Jean Halliday May 24, 2005
NEW YORK -- Days after financial services giant Morgan Stanley informed print publications that its ads must be automatically pulled from any edition containing "objectionable editorial coverage," global energy giant BP has adopted a similar press strategy.
Zero tolerance
According to a copy of a memo on the letterhead of BP's media-buying agency, WPP Group's MindShare, the global marketer has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward editorial coverage it is not informed about in advance, "regardless of whether editorial is deemed positive or negative."
The memo cites a new BP policy document entitled "2005 BP Corporate-RFP" that demands that ad-accepting publications inform BP in advance of any news text or visuals they plan to publish that directly mention the company, a competitor or the oil-and-energy industry.
A spokeswoman for MindShare refused to comment on the memo, calling it a “client matter” and referred calls to BP.
BP: 'Unfortunate' and 'regretable'
Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, said that to his knowledge MindShare penned the memo. He called the language in it "unfortunate" and "regretable."
"This is not meant to be Draconian or to influence coverage. We are just asking for a head's up" about a cover story about the oil industry. "We never asked to read [editorial] copy in advance."
When asked what sparked the policy, Mr. Dean said the marketer hadn't had "any major issues." But, he added, as far as he knew there was a single occasion in which BP pulled a corporate ad after being alerted about an oil industry cover story and moved the ad to a later issue.
Mr. Dean said the policy involves corporate ads, not BP's retail gas advertising, and only affects advertising in major news magazines, not newspapers or broadcasts.
BP spent $95.5 million in measured media in the U.S. in 2004, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Of that, cable TV garnered the largest outlay, at $23 million; magazines came in second, at $18.6 million, followed by spot TV, at $17 million. Spending in national newspapers was $2.1 million; spending in other newspapers was nearly $1 million.
Magazines' financial situation
One former publisher and longtime magazine industry executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that “magazines are not in the financial position today to buck rules from advertisers” and predicted that such moves will continue.
The MindShare memo lays out five directives ad-accepting publishers must follow in order to comply with the policy. It also requests that publishers confirm their ability to meet BP's demands and to explain the procedures they have instituted in their newsrooms and ad sales departments to ensure such adherence.
Suspension of full ad schedule
Both broad and quite specific, the directives range from notifying the media agency prior to running any editorial that contains fuel, oil or energy news text or visuals to providing the agency the option to pull any advertising from the issue without penalty. If the ad cannot be pulled, then the agency “must receive notification immediately of the situation in order to alert BP and to manage the situation proactively,” the memo said. It also states that if MindShare is not notified of the mentions prior to the issue’s on-sale date, immediate advertising schedule suspension will “likely result.”
One executive familiar with the situation said that “this is not the first time the agency has done this on behalf of BP,” but seemed to suggest some aspects of it may be new.
'Hiding something'
Another magazine executive who had not heard about BP’s policy or of Morgan Stanley’s said his company has unwritten guidelines with advertisers from several industries, including auto, airlines and tobacco, to pull their ads if related negative stories are in the issue. These cases, the executive said, occur more with news magazines than lifestyle ones.
“I think it’s OK to have systems in place to pull advertisers out, but clearly we don’t show them stories ahead of time.” The executive called BP’s policy a "stupid request. It makes you think these guys are hiding something.”
Nearly a decade ago, a move by automaker Chrysler Corp. set off a maelstrom of reaction when it sent letters in early 1997 demanding that magazine sales staffs warn them of potentially “offensive” or “provocative” editorial. Editors’ concerns over the policy’s potentially chilling effect were realized when Hearst Magazines’ Esquire killed a short story containing homoerotic scenes, apparently to avoid losing the automaker’s business. The marketer, now known as Chrysler Group, discontinued its policy in the fall of 1997. That October, two publishing organizations, the Magazine Publishers of America and the American Society of Magazine Editors, took the unusual step of issuing a joint policy on the topic of editorial integrity that bars magazines from giving advertisers a sneak peek at stories, photos or tables of contents for upcoming issues.

Slums & attitude of the non-slum people

2005-09-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend a bunch of us saw two documentaries on Mumbai slums.

1. Bombay Our City: This is about slum evicitions which took place in 1984. It goes through various points as how slum demolitions take place, effect on slum dwellers, reasons people live in slums, attitude of the administration, the middle/upper classes towards slums, the cruelity of governement. Though old its a very well made documentary by Anand Patwardhan and apt even today. Middle classes/administration are so ignorant/selfish ...

The image on the side is from a survey done by a magazine in Mumbai. I got it courtsey this blog.

Just goes to show the ignorance (mumbai cant run without people in slums, more than 50% people live there, most of the unorganized sector - people working in producing ancillary parts, factories, construction, .... , people working in mumbai munciplaity come from slums). And hell they are people like you and me, why shouldnt they have rights ??.

2. Jagriti: This is about an expereince of a couple setting up a school in delhi slums. Enacted by children in the school this is a very nice documentary.

After Solapur, muster roll irregularities in Satara

2005-09-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

Another story of corruption in EGS scheme in Maharastra. I had mentioned this before also. With help of RTI these things can be brought to light and corruption reduce. To enforce EGS we need more public action to bring scams to light.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/14/stories/2005091418261400.htm

India's abysmal Performance in Human Development

2005-09-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

UN Report on Human Development was released recently.

Statistics for India : Look at the numbers specially the health & gender related numbers. Keep rough figures in mind ...

Look at this animation (or Here http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/). This shows you human development in animation over the years. Again notice the India/China/Brazil/Russia/Africa numbers. This gives you very good idea about where things have headed.

Go here to see reports for various Indian states. Now if you wish to compare numbers across countries go here and create your own tables from the data. You can select the countries, regions and compare over 1000's of factors. I did some of my own analyzing and its pretty neat.

Summary: India literally sucks on health and gender statistics (and all others ...) compared to most of the developing countries.
Our female literacy rate is 47% (China: 86%, Brazil 88%, Russia 99%).
Our Health expenditure per capita is an absymal 99 PPP $ (China: 261, Brazil: 661, Russia:535).
Child underweight for age: 47% (china: 10, Brazil 6, Russia 3).
Avalability of sanitation facilites: 30% (China: 44%, Brazil 75%, SubSaharan Africa 36%)

The numbers are horrible and NO excuses. If you look at state wide numbers you will find that southern states are steadily improving and northern states are rapidly declining creating this huge divide in India.

Jeane Dreze in one of his papers after analyzing census data for 1981 & 91 concludes that if we increase our female literacy rate to 70% we will have achieved stability in population growth (i.e growth rate of 2.1 per female ). That strong is the impact of female education.Just look at Kerala if you want an example closer to home

Under 5 mortality: 19 (per thousand) Kerala vs 95 India vs 123 UP
Fertility rate: 2.0 (births per woman) K, 2.9 India, 4.0 U.P.
Birth Attended by Health Professionals: 94% K, 42% India, 22% U.P.
Child receving all vacinations: 80% K, 42% India, 11% Bihar, 21% U.P.

From the report & articles:
"Perhaps the starkest inequality is revealed by this simple fact: girls aged 1-5 are 50 pc more likely to die than boys. This fact translates into 130,000 ‘‘missing’’ girls."

"The under-5 mortality rate is more than twice as high for children of illiterate mothers as for children whose mothers have completed middle school. Apart from being less prone to undernutrition, better educated mothers are more likely to space births — all factors positively associated with child survival."

"Girls born in Kerala are five times more likely to reach their fifth birthday, are twice as likely to become literate and are likely to live 20 years longer than girls born in Uttar Pradesh"

Have we really being independent for >58 years and at what gains to the masses?. Is it worth being the emerging economic-political-military-technology superpower when majority of country is in this state?

Some artilces on this:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77762#
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050908/asp/frontpage/story_5211728.asp
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77720

Maharastra EGS fraud: Public audit unearths fraud, stayed

2005-09-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

In this story in India together the author talks about how fraud was unearthed using RTI in MEGS. But still the publich hearings were stayed on absurd reasons

Some Excerpts:
"In Satara district, Shivaji Raut, an RTI activist, has uncovered similar corruption and falsification of records using the MRTI law in Poolkoti village (Mann Taluka) and Shirtavo village. In Poolkoti, 19 workers had been shown to have worked under EGS for the Forest department. All the names are bogus, according to Raut's finding. In Shirtavo village there were 66 names on the muster roll, which had thumb impressions of all of them. But 19 people said they were literate and did not put a thumb impression, but signed their names. Raut is also associated with the National Campaign for the People's Right to Information (NCPRI).

It is well known for many years that Maharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme is run with great corruption. In fact this was the argument raised during the debate over the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, by the bill's opponents. But the NCPRI and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) have stated that corruption in EGS schemes can be reduced significantly using RTI. And when a large number of beneficiaries participate in an audit by public hearings - as evidenced in Solapur -- corruption would find it difficult to survive. Citizens using the Right to Information law to extract public records can ensure that this.

The stopping of public examination of the muster rolls has been a clear attempt by the state government to thwart honest officials like Manisha Verma. Citizens must come forward and support her efforts. The demand must be that Manisha Verma and other collectors restart the public audits of the EGS muster rolls immediately. "

This shows several things:
1. Such schemes are vulnerable to fraud and wide spread corruption.
2. RTI, public hearings and more involvment of public can help highlight the fraud.
3. Local media can play a very active role in doing this.

Status of Women in India - An Overall Picture

2005-09-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

In this article we will be looking at status of Indian women across various factors. This is part of the research by advocacy group on women's Issues. In coming blogs we will look further into specific case studies of some states and lessons to be learned from their expereinces especially kerala.

========Posting on Behalf of Sandhya ==========

India is home to one sixth of the world’s population. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world, with 47% of the population living below the international poverty line (WRI 2000). Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is mostly available in urban areas, and even then, only to the affluent. Roughly 20% of the population in the region does not have access to safe water, while 70%, live without adequate sanitation. Of those who do have sanitation services, 73% are located in urban areas (WRI 2000). (3) The country’s per capita income remains low and 26 per cent of the population live below the income poverty line.

If we look at India, gender stats of the world bank in 2002, reflect that Indian female life expectancy, female labor force, primary school enrollment, female population is lower than world and developing countries levels. Female enrollment in primary school in India was 75.7% which is much lower than world’s 85.2% and developing countries (83.7% ). Female labor force in India was 32.5%, world’s 40.8 and developing countries 40.3. Percentage of female population in India was 48.4, world’s 49.7% and developing countries 49.5%. Indian female life expectancy at birth was 64.2% much lower than world’s 68.8%, and developing countries 66.4%. (4)

Stats – Health & Education

60 per cent of the women are anaemic·
More women than men die before the age of 35
Maternal deaths in India account for almost 25 percent of the world's childbirth-related deaths.
Maternal mortality rate in India is 100 times more than in the developed world. FN
Malnutrition poses a continuing constraint to India's development. Despite improvements in health and well-being, malnutrition remains a silent emergency in India. The World Bank estimates that malnutrition costs India at least US$10 billion annually in terms of lost productivity, illness, and death and is seriously retarding improvements in human development.

Despite some improvement,

India

's women remain significantly more malnourished than men. Bias against women and girls is reflected in the demographic ratio of 933 females for every 1,000 males. The country's maternal mortality rates are very high, particularly in rural areas, ranging from 440 to 580 deaths per 100,000 live births.

The rise in literacy rates over the last decade indicates India's progress in education. From 1991- 99, the overall literacy rate increased from 52 percent to 64 percent. Yet more than half of Indian women are still illiterate; about 40 million primary school-age children are not in school (mostly girls and those from the poorest and socially-excluded households); and only about one-third of an age group completes the constitutionally prescribed eight years of education. (5)

Click on Read More to read the complete article ...

Employment:

Most of the work that women do, such as collecting fuel, fodder and water, or growing vegetables, or keeping poultry for domestic consumption, goes unrecorded in the Census counts. Many women and girls who work on family land are not recorded as workers. In 1991 women and girls comprised 22.5 per cent of the official workforce. Data from the National Sample Surveys records higher work participation by women than the Census.

Women constitute 90 per cent of the total marginal workers of the country. Rural women engaged in agriculture form 78 per cent of all women in regular work. They are a third of all workers on the land. The traditional gender division of labor ensures that these women get on average 30 per cent lower wages than men. The total employment of women in organized sector is only 4 per cent.

It is well known that women and children work in huge numbers in bidi-rolling, agarbatti-rolling, bangle making, weaving, brassware, leather, crafts and other industries. Yet, only 3 per cent of these women are recorded as laborers. They are forced to work for pitiable wages and are denied all social security benefits. A study by SEWA of 14 trades found that 85 per cent of women earned only 50 per cent of the official poverty level income. (6)

Even the above statistics can be said to be improvement when compared to past decades. The factors/reasons for continuous poor status of Indian women may be many and vary depending on geography, class and caste with one major common factor is gender bias in every aspect of life.

a) Social – Indian women are gripped within many social evils though forms have changed with changing times. Violence against women is still an issue and as pointed out not with earlier issues of sati child marriages, and ill-treatment of widows but with rape, dowry, wife battering, female infanticide, divorce, maintenance and child custody. (7)

In modern era (urban area growth) the issues are concerning street children, sexual exploitation of children & women, sexual harassment & discrimination of women. With supposed development activities of dams, mining etc., are resulting in displacement without even recognizing any right either in property or compensation affecting women drastically and further pushing them into total helplessness.

b) Legal – Constitutional rights (Equal rights & prohibition of discrimination, reservations (73^rd & 74^th Amendments), The committee on the Status of Women is constituted and it published “Towards Equality”, UN recognition & declaration of women’s rights as human rights, formation of National Women’s Commission etc. though recognizes that women has equal rights, and State plans and attempts to implement women oriented initiatives, many of those initiatives lack enforcement.

Campaigns for legal reform are important aids for focusing upon injustice and discrimination against women. However, the reforms themselves will not bring social justice in all the cases/situations. Some reforms fail to yield positive results for lack of social acceptance & legal enforcement. (dowry prohibition act, widow remarriage act etc).

C) Financial/Property Rights – Most of the women are deprived of property rights, and social structure is the major factor in deprivation of women’s property rights. Some state initiatives (allocation of funds for women in development projects)& legal reforms (eg. Right to maintenance, Women’s property right act) in some states recognized it but its enforcement/impact is questionable.

D) Political Power – There are some active women politicians from time to time and with few exception still the question remains is effective participation of women in political process.

Reservation system in panchayats opened doors for some active participation by women in the political process especially in rural development.

Representation of women in the state legislatures and in Parliament is low. Women currently comprise 5.9 per cent of Lok Sabha members. In the 1999 elections a mere 6.5 per cent of candidates were female.

Women have persistently lobbied for the passing of the 81st Amendment Bill, drafted in 1996, that proposes the reservation of one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha. But political parties have repeatedly sabotaged attempts to have the Bill approved.

However, hope lies in India's huge experiment with grassroots democracy through the panchayats. Nearly a million women have entered the panchayats and local bodies, thanks to one-third reservation in these bodies through the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution. Women head one-third of the panchayats and are gradually learning to use their new prerogatives. (8)

I believe once again the women reservation bill has come into light and focus of recent controversy.

E) Health – Indian women lacks resources & autonomy to access reasonable health care and resulting in their poor health and mortality rate. Health issues are totally ignored in rural areas etc. Another issue of world focus is HIV/AIDS issues. They also lack reproductive rights & fertility rates are high in some states.

Percentage of women who have not obtained advice or treatment from health care providers is 69% in rural area. 49% of ever-married Indian women are not involved at all in decisions about seeking health care for themselves. (9)

Poverty, early marriage, malnutrition and lack of health care during pregnancy are the major reasons for both maternal and infant mortality. In rural India almost 60 per cent of girls are married before they are 18. Nearly 60 per cent of married girls bear children before they are 19. Almost one third of all babies are born with low birth weight.

The privatization of the health sector has increased the burden of the poor. Studies suggest that illness is the second highest cause for rural indebtedness. Government spending on public health fell from 1.26 per cent of GDP in 1989-90 to 1.12 per cent of GDP in 1995-96. Only 50 per cent of villages have any government health facility. (10)

(For status of Indian Women’s Education - See http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf )

I strongly believe that the education does play a major role in improving overall conditions of all including women.

Access to educational opportunities did provide some girls with new options during the late period of indenture and schooling began to have a much more positive influence in the lives of many women after the mid-1930s. Despite these changes, educated women’s access to formal employment and equal status were severely limited. Women’s empowerment was also restricted by the gendered ideology of various cultures, and the continued domination of men in the family and society.

The following seminar papers attempts to examine the self-decision making power of the Women while defining some of the empowerment measures based on NFHS study. (11)

see the following link for more detailed examination of issues – http://www.iipsindia.org/sp04%5Csucheta.pdf

An attempt to analyze women’s autonomy based on direct and indirect measures has been made by selecting one state each from east, west, north and south region from the NFHS-II data in the above mentioned seminar papers. I wish to draw some attention to the following interesting findings of the NFHS-II data analysis in above mentioned seminar paper.

a) The overall picture of autonomy in terms of selected direct measures on various domestic chores reveals that a relatively larger proportion of women in Punjab (83 percent) and Maharashtra (80 percent) take decision on matters related to cooking independently. The corresponding figures for Madhya Pradesh and Orissa are 69 and 72 per cent respectively while it was lowest in Kerala (57 percent). However, when we consider autonomy in seeking health care, Kerala comes at the top with 55 percent followed by Punjab (46 percent) women deciding independently on health care whereas it was lowest in Orissa (12percent).

b) In Punjab only a hand full of women decide independently on going and staying with natal family (nine percent). In Contrast, Oriya women precede other states as far as women’s autonomy status on going and staying with her natal family is concerned (29 percent).

3) As the data suggests, the proportion of women who decide independently on spending money and keeping money aside for herself is highest in Punjab followed by Kerala and lowest in Orissa (ranging between 54 to 29 per cent and 78 to 66 per cent respectively). But across all the states the autonomy to buy jewelry seems to be very low. This sort of confirms that the women indeed are deprived of economic assets of their own use.

4) Except for Punjab and Kerala, women in other states with better literacy status have greater autonomy on seeking health care.

5) Relatively higher proportion of the Hindu women take independent decisions in seeking health care as compared to Muslims, although the variations are of lesser magnitude. As one would expect, more women residing in the urban areas apparently decide independently on health matters related to them. In the states of Kerala and

Punjab, earning cash for money does give women more say in the family matters. Also exposure to mass media shows some association with percents of women independently deciding on health care in Kerala, Punjab and to some extent Maharashtra

6) While considering indirect measures, it’s been found education to be very significantly associated with women autonomy, except for autonomy on cooking and for seeking health care and spending money. But, on the other hand if we take the spousal educational difference the autonomy of the women rises with the increases in husbands education i.e. when husband is more educated compared to her, she exercise greater autonomy in contrast to the situation where the women is more educated than her husband. This relation holds true for all the states under study. From the data inference can be drawn that it is the husband’s understanding and education

7) Where husband is highly educated the wife exercised more autonomy in compared issues like cooking, visiting family, keeping cash for her own purpose, access to health care, children education, use of contraceptives, preferring sex of the child etc.

8) Where there is a substantial age gap between the couple – 10 yrs or so elder to wife – women has more autonomy.

My attempt has been only to point out existing issues to the extent possible. I am certain, there are many more issues which I might have failed to notice or mention here. I feel that the most disadvantaged group is rural community. As some of the reading suggests that the issues concerning urban women do get some attention from women’s movement, NGO’s, State, Media etc. unlike rural and tribal women issues.

Approximately 20 million Indian people have been displaced by development activities such as dams, mining and construction of infrastructure since India's independence in 1947, according to estimates made by several independent Indian research organizations.

A two-year research project that looked at development projects in four parts of the country that have witnessed large-scale projects--Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh--finds that women suffer disproportionately due to systemic inequities, such as women being denied land rights and sons being given preference over daughters when it comes to schooling. (13)

Another notable factor for rural women’s plight is lack of access to natural resources especially water. As stated, the principle users and collectors of water in rural Indian households, women continue to bear many of the costs associated with increasing water scarcity, while having the least amount of input into the use and allocation of the resource. In many rural areas, scarcity of resources requires women and children to travel long distances to fetch water for daily household needs. One estimate has women from semi-arid regions in India traveling on average 1,400 km per year to fetch water from distant sources (Gupta et al. 1993). The investment in time, which could be devoted to other income-generating activities or education, has only perpetuated the poverty cycle in many regions. (14)

In conclusion, I was shocked to find high percentage of maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate including male and female children in India, and poverty is a significant contributing factor. It is a vicious circle in which lack of education, lack of resources leading to poverty and poverty resulting in illiteracy, poor health etc, in addition to gender gap impacting women and children.

______________________________________________________________

1) UNFPA-Bejing at Ten: UNFPA’s commitment to the Platform for Action) –available at www.unfpa.org &

2) http://www.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gender_gap.pdf

3) http://www.devalt.org/water/WaterinIndia/issues.htm

4) http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdevelopment.pdf

5) http://www.indianngos.com/factfile.htm & see http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9803.pdf

6) http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenIbp.jsp#h3), http://wcd.nic.in/CEDAW4.htm & http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9802.pdf & http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_india/indiaappend3.htm

7) http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/505/505%20kameshwari%20jandhyala.htm

8) http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenIbp.jsp#h3

9) http://iussp2005.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=51549

10) http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenIbp.jsp#h3 & http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9803.pdf; For status of Indian women’s Education - See http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf )

11) Women’s Autonomy In India Some Issues By Sucheta Shukla , Seminar paper submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Master in Population Studies (M.P.S), Academic year 2003-2004. International Institute for Population Sciences Govandi station road, Deonar Mumbai – 400008, 2004) http://www.iipsindia.org/sp04%5Csucheta.pdf http://www.iipsindia.org/sp04%5Csucheta.pdf

12) http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/80/India.html & http://www.mmpindia.org/sthepinie.PDF

13) http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2332/context/archive

14) http://www.devalt.org/water/WaterinIndia/issues.htm

References & Suggested Readings

1) http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_2038.html

2) Empowerment of women is another area in which the village has excelled. Kambalwadi has a woman sarpanch and, recently, it was made mandatory to transfer all built-up property to women in the family. “If the house belongs to a woman she will be able to dictate terms. We have their best interests at heart,” explains sarpanch,Bharati shahji Redekar. http://infochangeindia.org/GovernanceItop.jsp?recordno=3396&section_idv=20#4014

3) http://www.iussp.org/Brazil2001/s10/S16_01_Bhat.pdf

4) http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_india/indiaappend3.htm

5) http://wcd.nic.in/empwomen.htm

6) http://zaza.com/awomansplace/index.html

7) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4190570.stm

8) It must be admitted that legislation and judiciary has its own limits as the needs of the women are diverse and multiple. The problems like ignorance, illiteracy, discrimination and violence continue to persist. The judicial redress still remains a costly, time taking and rare commodity. Even with the provision of best safeguards and sensitive judicial approach, women’s rights continue to be a casualty in any conflicting situation with the other sex. http://www.indoindians.com/writer/empower.htm

EGS - A scheme to reduce employment(poverty) or a way for the corrupt to make more money?

2005-09-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

So now that REGS has been passed it remains to be seen whether this will help reduce poverty or just serve as an scheme for making more moeny for the people in power?.

A quick background: REGS will provide employment for 100 days per year per rural household @ minimum wage (~Rs.60 per day).
The REGS bill presented by governement in Parliament can be found here. Several crituquies of the scheme from right to food campaign can be found here. This article gives you a almost all the information about what the scheme constitutes and money needed and other details.

Some opinions:
Atanu Dey argues that this scheme will only deepen poverty.
"In summary, the NREGS will have the expected effect of deeping poverty and enriching the bureaucratic and political intermediaries."
In this blog entry, posted by Ramdhan Yadhav the argument is for employment gurantee scheme stating the unemployment numbers and how the scheme could be beneficial.

The scheme if implemented even partially as proposed can act as a great source of employment generation, infrastructure building in rural areas, reducing rural-urban migration, increasing purchasing power of rural India, reduce deaths due to food scarcity etc ... the potential for this scheme to do good is enormous.
But ... India after independence has had several "similar" schemes like rural employment schemes, food for work program etc. Even now we have a food-for-work scheme going on in 150 districts in India. So what are the results of the implementation of this scheme?. Dismal.
There have been several corruption cases in this scheme. There has been no formal analysis done by the government on the results of the scheme.
Jean Dreze , one of the authors of EGS scheme, has done extensive studies of food-for-work scheme and similar schemes implemented in India. The conclusions from these are that such schemes are sources of rampant corruption. None of the schemes have benefited the poor but only acted as sources of money for the corrupt. Similary the experiences from the Maharastra EGS are dismal.
But the picture is not all that bad as it seems. Combined with Right to Information, this scheme can be enforced by people. As Jean Dreze mentions in his studies, the experience of food for work program in Rajasthan was very different than other studies. And the difference was RTI in Rajasthan. People could ask for muster lists (registers with info on employment) and check these for any irregulatries. This together with activist people helped reduce the corruption. This can be done on a larger scale.

Summary: The track record of similar schemes in India is very poor. But this scheme has a great potential to improve lives of masses and if enforced by people (mass movements, NGOs) can do wonders. Govt of India should before starting the scheme ensure safeguards so that scheme is not manipulated. Also we need mass movements to force enforcement of this scheme with help of RTI.

The Katrina Hurricane

2005-09-04T23:27:00.000-07:00

On Sept 2nd, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a CNN reporter that "the federal government did not even know about the (New Orleans) convention center until today." Here is a video of the suffering at the convention center where the people were left for several days with no help. It's a must-watch video - both heart-rending and infuriating.

Think about it - 25000 people stuck in a superdome (ironically, many of these people wouldn't be able to afford a Superdome ticket on a normal day) with no food, no water, no baby food, no medicine, no toilets (the upper rows are full of human faeces, reports say). More than 10000 people stuck in the convention center without the federal government even knowing about it for several days. Again with no food, no water, no medicine. All in scorching tempatures.

And what is the background to this? Any number of warnings over the past few years saying that a hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the biggest dangers to this country. There were actually preparations over the last 2 years for exactly this purpose. Apparently, neither of these foresaw the levees blocking the water from Lake Pontchartrain - crucial since the city is built on low lying wet lands. Indeed, you have Bush instead bleating that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees". Does this even sound remotely credible? In fact, there were warnings of exactly this. On the other hand, the part of the budget for the New Orleans Corps of Engineers that dealt with flood control was cut by 44% ($71 million) by the Bush administration.

What about the FEMA? Mr. Allbaugh, the previous director of FEMA said that the federal disaster assistance had become "an oversized entitlement program". Consistent with this tagline, the Bush administration merged the FEMA with the Department of Homeland Security, so that instead of money going directly to state and local governments, was routed through the Homeland Security department. And guess where do most of federal preparedness grants go? Counter-terrorism!

Well, given that the disaster did take place, why weren't any forcible evacuation orders given, even after Katrina was declared a level 5 hurricane (a suspected outcome of global warming)? The timing was "bad", we're told - a lot of the people were on unemployment and were waiting for this month's checks. As a result, they could not afford to leave when the warnings came. What about the government's inaction? Why aren't buses from the area rerouted to help New Orleans and other affected areas? Why are hotels not used to accommodate the people? Why isn't more food and medicine provided? To top it off, the National guard is largely busy in Iraq!

And what do we say of the admonition to "shoot-to-kill" the looters? Why is property more important than humans? The video attached above shows what the primary reason for the "looting" is. The coverage of this is highly racist too. Read the following to get an idea of this.

And finally, some perspective. The outrage and shock over the Katrina (just like the Tsunami late last year) is to be admired, but what about the silence over "normal" suffering? Is a disaster of this scale needed to remind everyone of the poverty in this country? Doesn't the fact that New Orleans had a 40% illiteracy rate before Katrina symbolize an erosion of civilization? Or the fact that in Manhattan, the top one-fifth make 52 times the bottom one-fifth (comparable to the income disparity in Namibia, and much worse than in the past)? Or the fact that one in every 3 children in New York City lives in poverty (below federal poverty line)?

Women's Issues - An Overall Picture

2005-09-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

A group of volunteers here have formed a group to lobby for Women's Issues specially in the developing countries. As part of this effort we intend to do a thorough research on status of women - across various aspects. Going further we plan to network with other groups to lobby for women's rights. This is the second blog in this series. First Blog is here.
Feel free to comment and join us.

===Posting on behalf of Sandhya====

Even before I started my research on women’s issues with focus on empowerment I realized it is a very wide in scope & it is very difficult to identify all the issues involved. However, this is an initial attempt to provide a brief outline, and the issues covered below are based on online resources/links.

Global State– Poverty – Around 1.2 billion people in less developed countries, majority of whom are women and children are living in extreme poverty. Poverty has a devastating effect on entire population but with a disproportionate impact on women and girls. It effect all aspects of live including education, nutrition, water and sanitation, employment, income and consumption, and most importantly health including reproductive health and increasing risk of AIDS.

Education of women has proved to be the most influential factor in improving child health and reducing infant mortality, and an extra year of schooling for girls reduces fertility rates by 5-10 percent(More on this later blogs). However, globally nearly 600 million women are illiterate compared to 320 million men.

Health of women is a major concern as 35% of pregnant women in developing countries (45 million) each year, receive no prenatal care. Every minute a woman dies in childbirth, which means more than 500, 000 deaths per year.

Violence against women often disregarded worldwide & categorized as personal issue causes more deaths and disability for women between ages 15 & 44 than cancer, traffic accidents and war. One out of three women in the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or abused in some other way, and most often by a man she knows, including her husband or other male relatives. UNFPA Global Survey indicates that 97 of 147 responding countries worldwide had established laws punishing gender-based violence, however only 24 countries actually enforcing them.

Economic empowerment of women has many obstacles including persistent gender discrimination in hiring and promotion related to pregnancy in the workplace, as well as the lack of national legislation ensuring women’s rights to own land & other property.
Political power is still sphere of men and traditional gender roles limit women’s choices in education & career, and compel women to assume the burden for household responsibilities, and share of women in parliament still doesn’t reach the level of 30% in most countries of the world. Only 14 countries have met the Beijing Platform for Action target of 30% of seats in national parliament held by women.

Environment and women’s interrelationship needs to be focused. While being responsible for household resources, women often lack secure access to land & other productive natural resources. Even So, Women are most affected by environmental degradation; soil erosions, water shortages, & crop failures; Deforestation & contamination increase the time women must look for fuel and clean water; while other responsibilities for house do not diminish toxins in the air & passed on to infants through the breast milk. National laws, local law and customs often effectively deny women the right to secure title or inherit land.

Media lacks gender sensitivity and degrading, violent and negative images of women in media had increased in different forms since the adoption of Beijing platform.

====Posting on behalf of Sandhya====

In the next blogs on this topic we will look at some of the issues in detail and particularly the status of women in India.

Girls' and Women's education in India

2005-08-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

Girl’s Education

“…there is no tool for development more effective than education of girls.” – Kofi A. Annan.

Why so much focus?
It has been said that the educating a woman means educating the whole family. And how true! Given that a woman has the responsibility of the whole family on herself, an educated woman is better capable of taking care of the health and nutrition. The effect of a mother’s education on her child’s health and nutrition is so significant that each extra year of maternal education reduces the rate of mortality for children under the age of 5 by between 5 per cent and 10 per cent, according to a review of extensive evidence from the developing world. She would be able to lower infant and maternal mortality. The effect of schooling in reducing the number of births means that for every 1,000 women every additional year of education will prevent 2 maternal deaths. She would educate her children and be a part of social and economic development of the community. Education has a direct impact on women empowerment as they become aware of their rights, their capabilities and get a chance to become independent.

Current Affairs (Source: Census 2001)
· Female Literacy Rate – 53.7%
Compared to Male Literacy Rate – 75.3%
Lowest in Bihar – 33.57%; Highest in Kerala – 87.86%
10-15% functionally illiterate
· Increase in literacy rate higher for females
14.87% as compared to 11.72% for males
· Male/Female differential – 22%
Rural gender gap – 22.27%
Urban gender gap – 16.8%
· Drop-out rates are comparable for boys and girls, the rates for girls look like:
33.72% in primary level (Class I - V)
53.45% in elementary level (Class I - VIII)

Within this overall dismal women’s literacy scenario — and it’s pertinent to note that literacy is far from being synonymous with education — women within some of India’s myriad communities are doubly disadvantaged. According to an ORG-Marg Muslim Women’s Survey conducted in 2000-2001 in 40 districts of 12 states, almost 60 percent of the 60 million Muslim women in the country are illiterate with the enrollment percentage of Muslim girl children being a mere 40.66 percent. As a consequence the proportion of Muslim women in higher education is a mere 3.56 per cent, lower even than that of scheduled castes (4.25 percent).

Barriers to girls’ education

Poverty is attributed as one of the main causes of deprivation of girls from education. They need to either take care of their siblings at home, and do household work or work outside and contribute financially to the family. A recent report on the extent and depth of child poverty in the developing world found there to be some 135 million children between 7 and 18 years old without any education at all, with girls 60 per cent more likely than boys (16 per cent compared with 10 per cent) to be so ‘educationally deprived’.

Inadequate school facilities is another barrier. According to the PROBE report, 44 % of schools do not have a playground. 54 % of schools did not have drinking water, 72 % of schools did not have a library, 84 % of schools did not have a toilet and 2 % of schools had a single teacher. Parents are hesitant to send their girls to schools that have only male teachers. Lack of qualified female teachers is a major barrier to girls’ education. The problem of access to schools is big. Schools within walking distance, closer to the place of dwellings are required. Lack of transport facilities prevents girls from attending schools that are not close to their homes. Fear of sexual harassment is another important aspect in deterring girls from attending schools and a factor contributing to the high drop out rate. Fixed schooling hours do not suit girls in rural areas, as they are needed for domestic work at home or in farms and fields during these hours. This is one of the causes of lower participation rates of girls in education.

Things to do
Making education free and compulsory is the keystone of any national plan to eliminate gender disparity in education and achieve universal education. Faced with an economically driven choice between sending sons or daughters to school, poor families often send their sons. Removing fees or offering financial support to families with daughters in school, as well as explaining the advantages of sending girls to school, can make a real difference.

Some strategies to follow inside the classroom:
· Making the classroom more child-centered and gender-sensitive
· Recruiting and training teachers who are sensitive to gender and child rights, and giving them a regular and living wage
· Promoting health in schools
· Promoting sports in schools
· Eliminating gender bias from textbooks and learning materials
· Scheduling lessons flexibly
· Teaching in local language

Strategies for outside classroom:
· Gathering gender specific education statistics
· Providing early childhood programs
· Enabling young mothers to return to school
· Taking special measures to reach the most disadvantaged girls
· Providing alternate education for girls who drop out
· Making a safe and productive environment
· Encouraging girls’ participation and activism for education
· Involving local community
· Supplying safe drinking water and toilets
· Decreasing domestic workload

These recommendations can be found in Indian Government policies and some action has been taken with respect to them. But, it is at a micro-level not up to the level that we would like to see.

References
UNICEF, The state of the world’s children, http://www.unicef.org/sowc04/ , 2004.
Long and arduous road, http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/apr/edu-parity.htm, 2004
http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf
NCERT action plan, http://ncert.nic.in/sites/girls'%20education/Action_plan.htm
NCERT Partner Organizations, http://ncert.nic.in/sites/girls'%20education/partner_organisation.htm

Corruption in Developing countries

2005-08-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

Offcourse we have all heard about the rampant corruption in developing countries at lower leves as well as higher. This piece which concentrates on corruption to see the new born baby in Bangalore sheds light on the fact that how corruption affects the poor most and serves as a tax ranging from 7-15% on them.

Public Affairs Center in India has done household surveys and come out with report cards on level of corruption. This and various other factors have helped reduce the corruption level over three years as seen from these report cards in Bangalore according to the article. A very interesting way to look and do things.

Report card on Bangalore

Its pathetic and humiliating that a mother or a new born has to pay $11 (in case of a boy) and $7 (in case of a girl) to see the face of her newborn. Absoultely disgusting ..

How to deal with corruption, specially the one rampant in day-to-day life. Sunil had a series related to this here.

Counting people

2005-08-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

Most of us have many different ideas or models or beliefs of how India should develop. Most of us will agree on some things (clean water, clean air, sanitation, paved roads, electricity, schooling for all), but might differ on whether you need more or less flyovers, more or less public transport, more or less state intervention in various areas…the list is endless.

We also have different various ideas on India’s population (how can this large population be made an asset to the nation? How can population growth be reduced? Do we need to reduce it, and if so, by how much? What should the government do? Do we compare ourselves with China?). Another endless list of possibilities.

People, and their worth.

Ashwin Mahesh has an excellent Op-Ed in Indiatogether. Some excerpts:

” I was reminded of this reading an article in the Indian Express earlier this summer by one of India's best-known CEOs. Coming home to Bangalore from Beijing, Nandan Nilekani despaired of the crumbling state of his hometown, and wondered if it would be too much to wish for an eight lane highway from the airport, and a special safe passage for bicycles, instead of the years-late flyovers holding us up without end. Certainly, that's doable, and knowing this is doable must make his despair all the more striking. I endure the years-late flyover he referred to daily myself, and am certain that Bangalore is years away from having a safe path for alternate commuters.

But what, really, is the problem? Is it infrastructure? Or could it be that there's something else to be answered along the way to getting there from here? The more compelling question, it seems to me, is not whether India can achieve the standards of prosperity - and accompanying comfort in public spaces - seen in the West, but whether this transformation is to be achieved by the application of technological and scientific capability, or by diligently tackling the great social and economic divides of our society…..” (emphasis mine).

Risks and skepticism:

” The risk, as we are seeing daily, is that various theories of how such progress can be attained tend to distract us from such a straightforward consideration. Such distractions are inevitable, but how we respond to them need not be. So, if the government proposes a grand housing plan with Rs 17,000 allocated for each new house, we can be skeptical enough to ask if that's really workable. If the government builds one high school for every six primary schools, we can ask ourselves if that's really going to put all the children in school up to graduation. If water is to be privatised, we can ask ourselves how those who cannot afford to pay fit into our dreams of progress…..”

Basic education:
” Decades of pursuing policies to ‘uplift’ the weaker sections have produced the world’s most illiterate democracy. This was always predictable, because the education of the poor was separated at birth from the education of the middle and upper classes. From that founding mistake, the rest of the litany was assured………….If, instead, we had set out to ask how every Indian child could be educated by a system equally accessible to all, we might have done a lot better. Indeed, the experience of most East Asian nations – whose economic gains we yearn for, but whose social policies in pursuit of those gains we rarely examine – proves just this.”

Read the full piece here.

The article does stop and make you think beyond the usual dreams, and about what kind of progress India needs.

Ban on plastic bans in Maharastra

2005-08-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

The reason for the ban apparently is because "for choking drains and causing the calamitous flooding of Mumbai during last month's torrential downpour". An escape goat for the lack of working drainage system in Mumbai or elsewhere in Maharastra.
The Hindu: Maharashtra bans plastic bags; serial offenders may be jailed

Overall plastic bags are bad as they are tough to recycle and are enviornmentally harmful. But I dont know whether ban will really help. Banning anything usually creates a black market or is not possable to impose the ban or some people benefit out of it and masses suffer.

Better solution would be to better inform people, incentivize other bags (paper etc). For the Harry potter fans Dumbeldore said "One has to chose between what is right and what is easy" and our policy makers usually make the choice of - easy.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill

2005-08-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is a very significant bill providing guarneteed employment for 100 days to villagers needing jobs. Very ambitious the scheme is.
UPA plays its CMP trump card: job Bill
I am very sceptical on how much impact this will have. There are many govt. schemes providing money for various tasks but none have really effected. This has been due to many reasons. Policies which have defined loopholes, no accountability, corruption and lack of good opposition which raises voice or rather lack of organized public which raises these issues are some of the reasons.

If the current govt can combine several different schemes under te employment guarantee scheme and delegate authority to panchayat (give money to it to carry out these tasks) then this can have great impact. Past experiences havent being good though.

Other point to think about is the economic costs of such a scheme. Economists and "experts" have pointed out that this might increase the fiscal deficit and govt might not have the funds for this. Blah ..blah.. Lets consider this as a part of social security net which the governement provides. By better management of current schemes and correct job allocation this scheme can create lot of resources/wealth for the nation. Just consider using the scheme for road work, infrastructure work, cleaning traditional water structures, creating water harvesting structures, improving/creating physical infrastructure for govt. schools/hospitals/health care centers, ... This will create so much benefit in the long term that this scheme would prove proftable. Need to read more on analysis of this.

Lets face it, even if we grow at 7% per year it will take decades for the benefit to trickle down and above that just GDP growth will create severe disparities as seen but less publicized in the western world. Its a right scheme. But I will reserve judgement on how its structured policy wise and obviously the way its implemented.

Maharastra state has a very similar scheme and some NGO's have organized people and used the scheme for their benefit effectively. Not sure what level of success it has been but its positive. Lets hope that nation wide scheme is also good. I will write further on this once I read up more on this. Feel free to comment and post links to sources.

The draft Bill:
http://nac.nic.in/communication/draft_rega.pdf

An initial analysis of the bill is here:
http://www.righttofoodindia.org/rtowork/rtw_articles.htm
http://www.indiatogether.org/direct/2005/cdr-000070.html
http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/sep/pov-nrega.htm
www.cuts-international.org/pdf/Bill-Blowup-2-2005.pdf
http://www.righttofoodindia.org/rtowork/ourcritiques.html

Once the bill is passed with all its ammendments, I will try to summarize the various analysis.

News Story: Bhutan puts farms before markets

2005-08-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

Bhutan has been a closed economy focussing not on industrialization or urbanization but on farms, ruralization. It has tried hard to protect its farmers/industry from external competition. But now they seem to be at crossroads.

BBC NEWS |Bhutan puts farms before markets

This experiment deserves notice & further study as to how in this urbanized/gloablized/elitisitc world can such a nation survive.

Independence day - Time for reflection

2005-08-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 58th Independence day for India ... ya its also a holiday in India (long weekend). But its also time for leaders, citizens to look back and contemplate for some time on the nation's achivements, its problems. Reflect on what our national leaders who got us independence wanted the nation to be and what we are today. As a nation we have achieved a lot .... (you can get a list from any ruling party political leader's speech). But did we want to be this way ....

India as a nation is a nuclear power (still >50% of urban population lives in slums in major cities). We are among the fastest growing economic power in the world ( still 50% of our children suffer from mal-nutritution). We are the biggest democracy in the world (still in a single day thousands of families are forcefully evicted out of theie houses -- slums -- by the government). Our GDP is growing at rate of 5-7% for last decade ( still amount our govt spends on social sector - health & education - is dismal as compared to any country in the world 3% & 4%). The software sector is creating millionaries in our country (still around 70% of popuation lives in single room houses). The list goes on .....

So whose responsible?. No I dont think its only the government (an easy escape goat). A nation's success shouldnt be counted just by these economic numbers or state of 2-3% of the population. The real picture emerges when you look at the 90% of the population and in what condition they are. We as a nation should think what we want and set our priorities. I think personally we need public movements on a far larger scale than we have today. This needs public organization and will take time but this is the only right way.

Situation in Mumbai Slums & State Policy

2005-08-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Till now in my posts on Urban Slums I have looked at the extent of the problem at various levels. It should be evident reading these that urban slums are a huge problem which cannot be ignored. Almost quater of urban India lives in slums and >40-45% of the population in major metropiltion areas in India live in slums in very poor conditions. Now in the posts to come on slums I will look at government policy towards slums/housing in urban areas. The purpose of this is to analyze/evaluate/understand govt. policy. This will help in getting a feel of why has the situation worsened and what are the solutions?.

As per the Indian constitution housing, urban land policies are in the functional domain of the state governments. So center can only issue directives, guiding principles but actual legislation has to be drafted/passed by the state governements. The center can influence policy through conditions on resource allocations for these policies. As per the 74th ammendment of the constitution of India most of the housing/slum improvement related policies fall under the domain of the municiplaity (local city government). But due to lack of resources these tend to be looked after by the various state governement offices. Due to these reasons policies towards slums vary across states and sometimes across cities. We will thus first look at policies related to Mumbai slums. I have used several sources, listed at the end, for this blog. None of the numbers listed below are from first hand study, but i have tried to cross reference and the numbers are mostly from govt./UN studies.

Types of housing options for Poor in Mumbai
Before going deep into policy lets look at type of housing options for poor in Mumbai. These include Chawls, Patra chawls (consisting mainly of semi-permanent structures, which can be both authorised and unauthorised); Zopadpattis (squatter housing); and pavement dwellings. Although pavement dwellings and chawls have poor slum-like conditions, these do not fall under
the legal definition of ‘slum’. Pavement dwellings are houses built on foothpaths and a large number of their occupants include street children. As these are not recognized as slums by goverment, they do not have security of tenure and face the constant threat of evictions. Also they are not eligible for any improvements under the slum policies.

Conditions in Mumbai Slums
Acoording to various studies in Greater Mumbai there are 1,959 slum settlements with a total population of 6.25 million, which forms 54 per cent of the total population of the city (Census of India, 2001). Average household size is 4.5 and the sex ratio is much better (842 females per thousand males) than in the rest of the city. 62% of slums have predominantly "pakka structures", 27% have semi-permanant strucutures. Houses are very small with 42 per cent dwellings having an area of less than 10 m2 and 38 per cent having an area between 15 to 20 m2, and only 9 per cent had area more than 20m2. About 49 per cent of slums have access to water supply from shared standpipes, while 38.3 per cent have a supply from more than one source. Remaining slums get their water from tube wells or community standpipes. Only 5 per cent of slums have individual taps whereas 17 slums with approximately 0.1 million inhabitants (0.87 per cent of the total) have no water supply and have to depend on adjoining settlements. Slum communities are clearly in favour of individual water connections. Women and children daily spend a lot of time and have to make several trips to collect water. Sanitation in slums is very poor as 73 per cent of slums depend on community toilets provided by the government, 28 per cent defecate in the open, 0.7 per cent slums have pay to use toilets managed by NGOs and only 1 per cent of slums have individual toilets. Others have mixed provisions or use toilets in other slums or mobile toilets. Inadequate numbers of toilets lead to long waiting times. Overuse and poor maintenance makes them unhygienic. Inadequate numbers of garbage bins/receptacles, lack of awareness amongst people about ill effects of indiscriminate dumping and inefficiency of local bodies are some of the reasons for poor solid waste management in slums.

Occupations & Income
30 per cent of workers were self-employed, 44 per cent were working in private establishments, 9 per cent were in government service and only 17 per cent were casual workers. Average monthly household incomes were Rs. 2,978 and 40 per cent of households were considered to be below the poverty line. Recycling of waste including plastics is very common in
many slums. Many women work as maids in surrounding residential areas.

The majority of slum dwellers identified themselves with the city rather than with their native place and plan to settle permanently in the city. In spite of poor conditions in slums, most residents felt that life in slum is tolerable and city life was certainly better than rural life. Almost 60 per cent felt that their houses were tolerable (Gill, 1994 p 60-85). Slum dwellers were also aware that traditional social safety nets do not exist in today’s slums. They greatly value improving their working situation through getting a better job, yet have, again by middle class standards, low aspirations and have a very optimistic view of their chances of upward social mobility. All of them, irrespective of age, gender, wealth and educational attainment express their high regard for education and foresaw upward social mobility for their children by educating their offspring as much as possible. They confessed, however, that there was not an atmosphere conducive to study.

Policy affecting avability of land/housing:

Two long term policies have affected the avability of housing in Mumbai.
The Mumbai Rent Control Act (1947):
Rental control act was introduced to freeze rents at 1940 levels and the rights of tenants against evictions. This was meant to protect rights of people living in chawls, but chawl owners never invested in chawl maintaineance and the living conditions in chawls have detoritated since. These provisions had a negative impact on private investments in rental housing elsewhere also. The Rent Control Act was subsequently revised in 1986 and later in 1993, but the revisions are applicable only to new properties.

The Urban Land (Ceiling & Regulation) Act of 1976:
This act was sought to control land speculation and to achieve a more equitable distribution of land by putting a ceiling of 500 m2 on vacant urban land in Mumbai that could be held in private ownership. All the land in excess of this ceiling was supposed to be returned to the government which could use it for housing the poor. Some of the major owners of vast stretches of vacant land in Mumbai are charitable trusts of big industrialists and businessmen. The Act was often by-passed by using the ‘exemption clause’ by manipulation and getting permission from the Corporation to build, leading to a total defeat of the stated objectives of the Act. These restrictions actually reduced the supply of formal land. Also the land which was acquired by goverment under the law was never used for housing.

There are many more policies to look into and understand before we can get a sense of whats wrong ??. But its too late now and the blog entry is already too big so lets cover it later. What do you think are the reasons that we have so many people living in abject conditions ?.

Sources:
1. Book: Holding their ground - Alian Durand et al
2. IPT's report on Mumbai slum evictions.
3. UN case study on Mumbai slums.
4. Enviornemental situation of slums in India

On the US economic "recovery"

2005-08-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

"Economic Expansion grows as Unemployment Shrinks", says the NYTimes headline. What are the signs of this growth? Higher retail purchases, especially of cars, reduction in inventory, and lowering unemployment. The author laments that "rising energy prices" is one of the concerns in this "otherwise bright economic picture".

How bright is the economic picture in reality? Let's look at the lowering unemployment. It's true that new jobs are being created - 207,000 new jobs were created in July. But what you don't hear is what the breakdown of these jobs is. Well, 26000 are in the government. Of the remaining 181000, 98% are in the domestic service sector, in categories such as food tenders and bar servers. In other words, hardly any productive activity. Indeed, the US is getting closer and closer to a third-world style service oriented economy. For example, 70% of Wal Mart's goods are manufactured in China.

What about the increased purchasing? A lot of it comes from the real estate boom, which has all signs of being a bubble. That is, people are investing in real estate not because they want an improvement in lifestyle, but because they expect the prices to increase even further if they don't invest now. This can be easily seen in the contrast between house prices and rental prices - house prices are increasing at a much higher pace than rental prices. The low interest rates set by the federal government are responsible for this bubble. What sustains this low interest rate? Huge borrowing from China.

In other words, the US is borrowing money from China not for productive activity, but for lowering interest rates, creating a huge increase in house purchases. In this process, low-end service sector jobs are opening up.

That's some economic recovery!

Learning to aid III: choices, choices, and choices

2005-08-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

This is the third and final post oh Ravi Kucchimanchi’s conversations with us. The first two can be found here and here.

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This was a widely free flowing discussion, where a situation was presented and we were asked for possible solutions or ways to tackle the problem. Though it was based on snippets from real life incidents, we'll assume that this is hypothetical. A simple situation of corruption being the primary obstacle to basic progress.

Now, let’s take the example of a village with around 200 houses. 150 of them don't have electricity, though the village is officially "electrified". You investigate, and find out from the villagers that the only way to obtain an electricity connection would be to pay a fairly large bribe, say some 1500 rupees. This may not seem too exorbitant, but we're talking about very poor villagers, who spend about 40 rupees per month on kerosene for their lanterns. Many of them want electricity so that they can have a couple of light bulbs at home, their kids can stay back and study in the evenings, and perhaps they can afford a fan to use in the summer months. Seems very basic, but this small change means a lot to them. And they cannot afford to pay the bribe, and remain powerless (pardon the pun). The situation was thrown open to us, and we were asked for possible solutions. Here are some that were voiced.

1) Try to unite the poor villagers, and force the local authorities to provide the villagers these basic services by taking legal action against them.

problems with this scenario: This would certainly be a long and difficult struggle. If you as an outsider were doing this, you will have to remain in this village for a long time (probably years) to see this fight through. That would be difficult for you. Secondly, the villagers might have to undergo a lot of other hardships (repercussions) if they start these demands. Thirdly, it is difficult to keep a group already with difficulties to stay united. Legal disputes and cases take a long time for resolution in court (years sometimes), and can be very expensive. Who will bear the expense for that many years? Who will ensure the implementation of the court verdict, even if it is in their favor? Much easier said than done.

2) We know that such corruption exists. But there is some validity of strength in numbers. So, couldn't the villagers unite, and then say that though they can't pay the huge bribe, they will together pool a smaller (but still large, because of scale up) amount each, and give this in bulk. Sort of like a Costco or Sam's club bulk rate pricing, a discounted rate of corruption (yes, a couple of us came up with this idea!)

Problem with this scenario: Come on, if an ethical battle is being fought, you have to take a correct stand. This would absolutely condone corruption. Additionally, it may or may not work, but will make any future in the progress next to impossible.

3) As an NGO, promote alternate energy sources, such as solar or biogas, which can be used in place of electricity.

Problems with this scenario: This one can be viable, but only in certain cases. The costs of solar lightning etc are (still) much higher than conventional electricity sources, and require a lot of funding. It is cheaper for say, solar cookers, but solar lighting is another proposition all together. With biogas etc, it's not enough to have cattle, but there should be a certain number of cattle, as well as sufficient quantities of water to spare. Again, cost factors are fairly high (to build a distribution system etc). However, some groups, like the Barefoot college have managed to solve some problems with this approach. Still, it is difficult for small groups to do this in a large number of villages. Implementation requires a huge grassroots base, which most groups don’t have.

4) Look for sincere officials to help combat this problems. After all, all government officials can't be bad.

Problems with this scenario: It is absolutely true that there are good government and administrative officials, who are not corrupt and work sincerely. However, they are not the rule, and a large section of the officials are not in this category. Often, the good ones are themselves powerless given their surroundings (if say there is a good middle level official, but the immediate superior is corrupt, the good official is unable to act. Sometimes, a junior official who is corrupt might be politically or locally very powerful, and the senior official can't go against him/her). But it certainly is a good idea to find these officials, and take their help whenever possible. However, in say the situation above, this alone will not provide a solution.

5) Gather some villagers, surround (in this case) the linesman and ask him why he accepts bribes (say at a panchayat meeting). Try to publicly question him, and hope that yields results.

Problems with this scenario: Usually, the lowest official will claim that he's being paid too little. Then the villagers will clamor that this is not true, and reveal his (usually rather adequate) salary. He'll backtrack, and then say that his share of the bribe in only 50 rupees, the rest go to superiors. So he might magnanimously forfeit his share. But this gets more and more difficult as you go up the ladder (to say a senior engineer, who's cut is actually heftier). Still, there are merits in this suggestion as well.

6) How about negotiating a settlement with the officials, with a request that they at least consider requests from the poorest applicants without demanding bribes. The list would be provided to the officials by an impartial external group (say the NGO), with the guarantee that each person in the list is too poor to possibly pay the bribe. This person could the be awarded a connection. The carrot to the government officials in this case would be a guarantee not to go to the press, or press charges.

Problems with this scenario: Even if the officials agree to this (due to your constant pressure), they might take a very long time to execute this/clear the files. Additionally, would it not be unfair to the others, who, though they can possibly afford the bribe, should by right not have to pay it. Where do you draw the line? Here you are not really condoning corruption, but you are drawing some line to start your fight. However, it is a possibly viable stance.

These were just some of the ideas we discussed, and include real life situations. But do you have more ideas? Would you choose to do any of these, or come up with something different? I don't think there are any right or wrong answers, just choices. Go on, what would you do?

Slums - UN Habitat Report

2005-08-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

In this blog, just as few before this on slums I am presenting data about the extent of the problem. In this blog I will look at the global scale of the problem. All the data is from UN-Habitat reports.Like before I was shocked by looking at most of the numbers below.

According to UN-Habitat report, Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, sub-saharan Africa hosts the largest propotion of urban population in slums (71.9 %); 166 million people out of total urban population of 231 million are classified as slum dwellers. Around 43% of urban population of all developing world combined lives in slums.

South Central Asia has the largest slum population, 262 million, accounting for 58% of the total urban slum population worldwide. The report estimates that 924 million people worldwide or 31.6% of global urban population worldwide live in slums. This number has increased 36% during the 1990's. Even more worse is that they estimate that unless there is substantial policy change this population will more than double to 2 billion in next thirty years.

It also notes that 41% of population of Calcutta has lived in slums for more than 30 years.
Slum life entails living in harshest of conditions, in overcrowded or insecure neighborhoods, sharing toilets with hundreds of people and worst of all constantly facing the fear of evictions. Slum dwellers are prone to water-borne diseases and other health risks.

The report makes several important observations about slum dwellers. It notes that slum dwellers are victims of crime rather than they spreading crime which is the common myth. It notes that slum dwellers provide important services which otherwise would be tough to get. Urban life would come to a halt if these services were not present.

It notes that there is a lack of political will at internationl, national and local level to address this issue. The report suggests that in-situ slum upgrading is far more effective solution to improve slum dwellers lifes than resettlement. This is a very important thing to keep in mind when designing policies for slums.

Another intersting thing which shows up in the report is that slum dwellers are not that concerned about ownership (and in many cases may not be able to afford it even if provided with low cost houses), but want the government to come up with a rent-control system to avoid their explotation by goons/politicians.

Slums in India- Census 2001

2005-08-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 2001 Census data was collected for slums. Slum data was collected for cities/towns having 50,000 population or more based on 1991 census. Slum population for States/Uts is reported in this table. According to this population of slums all over India is 40,297,341 (40 million) from the 607 cities/towns reporting slums. This comes to ~4% of total Indian population (assuming Indian population of 1000 million). More interestingly it comes to ~22% of the total population of these cities (178,393,941).

This means that almost quater of Indian cities live in slums. And sadly 5,531,062 (5 million) of this population are young children (0-6 age group).

The numbers for the richest state in India, Maharashtra are even worse. Almost 32% of the state's population live in slums. And > 5 million (5,823,510 to be precise) are in the financial capital of India, Mumbai. About 49% of Mumbai's population live in slums. Slums are described by some people as places where the village folks wont even think about keeping their animals. And even then we see such a large urban population in slums. Wonder why??. The answer is simple if you try to think about it. I am not going to tell that here. Rather than people migrating to urban centers shouldnt it be the other way around. Shouldnt we have ruralization ?

Increasing share of GDP from Urban centers

In India , about 29% of GDP was conrtibuted by urban sector in 1950-51 and since then it has increased to 55% in 1990-91 and has passed the 60% mark by 2001. Thus, a little more than quater of the population generates more than half of the country's total GDP. But there is a large inequality of distribution of resources especially income in the urban centers. This is one of the reasons for origin of slums. Figure below shows data of slum population vs total population in the four metros of India.

The moral level of intellectuals

2005-08-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

This is my first post here, but it's not about the Mumbai evictions. I will address that later.

I wonder how many activists who live their lives mostly among educated intellectuals reflect on the moral level of this culture is. I am often struck by how abysmally low this moral level is.

Harsh Mander during his visit to Asha Seattle mentioned that the communally most insensitive people he found were the educated ones, IIT'ans being the worst. I think his observations are merited.

I am currently attending a workshop on database technology, and am just shocked by the insensitivity of the people around me. Yesterday there was this conversation on an accusation by some Iraqis back in 2003 when the war had just begun, that a bomb had been dropped by the US in Baghdad. This accusation was covered prominently by Al-Jazeera. There was this guy standing ahead of the shrapnel displaying a hole behind him that, according to him, was caused by the bomb. Apparently, it turned out that the bomb was not one used by the US (it had the words USA, but wasn't used by the US army), and it took a few days for the US military to trace the origin of the bomb (based on it's serial number that was visible in the Al Jazeera coverage). Within these few days, there was a lot of coverage of this incident, and the esteemed people around me were lamenting about what a big public relations disaster it was. You should have been there to see people's reactions. There was virtually unanimous agreement that technical discussions begin with this story. No one was quite saying it loud, but the portrayal of the US army as innocent victims had everyone's sympathy and attention. And this was a crowd consisting of distinguished people with varieties of awards and honors!

I have no doubt the specific facts they are discussing are correct, but it is just shocking to see that they chose to pick these facts to discuss and chose to completely ignore all the monstrous things the US army actually does. The association of support for the US government with patriotism is extremely deep-rooted.

No wonder Victor Klemperer said in his diaries as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps that he would reserve special punishment for intellectuals should the chance for retribution ever come ("I would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest.").

No wonder Harsh Mander's observations are merited. This has been true in my experience as well. Among the circles I am part of, the ones with the lowest moral levels tend to have higher educational degrees.

There were a couple of Indians at the workshop as well. For some reason, we got down to discussing education. They were contending that most poorer parents in India don't want to send their children to school, and that they must be sued for this purpose! I have nothing to say about this in polite terms, except that this form of idiocy is far more prevalent than one suspects.

Makes me furious some times that I'm stuck in this horrible culture. And ashamed.....

Slums in India - NSSO survey

2005-08-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) conducted a survey during the period of July-December 2002 on the condition of urban slums as part of the 58th round. The survey covered whole of India. A total of 692 slums were covered in the survey.

Before we look into the numbers in more detail, lets go over some terminology.

Non-notified slums: A compact urban area with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly of temporary nature, crowded together usually with inadequate sanitary and drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions, if at least 20 households lived in that area.

Notified Slums: Urban areas notified as slums by respective municipalities,
corporations, local bodies or development authorities.

The numbers we are looking are average for all over India. Numbers for indiviual states are covered in the survey, but I don't go in those details here. The numbers vary a lot across states. I have mentioned numbers for both 'notified' as well as 'non-notified' slums below. The purpose of looking at the numbers is to get a feel of slums in urban slums.

Highlights from the survey

* Estimated total number of slums: 52,000
* % of people living in slums in Urban areas: 14% (One in Seven)
* % of notified slums: 51%
* State with Highest number of slums: Maharashtra (32%)
* % of slums are built on public land, owned mostly by local bodies, state government, etc.: 65%
* % of slums with majority as pucca houses: 65% (notified) 30% (non-notified)
* % of slums with tap as drinking water source: 84% (notified) 71% (non-notified)
* % of slums with household & street electricity connection: 84% (notified) 53% (non-notified)
* % of slums with only household electricity connection: 11% (notified) 25% (non-notified)
* % of slums with no electricity connection: 1%(notified) 16% (non-notified)
* % of slums with pucca road within the slums: 71% (notified) 37% (non-notified)
* % of slums with pucca approach road to the slum: 86% (notified) 67% (non-notified)
* % of slums with water-logging during monsoon: 36% (notified) 54% (non-notified)
* % of slums with no latrine facility : 17% (notified) [1993: 54%] 51% (non-notified)
* % of slums with underground sewerage system: 30% (notified) 15% (non-notified)
* % of slums with no drainage system: 15% (notified) 44% (non-notified)
* % of slums having no garbage collection facility: 16% (notified) 47% (non-notified)

There was significant improvement in facilities in the last five years. 78% slums reported improvement due to government, 12% as a result of NGO's.

These numbers though indicative do not show us the complete picture. The report has numbers on how many slums have access to water, but they count access to water even if the whole slum shares a single or a few taps. And in most slums a few toilet facilites are shared by the whole slums. These facilites are also not operational many times. And the garbage collection facilites are poor. I will in blogs to come present facts/figures through case studies to substantiate my points.

Mumbai Slum Evictions - Public Hearings

2005-07-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

Sadly, forced slum evictions are common and prevalent across various parts of the world. Mainly in developing countries from Zimbawawe, Kenya, Bangladesh to India and many other places. Recently UN-HABITAT came out with a report sharply criticizing the slum evictions in Zimbawabe where 700,000 people were evicted. Between Nov 2004 to Feburary 2005 the Maharashtra State government in India demolished around 90,000 slums in Mumbai. In this and other blogs to follow I will present various facts/views about Mumbai slum evictions and then look at policy issues surrounding these issues. In doing so I am using research/studies done by various people/organizations and will refer to them regularly.

Indian People's Tribunal(IPT) constituting retired judges, lawyers and other imminent people involved in humanitarian work investigated the legality of demoliations and alternatives through public hearings and research. In their report they have criticized the government and presented various shocking facts not known through the mainstream media previously.
Extent of Evictions:
According to the report within the first 18 days of the evictions, over 39,000 homes were demolished. Among the first was a large settlement with over 6,200 homes in Ambujawadi in Malad, a North West Suburb of Mumbai. An estimated 90,000 homes were demolished in 44 areas. The report lists the areas which were demolished. According to the list, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation seems to indicate that 288.80 acres of land has been cleared.

Excerpts from Public Hearings:

Anita Shukla from Hari Omnagar, MIDC, Andheri

“We have also voted twice for MP and MLA. But there is no count of demolition on our houses; it must be 17-18 times.”

Unknown security persons and goons keep haunting us, women are especially troubled

Uma Shankar Jai Narayan Mishra from Hari Omnagar Seva Sangh, Hari Omnagar.

“We paid Rs. 20,000 to a goon for 10 x 20ft home in Hari Omnagar. We did not have any amenities, no water, no electricity the women used to get water for us.”

"I earn approximately Rs. 3,500 per month. I have two boys and one girl and don’t know how to care for them. How can my daughter who is in 8th standard continue her studies?"

Rajnath Prasad, Maharashtra Nagar, Mankhurd

"When we came to the place, it was very dry. Then the monsoon struck. The monsoon water has yet to clear. We stayed in waist-deep water. We have built our house above the waist-deep water and somehow managed to survive. We stayed like that for 5-6 years.
After managing some money we filled the wetland by putting many tractors of mud. One such tractor with mud costs Rs 1,500 and made the land livable. We united to buy a tap that gave us facility of water. Otherwise we used to get water from a far off place. We also collected money to buy around 40-50 tractors of mud for filling the wetland and constructing road. One such vehicle costs minimum Rs 1,500. Now when we have invested and arranged for a livable house, the municipality is running bulldozers. At times, bulldozers run twice a month. Now they trouble us so much that it is difficult to stay there. They feel we should run away. Only we know how much investment and hard work we have put in to make that place worth living. From the time municipality demolished, our children cannot go to the school."

Deposition of Mr. Khairnar, Former Deputy Commissioner - Demolitions, BMC

“In 1976, Kunte- a minister in government- decided to visit slums built till then and authorize it. All slums were given number and authorized. It was also decided that if a single house comes up in slums after that, then the related officials of that area will be brought to the book.

Slum construction continued. But no action was ever taken against any failing officers. People enjoy the constitutional right to stay in any part of India being an Indian. So they stayed. People come as Mumbai provides earning opportunity that they lack back home. They need shelter too. The government fails in providing that. Thus such people are forced to rent land and houses from goons. Thus, new houses were built. In 1985, houses were recognized as authorized construction again by the then government. The resolve to punish failing officers in case of new constructions coming up was repeated again. Instead, those officials took money from people and facilitated construction of new houses, further.

Later on, by 2000 a decision was taken to authorize houses built till 1995. Before that, the houses were authorized by giving numbers. Now in this election Congress promised to authorize the houses built till 2000.
How are these houses built? One way is that people come to Mumbai to earn and they build home. I have also come to Mumbai. I worked as the Deputy Commissioner. But I could not get my own house without a loan considering my meager salary. So how can the poor get house. We all and even our leaders have come to Mumbai like this only.

Due to problems at our native place, we reach Mumbai. Our life does improve. It is shameful for all that our brothers stay in Mumbai at such places where the villagers would not even like to keep their animals in villages”.

“In 1989, I conducted a survey about the development of slums. I found it is done in a very systematic way. If someone wants to get a house built, he gets it done through someone. If someone wants a slum of 100 houses, with one room of 10 x 15, then they might approach a slum lord.

The ward office staff knew about all development in their ward. During my tenure in Kurla, the MLA, the Deputy Commissioner, the ward officer, junior engineer – all were paid money.”

“Now your houses develop for 7-8 years. You invest more than Rs 50,000 over the years. Thus, the BMC has devastated more than Rs 300 Crores by demolition drive. Many such demolitions have taken place. The ministers come and go. New slums keep coming up.”

Common Themes in the depositions:

Demolitions take place regularly. There have been several demolitions after 1978. Several people's houses have been demolished more than 5-6 times. Just imagine the pain?
Many houses were demolished even though they were built before 1995, which according to the government are legal houses. Many people have documentation (ration cards, Vote ID cards) to prove their length of stay.
People have invested a lot of money (from their standards) in these houses. These were places which were not livable (marshes, wet land) before. They have made it better using their own money. The investments range from 20,000 to 1 lakh.
Politicians have made several promises in regard to slum housing to them, but none delivered. The current government made an election promise that slums built before 2000 would be legalized. But it later demolished those and did a U turn on the promise.
Huge amounts of money is spent in bribing the police, goons, corporators. This ranges anywhere between 5 – 50K.
No Notices were given before the demolitions. India, as a signatory to UN Human Rights treaty is bound to follow certain procedure before any evictions. These were not followed.

In the next blog I will look into more issues raised in the report and dwell more into housing policy issues.

Purpose of this blog

2005-07-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

This blog is meant to share views/research/opinions on various developmental issues among the various volunteers/people interested in these issues. We will be posting on various issues, many a times with links to facts/reports/opinions.

Who are we?
A group of volunteers working for various non-profit organizations looking at development issues.

Why?
The purpose is spread the word and start a discussion about these issues.