Status of tribal development remains poor: Ministry report

The tribal population In India lags behind other social groups on various social parameters, such as child mortality, infant mortality, number of anaemic women, says the latest annual report of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.

Tribal population, with a vast majority engaged in agricultural labour, has the largest number of anaemic women, the report states.

The community also registered the highest child mortality and infant mortality rates, when compared to other social groups, the data indicates.

While educational achievements on the whole has improved, statistics cited elsewhere in the Report shows that the gross enrolment ratio among tribal students in the primary school level has declined from 113.2 in 2013-14 to 109.4 in 2015-16. Besides, the dropout rate among tribal students has been at an alarming level.

Source: Ministry of Tribal Affair  

 

While the overall poverty rates among the tribal population have fallen compared to previous years, they remain relatively poorer when weighed against other social groups.

Health infrastructure has also been found wanting in tribal areas. At an all-India level, there is a shortfall of 6,796 Sub Centres, 1267 Primary Health Centres and 309 Community Health Centres in tribal areas as on March 31, 2015, the Report points out.

Gaps in rehabilitation

Further, it exposes the gap in rehabilitation of tribal community members displaced by various development projects. Out of an estimated 85 lakh persons displaced due to development projects and natural calamities, only 21 lakh were shown to have been rehabilitated so far, the Report states.

Responding to this figure, Sudhir Pattanaik, Odisha-based social activist and Editor Samadrusti told The Hindu that even the 21 lakh resettlement figure in the Report is questionable as there is no way to verify this data. Based on what he had witnessed in the case of displacement caused by mining plants and captive power projects set up in the past several years in Angul, Koraput, Raigadh and Kalahandi districts in the State, Mr. Pattanaik said that it was tribal land acquisition and not tribal development that was the focus of the government.

“Rehabilitation only happens on paper, and any compensation for displaced adivasi folks is siphoned off by others in their name,” he said.

In 2014, the Central government initiated the Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana for the holistic development and welfare of tribal population on a pilot basis. However, the Annual Report points out that the token budgetary provisions being made under the scheme to the tune of Rs.100.00 crore and Rs.200.00 crore for 2014-15 and 2015-16, respectively, is minuscule and barely sufficient to meet the purpose of the Scheme given that it intends to cover 27 States across the country.

The Ministry has emphasised that more funds be provided for the Scheme from the year 2016-17 onwards.

Source: The Hindu, 28-12-2016

Neither cultural nor revolutionary

In the government’s new ‘cultural revolution’, culture becomes a mask to hide material realities

We live in ironic times where the establishment quotes Bob Dylan, an anti-establishment figure. Last month, the Prime Minister cited lines from Dylan’s song, The Times They Are A-Changin’ including “And don’t criticise/ What you can’t understand”, ostensibly targeted at the critics of demonetisation.

Demonetisation is an event of biblical proportions. But even as its economic consequences are discussed, what goes unnoticed are the new cultural imaginaries that are sought to be put in place. Rather than see demonetisation as only an economic measure to curb corruption, the government wants to usher in “a behavioural change at all levels of society”, which is a part of “the grand ‘cultural revolution’ that the PM is working on” (M. Venkaiah Naidu in The Indian Express, Nov. 29).

The problem is that this cultural revolution is neither cultural nor revolutionary. Culture becomes a mere appendage to technological transformations which still mask material exploitation. In this cultural revolution, the government still needs lucky draw contests (and prizes worth Rs. 340 crore) to incentivise digital payments and behaviourial change. Also, the revolution will be ushered in through an executive fiat from above rather than it emerging organically from the people.

Emptiness of words

Technology is the fulcrum of the new cultural revolution. As the Prime Minister puts it, in ‘Digital India’, “your phone is your wallet.” But when Dylan becomes yoked to the project of Cashless India and Digital India, culture becomes instrumental and hollow. Otherwise, how is The Times..., reflecting the American youth’s anger against imperialism perpetrated by their own government, quoted by a government that has come down heavily on dissent?

The cultural revolution is supposed to completely overhaul the system. In a reference rich with religio-cultural symbolism, the Prime Minister calls demonetisation a “yagna against corruption, terrorism and black money.” There is, of course, tremendous hardship for the people. But he asks them to endure it to make the nation great and modern. Remarkably, in this vision, there are no cultural revolutions to annihilate caste, the most important barrier to India becoming modern. Nor there are yagnas against class and gender exploitation.

In this cultural revolution without culture, anything goes, so the Prime Minister can wish that “the youth seize the moment and be the winds of change” even after his government has virtually criminalised any youth politics unpalatable to the state. Or a Union Minister can also quote Dylan to critique patriarchy in Muslim community, but not patriarchy among Hindus.

No critical pedagogy

Such a conjuncture is itself a result of India’s failure to build a critical pedagogy. Instead of questioning the fundamental bases of exploitation, the entire pedagogy has been built on a technocratic understanding of society catering to building “meritorious” citizens, a society which merely reinforces existing hierarchies. In this pedagogy, as the philosopher Ivan Illich put it, “medical treatment is mistaken for healthcare, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work.”

It is on this ground already ploughed by conformist currents that the seeds of the new cultural revolution are sown. How else does one explain sections of the most “educated”, including in the bureaucracy, with a bird’s-eye view of governance, seeing demonetisation as a panacea to all our ills? The crux of technocratic thinking is to paper over systemic causes of issues such as poverty and prescribe technological fixes.

The root cause for our misery in this technocratic vision is a culture steeped in corruption. While there is truth in this, the decadent culture is not caused by the ruling classes in general, but only, as a government representative puts it, “encouraged by Congress and its friends all these years in power.” Again, the accumulation of privilege by the upper castes/classes or of the state-sanctioned plunder of public wealth, forests, minerals, etc. by the ruling classes goes unmentioned.

When one identifies the problem as such, the solution can only be superficial. Demonetisation becomes a magic wand to end corruption. When the Prime Minister tells a rally that the rich are queuing up at the houses of the poor to seek their help in depositing black money, he is not referring to the ultra-rich in India. So, the cultural revolution is already making a distinction between the rich themselves.

In this cultural revolution, culture becomes a mask to hide fundamental material realities. Thus, it does not tell us that the top one per cent of people own 58.4 per cent of the country’s wealth. When the bottom 50 per cent own only 2.1 per cent of the wealth, how does the promised manna of a few thousand rupees in Jan Dhan accounts alter anything?

The staggering levels of inequality have very little to do with black money held in high denomination notes, but are a result of a skewed distribution of wealth, resources and power legally enforced. That among the prominent economies of the world, India is only second to Russia, which is known for its mafia capitalism, in terms of the wealth owned by the top one per cent says something about our rapacious model of development, especially under liberalisation.

The cultural revolution does not tell us that the revenue foregone by the government in corporate income tax, excise and custom duty since 2005-06 is Rs. 42 trillion — an amount which can fund the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act for over 100 years! Neither does it tell us that state-owned banks have written off Rs.1.14 lakh crore of bad loans from 2013 to 2015 or that just two corporate houses alone owe over Rs.3 lakh crore in debt to the banks.

The tragedy is that the questions not asked by the cultural revolution are left unasked by popular discourse. And they will not be until we are prisoners of what the cultural theorist Henry Giroux calls as the “relentless activity of thoughtlessness” fostered by dominant power through its cultural apparatuses. What they do is to transform the genuine aspirations of the people for equality, a corruption-free society and anger against the existing system into sanitised expressions like demonetisation which do not fundamentally challenge the system.

It is in the absence of a genuine cultural revolution that we have reached a conjuncture in which a nation as diverse and unequal as India is asked to place its hopes on an individual leader as a talisman for a cultural revolution. A cultural revolution in which mobile phones will herald a corruption-free society. To unveil this cultural revolution, we need to go back to deciphering Dylan ourselves.

Nissim Mannathukkaren is Chair, International Development Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada. E-mail: nmannathukkaren@dal.ca

Source: The Hindu, 28-12-2016

What can governments do when jobs run out?

Martin Ford writes in the Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future that around 47% of total employment in the US, around 64 million jobs, have the potential to be automated perhaps within a decade or two. Europe is already facing a crisis of jobs. Youth unemployment in Italy stands around 36% while it is nearly 44% in Spain. Thanks to offshoring and automation, we are seeing a polarisation in the labour market that is split between low-wage service jobs and highly-paid top end with middle class jobs disappearing everywhere. India has a mass of low-paying jobs (which masks the problem); its pace of job creation pales in comparison with the millions entering the workforce each year and, according to the World Bank, 69% of jobs in India are threatened by automation. Education and skill training no longer guarantee jobs as the tech landscape is changing and making jobs scarce.

Governments need to wise up to the political implications of the lack of opportunities in their economies. There is also the wider crisis of capitalism to contend with; a lack of jobs naturally means a decline in the number of consumers for goods and services, a fact compounded by the millions who retire each year and spend less as their savings deplete. Ford writes that “if automation eliminates a substantial fraction of the jobs that consumers rely on, or if wages are driven so low that very few people have significant discretionary income, then it is difficult to see how a modern mass-market economy could continue to thrive”.

One way of managing social tensions, he argues, is for governments to implement a guaranteed minimum income for all citizens. Also known as a universal basic income (UBI) or a guaranteed basic income, the idea of an income for all has been around for years – it was backed by the Left and even libertarian thinkers like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and is beginning to gain traction again among economists.

Proponents like Ford feel that a cash boost via a universal basic income mitigates the political problem of creating jobs and it provides disposable income that can be used to pay for goods and services, which companies depend on. The idea appeals to some conservatives because (a) it boosts the economy, (b) it is easier to administer and (c) it can potentially downsize the bureaucracy which currently manages a range of welfare programmes.

Universal basic income has been criticised and reckoned as unfeasible on two grounds. One is that it reduces beneficiaries’ incentive to work and encourages delinquency and, two, that it would be too expensive to implement in mass societies.

There are good counterarguments to both these contentions. Studies have shown additional income does not really reduce the incentive to work. Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook and a backer of UBI, points to research which shows that people in the US used cash transfers for mostly housing and food costs and that less than 1% of the money was spent on alcohol or drugs. The Freakonomics radio show this year discussed UBI and referred to an income transfer experiment in the town of Dauphin, Canada, which was implemented in the 1970s but not properly evaluated owing to lack of

funding. Research subsequently showed that in poor families that received up to $15,000 a year, hospitalisation rates fell, high-school completion rates increased (as families chose to keep boys in schools rather than press them to work); those with full-time jobs did not reduce the number of hours they worked and women spent more time with their new-borns and pace their return to jobs.

Implementing basic income is, of course, expensive. Ford calculates that an unconditional $10,000 basic income for all adults in the US would cost around $2 trillion. This cost, according to him, can be offset to an extent by reducing or eliminating numerous federal and state anti-poverty programmes – but it would still require around $1 trillion in new revenue. Ford says that governments will need to tax businesses a lot more, rather put this burden on workers and employees who already pay for existing welfare programs. He writes “if you accept the argument that our [US] economy is likely to become ever less labour-intensive over time, then it follows logically that we ought to shift our taxation scheme away from labour and toward capital”.

These discussions in the developed world seem far removed from India as the costs seem prohibitive and as the country grapples with more foundational issues like ease of doing business, addressing education and skill deficits and kick-starting investments while banks are stuck with bad loans. But given high poverty levels and the anger among youth that will inevitably rise following failure to find rewarding jobs, policymakers will need to serious consider basic income, or at least some form of it.

Tadit Kundu reviewed the debate among economists about the scope of implementing universal basic income in India. The idea has the support of prominent experts like Pranab Bardhan and Jean Dreze. Bardhan says that a basic income of Rs. 10,000 per year – about three quarters of the official poverty line – would entail a cost equivalent to 10% of GDP, far more than the 4.2% that the government spends on explicit subsidies. He writes that discontinuing some or all of the subsidies (including tax exemptions for the corporate sector) while retaining expenditures on health, education and rural and urban development programmes can secure a reasonable basic income for all. Kundu points to research which shows poor families in Madhya Pradesh which received unconditional cash transfers ended doing more labour and work (not less). There was also a shift from casual wage labour to more self-employed farming and business activity and there was also reduction in migration caused by distress.

Ideas such as universal basic income are yet to be mainstreamed in India. But as developed countries increasingly warm to the idea (Finland is set to implement its version in 2017), policymakers may find it difficult to avoid discussing guaranteed minimum income.

Source: Hindustan Times, 27-12-2016

Online learning grows 50% in 2016; tech, English take lead

Online learning grew by 50 per cent in India this year, and technology and English were the most sought-after skills, says a report.

According to Coursera, a provider of online courses from top universities, out of the 10 most popular courses, technology constituted 70%, followed by English for career advancement.

Coursera has 1.8 million learners from India, out of 23 million registered learners globally, making the country the second-largest base of online learners after the US.

Compared with 2015, Coursera has seen a 50% jump in registered users, especially among technology learners, it said in a release.

“Considering the crucial role played by the IT industry, employing over 13 million people in India, it’s no surprise that 7 out of the top 10 online courses in India are technology-focused,” said Nikhil Sinha, chief business officer, Coursera.

He added that “over the next few years, online courses and credentials will become extremely common and even requirements to be considered for job roles that need specific skills”.

Coursera is an education-focused technology company that offers courses and learning experiences from the world’s top universities and education institutions, including Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, University of Virginia, and ISB.

Source: Hindustan Times, 28-12-2016

Evolutionary Enlightenment

ANDREW COHEN





Traditional enlightenment is what I learned from my teacher, but Evolutionary Enlightenment is what I have discovered over the last three decades.During this time, I have found a new source of emotional, psychological and spiritual liberation that easily exists within anyone's reach. To put it simply , enlightenment is evolving. It is no longer found only in the bliss of timeless Being; it is found also in the ecstatic urgency of evolutionary Becoming. We are all part of a developmental process that had a beginning in time, and that is going somewhere.When we apply the perspective of evolution to the nature of enlightenment, it changes everything. From the perspective of the eternal timeless ground, the traditional teachers are right. The highest spiritual truth is that nothing ever happened, you and I were never born, and the big bang never occurred. That's enlightenment. But from the perspective of evolution, the entire picture changes. Time is a linear process. Fourteen billion years of development have produced all of manifestation -the entire known universe and everything that's contained within it, including its greatest mystery: the capacity for consciousness itself. Our own emerging desire for spiritual freedom is not separate from the impulse that is driving the entire process. I call this the Evolutionary Impulse. Evolutionary Enlightenment calls on us to awaken to both the timeless peace of Being and the relentless passion of the Evolutionary Impulse.

Some laugh it off, others fume at NAAC score

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





DU Teachers See Ratings As A Ploy To Further `Privatisation Agenda'

Many in Delhi University have taken the National Assessment and Accreditation Council's (NAAC) ratings with a healthy dose of scepticism. It's not surprising that the CGPA scores and the inevitable ranking of them do not match either the public perception or the actual worth of the institutions judged. Consequently , St Stephen's ranking below less popular colleges in DU is mildly embarrassing but not to be taken too seriously.“The quality of teachers hasn't gone down,“ said Nandita Narain who teaches mathematics at the college. “Students come to us for the lectures, tutorials, extra-curricular activities and the atmosphere. We haven't lost any of that.“ She maintained that the interaction with faculty members had gone well but the one with students may have been less cordial.
St Stephen's, as another senior teacher pointed out, was going through a phase of turmoil when the NAAC process was undertaken. Practically all of 2015 was spent in unsavoury battles with various students--one over an e-magazine and another, a sexual harassment case--that went to court. This, together with attempts to amend the college's constitution led to “severe polarisation“ in the college.
“NAAC requires you to have an internal quality assessment committee, which includes the most senior teachers. The committee formed had new, junior teachers and most of the data was not provided at all,“ he said. The tea cher alleged that the former principal had himself complained of the faculty being “fossilised.“ “He (the ex-principal) was trying to tell everyone that the college is going to the dogs because of the teachers,“ he said. “The NAAC score is a complete misrepresentation.“
NAAC may not capture the real picture even in times of peace. As Narain opines, members of the Delhi University Teachers' Association at least don't take the NAAC terribly seriously“. “We see this as a ploy to further their privatisation agenda by linking NAAC to funding. Those doing well will be pushed toward autonomy ,“ she said.
Academics fear this will be used to “de-link“ the colleges with better grades from the universities and get them to “generate their own funds.“ “This means dismembering the university and could mean massive fee hike,“ said Rudrashish Chakraborty of the English department at Kirori Mal College. That, in turn, will impact diversity that NAAC seeks to reward.
Chakraborty doesn't believe the NAAC score reflects the real picture. He helped with the process at KMC, that's received a 3.54 score--the third highest in DU so far--more out of “loyalty to the institution“ than any faith in the value of the accredita tion. “NAAC follows a one-size-fits-all norm, a uniform set for universities and colleges.That can't work. It doesn't take into account the material conditions of different institutions and how they survive.The only objective of this is to give legitimacy to private educational institutions in terms of grades,“ he said.
Both Chakraborty and Narain point out that there's “disproportionate weightage“ to research in undergraduate college and to parameters over which colleges may not have a lot of control--infrastructure for public-funded institutions, curriculum, leadership when they are ruled centrally by the university administration.
“The criteria have to be finely calibrated keeping in mind the diversity of the education system but these considerations are hardly factored in,“ said Chakraborty .“NAAC doesn't have a mechanism to recognise the contribution of teachers in the classroom, that is, good teaching which benefits students. It ends up promoting self-interest in the form of individual research and projects at the cost of collective interest, especially that of students.“
Facilities for research for non-science subjects are hard to come by too and how do you increase support for students without funds? “This is a very mechanical way of looking at things. There's nothing academic about it, no depth or serious exploration of the actual problems. Where there should be a surprise visit, we have a three-day carnival,“ he retorted.
The good it does is incidental to the actual process and purpose of the exercise.KMC and several other colleges refurbished and augmented their infrastructure for the NAAC assessment round.“It brought the college that had been in a state of decline together. It arrested that decline. It created a bond between all the stakeholders--teachers, students, parents--and created a social bond in the professional space,“ added Chakraborty .

Source: Times of India, 28-12-2016

Bahrain to host 8th World Education Summit

Bahrain Bayan School and Elets Technomedia will jointly organise the eighth edition of ‘World Education Summit (WES)’ in the Kingdom of Bahrain from March 8-9, 2017.

To discuss the modalities of the mega event, Dr Shaikha Mai Al Otaibi, chairperson of Bayan School; Dr Ravi Gupta, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd and Seema Gupta, Project Manager of Elet’s Digital Learning magazine, met with Dr Majid bin Ali Al-Nuaimi, the Education Minister of Bahrain.

Dr Al-Nuaimi stressed the importance of the pioneering project which, he said, “will benefit the educational community in Bahrain and abroad”. The Organisations and Committees director Kefaya Al-Enzour also attended the meeting.

WES-Bahrain 2017 will see vibrant sessions on various aspects of school, higher, vocational and technical education besides skill development. The Summit will witness presence of Global Educational Thought Leaders, Policy Makers and Industry Leaders to discuss and deliberate upon various aspects of the development of knowledge society.

Bahrain Bayan School is among the top schools of the Arab monarchy in the Persian Gulf that focuses on values and culture.

Recently, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Deputy Prime Minister, Bahrain inaugurated a state-of-the-art science and technology building at Bayan School.

Source: Digital Learning, 23-12-2016

A little bit of hope

The lifting of the ban on a newspaper, a birthday phone call, are small steps. They could be a beginning

For Kashmir, this has been a year of greater tumult — from the death of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and the political uncertainty that followed, to the violence, clampdowns and casualties after the killing of home-grown militant Burhan Wani in South Kashmir. As the year ends, however, there may be reason for cautious hope. The Jammu and Kashmir government has lifted the ban on Kashmir Reader, imposed three months ago on grounds of being a threat to “public tranquillity”. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has also promised to review the cases against young men who are currently incarcerated and did not commit “serious crimes”. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Nawaz Sharif to wish him on his birthday and Pakistan released 220 Indian fishermen.

The growing chasm between the government and the people of Kashmir became stark almost immediately after Wani’s death on July 8. As Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti told this newspaper in an interview (IE, December 18), “I knew that it would have repercussions (Wani’s death)… But it will go to such an extent, I had never thought…”. The chief minister has expressed anger, helplessness and sadness — the politics of Kashmir and the aspirations of its people were being influenced and shaped by political actors from beyond the constitutional and democratic spectrum. The use of pellet guns by security forces left around 100 dead, 1,000 partially or fully blind and another 12,000 injured, many of them young men, even children. Security forces too faced casualties — some estimates put the injured at thousands. Over 500 people were arrested under the Public Security Act — including human rights activist Khurram Parvez, released later — and about 6,000 people in all.

The publication of a newspaper and a birthday phone call are small steps, but they could be a beginning if they are built on over the next year and beyond. They could indicate that the governments, both in the state and Centre, can look at Kashmir from beyond just the prism of strategic and security interests. Political and diplomatic measures will be key to bringing back dialogue as a way to solve differences. Hopefully, these steps are a precursor to that conversation.

Source: Indian Express, 27-12-2016

India’s missing girl children

It is a cruel irony of a fast-growing India that there are fewer and fewer girls as a ratio of total births, as a result of complex factors that include parental preference. New data from the Civil Registration System of the Registrar General of India point to the hardening of the pattern, with a fall in sex ratio at birth from 898 girls to 1,000 boys in 2013, to 887 a year later. This depressing trend is consistent with evidence from the Census figures of 2001 and 2011. What is shocking is that the overall data mask the horror of particular districts and panchayats falling well below the national ratio, especially in the zero-to-six years assessment category. The scourge has, in some cases, prompted the Supreme Court to take note of the situation, and the National Human Rights Commission to ask for an explanation from State governments. In the understanding of the Centre, which it has conveyed to Parliament, girls stand a poor chance at survival because there is a “socio-cultural mindset” that prefers sons, girls are seen as a burden, and family size has begun to shrink. The BJP-led government responded to the silent crisis with the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign, which focusses on the prevention of sex-selective abortions, creation of opportunities for education and protection of girl children. Now that the scheme is set to enter its third year in January, there should be a speedy assessment of its working, particularly in districts with a poor sex ratio where it has been intensively implemented.

A wider assessment needs to be made on why States such as Tamil Nadu with a strong social development foundation have slipped on sex ratio at birth (834), going by the CRS data for 2014. The cradle baby scheme was started in 1992 in Tamil Nadu to raise the survival chances of girl children by encouraging mothers to give them anonymously for adoption. Yet, the latest numbers, together with the persistence of the programme after 24 years, and 260 babies being abandoned in just one centre over a six-year period, make it clear that national policy has achieved little in real terms. Clearly, there is a need to go beyond slogans and institute tangible schemes. Enforcement of the law that prohibits determination of the sex of the foetus must go hand in hand with massive social investments to protect both immediate and long-term prospects of girls — in the form of cash incentives through registration of births, a continuum of health care, early educational opportunities and social protection. Half-measures cannot produce a dramatic reversal of the shameful national record.

Source: The Hindu, 1-12-2016

Ending the Manipur blockade

The blockade of the national highways leading to the Manipur valley, called by the United Naga Council (UNC), has been in place since November 1. This has severely affected life in the State, with shortages and escalating costs of essential supplies such as fuel and food, even as demonetisation has exacerbated problems. Blockades like this are not new to Manipur. In 2011, there was initially a hundred-day-plus blockade enforced by Kuki-led groups, and countered later by Naga groups, which together had a debilitating effect on life in Manipur. This time the blockade is in place to oppose the creation of new districts by the Okram Ibobi Singh government. On December 9 it issued a gazette notification for the creation of seven new districts by bifurcating seven (of a total of nine) districts. This decision had as much to do with long-pending demands — in particular, for a new Kuki-majority district to be carved out of the larger Senapati hill district — as with easing administrative access to far-flung areas from the district headquarters. With State Assembly elections around the corner, the decision by the Congress-led government was also a desperate measure to woo the hill residents. While residents and groups in the new districts have welcomed the decision, the UNC has protested, alleging that areas with a Naga population have been divided and that the lack of consultation is a violation of commitments made by both the Centre and the State in various memoranda of understanding.

Already, just as in 2011, counter-blockades have been called by other groups, this time in the Meitei-dominated valley, and there has been violence both in the hills and in the valley. The State government last month sought the Centre’s assistance to end the blockade, given that New Delhi has been in peace talks with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) group that supports the UNC. While the Centre has sent paramilitary forces to both Nagaland and Manipur, the inaction in clearing the blockade of the national highways is puzzling. Efforts to impose a political solution through blockades that cut arterial routes supplying essential goods to various areas of Manipur are a cynical ploy. Such action heightens ethnic polarisation and threatens, once again, the fragile peace in the State. Ideally there should be a dialogue that involves all major stakeholders — the State government, groups that support redistricting, the UNC and the Centre. But first, there should be zero tolerance towards all such blockades.

Source: The Hindu, 22-12-2016

Interview to be key criterion for JNU admissions from next academic session

Admission to research courses at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) would be based on an interview from the next academic session, with the entrance test being reduced to a “qualifying exam” in which the student is required to bag a minimum score of 50%.

The academic council (AC) reportedly approved a University Grants Commission (UGC) gazette notification on eligibility and procedure for admission to M Phil and PhD courses on Monday, amid protests by students and teachers. “Candidates who qualify in the entrance test will be made eligible for the viva-voce or the interview. The final admission will be done on the basis of the interview,” JNU registrar Pramod Kumar told HT.

He admitted that students and faculty members have asked the university to write to the UGC, seeking clarity on the new system.

JNU officials said the new UGC rule will apply to all universities across the country.

Under the present system, students have to score in the written exam as well as the interview. “The weightage is 70% for the written test and 30% for the viva-voce,” an official said.

The move comes amid demands by its students’ union to decrease the weightage given to the interview. JNU students’ union (JNUSU) president Mohit Pandey said the move would change the character of the university. “Most students come from the marginalised and deprived sections of society. There is scope of bias at the interview level. We asked the university to reduce the interview’s weightage (from 30% to 15%) to ensure that no applicant faces discrimination. But what they have done now amounts to complete disaster,” he added.

However, AC members dubbed the university’s claim about passing the UGC notification as false because “no discussion had taken place” on the issue. “No such proposal was passed because the vice-chancellor did not allow members to speak. You cannot pass it without discussion,” said Jayati Ghosh, a member.

A statement from the university said the Monday meeting – where the decision was taken – happened after the AC meeting was adjourned on Friday. “The adjourned AC meeting concluded on December 26, and all the remaining items on the agenda were discussed and approved. The most significant among them was the adoption of the 5th May 2016 UGC gazette notification on admission procedures for various academic programmes and courses,” it elaborated.

The statement also mentioned a “handful of faculty members who tried their best to disrupt the meeting by constantly shouting” at the chairperson. “Somebody from this group called in students who were protesting outside the venue,” it said.

However, JNUSU said students entered the hall only after the meeting was over.

Source: Hindustan Times, 26-12-2016

Why Things Happen

VIVEK DESAI





The mind wonders: why did I get a lower grade than my classmate whom I helped study? Why did my co-worker get a raise when I worked harder than him? Why did my wallet get stolen? Basically , the famous conundrum: `why do bad things happen to good people?' Life seems unfair and it is not surprising that it is difficult for many to believe in a God who is just and good. In any scientific analysis, a conclusion is drawn based on the data points acquired. Who has acquired all the data points of life? Everything is constantly in flux, so who is aware of all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that will happen?
Who knows it all, really? Only nature, for nature has an inbuilt memory known as `karma', the action-reaction law.Each individual harvests the fruits of the seeds he has sowed; he himself might have forgotten (or be unaware of) when, where and which seeds he sowed but divine nature never forgets, for divine is of the nature of awareness.
Everything is, therefore, simply an outcome of one's past deeds. In the light of this, no one is innocent and no one is guilty , there is no one to give credit to and no one to blame for the situation one finds oneself in. It is tempting to point the finger at the other but the onus really lies on oneself.This demands self-investigation. At the very moment the mind passes judgement, one experiences disharmony with the world.

Are You Making Peace With Your Ignorance?

Pulkit Sharma





Most of us, at some point in life, might have felt confined by external circumstances, personal relationships and internal conflicts. Deep down, there is always a thirst for greater freedom and people try to overcome constraining forces. And yet, each freedom won is accompanied by newer bondages. After several such attempts, the individual might feel disillusioned and give up. But the real source of freedom lies within and one can achieve thorough emancipation by transcending one's own nature.In the first book of Yoga Sutras, the Samadhi Pada, Maharishi Patanjali shows us the path to complete freedom.According to him, within each one of us exists the Purusha, the cosmic Self, eternal bliss, pure awareness that is beyond time and space, witnessing all that happens. Rather than uniting with this Truth, we tend to identify with the contents of our mind. The mind is meant to be just an instrument of perception and consists of factual knowledge, false knowledge, fantasy , sleep and memory . Each of these components take turns to manifest in our consciousness with great intensity . Due to our ignorance, we get carried away with the force of these currents. We forget that we are Purusha, pure Consciousness and not these fleeting expressions.
Until we still these distractions and accord Purusha its original position, there will be little respite from bondage and suffering. Given our many psychological vulnerabilities t and external temptations that compound our ignorance, this spe seems a difficult task. Perhaps tr that is why many people make peace with ignorance. But for those who zealously seek light and do not want to settle for any approximation of the light, yoga is the way to go. Nowadays, when beginners come to learn yoga they often want to learn techniques to make swift progress.However, despite mastering one technique or other, people remain far from instituting the mind in stillness. The reason being that in order to progress, what is needed first is the cultivation of a yogic attitude; grasping a technique is secondary to that.
In the Samadhi Pada, Maha rishi Patanjali elucidates the right yogic attitude. According to him, abhyasa, continuous endeavour; vairagya, non attachment and ishvara-pranid hanad-va, surrender to the Divine, are important aspects to be cultivated in oneself. Perhaps one can practise any yoga technique but what makes it effective sa, the incessant desire and effort is abhyasa, the incessant desire and effort to see beyond distractions and imperfections of the mind. The ardent seeker continues to make this effort despite repeated hardships and failures. Secondly, one must develop vairagya keeping in mind that attachments arise from a false sense of separateness between us and others. Therefore, they do not represent the Truth and salvation lies in moving away from these illusory cravings and experiencing the wholeness.
Ishvara, the Divine, is the source of all creation, bliss, insight and wisdom. He is the greatest guru of all times and has assumed different names and forms in different periods to enlighten seekers. In order to make any progress in yoga, we need to surrender ourselves to the Divine and pray for grace. Divine grace alone is sufficient to accomplish our yoga and make us liberated for eternity . Therefore, let's uproot all that is non-conducive to yoga in our nature. Lack of effort, worldly cravings and egoism could be replaced by determination, detachment and constant surrender to the Divine in order to experience liberation.

950m Indians not connected to Net: Study

New Delhi: IANS





At a time when the government is aiming to convert cash economy of the country to a digital one, a study on Monday provided a reality check to this move -nearly a billion Indians do not have Internet connections.Though mobile data plans in India are among the cheapest in the world and average retail price of smartphones is steadily declining, yet nearly 950 million people -out of a population of 1.25 billion in the country -or over three-fourths, do not have access to Internet, according to the joint study done by Assocham and Deloitte.
“Internet penetration is increasing in India, the access to affordable broadband, smart devices and monthly data packages is required to spread digital literacy to make their ends meet,“ said the study . The study titled `Strategic national measures to combat cybercrime' said: “Existing government infrastructure assets should be further leveraged for provision of digital services at remote locations.
The Modi-government started emphasising on digital economy after it embarked on a demonetisation drive on November 8.

Source: Times of India, 27-12-2016

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 51, Issue No. 52, 24 Dec, 2016

Editorials

Manipur’s Season of Sorrow

The Dalit Question

Reducing Suicides

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago : End of the Beginning

Commentary

Journalistic Discourse(s) and the Adivasi - Making of Space and Image

Joseph Bara

Bernie Sanders and the Afterlives of Occupy Wall Street

Zaheer Baber

Law and Society

Debating Contempt of Court

Alok Prasanna Kumar

Water Governance

All Is Not Lost, But Water Sector Reforms Must Go Ahead

P S Vijayshankar

Sustaining the Liquid Mosaic - Longer Steps Needed

Nilanjan Ghosh, Jayanta Bandyopadhyay

New Structures of Governance Needed

Vinod K Gaur

From Policy to Practice - Principles of Water Governance

Rochi Khemka

An Important Step in Reforming Water Governance

K J Joy

Welcome First Step to Much-needed Change

Shripad Dharmadhikary

Merits Undeniable despite Drawbacks

Nirmal Sengupta

Water Governance Reform - A Hopeful Starting Point

Rajeswari S Raina

21st Century Water Governance - A Mirage or an Opportunity?

Rohini Nilekani

Evolution of Irrigation Sector

Aditi Mukherji

The Way Forward

Mihir Shah

Comment on the Proposed National Water Commission

Pradip Khandwalla

Focus on Sustainable Groundwater Management

Rajiv Sinha, Alexander L Densmore

Focusing on the Essentials - Integrated Monitoring and Analysis of Water Resources

Sharachchandra Lele, Veena Srinivasan

Book Reviews

Rejuvenation of Punjab’s Economy

Charan singh

Pakistan, the Landed State

Shozab Raza

Perspectives

Coping with Climate Change - The Story of the Maltos of Jharkhand

Hoinu Kipgen Lamtinhoi

Special Articles

Thinking Clearly about Suicide in India—III - Youth and Young Adult Suicide in Australia and India

Peter Mayer

Not Quite Black - Black Skin in Popular Indian Cinema

Vedita Cowaloosur

Decentralising Accountability - Anti-corruption Experiment from Sikkim

Sandeep Tambe, Ash Bahadur Subba, Jigme Basi, Sarika Pradhan, B B Rai Sandeep Tambe

Web Exclusives

The One-man Government in New Delhi

Kingshuk Nag

Questioning the “Phenomenal Success” of Aadhaar-linked Direct Benefit Transfers for LPG

Rahul Lahoti

Letters

Revisiting 11 Years of RTI

Rajvir S Dhaka

Haryana Demands Its Rightful Share

Prem Singh Dahiya, Krishan Swarup Gorakhpuria, Jagmohan Lal, Dyanand Chahal

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Appointments/programmes/announcements 

Appointments/Programmes/Announcements

Glimpses from the Past

A Man for All Seasons

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