VOL-11 The Gist - NOVEMBER 2013

COURTESY:
The Hindu
Yojana
Kurukshetra
Press Information Bureau
Contents
GIST OF THE HINDU ......................................................................................................... 2
Nuclear Deterrence is Overrated ...................................................................................................................................... 2
CO2 Effect: Focus on Marine Fauna ............................................................................................................................... 3
Indias TB control ............................................................................................................................................................. 4
New Company Bil ............................................................................................................................................................ 6
U.S. n-energy: unviable at home; strategic instrument abroad ....................................................................................... 7
Hindu Encyclopaedia to be Unveiled............................................................................................................................... 9
Knocking down the Malaria Causing Parasite ............................................................................................................... 10
Exam for Journalists ........................................................................................................................................................ 14
India is now Worlds Third Largest Internet user after U.S., China ............................................................................. 14
From the Granary to the Plate, Food Security Bill ....................................................................................................... 15
Carbon Nanotubes for Next-gen Conductors ................................................................................................................ 18
An IT Tool for Freer Information .................................................................................................................................. 19
RISHTA helps to Shape the Lives of These Women .................................................................................................... 20
GSAT-7, First Navy Satellite, Launched ....................................................................................................................... 21
Turning out to be Rocket Science .................................................................................................................................. 25
The Importance of the Outsider ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Make Medicines while the Sun Shines .......................................................................................................................... 28
GIST OF YOJANA.............................................................................................................. 34
Towards Holistic Panchayati Raj ................................................................................................................................... 35
Equality and its Demands on Democratic Institutions ................................................................................................. 39
Copyrights and Copywrongs ......................................................................................................................................... 42
Economic Paradigms and Democracy in the Age of Financial Globalization .............................................................. 43
Peoples, Voices, Development and Democracy ............................................................................................................ 47
Political Empowerment of Women: Pathway to Inclusive Democracy....................................................................... 50
Government Initiatives to Empowerment Women-Areas of Concern ......................................................................... 52
GIST OF KURUKSHETRA ............................................................................................... 53
Empowering Rural Women A Step Towards Inclusive Growth ................................................................................... 58
Where do Women Stand in Rural India? ........................................................................................................................ 61
GIST OF PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU.................................................................. 63
Review of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) caps and routes in various sectors. ...................................................... 63
Cabinet Decision ............................................................................................................................................................ 63
Courier Services (para 6.2.10)(a) ................................................................................................................................... 64
Defence (para 6.2.6) ........................................................................................................................................................ 64
2 VOL11 GIST OF THE HINDU
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Gist of
THE HINDU
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IS OVERRATED
T
he Indian Navy has figured in three
recent, global news items. The launch
of the indigenously developed aircraft
carrier, INSVikrant, expected to be operational by
2018, makes India only the fifth country after the
United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and
France to have such capability. The diesel-electric
submarine Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
his wife, Gursharan Kaur, launched the 6,000-
tonneArihantin Visakhapatnam on July 26, 2009.
In time, it was said, with a fleet of five nuclear-
powered submarines and three to four aircraft
carrier battle groups, a 35-squadron air force and
land-based weapons systems, India would emerge
as a major force in the Indian Ocean, from the
Middle East to Southeast Asia.
The strategic rationale is to acquire and
consolidate the three legs of land, air and sea-
based nuclear weapons to underpin the policy of
nuclear deterrence. Unfortunately, however, the
whole concept of nuclear deterrence is deeply
flawed.
Desensitised
Nuclear weapons are uniquely destructive
and hence uniquely threatening to our common
security. There is a compelling need to challenge
and overcome the reigning complacency on the
nuclear risks and dangers, to sensitise policy
communities to the urgency and gravity of nuclear
threats and the availability of non-nuclear
alternatives as anchors of national and
international security.
Limited India-Pakistan war
The putative security benefits of nuclear
deterrence have to be assessed against the real
risks, costs and constraints, including human
and system errors. Modelling by atmospheric
scientists shows that a limited, regional India-
Pakistan nuclear war using 50 Hiroshima-size
bombs each would, in addition to direct blast, heat
and radiation deaths, severely disrupt global food
production and markets and cause a nuclear war-
induced famine that kills up to a billion people
around the world.
The extra caution induced by the bomb
means that the subcontinents nuclearisation
raised the threshold of tolerance of Pakistans
hostile mischief, like provocations on the Line of
Control and cover for cross-border terrorism. Yet,
India did not need to buy deterrence against
China. The best available evidence shows that
Chinas nuclear weapons, doctrine, posture and
deployment patterns are designed neither to
coerce others nor to fight a nuclear war with the
expectation of winning, but solely to counter any
attempt at nuclear blackmail.
The role of nuclear weapons in having
preserved the long peace of the Cold War is
debatable. How do we assess the relative weight
and potency of nuclear weapons, west European
integration, and west European democratisation
as explanatory variables in that long peace? There
is no evidence that either side had the intention
to attack but was deterred from doing so by the
other sides nuclear weapons. Moscows dramatic
GIST OF THE HINDU VOL11 3
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territorial expansion across eastern Europe
behind Soviet Red Army lines took place in the
years of U.S. atomic monopoly, 194549.
Conversely, the Soviet Union imploded after,
although not because of, gaining strategic parity.
Historical Evidence
To those who nonetheless profess faith in
the essential logic of nuclear deterrence, a simple
question: are you prepared to prove your faith by
supporting the acquisition of nuclear weapons by
Iran in order to contribute to the peace and
stability of the Middle East, which presently has
only one nuclear-armed state?
It is equally contestable that nuclear
weapons buy immunity for small states against
attack by the powerful. The biggest elements of
caution in attacking North Korea if anyone has
such intention lies in uncertainty about how
China would respond, followed by worries about
the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas
conventional capability to hit populated parts of
South Korea. Pyongyangs puny arsenal of useable
nuclear weapons is a distant third factor in the
deterrence calculus. Against the contestable
claims of utility, there is considerable historical
evidence that we averted a nuclear catastrophe
during the Cold War as much owing to good luck
as wise management. The 1962 Cuban missile
crisis is the most graphic example of this.
Australias most respected strategic analyst,
former Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Dibb,
argues that Moscow and Washington also came
close to a nuclear war in 1983. Frighteningly,
Washington was not even aware of this scare at
the time and any nuclear war then would have
used much more destructive firepower than in
1962.
Compared to the sophistication and
reliability of the command and control systems of
the two Cold War rivals, those of some of the
contemporary nuclear-armed states are
dangerously frail and brittle. Nor do nuclear
weapons buy defence on the cheap:
theArihantcannot substitute for the loss of
theSindhurakshak. They can lead to the creation
of a national security state with a premium on
governmental secretiveness and reduced public
accountability. In terms of opportunity costs,
heavy military expenditure amounts to stealing
from the poor. Nuclear weapons do not help to
combat Indias real threats of Maoist insurgency,
terrorism, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and
corruption. Across the border especially, there is
the added risk of proliferation to extremist
elements through leakage, theft, state collapse
and state capture.
NPT
The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
(NPT) has kept the nuclear nightmare at
bay for 45 years. The number of countries
with nuclear weapons is still, just, in
single digit.
There has been substantial progress in
reducing the numbers of nuclear
warheads.
But the threat is still acute with a
combined stockpile of 17,000 nuclear
weapons, 2,000 of them on high alert.
The NPTs three-way bargain between
non-proliferation, disarmament and
peaceful uses is under strain. The
Conference on Disarmament cannot agree
on a work plan.
The Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty has
not entered into force. Negotiations on a
fissile materials cut-off treaty are no
nearer to starting. The export control
regime was damaged by the IndiaU.S.
civil nuclear agreement.
CO
2
EFFECT: FOCUS ON MARINE FAUNA
The oceans absorb more than a quarter of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which
dissolves in the water to form carbonic acid. This
way, the oceans act as a carbon dioxide sink.
However, as the amount of greenhouse gas
increases in the atmosphere, so does the amount
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of carbonic acid in the waters, leading to ocean
acidification (OA).
The studies have found varying levels of
adaptability among different organisms.
Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for
Polar and Marine Research have found
that corals and echinoderms (like
starfish) face endangerment and
extinction, respectively, by 2100.
Their findings are more pertinent because
they are based on the same emission
scenarios used by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to
prepare its Fifth Assessment Report, due
out in September.
Corals spend their entire life in one place
and cannot efficiently compensate for
higher acidity as they lack the necessary
physiological mechanisms.
These organisms also secrete calcium
carbonate to create the most productive
ecosystems known: coral reefs. Higher OA
and warmer climes could interfere with
the formation of reefs, with the
scientists believing they could face
extinction by the end of the century.
INDIAS TB CONTROL
Tuberculosis is very much in the news,
but for all the wrong reasons a
shortage of drugs; increasing multi-drug
and extensive drug resistance (MDR,
XDR), making treatment both
cumbersome and expensive; total drug
resistance (TDR) as a veritable death
warrant; popularly used serological tests
for diagnosis being declared worse than
useless, and a government order for
mandatory case notification.
Private practitioners are legally
authorised to treat TB, but without quality
check mechanisms.
They often bypass the prescribed
treatment protocol, while MDR, XDR and
TDR result from non-protocol drug
treatment.
India pioneered TB control among
developing nations.
A national TB control proj ect was
launched in 1962. With BCG vaccination
as the main intervention, there was an
air of expectancy that it would protect
against TB. Free TB treatment was
included to create goodwill in the
community, with public-private
partnership (PPP). When directly
observed treatment, short course
(DOTS) became popular, PPP was
neglected a fatal flaw in TB control. In
2012, Indias golden jubilee year of TB
control, the World Health Organization
(WHO) named India the worst performer
among developing nations, with 17 per
cent of the global population carrying 26
per cent of the global TB burden.
BCG vaccination
Indias TB control pioneers P.V. Benjamin
and Frimodt-Moller introduced the mass
BCG vaccination in the hope that it would
protect against infection by TB bacilli.
Preventing infection is key to disease
control. BCG manufacturing began in
Chennai and an extensive vaccine trial
was launched in Chengalpattu district,
Tamil Nadu, to measure its protective
efficacy. In 1978, the Expanded
Programme on Immunisation took over
BCG vaccination.
In 1979, preliminary results of a 15-year-
long BCG trial showed no protection
against infection by TB bacilli. The
disappointing results were much debated,
and ignored by the then TB control
leadership. In 1999, the final results,
which were published in the Indian
Journal of Medical Research, confirmed
that the TB control project had lost the
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tool of primary prevention.
In 2000, the Indian Academy of Pediatrics
called for a major redesign of TB control,
with alternative tactics to prevent
infection and treat infection before it
caused disease. WHOs 2012 Annual
Report on TB confirmed Indias failure.
DOTS saves lives from TB mortality, but
has failed to control TB.
Infection in the Air
TB bacilli spread through the air we breathe
in; ever yone is at risk of infection. After
infection, the majority remains well, but the
bacilli stay alive, latent or dormant in body tissues
for life. Some 10 per cent will develop TB disease
some time in adult life. When disease pathology
is in the lungs (pulmonary TB), the bacilli have
an easy escape route to the environment. Thus,
lung TB is the critical link in the chain of
transmission coughing and spitting allow the
bacilli to contaminate the air, and others breathe
them in.
In young children, infection can rapidly lead
to disease, called childhood TB, which can be
serious and life-threatening. BCG fails to protect
against infection by TB bacilli, but protects
against infection progressing to childhood TB.
Thus, universal neonatal BCG vaccination saves
thousands of lives and huge costs for diagnosis
and treatment. Childhood TB is not infectious; so,
treating childhood TB has no role in TB control.
The chances of infection with TB bacilli
increase with time and infection prevalence
increases with age. In India, about 15 per cent are
infected by 15 years of age; 40-60 per cent by 40
years. Among them, a few develop lung TB due to
various risk factors. They cough/spit out
billions of TB bacilli. One way to control TB is by
treating everyone with lung TB very early on to
break the transmission chain. This is theory; a
person with lung TB is infective for many weeks
and would have already infected children in
contact by the time his sputum is tested and
found positive. More often than not, the stable
door is shut after the horse has bolted. Yet, if all
are treated, over a period of time, the infection
rate might decline. Strangely, the target is to treat
only 70 per cent with DOTS. WHO estimates that
only half of lung TB patients get DOTS. This way,
TB cannot be controlled in India. Without PPP, all
cases cannot be treated according to protocol.
A Public Health Emergency
The TB control pioneers designed free
treatment in the public and private sectors. After
all, if the government cannot provide a safe
environment for children to grow up in without
getting exposed to TB bacilli, the least it should
do is to offer free care. They designed a district TB
treatment model under PPP. TB control is a
Central government project, while health care is
a State subject. The private sector has grown
enormously. The TB control project has failed to
address the yawning gap between private sector
health care and TB control.
In the 1980s, AIDS entered India; HIV
infection is a major risk factor of TB. Diabetes,
another factor, is increasing in India. Poverty and
nutritional deficiencies are additional factors. A
project review in 1990 confirmed Indias failure to
control TB. The Revised National TB Control
Programme (RNTCP) using DOTS was launched
in 1993, the year WHO declared TB a global
emergency. Nationwide expansion of RNTCP took
13 years as the government saw no TB emergency
in India.
For those fortunate enough to receive
DOTS, the cure rate is high. Their death rate is
markedly reduced. For those with extra-
pulmonary TB, a sputum test will not help in
diagnosis. RNTCP is not interested in them as
they do not spread TB bacilli. So, the project
illustrates incomplete health care and inadequate
public health.
As a Right
Control is a defined term in epidemiology
the disease burden should be reduced to a pre-
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stated level, within a stipulated period of time,
and proven to be due to intervention and because
of a secular trend. As socio-economic status
increases, TB should decline even without specific
interventions that is a secular trend. RNTCP
has not set control targets in terms of a time
frame and disease burden. It is not measuring a
secular trend. Thus, the control in RNTCP is not
epidemiologically sound.
A critical method of TB control, practised in
countries with public health infrastructure, is to
detect and treat infected children so that the
latent bacilli are killed and children removed from
the infected pool. They will not develop
pulmonary TB as adults. This move is feasible in
India, but requires a redesigned TB control
strategy. Both interventions, DOTS and
treatment of latent infection, must be dovetailed
for effective TB control.
Poverty leads to TB and TB worsens
poverty. Poverty alleviation requires TB control.
The annual economic loss to India on account of
uncontrolled TB was assessed by the government
at $23.7 billion, while RNTCPs budget is only
$200 million. A redesigned RNTCP deserves at
least $1 billion. TB control is at once a
humanitarian service, human rights entitlement
and investment in socio-economic development.
The RNTCP leadership has to get back to the
drawing board to redesign TB control.
NEW COMPANY BIL
With Parliament passing the Companies
Bill last week, the country will finally have a
contemporar y legislation to regulate the
corporate sector. The existing Companies Act
dates back to 1956, since when the corporate
landscape has dramatically changed. While the
new Companies Act takes into account the
present environment by overhauling several
provisions of the existing Act, such as, for
example, the one pertaining to auditor
appointments, a lot will depend on the
subordinate rules under the different provisions
that will framed by the executive. Even so, one
particular provision on corporate social
responsibility (CSR) has attracted a lot of
attention and comment. The new law stipulates
that companies above a certain size have to spend
two per cent of their average net profit of the last
three years on CSR. This is the first time that CSR
has been mandated by law in any country in the
world and that the government means business
is evident from the fact that the companys board
has to create a committee to oversee CSR
activities and the companys policy in this regard
has to be posted on its website. The board is also
answerable if it fails to spend the mandated sum
on CSR in a particular year.
The intent behind the provision is
obviously noble and meant to nudge companies to
give back to society a little of what they take from
it. Yet, there are a few dangers of mandating CSR
on companies which are basically profit-seeking
enterprises answerable to their shareholders.
There are companies and industry houses such as
the Tatas that are known to spend liberally on
CSR but on activities that are carefully chosen by
them or their trusts established specifically for
this purpose. What happens if the activities under
the CSR rules to be framed now do not fit into the
existing programmes which benefit society
anyway? There is a danger here that the best will
turn an enemy of the good. Second, there is
genuine concern that companies will now be open
to arm-twisting by local politicians seeking funds
for activities that further their own interests.
What protection do companies have in such an
event? Third, to cut down on compliance costs,
companies may well opt to mark the required
contribution to the Prime Ministers National
Relief Fund or similar such schemes recognised
by the Act as CSR spending. Given that these
contributions also offer tax-breaks, the
temptation will be tremendous indeed. In such an
event, the larger purpose of the provision will
obviously be defeated. The rules governing the
provision to be framed in the next few months
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will, therefore, be crucial to the success of this
initiative. It is important that the government
involves industry associations such as CII and
FICCI in this matter.
U.S. N-ENERGY: UNVIABLE AT HOME;
STRATEGIC INSTRUMENT ABROAD
The first nuclear energy plant constructed
after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident will be
commissioned in 2017 at Waynesboro in the State
of Georgia.
Powered by an advanced light water reactor,
this will be a milestone in what many describe as
U.S. nuclear renaissance. It has considerable
significance for India too. The two reactors are
called AP-1000 which the manufacturer,
Westinghouse, is trying to hard sell for the
nuclear energy plant proposed at Mithivirdi in
Gujarat. Westinghouse is building these reactors
in the U.S. as well as in China, a country that is
developing its nuclear energy capacity at a
galloping pace.
29 reactors are under construction in the
Communist nation China while 51 more are
being planned For Vogtle Electric Generating
Plant, owned by a consortia led by Georgia Power
Company, the two reactors will cost $14 billion.
The USP of AP-1000 is its passive design
under which a large reservoir of water sits atop
the reactor. If the reactor has to be shut down in
the event of an emergency, say an earthquake, and
alternative power sources do not kick off to pump
water into the core as happened at the Fukushima
Daiichi plant in Japan, the water will flow by
gravity. As the condensed water keeps flowing
back, a melt-down can be prevented for a
considerable period of time.
Nuclear energy policy in U.S. is going
through a churning like never before. Fukushima
looms over every narrative, making safety and
security paramount. As a result, licensing of new
plants has become a time-consuming affair,
making time and cost overruns become inevitable
as in the Vogtle plant. A new challenge is
emerging for the nuclear power sector from
natural gas which is cheaper and available in
abundance in the U.S.
Victor McCree, Atlanta-based Regional
Administrator of NRC, said nuclear energy
accounts 20 per cent of power supplied in the U.S.
through 100 plants, down from 104 earlier
constituting more than 10 per cent of the
generating capacity. Yet, more are under
construction, he hastened to add.
In India, about 25 reactors are either in the
planning stage (18) or are under construction (7)
whereas experts in the U.S. have veered round to
the view that they cannot put all their eggs in one
(nuclear) basket, though the government itself is
supportive of nuclear power. A group of visiting
journalists from six countries invited by the
Foreign Press Centre of the U.S. Department of
State went round the Vogtle nuclear plant in
Georgia State where work is on at a frenetic pace
on Units 3 & 4. Capacity addition in nuclear
energy will be dwarfed by that in natural gas
which will add 41 per cent in the near future But,
the U.S. has plans outside its borders as it expects
the global nuclear market to reach $750 billion
over the next 10 years.
U.S. nuclear technology should be a
strategic instrument of U.S. foreign policy. The
second wave of nuclear power construction will
begin after 2020, said Scott Peterson, Senior
Vice-President of the Nuclear Energy
Institute.For business reasons that are quite
obvious, power-starved India figures high in this
policy.
FUEL FOR THOUGHT
decade ago, three Indian companies
Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), Oil and Natural Gas
Corporation (ONGC) and Gujarat State Petroleum
Corporation (GSPC) independently announced
substantial gas discoveries in the Krishna-
Godavari Basin in the Bay of Bengal. For a fuel-
star ved countr y, these discoveries were
harbingers of hope and optimism. While crude
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imports would continue, we believed we could
finally turn our back on polluting coal and transit
to natural gas-based electricity generation. In fact,
in Andhra Pradesh, four CCGT-based (combined
cycle gas turbine) thermal generation plants came
up in the wake of the announcement. Abundant
domestic gas supplies also meant enhanced food
security, since gas is the main feedstock for
manufacturing fertilizers.
All those claims turned out to be a lot of
hot air, rather than methane. Neither ONGC nor
GSPC is anywhere near monetising their
respective natural gas discoveries although that
does not stop them from claiming further
discoveries in the same basin from time to time.
RIL had then dramatically announced that it
could produce 80 million metric standard cubic
meters of natural gas every day (mmscmd), a
claim that sent its stock prices soaring then. Yet,
it failed to produce even half that volume, and
now production has plummeted to a sixth of that
quantity. Whether the drop in gas production is
due to technological challenges, geological
problems or pricing battles with the government
is immaterial as far as consumers are concerned.
All the industries that came up on the promise of
abundant gas availability were faced with huge
shortages of gas. They had to either remain
stranded or operate at a fraction of their name-
plate capacities, that too using naphtha, a costly
substitute for natural gas.
India is surrounded by gas-rich neighbours
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and
Myanmar. Yet, cross-border gas pipelines have
eluded us till now. While the Turkmenistan-
Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline is
said to be at a reasonably advanced stage of
negotiation, its prospects are dogged by so many
problems that until that pipeline actually
materialises and the gas starts flowing, it would
be premature to count on it. In the event, Indias
hope of meeting burgeoning gas demand is only
through import of natural gas in the form of LNG
(liquefied natural gas).
LNG is an excellent option for countries
that cannot access piped gas. Even Europe, which
is extravagantly served by gas pipelines from
Russia, has built several LNG terminals to
supplement Russian supplies. LNG requires
substantial infrastructure, both at the
dispatching and receiving ends. LNG is natural
gas cooled at source to minus 161 degrees Celsius
converting it into liquid form and shipped in
cryogenic ships. The importing country needs
cr yogenic storage facilities as well as re-
gasification terminals where LNG can be
converted once again into gaseous form and sent
through the domestic pipeline network. Setting
up LNG terminals is a capital-intensive operation.
India already has two operational LNG
terminals on the Gujarat coast, and a third one in
Kochi. More LNG capacities are being planned
along our long coastline. With domestic gas
production plummeting to record lows, some of
these will get built in the next few years.
While that may sound promising to all those
gas-based industries and power plants hoping to
resume production, the ground reality is that LNG
pricing, utterly opaque as it is, might badly hurt
Indian consumers. Unlike crude, there is no global
competitive market for gas, much less for LNG
whose prices tend to be capricious, volatile and
inconsistent.
LNG export prices to European destinations
have been driven down by the shale glut in the
U.S. However, Asian LNG prices tend to be aligned
to the prices Japan is willing to pay for its LNG
imports. Japans electricity generation is almost
entirely LNG-based, and its desperation to keep
the lights on has led to substantially higher prices
for LNG in the Asia Pacific region. That said,
secrecy shrouds the price at which LNG is
contracted by importing countries, including
India.
Economic theory will tell you that price-
gouging is inevitable for any commodity,
especially fuel or food with inelastic demand,
whose price is neither determined by competitive
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markets nor regulated by the government or an
independent regulator. It opens up enormous
scope for corruption and kickbacks when a state-
owned LNG terminal operator (TO) goes
shopping for LNG cargoes in the international
market. In the case of privately-owned LNG
terminals, the secrecy surrounding the pricing of
LNG offers substantial potential for price-
gouging, especially in an inelastic desperate
market.
Yet, Indias fuel-starved burgeoning
economy cannot do without imported LNG.
Granted that the government or an independent
regulator cannot be expected to regulate the price
of a commodity that is wholly imported nor is it
realistic or feasible to expect the government to
subsidise an imported fuel.
But what the government can do is to bring
about a modicum of transparency in LNG pricing
by mandating that all TOs, whether in the public
or private sector, must disclose the price at which
they procure LNG from the global market place. It
is imperative that the terminaling charges are
regulated and made transparent. These cannot be
left to the whims of individual TOs, especially
because the demand for gas is inelastic and
growing. While transportation costs will be
determined by global LNG shipping markets, all
other costs such as storage, re-gasification and
marketing margins must ideally be regulated by
an independent regulator.
Pari passu, LNG terminals in the country
must allow open access to their facilities so that
bulk consumers like fertilizer companies or power
plants can go and contract their own cargoes and
have them stored and re-gassified at the
terminals at a transparent tariff.
In a half-hearted attempt, the government
has recently mandated that all new LNG
terminals must offer at least 0.5 million tonnes
of their short-term re-gasification capacity for
non-discriminatory open access. This provides
window for TOs to enter into long-term contracts
to tie-up their entire capacity. While that may be
a good outcome since it would ensure lower
prices than spot purchases, there is no certainty
that the lower prices would be passed on to the
consumers since there is absolutely no
transparency in pricing. In Europe, all LNG
terminals have been mandated to provide open
access to their entire capacity unless a specific
exemption has been sought and obtained from
the EU regulator prior to setting up the terminal.
TOs in EU also follow transparency in
operational and commercial information, so
crucial to successful implementation of open
access.
The future of LNG in India will critically
depend upon a far-sighted proactive approach that
ensures transparency, fairness and certainty for all
stakeholders, most of all, for the beleaguered
Indian gas consumer.
The author is an independent energy
analyst and former Member, Petroleum and
Natural Gas Regulatory Board
HINDU
ENCYCLOPAEDIA TO BE UNVEILED
In a milestone for Indian studies, the
English edition ofEncyclopaedia of Hinduism, a
product of 25 years of relentless academic efforts
by nearly 1000 scholars, unveiled.
The 11-volume encyclopaedia which covers
Hindu spiritual beliefs, practices and philosophy,
encompasses more than 7,000 articles that span
Indian histor y, civilisation, language and
philosophy; architecture, art, music and dance;
medicine, sciences and social institutions; and
religion, spirituality and the role of Hindu women.
More than 1,000 colour illustrations and
photographs bring the Hindu traditions and
culture alive for readers.
Conceived, compiled and produced by the
India Heritage Research Foundation, and
published by Mandala Publishing, the
voluminous product is scheduled to be unveiled at
the University of South Carolina (USC) during a
day-long conference.
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The conference will be attended by Rajendra
K. Pachauri, the chairperson of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007;
Anna Hazare, an anti-corruption activist, besides
Swami Chidanand Saraswati, president of
Parmarth Niketan Ashram and founder of India
Heritage Research Foundation.
SAGA OF WESTERN GHATS
Greenkos 24-MW Kukke I Hydel Project,
proposed in the dense forests of Dakshin
Kannada, highlights how misleading labels like
green and small can be in reality.
The Kukke I project is proposed across
Kumaradhara after its confluence with Gundia,
two remarkably biodiverse rivers in the Western
Ghats.
Greenko has also proposed 24-MW Kukke II
project upstream of Kukke I. Local communities
have been opposing Kukke I for more than a year
due to its hidden submergence details and
impacts.
Greenko went from stating that there is no
submergence, to 21 hectares submergence. But,
modelling studies by Centre for Ecological
Sciences, Indian Institute of Science reveal that
this small project will submerge 388.71 hectares,
including 110.1 hectares of remarkably
biodiversity rich forests.
Karnataka Renewable Energy Development
Corporation issued a Stop Work notice on Kukke
I in February 2012, demanding a detailed study of
submergence area.
Kumaradhara is exceptionally rich in
biodiversity, with several discoveries being made
frequently. The river has two rare community fish
sanctuaries close to the project, teeming with
endangered Deccan Mahseer, which will be
severely affected by the project. The river is home
to 56 fish species 23 endemic, 11 vulnerable
and eight endangered. Five new species have
been discovered just in the last year. Experts have
been calling to protect Kumaradhara as a fish
sanctuary. However, Kukke I does not envisage a
fish pass for fish to migrate, neither does it plan
to release environmental flows for sustaining the
downstream ecosystem or the river.
When the South Asia Network on Dams,
Rivers and People (SANDRP) and local groups
raised this issue in our comment to the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) application of
the project, Greenko categorically responded.
The Netravathi and Kumaradhara rivers
have more than 44 small hydel projects planned
bumper-to-bumper. But by a questionable
omission in the Environment Impact Assessment
(EIA) Notification (2006), hydel projects less than
25 MW are exempt from environmental
clearance. Hence, such projects require no EIA,
public hearing or environment management plan,
no matter how severe their impacts maybe.
SANDRP has been writing to the Ministry of
Environment and Forests with evidence of
impacts, requesting these projects be brought
under EIA Notification.
Ironically, Kukke I is now requesting
registration for carbon credits through the Clean
Development Mechanism of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change. The
entirely f lawed CDM application process
highlights the murky nature of carbon credits in
India, with consultants, validators, reviewers and
the National CDM Authority forming a cartel.
Kukke projects are just one example of the kind of
fraud that is routine in small hydel and CDM
projects.
KNOCKING DOWN
THE MALARIA CAUSING PARASITE
Targeting the malaria parasites ability to
make an iron-containing molecule, haem, might
help create a vaccine against the disease and also
lead to novel drug therapies for blocking infection
and transmission, according to research from a
team of Indian scientists that was published
recently inPLOS Pathogens.
In the course of its complex life cycle, the
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parasite is able to access haem when it infects red
blood cells and gobbles up the haemoglobin those
cells contain. Haemoglobin is the molecule that
makes it possible for red cells to transport oxygen
around the body.
Work carried out two decades back at G.
Padmanabhans laboratory at the Indian Institute
of Science (IISc) in Bangalore had led to the
discovery that nevertheless the human malaria
parasite could also synthesise haem. The enzymes
involved in the complex, multi-step process used
by the parasite for doing so were subsequently
worked out.
Now, experiments carried out by a team of
scientists at the IISc and the National Institute of
Malaria Research have shown that having the
capability to synthesise haem was absolutely
essential for the parasites development in
mosquitoes as well as in early stages of infection
when it invades the liver.
When the single-celled parasite consumes
haemoglobin found in red cells, the large amounts
of haem generated as a consequence is toxic to the
organism. It overcomes the problem by turning
haem into an insoluble pigment, haemozoin.
However, the parasite needs haem for iron-
containing proteins, known as cytochromes, that
are essential for its own energy production.
The question arises whether the parasite
depends onde novohaem biosynthesis or haem
from haemoglobin or a combination of both to
make mitochondrial cytochromes, observed
Viswanathan Arun Nagaraj, a Ramanujan Fellow at
IISc, and his colleagues in the paper.
To help answer that question, the scientists
turned toPlasmodium berghei, a malaria parasite
that infects mice. TheP. bergheiwas genetically
modified so that two genes for enzymes the
parasite required to synthesise haem were
knocked out. The scientists were able to show
that while much of the haem from haemoglobin
breakdown ended up as haemozoin, some of it
was also incorporated into the parasites
cytochromes.
Then, through experiments using the
human malaria parasite,Plasmodium
falciparum,they found that haem synthesised by
the parasite while it was in red cells went into
cytochromes as well as the haemozoin pigment.
It may be that the ability of synthesise
haem was critical to the parasite in situations
where it could not get access to the hosts haem,
such as when an infected individual had sickle cell
anaemia, said Prof. Padmanabhan, who is a co-
author of the paper.
Clear proof
The scientists found clear proof that
haem synthesis was vital for the parasites
development in mosquitoes. Parasites that were
unable to make haem did not give rise to its
infectious form, known as sporozoites, in the
insects salivary glands.
Genetically engineeredP. berghei,which
had one gene for haem synthesis knocked out,
could make haem and produce sporozoites when
the missing intermediate molecule was supplied.
However, those sporozoites, lacking the ability to
generate haem, were unable to infect mice.
Knocking out genes for haem synthesis
could be a way to produce genetically attenuated
sporozoites that might ser ve as a vaccine
candidate for malaria, according to Dr. Nagaraj.
Recently published research had shown that
attenuated sporozoites could be an extremely
effective vaccine against malaria.
THE NEW NOTE ON MINT STREET
Expectations are running high about the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor-designate,
Raghuram Rajan unusually for an RBI governor,
his appointment was not just reported by but also
commented on editorially in the foreign press.
Living up to these expectations will be a huge
challenge for Dr. Rajan. It is bad enough that the
Indian economy has to cope with falling growth,
high inflation and an adverse external position.
What makes things more difficult for him is that
many of his past positions are at odds either with
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those of the finance ministry or the RBI or both.
Three Issues
Dr. Rajan needs to tread warily on three
issues in particular. One, whether the RBIs
mandate should be confined to price stability or
whether it needs to pursue other objectives as
well, such as growth, currency stability and
financial stability.
Two, whether corporate houses should be
granted bank licences and based on what criteria.
Three, the role of the Financial Stability and
Development Council (FSDC).
Begin with the mandate of the central bank.
In its report in 2008, the Committee on Financial
Sector Reforms (CFSR), that Dr. Rajan chaired,
made its position clear. This Committee feels that
monetary policy should be reoriented towards
focusing on a single objective, and there are good
reasons why this objective should be price
stability (defined as low and stable inflation). An
exchange rate obj ective would limit policy
options for domestic macroeconomic
management and is not compatible with an
increasingly open capital account.
This is not and has never been the view
either of the finance ministry or the RBI. That
apart, the present economic situation makes it
impossible to focus on price stability alone. The
wholesale price index, which the RBI uses for
purposes of monetary policy had, until the most
recent month, shown signs of declining. Going
by price stability alone, it could be argued that
monetary policy must switch to facilitating
growth.
Going by Reer
How do we square monetary easing with
the fall in the rupee? Many in the political class
are apt to see the rupee as a symbol of a nations
virility but this is not a view that sensible
economists would share. In judging whether
depreciation has been excessive or not, they
would go by the real effective exchange rate
(Reer). In the year ended June 2013, the
depreciation in the Reer, weighted by trade with
respect to 36 currencies, was just three per cent.
Over a much longer period, 2005-13, the
depreciation in the Reer has been only six per
cent, no matter that the decline in nominal terms
in the same period was nearly 22 per cent. Even if
we were to factor in the fall in the rupee since
June, the decline in the Reer would fall broadly
within the RBIs comfort zone of five per cent in
a given year.
Before the fall to around Rs.65 in recent
days, there was thus a strong case for the rupee to
decline in nominal terms. The case was
particularly strong, given weak global demand for
exports. This is one reason the panicky reaction
to the decline in the rupee is overdone. Another
reason is that it ignores the fact that currencies
across a range of emerging economies have fallen
sharply because of the sense that Fed is about to
taper off Quantitative Easing, which had sent
funds flooding into emerging markets. The
contention that the rupees sharp fall is entirely
or mainly because of some special brand of
economic mismanagement on the part of New
Delhi just does not wash.
Granting the case for depreciation, however,
the RBI cannot allow the rupee to go into a free
fall. Foreign inflows into India must be reckoned
in dollar terms because the dollar is the reserve
currency. Too steep a decline in the rupee with
respect to the dollar could result in an exodus of
Foreign Institutional Investor funds, no matter
that the trade-weighted real exchange remains
relatively stable. There will always be a case to
manage volatility in the rupee so as not to upset
foreign investors.
That is why the RBI thought it fit to clamp
down on liquidity and tighten interest rates at the
short end a few weeks ago. It took the view that
too rapid a fall in the rupee could cause a
potentially disastrous flight of funds. However,
the markets were quick to latch on to another
problem: the RBIs attempt to shore up the rupee
posed a threat to a third central bank objective,
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namely, financial stability. Bank stocks were
hammered heavily in the days after the RBI
tightened liquidity and with good reason.
Banks had taken positions on bonds in the
expectation that yields were trending down and
are now incurring losses on these. Private banks,
which depend heavily on wholesale deposits,
faced substantially higher funding costs. Most
importantly, an increase in interest rates
increases corporate distress, which impacts on
banks quality of assets.
Growth forecasts, including that of the RBI,
have been revised downward in recent weeks.
When slow growth is combined with heightened
problems in the banking sector, it greatly
increases the chances of a rating downgrade
and the very flight of foreign investors that the
RBI is seeking to prevent. The RBI seems to have
realised that its attempts to tighten liquidity can
at best be short-term therapy and it has taken
steps to reverse its course. Once the rupee
stabilises, it will be necessary to reverse this fall
and move towards engineering decline in
interest rates.
Banking and Corporates
Yes, there is the danger of a flight of funds,
especially funds invested in debt. But funds
invested in equity might well choose to stay,
given the boost to corporate profits from lower
interest rates. They will also be encouraged by
ongoing projects proceeding towards completion.
At the same time, we must prepare for the worst
contingency a significant flight of foreign
funds by arranging capital inflows in every
conceivable way: non-resident Indian deposits,
overseas borrowings by public sector
undertakings, negotiations with the
International Monetary Fund for a line of credit.
Whatever the course of action, Dr. Rajan cannot
hold fast to the CFSRs position that monetary
policy must focus on price stability alone.
On the issue of bank licences, the RBI and
the ministry are united in thinking that the time
has come for the field to be opened to corporates.
The CFSR, in contrast, had contended that it was
premature to allow industrial houses to own
banks. It cited the prohibition on the banking
and commerce combine in the United States and
said the same was necessary in India until private
governance and regulatory capacity improve.
There is not just the conceptual issue of
whether corporates should be allowed into
banking. There is also the practical matter of
ensuring that the selection process is not vitiated
by charges of corruption. This is no easy task,
given the clout that many of those in the fray
enjoy. In a recent speech, RBI Governor Dr. D.
Subbarao argued that letting in Indian corporates
would lead to innovation of new business
models for financial inclusion If this is what
the RBI believes, then Dr. Rajan must ensure that
financial inclusion is made the primary criterion
for the grant of new bank licences.
Regulatory Body
Finally, there is the role of the Financial
Stability and Development Council. This body has
its genesis in the CFSR report. The CFSR had
suggested the creation of an apex regulatory
agency that would have responsibility for
monitoring systemic risks and ensuring
coordination among the different regulators in
the financial sector. Thanks to the Financial
Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC),
this idea has since metamorphosed into one of
vesting statutory authority in the FSDC, with the
Finance Minister presiding over it.
No doubt politicians and bureaucrats are
smacking their lips in anticipation of an FSDC
with greater powers but the RBI under Dr.
Subbarao has bristled at the suggestion. He has
insisted that the FSDC should be a coordination
body and that every care should be taken to ensure
that there is no infringement of the autonomy of
regulators. He has expressed similar concerns
about the FSLRCs proposal to vest the conduct of
monetary policy with a council dominated by
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outsiders. Dr. Rajan brings to the job a degree of
intellectual capital, perhaps unmatched by any of
his predecessors. Still, in reconciling divergent
views and revisiting his own, he has his work cut
out. He must know by now that no RBI governor
can afford to antagonise the finance ministry
beyond a point. Nor can he afford to alienate the
RBI community, one that is legitimately proud of
its traditions and expertise and its standing in
the world of regulators.
EXAM FOR JOURNALISTS
Journalists in India have no special rights.
Unlike the United States, freedom of the press in
the country does not flow from any special
provision or amendment to the Constitution, but
from the right to free speech and expression.
Article 19(1) (a) of the Indian Constitution
confers this right subject only to reasonable
restrictions specified in Article 19(2).
Therefore, to propose licences,
qualifications and common entrance
examinations for journalists, as Information and
Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari did a few
days ago, is to try to circumscribe and limit the
fundamental right to freedom of speech and
expression. Dissemination of information might
be the business of some news organisations, but
it is also an essential part of the ever yday
activities of countless Indians who talk, post,
upload or tweet what they see, hear, sense or
think. What distinguishes journalists employed
by a news organisation and private individuals
taking advantage of social media and personal
communication channels to disseminate
information is not the nature of their work, but
the public standing and credibility that they
command. Any attempt to prescribe licences and
qualifications for journalists will necessarily end
up limiting what ordinary citizens can do. As in
other democracies, newspapers in India do not
require a licence to operate. In authoritarian or
managed democracies, where press licensing is
the norm, the threat of a cancelled licence is
often enough to ensure the media toes the official
line. If journalists are to be given licences, can
newspaper licensing be far behind?
INDIA IS NOW WORLDS THIRD LARGEST
INTERNET USER AFTER U.S., CHINA
India has bypassed Japan to become the
worlds third largest Internet user after China and
the United States, and its users are significantly
younger than those of other emerging economies,
global digital measurement and analytics firm
com Score has said in a report.
India now has nearly 74 million Internet
users, a 31 per cent increase over March 2012, the
report says.
The numbers are lower than other recent
estimates, possibly reflecting comScores
methodology that only factors in PC and laptop-
based Internet usage.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) pegged the number of Internet subscribers
in India at 164.81 million as of March 31, 2013,
with seven out of eight accessing the Internet
from their mobile phones.
The comScore report, on the other hand,
puts mobile and tabled-based Internet traffic at
just 14% of the total.
Mobile phone based Internet usage is a key
component of Indian Internet usage, and Id say
the recent growth is being driven by mobile
Internet usage.
Three-fourths of Indias online population
is under 35 as against just over half worldwide,
the comScore report, India Digital Future in Focus
2013, says, possibly reflecting Indias more recent
improvements in literacy.
Men under 35 and women between 35 and
44 are heavier users. But women account for less
than 40 per cent of all Indian users, a far lower
sex ratio than that of other countries.
A quarter of time spent online is on social
media, the comScore report says, and another 23
per cent on email.
While Google sites have the most unique
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visitors, Net users spend the most time on
Facebook, which is at second place as far as
unique visitors are concerned.
Yahoo, Microsoft and Wikimedia sites
follow in unique visitor numbers.
Among social media sites, Linkedin and
Twitter are the next most popular, while Orkut is
in decline. Google is by far the most popular
search engine, accounting for 90 per cent of all
searches in India.
Online retail is on the rise, with domestic
retail sites being the most popular, the report
notes.
The locus of online dominance has moved
steadily towards Asia, which now accounts for
41% of all Internet users; from having 66% of all
users in 1996, the United States now accounts for
just 13%.
China has the worlds biggest online
presence; Its Internet users outnumber Indians
by a ratio of 5: 1. Brazils Internet presence grew
faster than Indias over the last year.
NICARAGUA WANTS INDIA TO JOIN IN
MEGA CANAL PROJECT
Nicaragua wants to involve Indian
businessmen in a $40-billion project to connect
the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans by a mammoth
canal. The project has been awarded to a Chinese
entrepreneur and will be longer than the Panama
Canal, but some doubt if it will ever be completed.
The canal faces opposition from
environmentalists as it will cut across a major
freshwater lake. It is likely to be used by super
large tankers carrying shale gas to Asian markets
and India is among those countries that could get
gas from the U.S.
FROM THE GRANARY TO THE PLATE,
FOOD SECURITY BILL
The National Food Security Bill, now an
ordinance, has been a target of sustained attacks
in the business media in recent weeks. There is
nothing wrong, of course, in being critical of the
bill, or even opposed to it. Indeed, the bill has
many flaws. What is a little troubling, however, is
the shrill and ill-informed nature of many of these
attacks. Statistical hocus-pocus has been deployed
with abandon to produce wildly exaggerated
estimates of the financial costs of the bill, and
no expression seems to be too strong to
disparage it. The fact that the food bill could
bring some relief in the lives of millions of people
who live in conditions of terrifying insecurity
seems to count for very little.
Findings
Meanwhile, recent studies shed some useful
light on the state of Indias Public Distribution
System (PDS) one of the controversial
foundations of the bill. As far as the below
poverty line (BPL) quota is concerned, there is a
clear trend of steady improvement in many
States, including some that had a very poor PDS
not so long ago. A recent study of the PDS in
Koraput, one of Odishas poorest districts, found
that almost all BPL households were receiving
their full monthly quota of 25 kg of rice at the
stipulated price. Similar findings emerged from a
survey of the PDS in two districts of Uttar
Pradesh (Lakhimpur Kheri and Chitrakoot), where
most BPL households were getting their due 35
kg of rice or wheat per month. The main problem
was the restrictive nature of the BPL list, which
left many households excluded. These surveys
confirm earlier findings of a study by the Indian
Institute of Technology in 2011 that BPL
households in nine sample States received 84 per
cent of their PDS entitlements.
It is in the above poverty line (APL) quota
that embezzlement continues in many States. In
Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), APL households are
supposed to get 10 kg of wheat per month, but
most of the APL quota goes straight to the black
market. The gravy flows all the way to the top: the
complicity of the then Food Minister, Raja Bhaiya,
in this scam was exposed last year byTehelka, but
the bhaiya retained his post. Recent
investigations suggest that leakages in the APL
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quota are also very high in Bihar, Jharkhand, and
Madhya Pradesh, among other prime offenders.
The main reason for this vulnerability is
that the APL quota is treated as a dumping ground
for excess foodgrain stocks. In recent years,
foodgrain procurement has increased by leaps and
bounds, but distribution under the BPL
andAntyodayaquotas has remained much the
same, since allocations are fixed and lifting is
close to 100 per cent. To moderate the
accumulation of excess stocks, the Central
government has been pushing larger and larger
amounts of foodgrain into the APL quota, which
is now almost as large as the BPL quota (close to
20 million tonnes of foodgrains in 2012-13). One
consequence of this dumping is that the
entitlements of APL households are, by nature,
unclear and unstable; in fact, they are not
entitlements butad hochandouts. This gives
middlemen a field day, since APL households are
often confused as to what they are supposed to
get, or whether and when their quota has arrived.
The current situation in U.P., where most of the
APL quota goes straight to the black market
without anyone raising the alarm, is just an
extreme example of this situation.
Rectifies PDS defects
The food bill is an opportunity to clean up
this mess, and to cure two basic defects of the
PDS: large exclusion errors, and the leaky nature
of the APL quota. In effect, the bill abolishes the
APL quota and gives common entitlements to a
majority of the population: 75 per cent in rural
areas and 50 per cent in urban areas. These are
national coverage ratios, to be adjusted State-wise
so that the coverage is higher in the poorer States.
In this new framework, peoples entitlements will
be much clearer, and there will be greater pressure
on the system to work. Indeed, wide coverage and
clear entitlements are two pillars of the fairly
effective PDS reforms that have been carried out
in many States in recent years (other aspects of
these reforms include de-privatisation of ration
shops, computerisation of records and
transparency measures). Seen in this light, the
bill can be a good move not only for food security,
but also from the point of view of ending a
massive waste of public resources under the APL
quota.
Cash Transfers
The main goal of the PDS is to bring some
security in peoples lives, starting with protection
from hunger but going well beyond that. A well-
functioning PDS liberates people from the
constant fear that it might be difficult to make
ends meet if crop fails, or if someone falls ill, or
if there is no work. The value of this arrangement
has been well demonstrated in many States
Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan,
among others. Whether a system of cash
transfers could serve the same purpose at lower
cost, and how long it would take to put in place,
are issues that need further scrutiny and debate.
Meanwhile, the PDS is in place, there is a ration
shop in every village, and huge food stocks keep
piling up. It seems sensible to use these resources
without delay. In any case, the food bill does not
preclude a cautious transition to cash transfers if
and when they prove more effective than the
PDS.
Three Problems
Having said this, there are many reasons for
concern over the impact of the bill. Three related
problems look increasingly serious. First, there is
a danger of over-centralisation of the PDS under
the bill, at a time when many State governments
are making good progress with reforming the
PDS on their own. To illustrate, the bill seeks to
impose a system of per-capita entitlements (e.g.
5 kg of foodgrains per person per month) across
the country, as opposed to household
entitlements (e.g. 25 kg per household). Per capita
entitlements are certainly more equitable and
logical than household entitlements. But the
transition from the latter to the former is not a
simple matter, and could be very disruptive if it is
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30000/-
3500/-
2500/-
3500/-
3500/-
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imposed overnight from the top. Just think about
how an old widow in Rajasthan, who lives alone
and survives on her monthly quota of 25 kg of
PDS rice, would feel on being told that her
entitlement is being slashed to 5 kg per month.
Political Tool
The second danger is excessive haste. As the
country gears up for a string of elections, the
Central government and some State
governments are keen to fast track the roll-out
of the bill for electoral purposes. A sense of
urgency is certainly appropriate as far as food
security is concerned, but undue haste could be
very counterproductive. For instance, some State
governments apparently propose to use the BPL
Census of 2002 to identify eligible households,
instead of the more recent and reliable Socio-
Economic and Caste Census just to speed
things up. This is a disastrous idea. A better way
of fast tracking the roll-out of the bill would be to
universalise the PDS in the countrys poorest
districts or blocks.
Last but not least, the promulgation of an
ordinance has turned the bill into a political
football. The Congress claims that the bill is a
non-partisan initiative, but is also trying to use it
as an electoral card. The Bharatiya Janata Party
says in the same breath that it supports the bill
and that it will not allow Parliament to function.
The Samajwadi Party is shedding crocodile tears
for farmers, but is unable to explain why the bill
is anti-farmer. The All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam claims that the bill is
against Tamil Nadus interests, without
mentioning that it will enable the Tamil Nadu
government to save large amounts of money on
rice purchases from the Centre. The real issues are
getting lost in these squabbles.
It remains to be seen whether the monsoon
session of Parliament will provide an opportunity
to repair this damage, and also to consider the
much-needed amendments to the bill. The silver
lining is that food security has finally become a
lively focus of democratic politics in India.
Whatever happens to the bill, State governments
are under great pressure to reform their PDS and
make it work for people rather than for corrupt
middlemen and their political masters. This was
long overdue.
CARBON
NANOTUBES FOR NEXT-GEN CONDUCTORS
New research has emerged from the
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology (AIST), Japan, which makes
possible lighter conductors that can carry larger
currents.
Led by an Indian chemist, researchers have
found that when carbon nanotubes are embedded
in copper, the resulting new materials ampacity
gets boosted to a massive 10,000 per cent, with an
electrical conductivity comparable to coppers.
Maximum Current
Ampacity is the maximum amount of
current a conductor can carry before losing its
electrical properties. A large ampacity is vital to
good performance. However, of late, researchers
worldwide have focused more on boosting
conductivity than ampacity.
Less Dense
The new material, dubbed CNT-Cu (for
carbon nanotubescopper), consists of 45 per cent
CNTs by volume, and is less dense than a pure
copper conductor by 42 per cent. To produce it,
the researchers electrodeposited copper into the
pores of macroscopic CNT solids such as
buckypaper.
This method is more prolonged and costlier
than conventional methods like ion dispersion.
Dr. Chandramouli thinks this is the only hurdle
for commercially deploying CNT-Cu.
There is a dominant processing cost. We are
now trying to reduce it and make it more
appealing to industries.
An advantage of the material is that it
reduces the amount of copper required and
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provides 100 times higher performance. So we
expect that the cost-by-performance of this
material will be acceptable to industries, he said.
Copper conductors are assailed by a
mechanism called electromigration that
suppresses its ampacity.
As electrons move inside the conductor,
they are often scattered by atoms in their path. As
the current density increases, scattering also
increases until, at a threshold called the
conductors rating, the material can no longer
conduct the electrons, resulting in
electromigration.
Higher Ampacity
CNT-Cu achieves higher ampacity by
suppressing electromigration that occurs in
copper wires, where electrons are scattered off
their path by copper atoms. This imposes a limit
on the amount of charge the wire can carry
without most electrons getting scattered, called
its rating.
In case of CNT-Cu, the negatively charged
particles are channeled to move through a
continuous mesh-like network formed by the
nanotubes, averting scattering.
In this circumstance, the rating
accommodates an ampacity of 600 MA/cm{+2}.
The paper notes that ampacity of up to 1,200 MA/
cm{+2}is theoretically possible.
LISTENING TO DEAD CELLS SCREAM
Clearing dead cells is a vital part of the
bodys functioning. Cells that are aging, damaged
or infected are programmed to die, a process
called apoptosis, then cleared out and replaced.
The clearance is carried out by immune cells called
phagocytes which engulf and destroy the
apoptotic cells.
This is commonly seen in several
inflammatory diseases like lupus in humans. The
team led by Means has described a molecule that
is crucial for dead cell removalin mice and, if
confirmed in humans, could be used to treat such
disorders.
Dead cells differentiate themselves from
their healthy counterparts by molecules on their
surface that act as eat me signals for
phagocytes. C1q molecule is one such eat me
signal. What was not known until now is the
receptor protein on the phagocyte which
recognises and binds to the C1q on the dead cell,
before engulfing it.
In theC. elegansworm, a receptor called
CED-1 is known to do this. Mice and humans
have a similar protein called SCARF1 on the
surface of their phagocytes. The scientists
wanted to test the hypothesis that SCARF1 in
mammals could be playing a similar role as CED-
1 in worms.
For this, Means and his team bred mice
modified to lack SCARF1. They found that dead
cell clearance in these mice was impaired and
within a few months they developed lupus-like
symptoms. This proved that the receptor is
indeed crucial to recognise and engulf dead cells
with the C1q eat me signal. The SCARF1-
mediated mechanism is not the only mode of
dead cell clearance, but it is a significant one.
Based upon our studies we believe that SCARF1
controls approximately 40 per cent of dead cell
clearance, said Means.
According to Means human SCARF1 too has
been shown to mediate binding and engulfment
of C1q-bound dead cells, but thats not enough.
Further work will be needed to inhibit SCARF1
expression on human cells or to identify humans
with SCARF1 deficiency to determine the role in
humans.
If SCARF1 proves to play a role in humans,
then treatment strategies involving drugs that
increase SCARF1 expression, or SCARF1 proteins
that enhance the uptake of dead cells could be
designed for lupus patients.
AN IT TOOL FOR FREER INFORMATION
Despite the laws that are in place, seeking
information from any government is no easy task.
Whether you are a member of the public seeking
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something, or worse still, a journalist nosing
around to reveal those secrets, anyone who has
filed these requests can imagine the difficulty
involved.
United States Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) is one such law that tries to bring in
government accountability through public
demand. It is, however, riddled with complexities,
making it a painful process.
This project that started in late 2012 aimed
at collecting statistics on response times that the
government took to public records act requests. In
its present avatar, however, it automates the
process of filing the request and tracks its
progress, apart from aggregating this data.
On July 16, the project was launched on
Kickstarter to cover the server costs, finish
development and curate the data. Overwhelming
support meant that the scheduled funding goal of
$17,500 was reached in less than two days. As the
campaign is open till August 16, the additional
amount collected allows them to stretch their
goals to include enhanced features, improved
design and an API.
Over 800 journalists have already signed up
for this service when it launches to the general
public, which is the end of this year.
Once launched, the CIR will hand over the
FOIA Machine to Investigative Reporters and
Editors (IRE), a national, nonprofit unit.
While the FOIA Machine does have
overlapping features with several public records
projects like Germanys Frag den Staat, Britains
What Do They Know? (uses Alaveteli),
Netherlands Nulpunt and US-based MuckRock, it
hopes to be a complete package, free for everyone.
RISHTA HELPS TO SHAPE THE LIVES OF
THESE WOMEN
Even routine gynaecological problems
among women are indicative of negative life
situations and can be associated with emotional
and sexual health risk, the findings of a project
implemented in a slum community in Mumbai
over the past six years have suggested. An early
and holistic intervention in married lives can
help mitigate the risk of womens sexual health
problems, it said.
The Research and Intervention for Sexual
Health: Theory to Action (RISHTA) proj ect
focussed attention on the symptom of vaginal
discharge and established a Womens Health
Clinic in June 2009 in the Urban Health Clinic
serving a low income community inhabited
largely by Muslims. Every woman recruited into
the project 1125 of them was asked to
provide a medical history, to undergo an internal
examination, and test for sexually transmitted
infections (STI) before being given treatment.
RISHTA used a multi-level approach with a
view that bringing about changes in womens
attitudes must be accompanied by positive
change in the marital relationship and
community norms that perpetuate gender
inequitable attitudes. The approach incorporated
counselling on marital relations with women and
group meetings of couples. It also included a
community education component to target
gender inequitable norms.
Vaginal discharge is the leading symptom
for which women in India and South Asia seek
care. There is evidence to prove that women
seeking treatment for this is particularly high
among the poor, representing a physical,
emotional and financial burden for low-income
families.
From a biomedical perspective, vaginal
discharge is most likely to be a normal, non-
pathological, biochemical process influenced by
diet and hormone levels and the menstrual cycle.
In the medical literature, this condition has been
attributed to frequent or early onset of sexual
activity, sexual intercourse during menstruation,
use of hormones and oral contraceptives,
antibiotic medication, insertion of vaginal agents
for birth control, complications with
sterilisation, lack of personal hygiene and
reproductive tract infection.
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RISHTA implemented by the
International Centre for Research on Women and
its collaborating partners subsequently asked
every woman who came to the clinic complaining
of white discharge about any related events or life
situations that she faced, including financial
problems, difficult communication or conflict
with husband, problem with extended family,
experience of coercive or forced sex or other
physical or psychological abuse, poor self image,
restrictions on the womans behaviour and
husbands extramarital sex or alcohol or other
substance use.
GSAT-7,
FIRST NAVY SATELLITE, LAUNCHED
GSAT-7, Indias first full-fledged military
communications satellite, was launched from the
Kourou spaceport of French Guiana in South
America.
The multiple-band spacecraft will be used
exclusively by the Navy to shore up secure, real-
time communications among its warships,
submarines, aircraft and land systems. GSAT-7/
INSAT-4F is said to significantly improve the
countrys maritime security and intelligence
gathering in a wide swathe on the eastern and
western flanks of the Indian Ocean region.
Around 2014-15, ISRO is expected to launch the
second naval satellite, GSAT-7A.
A European Ariane 5 rocket carrying the
domestic satellite and a Qatar spacecraft took off
from Kourou and released GSAT-7 into a
temporary oval orbit about 35,900 km high,
Indian Space Research Organisation said.
The Master Control Facility at Hassan,
about 180 km from here, picked up its signals
immediately and opened its power generating
solar panels.
The 2,650-kg GSAT-7 is the last of ISROs
seven fourth-generation satellites. Its foreign
launch cost has been put at Rs. 480 crore, with the
satellite costing Rs. 185 crore.
Part funded by the Navy, it is built to meet
the Navys a long-term modernisation plan that
includes use of satellites and information
technology. Chiefs of Naval Staff have
highlighted space-based communications as vital
for its network-centric operations.
According to satellite communication
experts, the UHF band is being used for the first
time in an INSAT and will boost communication
and intelligence network across a wide region.
The premium S band will enable
communication from mobile platforms like ships.
The Ku band allows high-density data
transmission, including voice and video. A special
ground infrastructure has also been created. For
European launch company Arianespace, this was
the 17th ISRO satellite since 1981.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
November 3, 1961, was a landmark for the
Indian Navy. Indias maiden aircraft carrier,
INSVikrant(formerly HMSHercules), with its
full load of ammunition, Sea Hawks and Alize
aircraft (and a crew of 1,100), was ceremoniously
received by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at
the Ballard Pier of Bombay. J.R.D. Tata was one of
the invited guests. Panditjiwas taken around
the ship by Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) Vice
Admiral R.D. Katari, (Flag Officer Commanding
Indian Fleet FOCIF) Rear Admiral B.S. Soman,
and the ships captain, Peter [Pritam Singh]
Mahindroo.
Rear Admiral Sadashiv Karmarkar, the first
Indian to command British officers on
RINSCauvery, was the Flag Officer Bombay
(FOB). The Navy had to berth the 20,000
tonVikrantat Ballard Pier, the only berth where
the carrier could have been accommodated with
full load. No berth in the naval dockyard could
accommodate the fully loadedVikrantand she
needed to lighten to 17,000 tons. A similar
situation is prevalent for the 47,500 ton
INSVikramadityaat Mumbai, and which is set to
arrive. She will be berthed ingeniously at the
outer naval dockyard berth with special pontoons
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manufactured by Goa Shipyard Ltd., till
permanent facilities at INS Kadamaba at Karwar
are set up as part of Project Seabird.
The Great Bombay explosion
J.R.D. Tata and Karmarkar were witnesses to
the famous Bombay Victoria Docks Explosion
that took place on April 14, 1944. SSFort
Stikinecarrying a cargo of cotton bales, gold and
ammunition including 1,400 tons of explosives,
caught fire and exploded and broke into two. In
the impact, windows 12 km away in Bombay were
shattered. The seismographs at Shimla recorded
tremors. Many parts of Bombay were wiped out
because of the blasts and fires that raged for two
days. Showers of burning material set fire to
Bombays slums. Eleven vessels berthed close by
were sunk or damaged and 800 deaths reported.
The memory stayed.
In 1963, J.R.D. Tata, a visionary, heard of
the Navys needs and learnt it was going to
reclaim land towards the Taj Mahal hotel, a site he
treasured, to expand the vintage naval dockyard.
Learning of the cost of new berths and dredging
the approaches to the naval dockyard were worth
hundreds of crores, the Tatas initiated a business
study and offered to develop a deep water naval
base and a port in Gujarat near Jamnagar, superior
to Kandla, to berthVikrantand other warships to
decongest Bombay.
Karmarkar (also a visionary), due to
differences with CNS Soman, was abruptly retired
in 1964. The Tatas were keen to enter the
shipping and port businesses, and J.R.D. knew
Karmarkar, had a close working relationship with
Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan, who had been
appraised of, and was in support of the proposal
to decongest Bombay. J.R.D. suggested to
Karmarkar to join and pursue the project from
Bombay House.
At this juncture, the wealthy Chowgules,
who hailed from Goa, and with their shipping and
mercantile experience, bought sea frontage at
Nhava Sheva. They applied to the government to
set up a ship repair and building yard with
berthing facilities opposite Mumbai, and made
the offer to the Navy to relocate across the
harbour. They employed Karmarkar for the
venture. The proposal nearly went through with
Chavans blessings. Unfortunately, the union
cabinet ruled that shipbuilding and ports were a
strategic industry to be reserved for the public
sector. The land at Nhava Sheva was acquired for
the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT).
Ticking bomb
The Navy built new berths, a new dry dock,
a submarine base, INS Vajrabahu, and expanded
the naval dockyard on semi reclaimed land. The
berths inside Lion Gate are located next to Ballard
Estate, just a stones throw from the Gateway of
India, and a kilometre from the Stock Exchange
and Mumbais business district, the hub of Indias
economic activity. In the event of a warship or a
submarine loaded with weapons accidentally
blowing up, the area will be vulnerable to
extensive damage, disruption and suffer
economic loss in billions.
The 1944 SSFort Stikinetragedy bears
resemblance to the two massive explosions
INSSindhurakshakexperienced on August 14,
suffering damage to the weapon loaded bows and
then sinking. Six bodies have been recovered. The
causes are being investigated, and it has tarred the
Navys good submarine record when compared
with other navies. It is speculated that a fire or
explosion could have ripped the batter y
compartment where traces of hydrogen are always
present, just under the torpedo and missile tubes
in the double-hulled submarine. This could have
set the combustible oil tanks and weapon
propellants on fire and ignited warheads.
As per standard operating procedures,
operational submarines and warships embark
missiles and torpedoes, but their warheads are
not armed with detonators, and considered
relatively safe from sympathetic detonation. But
the potency of warheads is increasing. In future,
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the damage through an accident or material
failure or sabotage would be unimaginable, and
which cannot be ruled out in this age of terror.
Limpet mines can be used, as the LTTE employed.
Naval divers entered the mangled hull
ofSindhurakshakand recovered charred bodies.
Another Kilo submarine,Sindhuratna, double
berthed alongside, suffered a fire it was
possibly her anechoic rubber tiles covering the
hull that caught fire. She was towed to safety. The
episode is a stark warning no more can
warships and submarines readied for operational
duties be berthed near big metropolises, as they
carry lethal missiles, torpedoes, mines and
rockets with tons of explosive laden warheads
and propellants, and are also fitted with volatile
batteries, that can spark. However failsafe they
may be considered to be, the chance of a fire
breaking out and sympathetic detonation can
never be ruled out.
At Visakhapatnam
Naval berths of the expanding Indian Navy
are located in the hubs of Mumbai and
Visakhapatnam. They need relocating for safety
reasons. The Navy is on the threshold of a large
expansion, of 47 ships, as stated by CNS Admiral
D.K. Joshi. Hence, it needs to speedily complete
phase two of the Seabird project at INS
Kadamba to relocate Western Command
operational ships, and consider setting up
another new base on the west coast for Indias
maritime expansion. A worse situation prevails in
Visakhapatnam where nuclear submarines are
berthed. The naval base is juxtaposed with a
refinery, a fertilizer berth and the rain calcining
plant next to one of Indias busiest harbours. The
Navy shares a wall with the sprawling Hindustan
Shipyard Ltd. The port has a very narrow entrance
that can be blocked by sinking a trawler. This
could bottle up the Eastern Fleet and its nuclear
submarines. Here again, the Navy expanded from
1969 and built, with Soviet support, the largest
naval dockyard in the East.
Case for greenfield bases
Both Admirals Daya Shankar and Gorshkov
in the 1970s had suggested that a new greenfield
naval base and dockyard be built at
Bheemunipatam or Kakinada as a futuristic
option, but it was turned down. Mrs Gandhi
feared the Soviets would ask to use it as a base. In
the 1990s, the Defence Research and
Development Organisation took a section of the
naval dockyard and built the impressive and
expensive nuclear submarine building centre in
the heart of Visakhapatnam to construct Indias
own nuclear submarines like the INSArihant,
whose reactor recently went critical. (This in
contrast to the original plan for a Mazagon Dock
Ltd. subsidiary to build nuclear submarines near
its Mangalore yard.) Meanwhile, a new naval
forward operating base is being built south of
Visakhapatnam.
Can naval operating facilities be relocated?
If so, how? In economic terms, the rule of A.P.
Giannini of Bank of America needs to be applied.
He was the first to challenge the unwritten rule
early in 1908 that banks should only lend money
to people who dont need it. The Ministry of
Defence does not need funds. Instead, it can
forward-sell valuable naval land in metros to
developers in auctions with fixed base prices,
collect considerable advances, and with that and
loans, build modern naval bases and dockyard
facilities and relocate naval operating facilities, in
this age of privatisation.
Greenfield bases today can be made
operational within five to six years (as South
Korea, land-starved Singapore, the United States
and the United Kingdom did some years ago by
decongesting city centres). The Chinese have
followed this model for their submarine base in
Hainan and even developed a new island off
Shanghai.
India too needs to relocate naval
tinderboxes away from metropolises, with new
greenfield bases.
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RICH WORLD FAILS U.N. SCHEME ON
AMAZON PARK
In a major example of how the rich world
countries are refusing to put their money where
their mouth is on climate change, a major U.N.-
backed initiative that would have kept fossil fuels
underground in the pristine forests of Ecuador
has collapsed.
Three countries sharing the Amazon region
Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador were
discussing plans to improve monitoring of the
worlds biggest rainforest, Ecuadorian President
Rafael Correa announced that his country was
giving up a conservation scheme that would have
paid the countr y not to drill for oil in the
Amazons previously untouched parts of Yasuni
National Park the most diverse natural zone in
the world.
The far-reaching decision that would lead
to the demise of the planets most creative and
ambitious approach to biodiversity conservation,
social development and climate change
immediately sparked a fiery debate on the future
of the worlds biggest eco-system, with Mr. Correa
blaming the rich nations for failing to support
the scheme to attract donations for Ecuador.
With only $13 million so far in actual
donations, he said he had been forced to abandon
the fund as the world has failed us.
It was not charity that we sought from the
international community, but co-responsibility in
the face of climate change, said Mr. Correa, who
had launched the scheme in 2010 with the aim of
raising $3.6 billion, almost 50 per cent of the
value of the reserves in the parks Ishpingo-
Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil field, over 13
years.
At that time, the ITT Initiative, as the
project is known, was welcomed as an alternative
to the efforts of the United Nations to deal with
climate change and biodiversity loss as it
promised to the keep carbon in the ground in a
2,00,000- hectare corner of the park and, in the
process, help to redistribute wealth from rich
nations to the developing world and wildlife.
Lip Service
But in the past two years, the leaders of
developed countries often paid lip service to the
project and Hollywood stars appeared for photo-
ops in the jungles with thick vines, exotic plants,
rare birds and endangered reptiles, but Ecuadors
pleas for funds to stave off local economic
pressures fell on deaf ears, even as developing
nations like Indonesia and Chile donated a few
million dollars to the project.
On Friday, hundreds of people gathered in
Quito to protest against Mr. Correas decision, but
there was no visible anger against the rich
countries whose non-cooperation actually led to
the schemes failure.
Now, a coalition of environmental and
indigenous groups is vowing to keep the
Ecuadorean government and oil companies out of
the area, which is home to at least two isolated
tribes. The government doesnt have the right
to dissolve the Yasuni-ITT Initiative because this
doesnt belong to them, said Esperanza Martinez,
the president of the Accion Ecologica
environmental group.
The initiative was a proposal that came
from civil society.
Protests
The debate may turn into angry protests as
the groups are planning a series of marches as
well as legislative actions to rescue the project.
Humberto Cholango, the president of the
powerful Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities of Ecuador, has said his group
would do whatever is necessary to block oil
exploration in the area. The Ecuadorean
Presidents assurance that the oil exploration
would leave most of the park untouched,
affecting less that one per cent of its area, has
done little to douse the anger of environmental
activists.
In the region, the collapse of the fund is
being seen as a major setback in fight against
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climate change and efforts to save the Amazon
rainforest. Ecuador, which is also home to the
Galapagos Islands, is the only country in the
world to have recognised the rights of nature in
its Constitution.
TURNING OUT TO BE ROCKET SCIENCE
Once again, a Geosynchronous Satellite
Launch Vehicle (GSLV) is on the launch pad at
Sriharikota. This launch will be crucial after
two successive failures of the rocket, the Indian
Space Research Organisation can ill afford one
more troubled flight. Moreover, the space agency
needs to demonstrate that, after 20 years of effort,
it has now mastered cryogenic technology.
The GSLV retains the first two stages of its
predecessor, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle
(PSLV). In order to carry heavier satellites than
the latter, the third stage of the GSLV uses
cr yogenic propulsion. Running on liquid
hydrogen and liquid oxygen, a cryogenic engine
offers greater energy efficiency than those that
use other propellants. The improved efficiency
means that the upper stage can carry less
propellant, with the weight saved translating
directly into more payload.
ISRO tried to purchase cr yogenic
technology from what was then the Soviet Union,
but the deal that was signed in 1991 ran into
trouble after the U.S. imposed sanctions. Russia,
which inherited the deal after the breakup of the
Soviet Union, backed out of providing the
technology but agreed to supply seven flight-
worthy stages for the GSLV.
Left with no option, ISRO began the
Cryogenic Upper Stage Project in April 1994 for
developing an indigenous version of the Russian
cryogenic engine and stage. While this
technology development was in progress, it could
fly the GSLV with Russian-made stages.
The GSLV, equipped with a Russian
cryogenic stage, first flew in 2001. However,
unlike the PSLV, which shook off the failure of its
first launch and went on to notch up 23
consecutive successes, the GSLV has been trouble
prone. In its seven flights so far, three were
outright failures and another two suffered serious
problems.
In April 2010, the GSLV flew for the first
time with an indigenous cryogenic stage. Close to
five minutes after lift-off, the cryogenic engine
came to life but only very briefly. With thrust
from that engine failing to pick up, the rocket
soon tumbled into the sea.
In December the same year, the GSLV was
flown again, this time with a Russian cryogenic
stage. But disaster struck yet again, with the
vehicle going out of control less than a minute
into the flight, breaking up into pieces and
exploding into flames over Sriharikota.
ISRO has gone to great lengths to learn
from those failures and adopt suitable changes,
say senior officials of the space agency.
The Russian cryogenic engine and stage
design is complicated. Booster turbopumps
installed at the bottom of the liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen tanks maintain a steady flow of
propellants to the main turbopump.
Glitch Rectified
Analysis of the data radioed down by the
rocket during its April 2010 flight showed that
the booster turbopump supplying liquid hydrogen
had caused the problem. The turbopump had
started up normally and attained a maximum
speed of 34,800 revolutions per minute. But its
rotation slowed after less than one second and
stopped soon afterwards.
A detailed review concluded that one of the
pumps seals could have gripped the rotating shaft
as a result of thermal deformation or some tiny
contaminant becoming wedged somewhere.
Alternatively, the casing of the turbine that drives
the pump could have ruptured.
The review led to a tightening of
manufacturing tolerances for the booster
turbopumps parts as well as more stringent
procedures for its assembly. Extensive testing has
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also been introduced, including of the fully-
assembled turbopumps.
The starting sequence for a cryogenic
engine is a complex process, involving split-
second timing. The cryogenic engine as well as
the stages two small steering engines were tested
briefly under simulated high-altitude conditions
at ISROs Mahendragiri facility in Tamil Nadu to
ensure that their ignition went smoothly.
In the GSLVs December 2010 flight, a
shroud, which protects the cryogenic engine
during atmospheric flight, opened up as the
rocket accelerated to supersonic speeds. In the
process, it pulled apart connectors for electrical
cables carrying control signals from onboard
computers mounted near the top of the rocket to
the rest of the vehicle. Out of control, the vehicle
turned sharply and soon broke up. The shroud has
now been strengthened and the connector
mounting modified.
In its forthcoming mission, the GSLV is
carrying GSAT-14, a communication satellite
weighing close to two tonnes.
The rocket could launch seven more
spacecraft over the next four years, according to
ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan. This could
include four communication satellites, a
meteorological satellite identical to the Insat-3D
that was launched last month on Europes Ariane
5 rocket, the GISAT remote sensing satellite as
well as Chandrayaan-2, the countrys next lunar
exploration mission.
The cost of launching Insat-3D on Ariane 5,
not including insurance, came to $82 million
(Rs.490 crore), Dr. Radhakrishnan told this
correspondent. The marginal cost of each GSLV
that is, the additional expense the space agency
incurs on the launch vehicle but which does not
include all the organisational costs and
investments for supporting the mission came
to about Rs.200 crore.
However, the current version of the GSLV
will probably not be able to carry communication
satellites weighing more than about 2.2 tonnes.
ISRO has already launched several considerably
heavier communication satellites aboard Ariane
rockets. The Department of Spaces latest annual
report shows eight more communication
satellites being launched abroad over the next
four years, including the GSAT-7 that will fly on
the Ariane 5 later this month.
ISRO is in the process of developing a more
powerful rocket, the GSLV Mark-III, that will be
capable of carr ying four-tonne-class
communication satellites. The rockets giant solid
propellant booster and its big liquid propellant
stage have already been successfully tested on the
ground. But an entirely new cryogenic engine and
stage have also to be prepared.
Test firing of the GSLV Mark-IIIs cryogenic
engine would start soon and the intention was to
have the entire vehicle ready for its first
developmental flight by 2016-17, according to
the ISRO chairman.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OUTSIDER
Now that the Union Cabinet has decided on
the composition of the proposed Judicial
Appointments Commission, an informed debate
becomes possible. The commission will be
presided over by the Chief Justice of India, and
will include two Supreme Court judges. The non-
judges will be the Law Minister, two eminent
persons and the Justice Secretary, who will be the
Member-Secretary. The Leader of the Opposition
in either House will be part of a committee which
nominates the eminent persons, the other
members being the Prime Minister and the Chief
Justice. Thus, all the organs of the State, as also
the citizenry, will be represented. And the judges
will be marginally outnumbered. This is as it
should be.
Checks and Balances
Recent reactions of senior leaders of the Bar
seem to take the view that the independence of
the judiciary would be compromised by outside
participation. The Chairman of the Bar Council of
India is reported to have said that we are totally
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against this National Judicial Appointment[s]
Commission Bill because of the fact that in the
process of appointment of judges, we do not want
any interference from any outsider, including the
executive (PTI report, August 2, 2013). A later
press release of the Bar Council of India (August
10, 2013) says . lawyers of the country are not
going to tolerate the replacement of the existing
collegiums with the proposed Commission,
without the representation of the Bar Councils
and the (Bar) Associations. The president of the
Supreme Court Bar Association is reported to have
said that loading the Commission with more
members from the Executive and including fewer
members from the judiciary would curtail the
independence of the judiciary and that the cure
should not be worse than the disease. The Bar will
not agree to transfer the power of appointment
to the executive. The collegium system can be
improved by making methods of selection more
transparent.
So far, the central issue of democratic
accountability has either not been addressed, or
swept under the carpet. This is the first reason
why the collegium system needs to be scrapped.
The Constitution functions under a system of
checks and balances. Judges of the superior courts
are given the power to strike down laws of
Parliament and the State Legislatures, which in
their view violate the provisions of the
Constitution. The judiciary has, in addition, given
itself the power to annul amendments to the
Constitution if they violate the basic structure
(Kesavananda Bharati, 1973), and the political
class has acquiesced. It is completely
undemocratic if the selection to such a powerful
institution is to be left entirely to a body of men
and women concededly learned in the law, but
unelected, and in practice virtually irremovable,
thanks to a complicated impeachment procedure.
This self-selecting procedure, created by the
judges themselves in 1993 is unique to our
country. Other democracies are not worse off in
the matters of judicial independence only because
they have more participatory systems of
appointment. Independence is nice, but with
accountability, it is better.
Not their sole prerogative
There is a second reason why judicial
appointments should not be the sole preserve of
judges or even a body of judges and lawyers. The
legal profession will assess professional merit
only in terms of technical skills.
Forty years ago, in less salubrious times, the
late Mohan Kumaramangalam created fear by
stressing the importance of the social
philosophy of judges to justify the supersession
of three senior judges of the Supreme Court for
appointment as Chief Justice of India. It is now
time to think dispassionately. While the
supersession of a judge can never be justified on
the basis of his social or constitutional
philosophy, surely it is a relevant factor to be
taken into account at the time of appointment.
Even if they consult senior lawyers, the
collegiums only look at technical competence.
While selecting lawyers for the High Court they
look at their levels of practice, their incomes,
their major arguments and their courtroom
etiquette. And when judges are selected from the
High Courts for the Supreme Court, it is mainly on
the basis of their seniority (subject of course to
the rejection of those whom the collegium
decides to treat as unfit). Any interrogation on
constitutional philosophy is outside the scope of
this exercise. There is only one philosophy say
judges and eminent lawyers and that is the
philosophy of the Constitution. And, pray, what
is that philosophy? We all know, after all, that the
Constitution is what the judges say it is.
A recent Constitution Bench judgment has
created consternation. In another of those rapid
judgments, a five judge bench of the Supreme
Court held that reservation in super specialities
in the faculty of the All India Institute of Medical
Sciences was unconstitutional. The correctness of
that judgment is not the subject of todays
comment, though there is scope for two views on
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it. What is disturbing is an observation in the
penultimate paragraph that the very concept of
reservation implies mediocrity. There is no
nuance here, no qualification, just a bald
statement. The judgment is authored by the
outgoing Chief Justice, who was of course under
pressure of time. But four other judges who
signed the judgment have not had a problem with
the language. This is the judicial perception of
reservation, while applying a 63-year-old
Constitution which has affirmative action
written into it. Can we seriously find fault with a
legislator who wants to know what a judges
constitutional philosophy is?
Tenure
And there is a third reason why outsiders
become relevant. Manpower planning is not a
concept which the judiciary has ever considered
important. Over the years both in pre- and post-
collegium days, we have witnessed the spectacle
of Chief Justices of India occupying office for
periods like 41 days in the case of Justice G.B.
Pattanaik, approximately one month in the case of
Justices Rajendra Babu and J.C. Shah and as few
as 18 days in the case of Justice K.N. Singh. There
has not been a single occasion when a judge has
renounced the high office to make way for a
colleague who would have a longer tenure and
would thus serve the institution better. The
proposed commission needs to bring in human
resource consultants as well, to ensure that only
those with sufficient tenures will occupy these
positions.
Similarly, High Court Chief Justices have
occupied their positions for as little as three to six
months en route to the Supreme Court. Little
concern has been shown for the effect that these
short-term appointments have on administration
in the High Courts. Nor has there been too much
worry about the quality of recommendations for
judicial appointments by collegiums presided over
by such short-term Chief Justices, who would
really have had no occasion to assess the
competence of such persons. There have also
been instances where senior judges have been
appointed as High Court Chief Justices for just a
few days before their retirement, so that they do
not lose out on the benefits of retiring from that
higher position. While the judiciary has found it
perfectly reasonable and legitimate to mandate a
two-year term for Directors General and
Inspectors General of Police (Prakash Singh,
2006), that unfortunately is not sauce for the
gander.
MAKE MEDICINES WHILE THE SUN SHINES
In June 2013, member states of the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) agreed to extend the
transition period for adherence to the Agreement
on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS) among least-developed countries
(LDCs). What this meant was that LDCs need not
comply with international rules of intellectual
property rights (IPR) protection for
pharmaceutical patents till up to July 1, 2021.
This decision has major implications for
public health. Access to essential medicines has
been a pressing concern for several decades.
Countries such as India and others in its
geography of south Asia as well as the 10 co-
members of the World Health Organisation
South-East Asia Region (WHO SEAR) need to
use this opportunity to productively and
imaginatively promote access to medical products
such as medicines, vaccines and diagnostics.
To be fair, this is not a new issue. The
period since the adoption of WTOs Doha
Declaration in 2001 has seen dramatic growth in
the quantum and diversity of participants in
international policy debates concerning
innovation and access to medical technologies.
Access to medical products in the context of
intellectual property protection was initially
examined within the WHO by the Commission on
Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and
Public Health (CIPIH), set up in 2003.
In April 2006, the CIPIH published its
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report. It contained a number of
recommendations aimed at fostering innovation
and improving access to medicines. In 2008, a
World Health Assembly resolution referred to the
Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public
Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property.
It aimed to promote new thinking on
innovation and access to medicines, for needs-
driven, essential health research and development,
relevant to diseases that disproportionately
affected developing countries.
It has been established that prices fall
steeply as soon as drugs go off patent and when
there are generics competitors. Logically, the price
fall seems to be greater when more generics
competitors enter the market. There is a need to
use the policy space available with the extension
in the TRIPS agreement and encourage price
reductions by facilitating the entry of generics
producers.
For India this places a dual challenge as
a user of medicines and a society committed to
minimising health-access inequity and as an
economy with a robust pharmaceutical industry,
especially in the generics space.
Economies of scale
For many developing countries, including
some of Indias partners in the WHOs Southeast
Asia Region (SEAR), options are limited by the
small size of their markets and lack of indigenous
technological, productive and regulator y
capacities. This lack of capacity to create a
competitive environment needs to be addressed.
The critical issue is that the economics of supply
to an individual country with a limited market
may be insufficient to attract potential generics
suppliers. To allow, therefore, for economies of
scale and a degree of competition, it is important
that small markets engage together as much as is
possible.
International institutions such as the
WHO or the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) could be
associated to assist SEAR countries in facilitating
and financing group purchases from both
branded and generics manufacturers to promote
access to medical products.
This is also a time for such countries to
consolidate new approaches to intellectual
property management for public health. From the
time that Indonesia focussed the attention of the
global health community on sharing of viruses
that led to the WHO Pandemic Influenza
Preparedness (PIP) Framework, a new platform
for benefit sharing has emerged. The Framework
enables the sharing of benefits derived from such
viruses and includes new methods of
management of related intellectual property (IP)
through developing Standard Material Transfer
Agreements.
In turn, these provide for a range of options
for biological material recipients, such as
influenza vaccine manufacturers, to enter into
benefit-sharing agreements.
This is for the first time that the use of
genetic resources and associated right of prior
informed consent, primarily under the domain of
the Convention on Biological Diversity and in
keeping with the principles of the Nagoya
Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the
Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising
from their Utilisation, which of course awaits
ratification has been applied to health
products.
Genetic resources
The success of the PIP framework has
opened the door to exploring future
collaborations in access to medicines, both
traditional and modern. India has a wide variety
of genetic resources and we need to explore
strategies to optimise the lessons of PIP in the
context of medical products. It is known that
traditional medicine provides leads for the
development of new treatments. Many modern
medicines were originally based on herbal
products.
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For example, oseltamivir, used to treat
various influenza infections, is based on shikimic
acid, which is isolated from Chinese star anise, a
cooking spice used in traditional Chinese
medicine. Current malaria treatments contain
synthetic derivatives of artemisinin, which is
derived from a plant, sweet wormwood or
Artemisia annua. This is an ancient Chinese
medicine that was in fact used to treat malaria-
stricken soldiers during the Vietnam War and was
developed, through an international partnership,
into a widely-used pharmaceutical product for
malaria treatment.
These are noteworthy precedents. We have
to learn from them, and use the intellectual-
property window over the next eight years to
address the issue of access to medicines for the
longer term.
HOW THE AVIAN BRAIN EVOLVED
It has been the belief of many
palaentologists so far thatArchaeopterix
Lithographica, the first flying dinosaur, had a
brain size that was intermediate between that of
non-avian dinosaurs and modern birds. However,
a new study by Ms. Amy Balanoff and her team
indicates that the brain size ofA.
Lithographicawas smaller than that of many
earlier dinosaur species. Ms. Balanoff is
Instructor of Research Anatomical Sciences,
Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook
University School of Medicine, Stony Brook, New
York, U.S. The study is published in a recent issue
of the journalNature.
Brain size is an important determinant of
the ability to fly and the greater the relative brain
size (relative to body mass) the greater the
neurological capabilities required of flight. Birds
are distinct in this aspect as their brains,
particularly fore brains, are expanded relative to
body size.
The expansion by volume of the avian
endocranium (the space inside the skull housing
the brain) began early in theropod (carnivorous
dinosaur) evolution and recent studies unlike
previous ones suggest that avialans, the family to
whichA. Lithographicabelongs, are not unique in
their brain-readiness for flying. In fact many
earlier dinosaurs had larger endocranial space
thanA. Lithographica.
This fact was borne out of the study which
involved Computed tomography analyses of fossil
skulls of the phylogeny of dinosaurs including
modern birds. Previous studies have established
thatA. Lithographicawas not the basal bird. Is
this finding of brain size further proof thatA.
Lithographicais not a basal bird?In a way that is
true, Ms. Balnoff noted in an email. Our study
shows that it is becoming harder to define what
a bird is. Features that we thought were
characteristic of birdsshow up much earlier in
evolutionary history than we previously were
aware of (within non-avian dinosaurs).
If non-avian earlier dinosaurs had flight-
capable brains, why did they not evolve into
birds?
Ms. Balanoff notes: The story with the
flight ready brain is that it evolved before flight
did. Like other flight-related features of birds the
large brain evolved early in the history of non-
avian dinosaurs well before the evolution of
powered flight. Only later in their history did
dinosaurs evolve the capability to fly. Its a good
illustration of mosaic evolution in which
disparate, seemingly unrelated pieces were put
together for another use.
The study considered the relationship
between total endocranial volume and body size
of theropod lineages most loosely related to
avialans. The researchers also divided the
endocasts into volumetric partitions to estimate
the major neuro-anatomical regions such as
olfactory bulbs, cerebrum, optic lobes, cerebellum
and brain stem.
This was done to find out how the various
endocranial regions of the avian brain evolved in
relation to the body size and to one another. The
relatively high correlations between the total
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volume and changes in size of different brain
regions, indicate that each region with the
exception of the olfactory bulbs, expanded along
the avian stem.
There was no structural constraint on the
growth of endocranial volume. The fact that the
regions expanded together shows that the
surrounding skeleton of the tissues was highly
responsive to evolutionary growth of the various
regions of the brain. Encephalisation (the excess
growth of brain tissue in relation to body size)
also took place due to gross expansion of the
tissue or decrease in body size or a combination
of the two.
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Gist of
YOJANA
TOWARDS HOLISTIC PANCHAYATI RAJ
It is not by coincidence that this article
carries the same title as our Report, for this is by
way of an introduction to a Report that we believe
should be essential reading for all those who
would like to see the fulfillment of Gandhijis
dream for independent India. Replying to a query
on his Dream for Independent India, he wrote
in his journal, Young India, 10 September 1930:
I shall work for an India in which the poorest
will feel it is his country, in whose making he has an
effective voice
This vision is inscribed on the cover of the
Report and constitutes its leitmotif.
There is no way in which the aam admi, let
alone the poorest Indian, can have a sense of
belonging in a Parliament in which his MP
represents 15-20 lakh others, or an effective voice
in decisions are taken in remote State capitals or
Delhi, let alone even in the inaccessible reaches
of the Collectors of five 65 years after.
Independence almost every Indian feels alienated
from the political and administrative process, the
sense of alienation being the greater the lower
down the economic scale and social hierarchy that
person finds himself or herself in, and also the
more distanced he or she is geographically from
the imposing Bhawans where his or her future is
decided. Six and a half decades of democracy leave
most individuals as distant from having an
effective voice in the making of their country as
their parents and grandparents were under
colonial rule.
The one ray of hope is a return to Gandhian
first principles. Gandhiji wanted our democratic
institutions to be built on the foundations of
Panchayat Raj, as evidenced in the 1946
publication by Shriman Narayan Agarwal, A
Gandhi Constitution for Independent India that
Gandhiji himself endorsed in entirety in the
Foreword he wrote to the book.
After many travails, Parliament eventually
incorporated key elements of the Gandhian
vision in our scheme of government, by passing,
virtually unanimously, the 73
rd
and 74
th
amendments to the Constitution in December
1992 followed by The Provisions of the
Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act,
1996 [PESA] in December 1996, as required by
Part IX (The Panchayats) of the Constitution. The
Constitution describes PRIs as institutions of
self-government, not self-governance, a
distinction vital to the effective empowerment of
the Panchayats.
Nearly a quarter century later, we have some
Panchayat Raj but not holistic Panchayat Raj.
Our Report aims at correcting that deficiency.
More specifically, it aims to ensure far
greater efficiency in the delivery of public goods
and services by shifting the burden of bottom-up
planning are last-mile delivery to the Panchayat
Raj Institutions (PRI) from a bureaucratic mode
of delivery that has patently failed.
How dramatically the present system of
delivery has failed is well illustrated by two sets
of irrefutable facts. One, whereas Central
budgetary expenditure on social sector and anti-
GIST OF YOJANA VOL11 33
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poverty programmes has grown by 25 times since
the onset of economy reforms (from around Rs.
7500 crore in 1992-93 to over Rs. 2 lakh crore in
the current budget) our ranking on the UN
Human Development Index continues to hover
around 135 as it did at the start of economic
reforms. We appear to be like Alice in Wonderland:
the faster we run, the more we remain where we
were. The Report characterizes this as treadmill
growth.
The second set of facts derives from the
Twelfth Five-Year Plan documents: that whereas
our economy has grown at nearly 8 per cent over
the previous Plan period, the rate of poverty
alleviation which languished at under 0.8 per cent
in the previous eleven years, is now averaging no
more than 15 per cent per annum. Thus, widening
disparity and inequality has been compounded by
gross failure to make optimal use of the
additional Government revenue generated by
reforms even if the Union Government has
evolved over 150 Centrally Sponsored Schemes,
with very much higher budgetary allocation than
could have been conceived of 25 years ago. This
appalling was of resources is much more
disturbing than the so called leakages affecting
subsides or even the falling growth rates in the
face of stimulus through revenues foregone in
the amount of over Rs.25 lakh crore furnished to
the productive elements of our economy since
2007.
Neither growth nor justice will be secured
without more equitable sharing of resources
between the 70 percent poor and vulnerable
segment of our population, identified by the late
Dr. Arjun Segputa in his celebrated 2007 Report,
and the better off segments of our people on
whom we are increasingly relying to enlarge the
national cake.
Unfortunately, CSS guidelines only very
rarely oblige State-governments to effectively
devolve Functions, Finances and Functions,
Finances and Functionaries to Panchayat Raj
Institutions. PRIs are occasionally-mentioned as-
an-option but in such a passing and casual
manner that State bureaucracies prefer to
themselves be the delivery agency or set up
parallel bodies to do their bidding as registered
societies (whose accounts are not subject to local
or CAG audit). This leaches the entire delivery
system of any responsibility to the intended
beneficiaries. In the absence of accountability to
the local community, and the transparency in
transactions that such accountability would
impose, while vast sums of money are expended
and a widening network of gigantic mechanisms
of delivery are devised, the beneficiaries
themselves are, for the most part, reduced to
beggars with their begging bowls or silent
spectators to decisions that intimately impinge
on the welfare of themselves and their families.
Thus, the principal reason for the failure of
our systems of governance to make the poorest
feel it is their country, in whose making they have
an effective voice is that, notwithstanding the
73
rd
and 74
m
amendments, Panchayat Raj has
little or no role in CSS. There are two exceptions
to this generalization: MNREGA, that has given
a place under red the sun to the Village Panchayat
(or, at any rate; to the village sarpanch) and the
Backward Regions Grant Fund that makes
grassroots planning the sine qua non, as Prime
Minister
Dr. Manmohan Singh has said, of the
BRGF. If district planning in accordance with
Constitutional provisions can be obligatory and
mandatory for the most districts of the country,
hat why can this not be done for the more of
advanced districts or, indeed, for other CSS in the
same backward districts?
This failure in CSS has attained the most
alarming proportions in tribal districts infected
with Left-Wing Extremism (LWE).
Notwithstanding the searing indictment in the
Debu Bandyopadhyay Committee Report of 2008
on Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected
Areas of the maladministration of development
programmes in Fifth Schedule areas (that are
34 VOL11 GIST OF YOJANA
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almost co-terminus with LWE districts), the
Integrated Action Plan for WE districts, now
under consideration for merging into BRGF, by-
passes both-Constitutional provisions as also
PESA, thus alienating the local community from
participative development. Without participative
planning and implementation, there can be no
inclusive growth. Inclusive growth without
inclusive governance is the inevitable
consequence of relying more on the bureaucracy
and less on the people to set or attain
development goals.
Our Report emphasizes that,
notwithstanding various failed initiatives
undertaken in the past decade, what appears to
fundamentally confound the higher echelons of
the bureaucracy in orienting CSS towards PRIs is
an inadequate understanding of the processes
involved in effective devolution. Therefore, the
heart of the Report is the presentation of model
Activity Maps for eight key CSS (National
Livelihoods Mission; National Drinking Water
Mission and the Sanitation component of the Nirmal
Bharat Yojana; Accelerated Irrigation Benefit
Programme and Command Area Development
Programme; Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan ; National Rural
Health Mission; Integrated Child Development
Services; Additional Central Assistance for Tribal
Sub-Plans; Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Yojana) to
demonstrate how to ensure an adequate role for
PRIs in planning and implementation by
devolving to them the 3 Fs (Functions, Finances
and Functionaries) in a scientific, clear-cut -
manner on the basis of the principle of subsidiary
ref lected through the prism of the basic
principles of sound public administration.
The principle of subsidiarity holds that
whatever can be done at a lower level must be
done at that level and no higher level.
Reciprocally, the principle of subsidiarity also
holds that whatever cannot be done at a lower
level must be done at the appropriate higher level
and no lower. To determine the appropriate level
for any given activity, the principles of sound
public administration are invoked to provide for
the categorization of activities to facilitate the
process of deciding the appropriate level for
devolution.
The Map also details which activity would
require what share of finances and which
agencies (Functionaries), bureaucratic or expert,
for the optimal performance of the task. The
Report recommends that explicit provision be
made for all CSS Activity Maps to be projected as
models to the States, leaving it to the States to
modify the Activity Maps to suit local conditions.
Thus, at the stage of implementation, Activity
Maps would assume the character of State-specific
Activity Maps that can be adjusted over time at
the discretion of State governments or in
consultation with the Centre, but all CSS would
have State-specific Activity Maps carving out the
domain of the PRIs in that State for each CSS.
The suggested methodology for scientific
devolution on the basis of objective criteria would
end the apparent confrontation between State
interest and PRI interests that has thus far
stymied effective devolution. All six levels become
cooperators in a joint endeavour to secure best
results. No one is left out; all are included, and the
Gandhian dream is progressively realised.
The suggested methodology also gives the
lie to the common perception, reflected in the
Twelfth Plan document, that Panchayat Raj being
the responsibility of the States, there is little the
Cen1re can (o; should) do to push matters
forward. In fact, had there not been the required
political will, the longest and most detailed
amendment ever to the Constitution could hardly
have been passed virtually unanimously in both
Houses of Parliament. If there were no political
will, the approval to the amendments of half the
State legislatures required before securing
Presidential assent for the entry into force of the
Bill would not have been obtained within four
months, as actually happened. If there were no
political will, there would not have been that
large Measure of adherence to mandator y,
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Constitutional provisions in respect of Pane hay
at Raj as has actually been the case - such as the
passage of State-level conformity legislation,
regular Panchayat elections; reservations,
independent State-level election commissions
State-level finance commissions, local and CAG
audit and social audit Nor would we have seen as
many as 15 States increasing reservations for
women from 33 per cent to. 50 per cent, as has
actually happened.
Finally, it needs to be emphasized that
although the pattern of devolution to. PRIs has
been extremely uneven, with some States like
Kerala and Kamataka (and, recently, Maharashtra)
in the lead and others like UP and Jharkhand as
laggards a birds eye survey of Panchayat Raj over
the last two decades shows Panchayat Raj
as advancing ever ywhere and some
laggards leap-frogging over more advanced States
to give remarkable returns. Several examples
spring to mind: Kerala itself, that went in one
leap in the second half of the 1990s from virtually
no Panchayat Raj to first position; Tripura that
undertook the same Great Leap Forward in the
past decade; Bihar that has zoomed ahead in
recent years converting despair into hope;
Haryana, Himachal and Rajasthan, that have made
remarkable progress. Some Hill States like Sikkim
and Uttarakhand have shown it can be done;
others like Arunachal Pradesh are still to set their
house in order. Some of the smaller States like
Goa have performed well although problems
remain. The Union Territories, a Central
responsibility have been among the worst
laggards. Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh and Gujarat are among the bigger States
that had a head-start but have since stagnated.
Barring Maharashtra in recent years, all nine
States with
Fifth Schedule areas have turned in a most
disappointing performance in respect of
implementing PESA provisions. The list is
incomplete, but illustrative of the important
point that political will is not entirely lacking, as
so easily assumed by many.
What is more relevant is that bureaucrative
will has been woefully lacking, especially in
Delhi. The Report quotes at length from the path-
breaking inaugural address by Prime Minister Dr.
Manmohan Singh at the first conference of chief
ministers he convened within a month of
assuming office on Rural Prosperity and Poverty
Alleviation through Panchayat Raj (29 June
2004) in which he laid out such a cogent and
comprehensive road map for Panchayat Raj that
the Committee have adopted the Address as the
template for their own Report. Note is then taken
of the Prime Ministers directive to the Cabinet
Secretary to circularise all Secretaries in charge of
CSS to modify their respective CSS guidelines to
bring them in conformity with Constitutional
provisions. The Cabinet Secretary did so on 8
November 2004, with the added proviso that the
exercise must be completed within two months
and reported- to him personally.
That, alas, was the end. Three years later;
finding that no Central Ministry was taking the
Prime Ministers directive seriously, the Union
Panchayat Minister persuade the Cabinet
Secretary to set up committee comprising a
secretary from the Cabinet Secretariat and this
Panchayat Raj secretary to interact will their
counterparts and produce the first round of
Activity Maps to facilitate effective devolution to
the PRIs under their respective CSS. 15 schemes
were selected, accounting for more than two-
thirds of all CSS expenditure, and in full
consultation with the secretaries concerned,
finalised and submitted to the Cabinet Secretary
on 22 January 2008. However, no action has
followed. For the last five years, the exercise has
remained deadlocked with the Cabinet Secretariat
saying it will not do it and a hapless Ministry of
Panchayat Raj pleading that it cannot do it.
The Planning Commission had evinced
considerable interest in taking forward District
Planning as envisaged in the Constitution. A
committee was constituted under the
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chairmanship of the legendary champion of
Panchayat Raj Shri V. Ramachandran former Vice-
Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board.
Based on the V. Ramachandran committee
recommendations, the Planning. Commission
issued detailed guidelines to the State
governments, saying all State plans had to
include the component of district planning before
being brought to the Planning Commission for
approval. Unfortunately, the
Planning Commission then put its own
guidelines into cold storage and now appears to
have abandoned the exercise altogether,
notwithstanding the Manual for District
Planning circulated by the Planning Commission
on 1 April 2009. The unanimous Report of the
NDCs Empowered Sub-Committee on Panchayat
Raj also languishes unimplemented in the
cupboards of the Planning Commission.
We thus see that it is bureaucratic
recalcitrance rather than any lack of political will
that is the main hurdle. Alternatively, iris perhaps
bureaucratic ineptitude, a lack of understanding of
the methodology for effective devolution that is
holding up the appropriate he modification of
CSS guidelines as ordered by the political
authority nearly a decade ago. This lacuna has
now been filled by our Report demonstrating,
with respect to eight key CSS, how effective
devolution can be promoted by ensuring the
inclusion of model Activity Maps in all CSS
guidelines.
Besides Activity Mapping, the Committee
have undertaken a detailed survey of the policy
issues and sectoral issues involved in working
towards Holistic Panchayat Raj. In successive
chapters of the first Part of the Report dealing
with broad policy issues, the Report has focused
on State action on devolution; the technicalities
of District Planning; the Finances of the
Panchayats; the intricacies of training and
capacity building (the longest chapter in the
Report); women in Panchayats; and
disadvantaged sections of the population, such as
SC/ST, people with disabilities, and religious
minorities in the Panchayat system, including, at
some length, the rempant, including, as some
length, the rampant transgression of the legal
and constitutional rights secured by the tribals
through the fifth Scheme, the 73
rd
amendment,
the Forest Rights Act and PESA.
The third key set of collateral measures
recommended relates to the imperative of
invoking all relevant provisions of the Fifth
Schedule and Part IX of the Constitution, and
PESAI Forest Rights legislation, for thwarting
the growing menace of Naxalism, the single most
important challenge to internal security, as
pointed out by the Prime Minister. Security
measures, of course, have their place in this task
of national priority; so does development but
neither will suffice unless participative
development, based on inclusive governance, as
envisaged in PESA, is actualised. More than any
other single factor, is the failure to operationalise
PESA that has resulted in so serious a
deterioration of security in Fifth Schedule areas;
and as the Centre has the right (and duty) under
the Fifth Schedule to issue directions relating
to the administration of these areas, the Report
recommends that in view of the patent failure of
most Fifth Schedule State governments to live up
to the promise of PESA, the Centre is obliged
under the Fifth Schedule to take matters in-hand.
If Naxalism is thwarted by recourse to PESA, a
dramatic example would follow for States to
replicate to maintain democratic stability at the
level where it matters most - the grassroots.
EQUALITY AND ITS DEMANDS ON
DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS
It is popular, both in current casual and
serious discourse to talk of a trust deficit in the
interaction between the people and the state. The
nature of a relationship between an institution
called the State and its citizens can only be in the
nature of a social contract. This definition and
expectation of trust, is an act of faith and takes
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away from the equal, causal and rational
relationship that democracy seeks to establish
through its systems. If we look at some of the
essential requisite of democratic institutional
structures; to send representatives to panchayat,
assembly and Parliament, there is implicit in the
election process an obligation for representatives
to be accountable for their actions. We transfer
our sovereignty under contract and constitutional
obligation to perform in accordance with the
promises made to us. The act of faith and trust
seems a misplaced concept in the relationship
between the citizen, and the State. One quarrels
even with Gandhijis dream of a just relationship
emerging through trusteeship. It is not possible
in any, but in an Utopian society. In the Indian
political context of democracy and governance,
skewed by-caste, class, gender and religious
prejudices, with layers of identities and divides, a
concept such as trust would-do well to be left
alone - to individual and intimate relationships.
It is this growing recognition which led
people to a serious assessment of the way
governments function, and the nature of power
relationships influenced by feudal social norms
colonial administrative patterns and the
emerging pattern of neo socio political-economic
vested interests. The demand for rights is the sum
of the current understanding of this obligation of
the State. It is under contract to its people
through the vote and promises made on
assuming office. A people cheated of equality in
the conception of policy, legislation and
implementation, in the discharging of democratic
and constitutional obligations often by an
indifferent and often callous State; cannot but
see the relationship with the State as a
contractual relationship, monitored by
transparency and accountability, at every step of
governance.
The obvious truth that governance was
more than an evil necessity, and had a direct, day
to day impact on our lives took a long time to be
understood. The trust of a population relieved of
the colonial yoke, took four decades to dissipate;
The initial euphoria turned to dismay: and
disappointment where basic constitutional
promises and a dream of-a better life eluded many.
The assurance that independence itself would
constitute freedom from want became a naive
faith, needing to be dismantled. Progress and
improvements not-withstanding, the
marginalised population felt helpless and unable
to impact the system to deliver better specialised
domain knowledge which apparently grants them
the authority and confidence of taking the most
appropriate decision in the greater public good of
the economy and/or the country. The PLP has the
potential of breaking notions like this and
reversing paths of knowledge creation by
augmenting expertise with experience. It looks
at unpacking the term policy currently consisting
of game changer ideas to include learning from
the grassroots based on regular interface between
the State and its manifestations, and the people,
who are daily subjected to the irregularities and
dysfunctional elements of State governance. The
PLP provides an opportunity for those citizens
who experience the outcomes of decisions taken
by authorities far removed from the centers of
power to contribute towards the framing of new
Legislations and Rules and make the process of
policy formulation and decision making more
inclusive and informed.
The following are the key principles that
will guide the drafting of Legislations and Rules
(new and amendments to old) by all Government
Departments and Ministries:
(a) Pro-active disclosure of Statement of
Objects and Reasons
Every Department is mandated Pro-actively
disclose a Statement, Objects and Reasons, in
Hindi are English, describing the need, finance
and social implications of bringing in a new Law/
Rule and amending current Laws/Rules. The
Statement of Objects and Reasons is expected to
be written in ordinary prose, as to facilitate non-
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specialists to understand and comprehended the
information easily information easily.
(b) Pro-Active Disclosure of Draft Rules/
Legislations
Subsequent to the above process the
concerned Department is expected to pro-actively
disclose the draft Legislation/Rule formulated by
it, along with an explanatory note describing the
legal language in functional English, for a period
of 90 days on its website. In addition, where such
a new law/rule and amendment to law/rule
directly affects a specific group in the population.
a physical copy of the same will be provided for in
every Panchayat. School Post Office. Rajiv Gandhi
Sahayta Kendra in the area consisting of affected
people. The essence of the nature of disclosure
remains one where authorities pro-actively
disseminate key documents in the public domain
in modes that are easily accessible to those
situated in rural areas.
(c) Public Consultations
Concerned Departments will be mandated
to organize public consultations to facilitate
discussion of the public on the details of the law/
amendment arid pro-actively solicit the feedback
of affected stakeholders on their proposed legal
interventions.
(d) Record of Summary
It will be mandatory for the concerned
Department to have a recon of a summary of all
the feedback that it has received by the public on
the law/rule and prepare a statement of the
response that the former devised. The same shall
be produced before the Cabinet for making its
deliberation more informed, Subsequently, the
record of public feedback receive, shall be
produced before the concerned Parliamentary
Standing Committee studying the rule/law.
(e) Enforcement Mechanism
The PLP will be enforceable through an
Executive Order issued by the Government of
India to all Departments and Ministers. In
addition, there shall be in place, a time bound and
citizen friendly grievance redress mechanism in
every concerned Department for the Redressal of
complaints received by the public in cases of non-
compliance of the Government to guidelines of
the Pre Legislative Process, The Department of
Law & Justice will be the nodal authority for
ensuring the effective roll out of the PLP.
Let us take a quick look at the beginnings of
a new perception of governance which is
participatory and mandates that citizens must be
involved in a fashioning and monitoring of
democracy in which the contribution to
legislation and policy assume a new dimension.
There is a re word of caution to both government
and citizens that they cannot question or
override Constitutional guarantees. They remain
sacrosanct. The PIP addresses the performance
and accountability of the political and
bureaucratic establishment. It goes beyond the
demand for scrutiny of a single law, but demands
it of all proposed legislations. As late Mohanji, a
dalit crusader for the RTI said. It makes the vote
speak for 5 years. By implication it makes the
bureaucracy also relevant and accountable.
It is important to re- emphasize that the
Pre Legislative Process makes room for greater
transparency and participation, without
undermining the role and scope of the
Parliamentary processes, hence the term pre-
legislative process. One can understand the Pre-
legislative Process to be an opportunity for people
to re-engage with matters of governance and
functions of the State in general. This is a
welcome change from many of the more recent
agendas of good governance reforms that
absolve the State from its core duties of
implementation by relying on private sector
expertise to replace inefficient public sector
functionalities. The Pre-Legislative Process
makes the much required statement of placing
the responsibility of making its decisions
squarely on the State, (in the form of rules and
laws) more transparent and accountable and
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achieving it through greater citizen involvement
and participation.
We can leave the final word to Plato, who
with his peers gave us the concept of democracy.
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be
ruled by evil men.
COPYRIGHTS AND COPYWRONGS
Why the Government Should Embrace the
Public Domain
Each of you reading this article is a criminal
and should be jailed for up to three years. Yes, you.
Why, you may ask.
Have you ever whistled a tune or sung a film
song aloud? Have you ever retold a joke? Have you
replied to an e-mail without deleting the copy of
that e-mail that automatically added to the reply?
Or photocopied pages from a book?
Have you ever used an image from the
Internet in presentation? Have you ever surfed
the Internet at work, used the share button on a
website, or re-tweeted anything on Twitter? And
before 2012, did you ever use a search engine?
If you have done any of the above without
the permission of the copyright holder, you
might well have been in violation of the Indian
Copyright Act, since in each of those examples
youre creating a copy or are, otherwise infringing
the rights of the copyright holder. Interestingly,
it was only through an amendment in 2012 that
search engines (like Google and Yahoo) were
legalized.
Traditional Justifications for Copyright
Copyright is one among the many forms of
intellectual property rights. Across differing
theories of copyright, two broad categories may
be made. The first category would be those
countries where copyright is intended to benefit
society the other where it is intended to benefit
the author. Within the second category, there can
again be two subcategories those that see the
need to benefit the author due to notions of
natural justice and those that see the need to
provide incentives for authors to create.
Incentives to create are necessary only when the
act of creation itself is valuable (and more so than
the creator).
The act of creation is alued highly as it
directly benefits society. Thus, it is seen that the
second sub-category is closer to the societal
benefit theory than the natural justice sub-
category. In the United States, the wording of the
Progress Clause makes things clear that copyright
is for the benefit of the public, and the author is
only given secondary consideration. It is in light
of this that the U.S. Supreme Court said.
The monopoly privileges that Congress
may authorize are neither unlimited nor primarily
designed to provide a special private benefit.
Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an
important public purpose may be achieved. It is
intended to motivate the creative activity of
authors and inventors by the provision of a
special reward, and to allow the public access to
the products of their genius after the limited
period of exclusive control has expired.
Economic theories of copyright see
copyright as an incentive mechanism, allowed for
the reproduction, communication to the public,
or publications on any government work, then
that itself would elegantly take care of the
problem. This would also remove the ambiguities
inherent currently in the Data.gov.in. where the
central government is publishing information
that it wants civil society entrepreneurs and other
government departments to use, however there is
no clarity on whether they are legally allowed to
do so.
Recently, the member states of the World
Intellectual Property Organization- passed a treaty
that would facilitate blind persons access to
books. On that occasion, at Marrakesh, I noted
that intellectual property must not be seen as a
good in itself but as an instrumentalist tool which
may be selectively deployed to achieve societally
desirable objectives. I said: It is historic that
today WIPO and its members have collectively
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recognized in a treaty that copyright isnt just an
engine of free expression but can pose a
significant barrier to access to knowledge. Today
we recognize that blind writers are currently
curtailed more by copyright law than protected by
it Today we recognize that copyright not only
many be curtailed in some circumstances, but that
it must be curtailed in some circumstances, even
beyond the few that have been listed in the Berne
Convention.
One of the original framers of the Berne
Convention, Swiss jurist and president, Numa
Droz, recognized this in 1.884 when he
emphasized that limits to absolute protection are
rightly set by the public interest. And as
Debabrata Saha, Indias delegate to WIPO during
the adoption of the WIPO Development Agenda
noted, intellectual property rights have to be
viewed not as a self contained and distinct
domain, but rather as an effective policy
instrument for wide ranging socio-economic and
technological development.
The primary objective of this instrument is
to maximize public welfare. When copyright
doesn t serve public welfare, states must
intervene, and the law must change to promote
human rights, the freedom of expression and to
receive and impart information, and to protect
authors and consumers. Importantly, markets
alone cannot be relied upon to achieve a just
allocation of informational resources, as we have
seen clearly-from the book famine that the blind
are experiencing.
Marrakesh was the city in which, as
Debabrata Saha noted, the damage of TRIPS was
wrought on developing countries. Now it has
redeemed itself through this treaty.
The Indian government needs to similarly
redeem itself by freeing governmental works,
including the scientific research it funds, the
archives of All India Radio, the movies that it
produces through Prasar Bharati, and all other
tax-payer funded works, and by returning them to
the public domain, where they belong.
ECONOMIC PARADIGMS AND
DEMOCRACY IN THE AGE OF FINANCIAL
GLOBALIZATION
Whether or not there exists a standard
definition of the term Globalization, there is a
broad agreement with the fact that the process of
Globalization has had and continues to have
profound impact on various aspects of human
life. Globalization is not a new phenomenon for
it has been a long-term gradual process of change,
which affects every aspect of human life and
being affected by the human life and being
affected by the human enterprise, since the days
of Columbus, and yet the same time it is
irregularly punctuated by episodes of dramatic
change. Ever since the Columbian voyage
initiated the process of intermingling of the
continents of Europe and the Americas,
Globalization has been influencing and reshaping
every part of the world in all aspects of human life
social, cultural, economic, biological and
ecological aspects.
In the recent past, there were two intense
periods where the process of globalization
induced dramatic changes across the world. The
first wave happened in the late nineteenth
century up the First World War, which was
characterized by extensive trade networks across
various continents under European Colonialism.
The second wave happened in the twentieth
century, starting from the 1980s to the present
day, characterized as free market Capitalism led by
the phenomenal development of the financial
markets, and called as the financialization phase
of Globalization or simply Financial
Globalization.
The aim of this article is to discuss the
profound changes that were brought about by the
second wave of Globalization, particularly in the
context of the change induced by economic
paradigms, and the consequent challenges to the
political organization of the market economies.
The beginning of the second wave of
Globalization in the 19805 marked a distinct end
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to the global framework of economic
organization between Nation States where the
domestic political system was more or less
sovereign to the people of the State. In fact, such
a political arrangement multilaterally agreed
upon at the Bretton Woods-conference in 1944
provided impetus to the revival of the process of
Globalization, which was disrupted by the two
World Wars.
Although, the scope of the revival was
limited due to the Cold War, the economic success
within the Western democracies based on this
political architecture laid the foundation further
expansion and intensification of the process of
Globalisation.
The international political architecture
based on the Bretton Woods agreement, which
was ably supported by the sovereign Nation
States and underpinned by the economic rationale
of Keynesianism delivered the so-called golden
age of capitalism, which collapsed during the
1970s. It was replaced by a unipolar world order
underpinned by the economic rationale of
Monetarism which oversaw and supported the
expansion and intensification of Globalization.
The downfall of Communism and the end of the
Cold War era opened the floodgates for the
expansion and intensification of the process of
Globalization outside the Western hemisphere.
However, this process came at the cost of
dismantling the very economic rationale that laid
its foundation and undermining the political
architecture that gave the impetus to its eventual
evolution into the era that we refer to as the
second wave of Globalization.
In the contemporary literature there have
been numerous accounts on the impact of the
second wave of Globalization on various
dimensions of human endeavor at both the
national and international context. In the
following discussion, I would like to discuss the
impact particularly in the domain of political
representation and articulation brought about by
the Monetarist economic paradigm, which
replaced the Keynesian orthodoxy and advanced
the second wave of Globalization.
The post Second World War period saw the
replacement of the old economic orthodoxy of
free market economic philosophy, i.e., laissez fair
policies, with the Keynesian revolution, The
revolution brought about a change in the political
nature of the State.
While both fiscal and monetary policies
were informed by scientific research based on
Keynesian economic theory, the State was very
much seen as the implementer of those policies.
The post-war political climate with systemic
competition between Western capitalism and
Soviet socialism also contributed to the winds of
change in economic thinking, which in turn
provided an economic rationale for the welfare
State.
The postwar reconstruction aid from the US
was instrumental, not by design in experimenting
with the economic policies of the Keynesian
revolution in Europe.
Not only did Keynesian policies
demonstrate. based on the new theory of how
even unproductive war expenditure could result in
full employment and turn around ailing
economies it also provided the intellectual basis
for the politics of social democracy centered
around the notion of action state, to bring about
cooperation between the contending economic
classes of labor and capital. Furthermore, with the
advent of the Welfare State, there followed one of
the most prosperous periods in European history
the so-called Golden Age of Capitalism.
The uninterrupted growth in western
economies created positive feedback between the
politics of the Welfare State and Keynesian style
economic management. The State was seen as the
driver 0 f the economy and its political nature was
not questioned. More importantly, State action
was not seen as detrimental to the interest of
capitalists as long as Keynesian style class
cooperation created investment climate
conductive to private investment driven by profit.
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However, profit as the engine of growth slowed
down with an ensuing profit squeeze in the 1970s
and the limit to such cooperation began to
emerge. The twin oil shocks (1973 and 1879)
created inflationary pressures on already
stagnating economies and questions were raised
about the suitability of Keynesian policies, which
by then had become conventional wisdom.
Economists led by Milton Friedman, in
particular, began to question the established
doctrine of Keynesianism by arguing that the
economic policies of the State, fiscal and
monetary policies in particular were shown to
distort the expectations of the economic agents
and thus their supply decisions in the short-run
with no real impact on the macroeconomic level
of output and employment in the long run. The
second phase in the development of Friedmans
theory, often referred to as Monetarism Mark II,
or the New Classical School led by Robert Lucas
went further and demonstrated the
ineffectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies by
arguing that workers are endowed with rational
expectations, which gives them the knowledge to
know the exact consequences of such policies,
would not alter their supply decisions and hence
there would be no impact of these policies for
macroeconomic output and employment even in
the short-run - this is the so called policy
ineffectiveness argument.
The Monetarist counter-revolution had
profound impact on the style of economic
management. The Policy Ineffectiveness
argument was used effectively to argue that
rational economic agents would adjust their
supply decisions even when the policy is simply
announced by the monetary authority or the
State. This allowed them to take the argument
further and claim that given its political
compulsions, the democratic State may not be in-
a-position to stick to its monetary policy
commitments. Hence, it was argued that the
inconsistencies arising out of such a
discretionary policy making of the State would
only lead to negative impact on the sentiment of
the investor and thereby affect their supply
decisions. Thus, the Monetarist counter-
revolution argued for art independent monetary
authority, viz., the Central Bank that would
conduct a rule-based monetary policy devoid of
political interference from the State, and the
process of delinking politics of the State from the
conduct of the monetary policy was set in motion.
The idea of an independent, objective, non-
partisan and apolitical Central Bank targeting
exclusively the inflation rate resonated well
within the financial community and it was
implemented in New Zealand and soon was
followed by many developed and developing
countries. Thus the monetarist counterrevolution
like the Keynesian revolution, redefined the role
of the State in the-economic sphere. In the
pursuit of its ideal of a minimalist it took away
from the state as a first step, its control over
monetary policy. However, fiscal policy still
remained within the control of the State.
The Monetarist counter-revolution
provided a perfect economic rationale for the
conservative political ideology that advocated a
minimalist state. Thus, the economics of the
counter-revolution and the politics of
Conservatism centered on the minimalist State
aligned perfectly at the turn of the 1980s and the
stage was set for the development of an
unfettered financial sector around the globe.
Fiscal policy was reined in to create a conducive
tax climate to boost private investors sentiment
vis-a-vis the financial markets. Even though the
financial market went through a few shocks in
the late 1980s and the 1990s, e.g., the 1987 one-
day crash and the dotcom meltdown in 2000, the
resilience of the modern financial sector was
hailed as robust and its contribution to the
overall prosperity of the economic expansion was
applauded.
The Monetarist orthodoxy that dislodged
the State from its monetary policy commitments
using the logic of market sentiments got
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irrevocably locked into the very process in a self-
referential way. The monetar y policy was-
conducted by-independent
Central Banks, which supported the
expansion of the financial sector that was to be
overseen by an objective and scientific risk-rating
mechanism. The Credit rating agencies provided
such a ser vice and gradually became the
underwriters of risk for the entire financial
system, including the Central Banks for their
open market operations conducted within the
ambit, of monetary policy. It was believed that
the apparently objective and scientific process of
under writing risk provided a perfect barometer
that gauged market sentiments. In this process,
the logic of market sentiments became
institutionalized via the risk-rating mechanism of
the credit rating agencies. A pliable theory was
restored from pre-Keynesian history to put in
place a perfect self-referential setting by which
an independent Central Bank as assumed to
deliver consistent and credible monetary policies
that supported the expansion of the financial
sector which was certified in turn as sound by a
presumably objective process of risk- rating by the
credit rating agencies. The result was massive
financialization driven by financial innovations
justified by this self-referential logic, which
circumvented the State during the so-called
second wave of globalization .
During this expansion, it was understood
that financial innovation, which improved the
efficiency of the resource allocation function of
the financial market, combined with the objective
of a scientific underwriting process would
improve the resilience of the overall financial
system by sharing and distributing risk. A
competitive market for the underwriting
process developed and the efficiency of that
market was considered vital for the resilience of
the financial system and the overall economy. As
the process of financialization deepened, the
business and inf luence of the credit rating
agencies grew in proportion and began to shape
market sentiments, and their activities became
integral to the functioning of the modern market
economy.
The catastrophic collapse of the financial
markets in 2008 and the Ensuing economic crisis
in the western economies did not affect the
influence of either the credit rating: agencies or
the Monetarist orthodoxy. On the contrary, both
the monetarist orthodoxy and the credit rating
agencies that endorsed the rising level of
systemic risk due to the financial innovation prior
to the crisis have strengthened their position
which now seems politically unassailable despite
the deepening of the crisis. In fact using the
current crisis the credit rating agencies have
moved beyond rating the risk of private financial
institutions to decisively underwrite the capacity
of the Nation State in conducting its economic
affairs. In fact, in the current crisis the rating
agencies began to perform the role of enforcer of
discipline, i.e. disciplining the State from its
extravagances via the rating of sovereign debt
using the objective and scientific underwriting
process, reinforcing the dominance of the
monetarist orthodoxy and providing a great
opportunity to implement its vision of a
minimalist state. Their power does not merely
stop at limiting the State and its agencies from
borrowing from the market, it goes beyond the
bond markets into the realm where it is
beginning to reshape the politics of
representative democracy in the conduct of the
fiscal affairs of the state.
The economic rationale for delinking
politics from fiscal affairs is to eliminate
uncertainties concerning the conduct of
economic policy in general and fiscal policy in
particular, The discretionary nature of fiscal
policy is questioned because it adversely affects
investors expectations and market sentiments,
and it is desirable to minimize uncertainties in
the conduct of fiscal policy. This argument
echoes the 1980s debate when monetary policy
was delinked from the politics of the State on the
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ground that discretionary monetary policies
induced inconsistencies in the investors
expectations about future policy change, which,
in turn, adversely affected market sentiments.
Similarly, it is now argued that discretionary
fiscal policy should be replaced by fiscal policy
rules, which enhance transparency and
consistency to sustain the stability of the market.
PEOPLES, VOICES, DEVELOPMENT AND
DEMOCRACY
Democracy Happens when people voice. It
happens when people speak about their needs,
wants an desires. This essay we shall encounter
three kinds of peoples and why and how they
voice. Those people who have lots of money are
most vocal and speak a lot about their desires.
Those who have some surplus money after
meeting their needs are able to talk about their
wants. However those who have little money to
meet even their basic needs only seldom voice.
Democracy happens when many people speak
especially when those who have little are able to
say what they feel. Those who have more money
speak more.
Development is essentially related to
production of material goods and services for
consumption of people, which is reflected in
indicators like gross domestic production per
capita. The concept of development has been
further expanded to include education and health.
The expectation is that those educated could
contribute more to production than the
uneducated. Similarly healthier the population
more is the desired production Unhealthy and
uneducated population is seen as worthless and a
drain on resources.
Democracy directs-the process of
development. People who have lots of money and
are enterprising require avenues for investment,
whence growth takes place. Such people form
organizations that lobby for police and laws, rules
and regulations to make investment possible and
also to ensure returns on their investment. In
this manner, they contribute to material
progress of the economy. In a sense, they are able
to give direction to the economy and thus playa
legitimate role in the system. Sometimes
scrupulous elements try and take an unjustified
advantage in the system. It is in the nature of
democracy that lobbying takes place and people
are able to take such advantages. However, there
are vigilant institutions that keep a surveillance:
Planning Commission, Comptroller arid Auditor
General and others. So democracy and
development do not follow a linear path. They
intertwine with one another and there are
several crusts and troughs that come across their
progress. More the money more could be
lobbying and also undue advantages. But
democracy in India has successfully overcome
many such situations when government and
people with money have been checked by
institutions and through elections. In times-to
come when money increases in scale, democratic
institutions will face new challenges.
People with some surplus money wish to
fulfill their wants. They need avenues, goods and
services on which to spend their monies. They
want malls with goods like those sold in western
countries. They need restaurants like those in the
West. They want new cars and roads. They want
all comforts. Governments who fulfill such wants
are described by these people as development
oriented: They are the most vocal people and
now form a large middle class in India. Their
views are voiced in the media controlled by people
who have lots of money and who provide these
people the malls and restaurants. Media makes
this development and those responsible for it
more visible. It makes all people aspire for such
development. In this manner development, media
and democracy get linked. Democracy lets this
happen. It lets media advertise for more wants,
let it create wants, and make people aspire for
more.
. The third kind of people with little money
are in an overwhelmingly large number. They are
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short of food, clothes and shelter at all or some
times in a year. They are vulnerable to external
shocks, fall in prices of commodities they
produce, droughts, not being able to repay debts.
Governments all over the world call them poor.
Poor seldom speak for themselves mainly from
fear and losing whatever little they have. In
trying circumstances they would exit from
wherever they be and migrate to unknown lands.
Otherwise, they rely on increasingly fragile social
relationships and a very small asset base.
All political parties and many NGOs and
social activists claim to understand and represent
the third kind of people. So people speak less but
are spoken about more. Various schemes are
designed the state for their benefits. In recent
years, benefits have been replaced by a rights and
duties framework. So people have a Right to
Information and the state is duty bound to
provide information in its domain. They now
have a Right to Work and the state is duty bound
to provide 100 days of employment to a
household in a year and soon there shall be a
Right to Food and the state would be duty bound
to ensure food to the needy. The Right to
Education ensures free education for all children.
These have become possible in the democratic
spaces where civil society could voice for the
Door and advocate to the Parliament to make laws
and schemes for these in need.
The success of some of the above rights
being achieved could partly be attributed to the
judiciary which in a democracy could become
voice of the People who .choose to remain silent.
The civil society judiciary government have
worked in tandem in the democratic spaces in
interest of the people. Democracy allows this.
Such large rights based programmes have been
achieved without a very large number of people
speaking for themselves, without their knowing
as to what is being thought about them. Small
groups of people led by dynamic social activists
and their networks are able to mobilize people for
demonstrations at regular intervals.
The media would seldom cover these
stories. People participating in these events are
not good looking to come on the screen. Besides
their demands would be a drain on the fiscal,
which people with surplus money have to pay
through higher taxes. But it is in the interest of
the governments to listen to them. Public Policy
ensures fulfilling the demands to secure votes.
Such successful vertical movements of social
activists/civil society are unique to the
democracy in India. Government respects these
activists who are mad members of various
Advisory Council all or Committees and invited
lecture government academies.
At their own initiative governments ensure
a lot of other programmes for the people:
housing, agricultural and other credit, roads and
other infrastructure and so on. Political parties in
a democracy do not dare discontinue such
programmes.
While programmes are there for peoples at
their doorsteps some people are not able to take
full advantage of these. The first kind of people
who have lots of money have ways and means to
take advantage of say participation in Special
Economic Zones, real estate, building
infrastructure, telecom. In all democratic societies
including USA, UK and Japan people with lots of
money are able to lobby for their collective and
individual interests. This is how democracy
functions: elected representatives respond to
lobbists in a manner that their own individual
interests are also looked after. Such deals are
more likely to happen in the democratic spaces
than in the regime of an ideal benevolent dictator.
Such situations are now more frequent in India as
well. In the newly found environment the veil is
thin and it is easy to see through most deals. It
could thicken with time, The challenge now
therefore is to build institutions that would be
able to see through the veil that shall thicken in
a developing economy. In a functioning
democracy, the veil and preventive institutions
shall exist simultaneously.
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The middle class with some surplus money
is seldom satisfied with its wants and would not
like the same to be curbed. When there was a hike
in petroleum prices in a demonstration a strong
man tied ropes on his back and pulled his car.
Another person put his father on a earl that
leopards use and went around begging to buy
petrol. The government decision prevailed
showing-its strength .and commitment to reduce
fiscal deficits. In a democracy, the political
parties do make informed decisions on which
class-of people to benefit at the cost of others.
For example, a high deficit caused by subsidy to
petroleum products could lead to less resources
being available for an employment guarantee
programme. In a democracy, the decision is
weighed against whom the political parties really
represent.
The tragedy of the people with little money
is that though the programme is at their
doorstep, the delivery agents have little incentive
to deliver and the people have little money and are
ill-informed to know what is in store for them.
They have little money to pay to these agents to
get some benefit/rights that civil society fought
for the silent people. As democratic process work
at different levels, the expectations are that
things change for the better. Some NGOs work
with people with little money informing them
about various programmes, making their
collectives, and so on.
Of course, there are conflicts of interest
between those who have a lot of money and those
with little money. For example, when land is
acquired for SEZ or to set up a new industry,
people affected have little money and few options
and would resist displacement. It is only through
process of negotiations, possible only in a healthy
democracy, that displacement of people becomes
possible, who invariably get higher
compensations. In this manner Democracy leads
Developmental processes.
One of the characteristics of democracy is
that it is a process of egalitarianism. There is
constant striving among people for equality in
fact a passion for equality. This passion is ably
reflected in the XII Five Year Plan:
Indias 1.25 billion citizens have higher
expectations about their future today, than they
have ever had before. They have seen the
economy grow much faster in the past 10 years-
than it did earlier, and deliver visible benefits to
a large number of people. This has understandably
raised the expectations of all sections, especially
those who have benefited less. Our people are
now much more aware of what is possible, and
they will settle for no less. The Twelfth- Five Year
Plan must rise to the challenge of meeting these
high expectations.
In the new India, when frugality and
renunciation are cherished values only for some,
democracy has the propensity towards
materialism for all. The third aspect of democracy
is that it is able to fulfill individual desires, make
individual more competitive rather than
complacent.
To summaries, democracy is about people
voicing and lobbying in democratic space. Those
with a lot of money can do it better than others.
The media also helps such people. The media also
reflects interests of the people with some money
or the middle class. The media creates images of
Development, at times real at others illusory. It is
in the nature of democracy that it leaves
democratic spaces where all people could
negotiate their interests in a legitimate manner.
Those with lots of money at times adopt unfair
means and help create a rentier class. As there is
more development, there will be more money and
more rents. The institutions that maintain
surveillance will have more challenging tasks
ahead. Democracy and Development, both,
without strong institutions would be a failure. It
is in the nature of democracy that people voice
their concerns. However, some people choose to
remain silent. Civil society speaks for them. While
the governments initiate many development and
we fare programmes for people with little money
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for their votes, the civil society taking due
advantage of the democratic spaces have worked
with the government to make programmes in the
rights and duties framework. Judiciary has helped
them far more than the media. Thus, democracy
provides democratic spaces to all peoples to
participate in development. Stronger institutions
could curb rentier practices inherent in a
democracy and contribute to further
development. Besides, institutions to do the
monitoring, role of civil society in organizing
people with little money is also necessar y.
Democratic spaces for such organizations is very
limited. Sometimes they could turn militant and
become threat to democracy itself.
Also such organizations are not welcomed
by people with lots of money. So inequalities
would remain for a very long time in a happening
democracy, unless people exercise their power in
the local areas where they live. This is especially
true for people with little money. After all
democracy does not mean putting power by
casting vote in New Delhi and live in a remote
village for the next five years with remorse.
E-BHARAT INITIATIVES
As the e-governance initiative picks up, the Prime Ministers Committee on National e-Governance Plan
has set new targets for various e-governance plans in the country. Among the initiatives planned for the
year, the committee has set a target of connecting 200 districts in the country under e-District project.
The government has already connected 139 district under the project. By the end of this fiscal, the
government intends to bring 339 out of 600 districts in the country under the scheme.
Under the e-District initiative, the -government aims to provide high-volume government services at the
district and sub-district levels to the citizens in electronic mode across the country. With the government
plan to connect all 2,50,000 panchayats in the country through national optical fibre network, the
Department of Electronic and information technology (Deity) is implementing a sustainable model for
delivery of services to citizens and institutions through the optical fibre network.
The pilot project is being carried out in 59 panchayats in three blocks of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and
Tripura. Under the scheme, all panchayats are provided 100 Mbps connection and all institutions are being
provided 10 Mbps horizontal connectivity. Under the e-Bharat initiative, which envisages to support the
National e-governance plans country wide plans of increasing the availability of online services for citizens
in their locality, the government approved 20 proposals last year.
The proposals, include transforming registration of deeds in UP, comprehensive health information Kerala,
GIS-enablement of utilities in Delhi and universal e-gov training for government employees in Madhya
Pradesh.
POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN:
PATHWAY TO INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY
Inclusive democracy work-s-when people
from all sections of the society are empowered to
participate in governance raise objections take
decisions and ensure social and political
accountability. Such a vision of democracy
requires delegation of power from below and a
true devolution of power to the common man.
The local self-government could be a key to
realize the promise of Indian democracy in its
true sense which is inclusive nature and
character. The concept of inclusive democracy
stands for participation of all in the democratic
process and ensuring that no one should be left
outside that very process. This approach calls for
revision of the ways we think and the ways we
develop a vision to re-design and re-define the
society in which inclusion of the marginalized
sections especially women in the political process
must be ensured. Inclusive Democracy is the
project for direct political democracy, form of
social organization which re-integrates society
with economy, polity nature and it is derived from
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a synthesis of two major historical traditions: the
classical democratic and the socialist. There is an
obvious inter-relationship between democracy
and human rights which goes beyond mere
rights. The aim of the bridging the gap between
the have and havenots demands an inclusive
model. This not only involves passing legal
measures to promote de-jure equality but also
concerns making women feel legitimate and
competent to raise their voice at social and
political platforms. So we can say that a vibrant
democracy is one towards which works reducing
disparities and contain the social tension and
anger in certain sections of the society.
For a long time, the Indian society tended
to exclude women from political life by defining
political activity as a typically male dominated
vocation. Tangible progress has been made in the
last twenty years towards a more inclusive
democracy whereby women and men can enjoy
equal and balanced participation in public life. Yet
the legacy of this gender division still influences
the Indian society and some work remains to be
done to promote the amalgamation of women in
political activity. Inclusive democracy works
when people from all sections of the society are
empowered to participate in governance, raise
objections, take decisions and ensure social and
political accountability. Such a vision of
democracy requires democratization from below
to achieve true devolution and-delegation of
power of the common reducing vulnerability to
ill-health and the impoverishment or chronic
poverty that may follow. The state is committed
to providing essential .health care services to
those below the poverty line based on need and
not ability to pay. An effective right to health
requires state provisioning of preventive
promotive and curative treatment and care for all
citizens (and especially vulnerable groups) that
is accessible reliable and high in quality. Similarly
access to education and skills, creation of
infrastructure at the rural level and access to
assets enable exit from poverty.
What needs to be done?
Achievements on reducing chronic poverty
as well as the hunger ignorance disease and
inequality of opportunity that accompany it are
well .below what was envisioned. Some of the
specific recommendations suggested by the
India Chronic Poverty Report for addressing the
challenge of poverty, are listed below. Create a
dedicated cadre of poverty eradication workers
and officers, trained to identify drivers and
maintainers and potential interrupters of
poverty. Their task should be to create two-way
information and support channels from each
village, through block and district headquarters,
to the state and national capital. They should
inform and demand support to prevent any new
entr y into poverty in any village or slum;
identify the poorest and ensure they are linked
with relevant government programmes for social
protection and interrupt their poverty; and
identify potential opportunities for employment
and skills development.
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GIST OF KURUKSHETRA VOL11 49
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Gist of
KURUKSHETRA
GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES TO
EMPOWERMENT WOMEN-AREAS OF
CONCERN
The Asian and Pacific Centre for Women
and Development [APCWD] defines
Empowerment as a process that aims at creating the
conditions for the self-determination of a particular
people at creating the conditions for the self-
determination of a particular people or group.
Empowerment with women is the central
issue that has been pervading the development
debate after the 81s. Improving their status and
empowering them would go a long way in
accomplishing egalitarian gender relations in
society. Women who are hitherto constrained by
their social structure for their self-expression
constitute the target of most of the development
programmes, which aim at bringing them into
the mainstream of the development.
The Constitution of India guarantees to all
women equality [Article 14]; no discrimination by
the State [Article 15 (l)]: equality of opportunity
[Article 16]; equal pay for equal work [Article
39(dl]; renounce practices derogatory to the
dignity of women [Article 51 (a) (c)] The
Constitution also allows the State to make special
provision in favor of women and children
[Article 15(3)]; and securing just and humane
conditions of work and maternity relief [Article
42]. Acknowledging the world-wide significance
of women empowerment the Government of
India declared 2001 as the Year of Womens
Empowerment and the National Policy for the
Empowerment of Women came into force from
2001. Draft Country Paper of India for the 4
th
World Conference on women held in Beijing in
1995 proposed certain qualitative and quantitative
indicators for evaluating womens empowerment.
The qualitative aspects included self-esteem and
self-confidence, articulation, leisure time,
workloads, roles and responsibilities, domestic
violence, women economic contribution .and
decision making Quantitative .aspects included.
demographic trends, number of women in
participation, access and control over resources,
physical health status, literacy levels and political
participation at the local level
Government Programmes for Women
Empowerment. The Government of India has
been implementing- various programmes through
its different departments to bring about womens
development and their empowerment. For lack of
an overarching policy that would have provided a
common understanding and a unified vision, each
department has defined and operationalized
empowerment through its own prism and from
its own perspective and understanding.
In the case of some departments, the stated
goal is not to bring about womens empowerment,
but the emphasis is on bringing about their
overall efficiency and economic development. For
example [i] Social Welfare Board aims at bringing
about womens development and empowerment
through partnerships with NGOs [ii] Department
of Rural Development focuses, on economic self-
reliance as an indicator of womens development
[iii] Agriculture Department endeavors to make
50 VOL11 GIST OF KURUKSHETRA
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women better agricultural workers by increasing
their understanding about the use of technology
in agriculture [iv] Horticulture Department aims
at providing training to women for vegetable and
fruit production, preservation and link them to
the market so that they can become economically
self-reliant [v] Dairy Department, in the name of
Womens Dair y, has started a new scheme
whereby women are given training in animal care,
a traditional occupation followed by them and are
encouraged to set up their own dairy and thereby
become economically self-reliant [vi] Social
Welfare Department offers various scholarships
and pension schemes and thereby provides
economic support to certain vulnerable groups to
bring about their upliftment [vii] Education
Department, in order to bring about gender
equality, has initiated special programs for girls
whereby they can be mainstreamed with the
existing programs [viii] Adult Education program
of the Education Department considers womens
literacy as the first step towards their
empowerment and is pursuing the Continuing
Education program through the self-help groups
(SHGs) in order to bring about their economic
self-reliance [ix] The Department of Womens
Empowerment and Child Development is
running various schemes and programs for the
empowerment of Women by setting up self-help
groups (SHGs) with the help of NGOs.
Welfare Schemes for Women and Girls Most
of the schemes currently implemented by the
Department of Womens Empowerment and Child
Development and those by the State Social
Welfare Board and Department of Health fall in
following category:
Department of Women Empowerment and
Child Development implements programs viz.
The integrated Child Development
Services (ICDS) program: This is a flagship
program of the department. While providing
Anganwadi(creche) services and health and
nutritional supplements to infants, ICDS also
provides pre and post-natal care for pregnant and
lactating mothers. The anganwadi workers have
to dispense iron tablets and iodine-fortified salt
to pregnant and lactating mothers. The pregnant
and lactating mothers also have to receive dry
rations from the anganwadi workers.
Kishori Balika Yojana (scheme for the
adolescent girls): As part of the ICDS program,
a special scheme for the adolescent girls was
initiated from 2001 onwards, with assistance
from the Government of India as well as from the
World Bank. The scheme is intended for
adolescent girls in the 11-18 age group who
belong to the BPL (below poverty line)
households. The scheme intends to provide
training to these girls in order to bring about
their overall development. The areas in which
training would be provided would include
information about how to take care of their
bodies, the meaning of a balanced diet,
importance of family welfare, besides providing
them interpersonal skills and making them self-
confident and training them in vocational skills
so that they can become independent. During
2005-2006, besides starting the scheme in 40
blocks, 59 additional blocks received sanction
from the Government of India. The ICDS program
is run by the Department itself. The other
programs of the Department include [a] Old Age
Pension Scheme: This scheme is applicable to both
men and women and is meant for both urban as
well as rural areas and provides Rs. 400 per month
to those who are above 60.years of age (b)
Pension scheme for windows/homeless/aged/
disabled: The scheme is applicable only in rural
areas and is implemented by the District Social
Welfare Officer on the basis of the
recommendation received from the Pradhan-of
the Gram Panchayat as well as the Minister,
Panchayats, and forwarded through the Block
office. [c] Financial assistance to destitute widows:
Destitute widows are entitled to receive a sum of
Rs. 400 per month. This is a scheme for rural
areas and is being implemented by the Gram
Panchayats [d] Financial assistance for re-marriage
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of widows: A sum of Rs. 11,000 is provided for the
re-marriage of a widow below the age of 35 years
[e)] Grant to female student who has passed
intermediate from BPL (below poverty line) family
to enable her to pursue her studies: A onetime
grant of Rs. 25,000 is being given since 2006-07
to a female student to enable her to complete her
graduation.
Social Welfare Board set up in 2003 receives
funding from the Central Government to run its
schemes. The state government has the
responsibility for the day-to-day functioning of
the Board. All the schemes of the Board are
implemented through the NGOs. These schemes
include: [i] Hostels for working women [ii] Womens
Helpline Family Counseling Centres [iii] Campaign
against female foeticide [iv] Vocational training
programs [v] Creches [vi] Condensed courses for
women [vii] Short-stay homes for women
Department of Health: In order to reduce
the maternal and infant mortality rates, there is
a scheme for the safe delivery of pregnant
mothers-as well as care of their infants. The
scheme is applicable to women who belong to
the BPL (Below Poverty Line) households and
who are taken to the government health centre
or hospital for their delivery. A pregnant woman
can be accompanied by an ASHA (health) worker
or by the local dai (midwife) and an allowance is
paid to this person. In case a pregnant woman
delivers her baby in a hospital in the rural area,
sheis paid an amount of Rs. 1400/ and Rs. 1000 if
she is taken to a hospital in the urban area. The
pregnant woman is also provided the tetanus
injection and newly born infant is provided
vaccinations against six dangerous diseases at
periodic intervals.
Department of Education:
[Empowerment and Gender Equity Schemes]:
Under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for.
AID, Department of Education has initiated
schemes to reduce the gender gap in the
education of children, viz.
(1) Early Child Care Education Centres:
These Centres are set up to ensure better
enrolment and retention of girls in the
primary schools. Since the girl-child has
the responsibility to look after the young
siblings and is therefore deprived of
school education, an ECCE centre
attached to the school would ensure that
girls would come to school. It is intended
that if school-going girls have access to
such centres, they would get enrolled in
schools, and would be retained in schools.
The scheme also envisages provision of
good quality education to such girls. At
the ECCE centers, the physical and
psychological growth and development of
all children in the 3-6 age group, is
provided for. The education department
at the district level has the responsibility
for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and
Department of Social Welfare (through
the Integrated Child Development
Ser vices Programme) have the
responsibility for running the ECCE
Centers.
(2) National Programme on Education
for Girls at Elementary Level
(NPEGEL): Since education is a
concurrent subject, this national
programme is also being implemented at
the state level in some select districts and
blocks since 2003. It is intended to
increase the enrolment rates of girls
belonging to SC/ST communities at the
elementary stage. The scheme intends to
focus attention on the educationally
deprived sections and to encourage the
enrolment, retention and quality
education of the girls belonging to the
SC/ST communities. It offers materials
incentives such as stationer y and
introduces additional incentives like
awards, remedial teaching and bridge-
courses-as well as development of a model
upper primary school in each cluster.
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(3) Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalata
(KGBV): The scheme draws it legitimacy
from the thrust in national policy
documents as well as international
discourse that refers to bridging the
gender gap. Following this thrust, the
scheme is being implemented in
educationally backward blocks with a
wider gender gap. The scheme is intended
for girls belonging to the scheduled
castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs), other
backward classes (OBCs), religious
minorities and below poverty line, (BPL)
households. Funded by the Government
of India; under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,
the basic idea behind the scheme is to
give a second chance for mainstreaming
rural girls belonging to deprived social
backgrounds who could not study up to
or beyond class V.
(4) Innovative Scheme for the Adolescent
Girls: In order to create and sustain the
interest of girls in education, they are
trained to produce items that can be used
in their daily lives. They are also offered
components of empowerment strategies
such as personal development,
confidence building abilities, and life-
skills oriented education.
(5) Mahila Samakhya (Education for
Womens equality): Was the first major
scheme launched by the Central
government that owed its genesis to the
National Policy on Education (1986)
recognizing he empowering potential of
education and education as an agent of
basic change in the status of women. The
basic objectives of Mahila Samakhya are:
(a) As a gender-based program, to create
an ambience in the society for tolerance
and mutual respect for women (b) To
ensure that education becomes accessible
to the socially and economically
marginalized women and girls (c) To
encourage and promote a gender-based
discourse in society (d) To enhance the
self-image and self-confidence of women
and enable them to critically analyze their
role as individual women and as members
of society so that they can begin to
challenge that role collectively and
initiate a process of social change (e) To
collectively participate in decision
making an seek equal rights and
opportunities for a more egalitarian
society. (f) To enhance participation of
women and girls in formal and non-
formal education programs. Education
Department of the Ministry of Human
Resource Development, Government of
India, launched Mahila Samakha as a
maj or program for bringing about
womens development as well as
empowerment in 1989 on a pilot basis in
6 states of India, with funding from the
Netherlands Government.
Department of Horticulture: The
Horticulture Department has a special scheme for
training women in fruit preservation, viz. pickles,
jams, chutneys, fruit juices, etc. The aim is to give
fillip to local production and to ensure that
women become economically seft-reliant.
Dairy Department: Women dair y
development scheme originated in 1994-95 and
its main aim was to bring about rural womens
economic and social development as well as
ensure that they assume leadership positions.
The scheme envisages 100 per cent participation
of women and ensures that the womens milk
cooperative would be run and managed entirely by
the women themselves. For the Womens Dairy
Development scheme, women are formed into
groups at the village level by the department. A
milk collection centre is then opened at the village
level and it is the responsibility of the
womens group to ensure that the milk that is
collected at the centre is then sent to the
dairying plant. The department arranges for the
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technical training of the womens group that
includes how to measure the fat content in the
milk, how-to measure the purity of the milk (with
the use of lactometer). Each group has a President
and a Secretary and it is their responsibility, in
addition to measuring the fat content and the -
milk purity, to maintain daily accounts and at the
end of the month, to submit the accounts to the
department. It is they who also make the payment
to each member of the group. As cattle- rearing is
an occupation traditionally followed by the hill
women dairying is linked to their traditional
occupation to make it economically attractive to
women. Aside from dairying, rural women are also
provided training in such related issues such as
first aid for the cattle, grass cultivation, seed
production, setting up kitchen garden, use of
smokeless chullah (stove), production of organic
manure, setting up sulabh sauciunavas
(community toilets), as well as health related
issues that-are re1evant to the lives of women.
Emerging Trends: A synoptic overview of
what is happening with regard to womens
empowerment programs in India is brief ly
presented here.
Some of the emerging trends are:
(i) Percolation of the discourse of
empowerment to the ground level:
There are two distinct strands in the
womens programs in India. These are
welfare programs and gender equity and
womens empowerment programs. As the
term-empowerment is widely used it has
led to its dilution. But on the other hand,
it has raised awareness levels among
women on various issues such as their
legal rights, their entitlements under the
different government schemes, about
how they can better their social and
economic conditions and so on.
(ii) SHGs form the mainstay of womens
empowerment programs: SHGs have
grown phenomenally in recent years in
the country. Womens collectives as
forums of womens empowerment have
not been a new phenomenon in the
country. Thus, Mahila Mandals as part of
community development initiatives dates
back to the 19505 However, it was NGOs
such as SEWA (Self Employed Womens
Association) and the WWW (Working
Womens Forum) that gave fillip to
formation of womens collectives by
linking them to credit. Experience of
SEWA and of WWF showed that women
were not defaulters with regard to
repayment of credit. The collective
ensured that there was peer pressure on
women to repay loans and the resulting
high repayment rates meant that lenders
were willing to forego collateral.
(iii) Empowerment a top-down or a
bottom-up process?: As mentioned in
the theoretical debate on empowerment,
empowerment is itself a form of power,
In feminist literature, power is
disaggregated into power over
(domination), power to (capacity),
power within (inner strength), and
power with , (achieved through
cooperation and alliance). In feminist use
of empowerment, the emphasis is clearly
on power to and power with and not on
power over. If conceived thus,
empowerment has to be a bottom up
rather than a top-down process. If women
are considered powerless, then the idea
of empowering women can imply a top-
down approach. On the other hand, if it
is argued that despite patriarchal
considerations, women have power, then
empowerment would be perceived as a
bottom up process. A question that needs
to be asked about the NGOs that are
involved in the womens ,empowerment
programs is whether empowerment is
perceived as capacity building to cope
with the requirements of life as opposed
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to capacity building to transform the
conditions of life and assert alternative
gender roles. Since NGOs receive funding
from government and have already
indicated the compromises they are
required to make to ensure continuity of
funding, it appears highly likely that a
majority of them are engaged in capacity
building in order to promote status-quo
and not address social justice and equity
issues.
(iv) Empowerment of individual women
to improve their efficiency and
productivity rather than organizing
and building a movement, for,
women/equality: There was a tendency
to focus, on the efficiency dimension of
empowerment of individual women. Thus
women had to become aware, self-
confident, independent, and capable of
taking decisions. While these are
important dimensions of empowerment,
the transformative potential of
empowerment that could be brought
about through womens organizations
was not part of the consciousness of a
large number of NGOs.
(v) Are SHGs really reaching the poor
women?: Since a majority of NGOs
indicated that they worked with a mixed
group of women belonging to different
socio-economic background and varied
caste groups, a question can be raised
whether SHGs are really inclusive of poor
women. One of the realities of micro-
credit phenomenon that has been
established by studies is that it fails to
include in its fold the very poor. While
the poor are the target, in order to ensure
economic sustainability of the program,
whoever can pay becomes part of the
program. In other words, realities of micro-
credit demand a certain capacity to pay
and to save, thereby creating exclusions
right from the groups inception.
(vi) Use of technology in womens
training programs: This is an ICT era.
Thus various information tools such as
community radio, community television,
community newspaper should be used to
empower the rural women.
Necessary Dimensions for Attention to
Facilitate Meaningful Women
Empowerment: Dimensions to facilitate women
empowerment include
(i) Economic empowerment: The fact is
that women though largely absent from
the format workplace and hence from
official labor statistic are nevertheless
heavily engaged in subsistence
agricultural and informal sector of
economy. There is a constant effort to put
womens income in bracket in order to
consolidate the position that women are
only reproducers and not producers. This
idea needs to be changed. Womens
economic right is definitely an important
indicator for enhancement of their status.
So, women labor needs- to be recognized.
Education, more employment avenues,
political awareness etc. would all lead to
womens economic emancipation.
(ii) Social empowerment: A major
limitation to the advancement of women
is the intuitional set of social
prescriptions that limit their participation
in socio-economic activities and their
input in decision making efforts to
increase the potential for womens social
participation extend down to the level of
the household.
(iii) Physical Empowerment: most women
in the third world countries work very
long hours at numerous tedious tasks as
well as take care of their children and
homes. Until we recognized the physical
hardships endured by women from
meeting their productive and reproductive
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responsibilities and make concerted
efforts to improve upon their health
status, other advancements will have
limited impact for them. Physical
empowerment is dependent upon each of
the other dimensions as all have
contributory effects.
(iv) Psychological Empowerment: It is a
common occurrence for women in third
World Countries to belittle their own
position in the society and their
contribution to the economy. When asked
of their occupation the majority of rural
women will say they have none, despite
the fact that they may engage in three or
more income generating and productive
activities to help meet the needs of their
families due to cultural view of the low
position of women in many societies the
women themselves often have a negative
view of their potential and importance.
Need for: Full potential of benefits
envisaged under various Government programs
meant for women socio-economic welfare and
empowerment can be harnessed if areas of serious
concern are timely attended, viz.
(i) Education: Studies confirm that female
literacy has a significant influence in
improving social and economic status of
women. The female literacy rate is
woefully lower than that of male.
Compared to boys, far fewer girls are
enrolled in schools and many of them are
drop out. According to the National
Sample Survey data of 2011, only Kerala
and Mizorarn have approached universal
female literacy rate. According to, the U.S.
Department of Commerce, the chief
barriers to female education in India are
inadequate school and sanitary facilities,
shortage of female teachers and gender
bias in curriculum.
(ii) Work participation: Though the country
has a large percentage of women workers,
there is a serious underestimation of
womens contribution as workers to
nations economy. There are, however,
fewer women in the paid work force than
those of men. In rural areas, agriculture
and allied sector employed as many as 89.5
per cent of total female labor. Womens
average contribution, in overall farm
output, is estimated at 55 per cent to 66
per cent of the total labor. According
toi99rWorid Bank report, women
accounted for 94 per cent of total
employment in dairy sector. Women
contributed 51 per cent of total
employment in forest-based small-scale
enterprises.
(iii) Female-headed Households: According
to 2010-11 year data, while only 12 per
cent of households in India were female-
headed, about 88 per cent of the
households below poverty line were
female-headed.
(iv) Land and Property Rights: In most
Indian families, women do not own any
property in their own names and do not
get a share of parental property. Some of
the laws discriminate against women,
when it comes to land and property rights.
Married daughters, when faced with
marital harassment, have no residential
rights in the ancestral home. Christian
women have yet not received equal rights
of divorce and succession.
(v) Talaq System: Many Muslim women
have questioned the Fundamentalist
Leaders Interpretation of womens rights
under the Shariat Law and have criticised
the Triple Talaq System.
EMPOWERING RURAL WOMEN A STEP
TOWARDS INCLUSIVE GROWTH
While the countr y is speaking about
economic and inclusive growth, rural areas and
agriculture have largely been bypassed and the
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ratio of rural to urban poverty has increased. As
an outcome, some of the marginalized groups in
a society that is already characterized by a high
level of inequality in opportunities and
segregation along lines of, gender, caste, and
social status, are widely reckoned to not have
benefited from overall growth. Womens equality
and empowerment are seen as pillars of holistic
approach towards establishing new patterns and
processes of development. The World Bank has
suggested that empowerment of women should
be a key aspect of all social development programs
(World Bank, 2001).
Womens empowerment in India is
dependent on different variables that include
geographical location (urban/rural), educational
status, social status (caste and class), and age.
Policies on womens empowerment exist at the
national, state, and local (Panchayat) levels in
many sectors, including health, education,
economic opportunities, gender-based violence,
and political participation. However, there are
significant gaps between policy advancements
and actual practice at the community level. One
of the maj or reason for this gap in
implementation of the policies is the existence of
patriarchal structure in India. Due to this, the
women and girls are restricted from mobility,
access to education, health facilities and
experience violence at community and household
levels. The situation is changing equality
established in Indian constitution and indicated
that Indian women remained deprived
economically and socially.
New Approach
In order to empower the deprived section,
the fifth five year plan (1974-79) replaced the
social welfare approach with development
approach. This recognized womens productive
role and her contributions. The sixth five year
plan (1980-85) is a landmark in the history of
womens development with emphasis on health,
education and employment. The seventh five year
plan (1985-90) gave priority for programmes to
improve the status of women and the concern of
equality and empowerment, generating awareness
about their rights and privileges and training
them for economic activities and employment.
The focus also was on bringing them into the
main stream of national development. The eighth
and subsequent five year plan (1992-97)
continued emphasis on ensuring the benefits of
development in the different sectors for women
and that women must be able to function as equal
partners in the development process. A major
development in the empowerment of women is
the 73rd constitutional amendment to Panchayat
Raj Act which specifies one-third of the posts of
Sarpanch and Chairman of the block level
assemblies (Samiti) and the district assembly
(Zilla Parishad) to be women. This is expected to
bring radical change in womens status and will
generally increase their political participation.
The government is putting lot of efforts to
empower the women, hence there is need to know
the extent of empowerment of rural women.
Opportunity is closely linked to various
parameters of development like education, health
maternal and infant mortality rate, economic
status etc. As shown from the variables below, the
gender disparity is decreasing gradually which
shows that although not 100 percent but atleast
50 percent of goal has been achieved. But still the
indicators related to work population ratios and
child sex ratio or sex ratio are skewed against
women.
Womens Participation in the Economy
The development is measured on account of
the participation of women workforce, quality of
work allotted to them and their contribution in
GDP and on all these parameters the women in
India fare worse than men and the challenge is to
bridge the inequality: Globalisation of the
economy and rapid economic growth have
escalated some of the existing structural barriers
faced by women and new challenges in the form
of dismantling of traditional support structures
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displacement due to migration, obsolescence of
traditional skill sets have emerged.
The NSSO data from 61
st
to 66
th
round
indicates that female work participation rate has
decreased between 2004-05 to 2009-10, although
regular and casual labourers (both rural and rural)
shows a marginal increase. The other issue is that
the presence of women is predominantly in the
agriculture sector and lowers in the secondary
sector. NSSO data for the secondary and tertiary
sectors shows that only 13 per cent and 8 per cent
respectively, of the rural women workers worked
in these sectors.
The major issue is that over 90 percent of
women are in informal employment where they
are poorly paid, have unsatisfactory work
conditions, do not enjoy the protection of labour
laws, have no control on the terms and
conditions of their employment and are subject to
great insecurity of employment. This
discrimination in womens work increased with
the downturn in the global economy. There is
evidence to show that women in the unorganised
sector suffered a decline in number of work days
available, poorer payment for piece work,
deterioration in employment status, conversion
to casual or temporary status, etc. The sharp fall
in household income levels also led to an increase
in unpaid domestic work for women as well as
increase in domestic violence.
The reason behind low work force
participation need to be looked into in greater
detail and may partly be attributable - to positive
factors such as better retention in educational
institutions. But even then the decline in
womens workforce participation rate is a matter
of concern and would have implications for their
overall economic empowerment.
Government Interventions towards Rural
Empowerment
Women have been neglected throughout
the years in ever y field social, cultural or
economic a nod when it comes to rural women,
the negligence is in greater quantity. In order to
enhance the condition of women, the
Government of India is implementing a number
of programmes, for improving access to
employment, education, health, infrastructure
force development, urban development,
programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment are women. The Act is sensitive to
working conditions of women workers as it
advocates providing accessible worksite (within
5 kms of workers residence), creches for women
with children below six and, above all, gender
parity of wages to empower women.
Other flagships programmes like
Integrated Child Development Schemes, Sarva
Siksha Ahhiyan and National Rural Health
Mission are also targeted to improve the
condition of women in society. Further, in
recognition of the role played by infrastructure in
poverty removal, the Government also launched a
time bound plan under Bharat Nirrnan in 2005.
In order to ensure that women
are equal beneficiaries in all programmes,
their needs and concerns are incorporated. Along
With this, there are other programmes run by the
Ministry of Women and Child Development as
Support to Training & Employment Programme
for Women (STEP) to upgrade the skills of poor
and asset less women and provide employment to
them on sustainable basis, Rajiv Gandhi Scheme
for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls which
aims at vocational training of girls above 16 years
of age for their economic empowerment.
Apart from this, for holistic and inclusive
development of women, the government has
started National Mission for Empowerment of
Women under which services like Rashtriya
Mahila Kosh (National Credit Fund for Women),
Gender Budgeting and other support services like
hostels for working women; creche system and
Conditional Maternity Benefit (CMB) scheme
Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY))
were started.
www.upscportal.com
Summing Up:
In rural societies, and elsewhere, women
empowerment is an imperative issue. Perhaps
now the government has seriously started
thinking about it and all the development
programmes embrace requirements and concerns
of women, so that they do not fall behind-in the
race of development. Thus, for the holistic
empowerment of women, to inter-sectoral
approach has to be adopted which will end
exploitation and discrimination against women
enabling them to develop their full potential to be
active participants in nation building, sharing the
benefits of economic growth and prosperity
WHERE DO WOMEN STAND IN RURAL
INDIA?
While seeking answer to the question
where women do stand in India - I would like to
draw attention of the readers towards some
recently released reports which aptly reflects the
current dynamics in the context of women
empowerment. The latest
Human Development Report, released by
UNDP on 14 March 2013, puts India at 132
nd
position out of 187 countries, even below
Pakistan (ranked 123
rd
) in its Gender Inequality
Index that measures the inequality in between
males and females in terms of three key
indicators i.e. labour market, reproductive health
and empowerment. While in the World Economic
Forums latest Global Gender Gap Index for the
year 2012, India has been ranked at 105th place
among 135 countries; the index assesses the gap
between men and women on the basis of
economic participation and opportunities,
educational attainment, health and survival and
political empowerment. On the other hand, in a
recently conducted global survey known as the
Third Billion Index shows in its scorecard a
depleted position of Indian women and
recommends for a concerted effort towards
women empowerment India gets placed at a
dismal 115 out of 128 countries surveyed.
Now while characterising the current
status of rural women, based on evidences it may
be asserted that they are still found to over-
burden with heavy domestic workloads, having
limited role in household decision-making at
household level with limited access and control
over household resources, suffer from restricted
mobility and entitled to low level of individual
assets. Incidences of early marriages among girls
are still prevalent in some parts of rural India
besides that, domestic violence against women in
the form of dowry, wife-battering, threat to
divorce, polygamy, unwillingness to provide
livelihood support, family conflict etc., are still
considered to be a frequently occurred
phenomena, as far as available statistics are
concerned. But among all these demoralising facts
increasing work participation rate of rural women
under MGNREGA, improvement in their literacy
level and their growing involvement in decision-
making process as a part of Panchayati Raj
Institution provide us something to cherish.
There is no doubt about the fact that Indian
policy-makers have adopted a very comprehensive
framework to strengthen the position of women
in society since Independence and also modified
their policy-approaches from time to time but
time and again questions raised when it comes to
implementation of such policies. Experience
gained through numerous researches and studies
on development policies reveal that it is not only
a perfect planning but a realistic execution-
strategy needs to be formulated to ensure the
success of any such developmental initiative.
Though much have been done with a wide range
of policies and programs on the part of
government and non-government-organisations
in the sphere of women empowerment, but it
seems that it has not been enough if we take into
consideration the following analytical framework
presented below - and simultaneously it is being
felt that an urgent need to rethink as how to
expedite the process of women empowerment in
a patriarchal and traditional society like India with
www.upscportal.com
innumerable obstacles. Very often the traditional
beliefs, attitudes and practices which are deeply
entrenched in rural womens lives, hinder their
empowerment. Feminist theories argue that that
empowerment of women is dependent on several
factors, including ownership and control over
land; access to diverse types of employment and
income-generating activities; access to public
goods {such as water, village commons and
forests], infrastructure, education and training,
health care and financial services and markets;
and opportunities for participation in political life
and in the design and implementation of policies
and programmes. So, keeping in view the Indian
scenario, I must say that the strategy of
empowering rural women requires a crosscutting
and culture-bound approach which will be capable
enough to address the diversity of social
structures that govern rural womens lives.
IAS PCS
K.UJJWAL
by
250 Probales a book on G.S. Available
E-mail : info@ujjwalias.in Website : www.ujjwalias.in
& Team
60 VOL11 GIST OF PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU
www.upscportal.com
Gist of
PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU
REVIEW OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI) CAPS AND ROUTES IN VARIOUS SECTORS.
CABINET DECISION
The Union Cabinet approved the proposal for review of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) caps
and routes in various sectors.
The Government has decided to amend the provisions relating to the FDI caps and routes in
various sectors as under:
1. Petroleum & Natural Gas
(Petroleum refining by the Public Sector Undertakings (PSU), without any disinvestment or
dilution of domestic equity in the existingPSUs.)
FDI ceiling Route
(a) Existing 49% Government
(b) Proposed 49% Automatic
2. Commodity exchanges (para 6.2. 17.4)
(a) Existing 49%(26%FDI+23%FII) Government
(b) Proposed 49%(26%FDI+23%FII) Automatic#
3. Power exchanges (para 6.2.19)
(b) Proposed 49%(26%FDI+23%FII) Automatic
4. Stock exchanges, depositories and clearing corporations (para 6.2.17.6.1)
(b) Proposed 49%(26%FDI+23%FII) Automatic
5. Asset Reconstruction Company (para 6.2.17.1)
(a) Existing 74%(FDI +Fll) Government
(b) Proposed 100%(FDI+FII) Up to 49% Automatic 49%
to 100% Government
6. Credit Information Companies (CICs) (para 6.2.17.5)
(a) Existing 49% (FDI+FII) Government
(b) Proposed 74%(FDI+FII) Automatic
7. Tea sector including tea plantations (para 6.2.2.1)
(a) Existing 100%(divestment
of 26% to Indian
GIST OF PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU VOL11 61
www.upscportal.com
9. Test Marketing (para 6.2.16.3)
(a) Existing 100%. Government
(b) Proposed Para to be deleted.
10. Telecom Services ( including Telecom
Infrastructure Providers Category-l)
All telecom services including Telecom
Infrastructure Providers Category-I, viz. Basic,
Cellular, United Access Services, Unified license
(Access services), Unified License, National/
International Long Distance, Commercial V-Sat,
Public Mobile Radio Trunked Services (PMRTS),
Global Mobile Personal Communications
Services (GMPCS), All types of ISP licences, Voice
Mail/Audiotex/UMS, Resale of IPLC, Mobile
Number Portability services, Infrastructure
Provider Category-l (providing darkfibre, right of
way, duct space, tower) except Other Service
Providers.
partner within
5years) Government
(b) Proposed 100% Government
8. Single-brand product retail trading (para 6.2.1 6.4)
(b) Proposed 100% Up to 49% Automatic
49% to 100% Government
###Subject to guidelines issued by Department of Consumer Affairs/FMC.
## Existing paragraphs 6.2.16.4 (2) (d) and 6.2.16.4 (3) of Circular 1 of 2013-Consolidated FDI
Policy will be replaced with following paragraphs:
(a) Existing 74%. Up to 49% Automatic49% to 74% Government
(b) Proposed 100% Up to 49% Automatic 49% to 100% Government@
11. Courier Services (para 6.2.10)
(A) Existing 100% Government
(b) Proposed 100% Automatic
12. Defence (para 6.2.6)
(b) Proposed 26%No change $ Up to 26%, no change i.e., through
FIPB and CCEA if FDI exceedsRs. 1200crore.
Above 26% to CCS on case to case basis,
which ensure access to modern and
state-of-art technology in thecountry.
@ FDI up to 100% with 49% under
automatic route and beyond 49% through FIPB
route subject to observance of licensing and
security conditions by licensee as well as
investors as notified by the Department of
Telecommunications (DoT) from time to time.
$Fllthrough portfolio investment is not
permitted.In the backdrop of the fairly modest
FDI inflows over the last year and lack of growth
in gross domestic capital formation, FDI ceilings
and entry routes have been liberalized for
theaforestatedsectors with a view to stimulating
FDI inflows in to the countr y thereby
contributing to growth of investment, incomes
and employment.
www.upscportal.com
62
1. English Language Comprehension Skills `195
2. Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency `225
3. Basic Numeracy `240
4. Logical Reasoning & Analytical Ability `230
5. CSAT PaperI General Studies Question Bank `170
6. General Knowledge Manual 2013 `180
7. English Grammar and Usage `220
8. |=|+n =|+== )-=|== === (|r-:|) =|: `390
9. CSAT Comprehensive Manual `775
10. General Studies Preliminary Examination Topic Wise Solved Question Paper (1995-2011) `250
11. =| n|= =+| |=|= =|=|-= === (+||-|= +|-||) |+|=+| rn +.=-+| (z++:-z+::) `190
12. General Studies Mains Examination Topic Wise Question Analysis (1989-2011) `150
13. =|=|-= === =c= +|-|| +.=-+| (:+s+-z+::) `220
14. SSC Graduate Level Examination Solved & Practice Paper `275
15. A Comprehensive Guide for SSC Graduate Level Examination `360
16. Bank PO Planner `245
17. Bank PO Practice Set `280
18. S.B.I. Probationary Officer (Recruitment Examination 2011) `210
19. Geography IAS (Mains) Optional Topic Wise Question Analysis `155
20. Sociology IAS (Mains) Optional Topic Wise Question Analysis `150
21. Hindi/English/Essay (Mains) Compulsory Topic Wise Question Analysis `150
22. Law (Mains) Optional Topic Wise Question Analysis `150
23. Public Administration Optional (Mains) Topic Wise Question Analysis `150
24. General Studies (IAS) Solved Paper 2001-2011 `270
25. History (Mains) Optional Topic Wise Question Analysis `150
26. 2 Markers for IAS (Mains)/PCS General Study `185
27. CDS Solved Papers `295
28. Guide for Clerk Grade (IBPS) `280
29. Current Affairs2011 `250
30. NDA/NA (Solved & Practice Papers) `325
31. SCRA (Practice & Solved Papers) `325
32. General Science for Civil Services Preliminary Examination `250
33. Indian History for Civil Services Preliminary Examination `395
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34. Environment for Civil Services Preliminary Examination `250
35. Indian Polity for Civil Services Preliminary Examination `350
36. Geography for Civil Services Preliminary Examination `315
37. Indian History MCQ's Series `95
38. Indian Polity MCQ's Series `95
39. Geography & Environment MCQ's Series `160
40. Indian Economy MCQ's Series `120
41. Basic Numeracy MCQ's Series `130
42. Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency MCQ's Series `130
43. General Science MCQ's `120
44. Logical Reasoning & Analytical Reasoning MCQ's `120
45. CSAT General Studies Manual IAS Preliminary Examination Paper I `1275
46. |r-:| =||r= +|+== ++ =c= +|-|| `140
47. Indian Economy for Civil Services Preliminary Examination `260
48. Special Current Affairs for Civil Services Examination 2013 `410
49. -||-|= :|-r|= +=-|= +.= `80
50. -||-|= |==+=|| +=-|= +.= `80
51. -||- z+:z `195
52. India 2012 `200
53. ===|=|==| z+:z `195
54. =|=|-= n|= |::|.|=| `265
55. =|=|-= n|= z+:s `70
56. General Knowledge 2013 `75
57. The Vault of Essay `340
59. Concise General Knowledge `75
60. SSC Work Book `80
61. A Complete Guide for SBI & Associate Banks `295
62. -||-|= === == +n= -|-| +|-|| =|: `290
63. History (Main) IAS Solved Paper 2002-2011 `275
64. SSC (10+2) Level Examination Guide `340
65. The Vault of 1,2,3 & 5 Markers (Part1) `295
66. The Vault of 1,2,3 & 5 Markers (Part1I) `225
67. CAPF `310
68. Current Affairs 2012-2013 `225
69. IBPS Work Book for Clerk Examination ` 90
70. GS Pre Questions (2006-2012) ` 130
71. Logical & Analytical Ability MCQ ` 130
72. NDA Practice Papers ` 200
73. SCRA Practice Papers ` 220
74. CDS Practice Papers ` 200
75. SSC Practice Papers ` 175
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76. SSC Success Series History ` 80
77. SSC Success Series Geography ` 80
78. SSC Success Series General Science ` 80
79. SSC Success Series Indian Economy ` 80
80. SSC Success Series Indian Polity ` 75
81. SSC Success Series General Knowledge ` 75
82. SSC Solved Paper `175
83. )=.)=.=|. =+== =||= -||-|= :|-r|= `85
84. )=.)=.=|. =+== =||= -||-|= |==+=|| `85
85. )=.)=.=|. =+= = =||= -|=|n `80
86. IBPS PO Guide (Hindi) `340
87. IBPS Practice Papers Paper (Hindi) `140
88. IBPS Solved Papers (Hindi) `170
89. CTET Practice Papers Class (15) `160
90. CTET Practice Papers Class (68) `160
91. IBPS PO Guide (English) `365
92. IBPS Practice Papers Paper (English) `170
93. IBPS Solved Papers (English) `170
94. mkj iznsk iqfyl vkj{kh xkbZM `155
95. National Insurance Assistance Guide `380
95. IBPS Math (Hindi) 75
96. IBPS Math (English) 110
97. IBPS Reasoning (Hindi) 80
97. IBPS Reasoning (English) 100
99. IBPS English 60

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VOL-11 The Gist - NOVEMBER 2013

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VOL-11 The Gist - NOVEMBER 2013

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