Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol - XLIX No. 37, September 13, 2014 

• Editorials

The devastation caused by the floods could have been avoided with better planning.

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The Forgotten Ones

Vol - XLIX No. 37, September 13, 2014 

• Editorials

Only a strict monitoring system can abolish the misery of India's under-trial prisoners.

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Comment In Defence of Doordarshan Sanjay Srivastava Public broadcasting is ironically now shining the beacon on reasoned debate in the media. Read more	H T Parekh Finance Column Regulating Managerial Pay in Banking T T Ram Mohan Managerial pay disparity between private sector and public sector banking in India is widening. Should the regulators address this by hiking public sector pay scales, or by curbing private sector pay? Drawing from international policy responses,... Read more
After The Planning Commission Yojana Bhawan: Obiter Dictum Dilip M Nachane Now that the government has decided to abolish the Planning Commission and create a new body in its place, the question is what form and shape should the replacement take? Three articles discuss different aspects of the old and the likely new... Read more	After The Planning Commission The Reformed ‘Planning Commission’ The Way Forward Santosh Mehrotra The government must recognise that one source of China’s strategic economic growth is an institution with strategic planning capacities, the National Development and Reform Commission. The success of China with the NDRC tells us that fiscal... Read more
After The Planning Commission Reorienting the Plan Process and Revitalising the Planning Commission Rajeeva Ratna Shah What needs to be done to give the plan process a new content and direction, and make the proposed National Development and Reform Commission an effective body? Read more	Commentary Cleaning the Ganga River What Needs To Be Done Differently Vijay Jagannathan The central government has made cleaning of River Ganga one of its foremost priorities. A former administrator involved with the Ganga Action Plan suggests that a bottoms-up approach of involving local communities and stakeholders in the... Read more
Commentary The 10% Rule and the LoP Can Conventions Circumvent Law? Akaant Mittal The speaker has decided to follow conventions rather than jurisprudence in her decision not to accord the "leader of opposition" status to the leader of the Congress legislative party in the Lok Sabha. Conventions cannot supersede the... Read more	Commentary Communal Riots in Uttar Pradesh Badri Narayan After the 1990s, communal incidents in India have spread to rural areas, and they occur on a smaller scale, but with much larger frequency. In this strategy, the making of a communal consciousness requires a string of communal moments that... Read more
Commentary Elementary Education of the Urban Poor Policy Context, Text and Practice in Delhi Monika Banerjee Through a two-way process comprising text analysis of the policy framework of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme and analysis of empirical data collected through interaction with policy implementers, teachers, students, experts, etc, this... Read more	Commentary Afghanistan beyond 2014 Quest for a New Policy Ambrish Dhaka Analysing the political conditions inside Afghanistan, this article looks at the challenges before the new regime in Afghanistan. Further, it looks at the increasing infl uence of the Loya Jirga and analyses the strategic implications for India... Read more
Commentary India's Constitutional Historian Granville Austin (1927-2014) Vikram Raghavan A tribute to the American scholar Granville Austin who wrote two landmark books on the making and then working of the Constitution of India. Read more	Book Reviews Whither Imperialism? Chirashree Dasgupta Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire by Radhika Desai (New York: Pluto Press), 2013; pp xiv+ 313, £19.50 (PB). Read more
Book Reviews Seeing the Past through Modern Eyes Xonzoi Barbora Knowing India: Colonial and Modern Constructions of the Past edited by Cynthia Talbot (New Delhi: Yoda Press), 2011; pp ix-409; Rs 595 (paperback). Read more	Insight Polyester Prince Revisited Paranjoy Guha Thakurta The polyester wars of the mid-1980s that pitted one industry group against another are back with us. On the basis of an investigation begun by the United Progressive Alliance government, the National Democratic Alliance government has imposed an... Read more
Special Articles Assam's Tale of Witch-hunting and Indigeneity Debarshi Prasad Nath In spite of the fact that at one point of time it was believed that globalisation would lead to a process of cultural homogenisation and reduction of difference, the local has actually resurfaced more strongly in the present. The perceived threat... Read more	Special Articles Invasion of Educational Universe by Neo-liberal Economic Thinking A Civilisational Casualty? Arup Maharatna The early 1960s witnessed attempts at constrictive reinterpretation of the role and purpose of education in terms of ideological premises, concepts and methodology of neoclassical economics, with "economics of education" being founded.... Read more
Special Articles The Elusive Nature of Educational Incentives Disha Nawani This paper examines the assumptions underlying educational incentive schemes with the help of data collected on the status and implementation of three such schemes for minority communities in Maharashtra. Though the lacunae in the design and... Read more	Notes Lessons from Science: Need for a Rethink of Concepts in Economics Dodo J Thampapillai The recognition of two important concepts in science, namely, the assimilative capacity of nature (resilience) and the entropy law of thermodynamics enables the formulation of an alternative framework for factor utilisation in economics. This... Read more
Glimpses from the Past / Web Exclusives The Politics and Economics of "Intermediate Regimes" K N Raj The discussion on "intermediate regimes" was carried out in the pages of the EPW through the mid 70s. We present one of the earliest essays on "intermediate regimes" by K N Raj for our readers.  Read more	Reports From the States / Web Exclusives Divided Presents and Pasts The Power of Narratives in Contemporary Kashmir Chitralekha Zutshi Kashmir’s rich historical traditions, replete with stories and folklore drawn from a multilingual tradition of historical composition in Sanskrit, Persian, and Kashmiri, get glossed over when its past is neatly divided into Hindu and Muslim...

MNREGS beneficiaries paid Rs. 37 cr a year bribe for jobs: study

It estimates that 24 per cent of the MNREGS allocations by the Centre were misappropriated in 2009-10, down from 41.5 per cent in 2006-07.

A study to calculate the size of the black economy commissioned by the UPA Government has reported that a very large number of professionals earning taxable income from profession are not filing their returns of income. It found that barely 6.7 per cent of the registered chartered accountants – the professionals whose services tax payers hire to file their returns – admitted to having taxable professional incomes in 2009-10. This raises obvious questions for the Income Tax Department, the report says.

The report finds that just 1.8 per cent of the registered legal professionals filed tax returns in 2009-10. However, 42.8 per cent of the registered medical professionals and 35.2 percent of nursing homes did so in the same year.

There is enough statistical evidence to suggest that there is considerable under-reporting of professional receipts and inflation of expenses, even by those professionals who are filing their income returns, the study notes.The study has also concluded that the increase in the number of taxpayers filing returns has been very low, and that too during a period when all economic indicators were pointing to a huge growth in the size of the famed Indian middle class. In the five years between 2005-06 and 2009-10 there were 5.4 crore new pan card holders but only 43 lakh new taxpayers filed returns.The authors of the report also studied some flagship social programmes to assess the generation of black money through leakages in expenditures on them. The report estimates that 24 per cent of the MNREGS allocations by the Centre were misappropriated in 2009-10, down from 41.5 per cent in 2006-07.In the same year, the report estimates that bribes worth about Rs. 37 crore paid by NREGS beneficiaries across the country to get jobs. The average bribe paid was Rs. 65.

he Hindu had earlier reported that among the findings of a confidential report commissioned by the government is that driven substantially by the higher education sector, real estate deals and mining income, India’s black economy could now be nearly three-quarters the size of its reported Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The report was accessed exclusively by The Hindu.

Since there were no “reliable” estimates of black money generated in India and held within and outside the country, the UPA Government had commissioned the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), linked to the Finance Ministry in March 2011, to estimate the black money in India and held overseas by Indians.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money constituted by the Modi Government had on May 27 in compliance with a Supreme Court direction is studying the report. Though the report was submitted to the Finance Ministry in December 2013, neither the UPA Finance Minister P Chidambaram placed it in Parliament nor has his successor Arun Jaitley.

Most productive session in a decade

Members of the 16th Lok Sabha worked harder in the budget session than they have in the last 10 years, parliamentary data shows. Less time was lost to disruptions and more parliamentary and legislative business was conducted.

PRS Legislative Research, an independent, non-profit parliamentary research think-tank, compared data for the just-concluded budget session with that of sessions for the last 10 years.

The Lok Sabha worked for 104 per cent of the sanctioned time and the Rajya Sabha for 106 per cent, they found. “Though the Rajya Sabha witnessed more disruptions than the Lok Sabha, it made up for the lost time by working late on several days,” PRS found.While the 2009 budget session saw similarly high productivity in the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha in 2009 was not as productive. Overall, the 2014 budget session saw the highest productivity since the 2005 monsoon session.

Question Hour was also the most productive that it has been in 10 years; 24 per cent of questions were answered orally in the Lok Sabha, while it was 15 per cent in the Rajya Sabha.

However, financial business took up less of the Lok Sabha’s time than it did in the last two budget sessions, with 94 per cent of budget demands passed without discussion. In all, financial business took up just a third of the Lok Sabha’s time, while non-legislative work — like debates on drought and communal violence — took up 38 per cent of the time.Another 12 per cent of the time was spent on legislative business. Six Bills were passed, leaving 67 Bills pending in Parliament. 246 of the 314 first-time MPs participated in debates during the session. On an average, a first-timer took part in 3.7 debates while an experienced Member of Parliament participated in 5.7 debates in this session.

India has 3rd-highest number of HIV-infected people: UN

India has the third-highest number of people living with HIV in the world with 2.1 million Indians accounting for about four out of 10 people infected with the deadly virus in the Asia—Pacific region, according to a UN report.

The report by UNAIDS, the United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS, said that 19 million of the 35 million people living with the virus globally do not know their HIV—positive status and so ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 will require smart scale—up to close the gap.

The first—ever UNAIDS ‘Gap Report’ said after sub—Saharan Africa, the region with the largest number of people living with HIV is Asia and the Pacific.

At the end of 2013, there were an estimated 4.8 million people living with HIV across the region.

Six countries - China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam - account for more than 90 per cent of the people living with HIV in the region.

“India has the third largest number of people living with HIV in the world — 2.1 million at the end of 2013 — and accounts for about 4 out of 10 people living with HIV in the region,” the report said.

It said HIV treatment coverage is only 36 per cent in India, where 51 per cent of AIDS—related deaths occur.

In India, the numbers of new HIV infections declined by 19 per cent, yet it still accounted for 38 per cent of all new HIV infections in the region.

The proportions of people who do not have access to antiretroviral therapy treatment are 64 per cent in India.

In Asia and the Pacific, the number of AIDS—related deaths fell by 37 per cent between 2005 and 2013, the report said.

India recorded a 38 per cent decline in AIDS—related deaths between 2005 and 2013. During this period, there was a major scale up of access to HIV treatment, it said.

At the end of 2013, more than 700,000 people were on antiretroviral therapy, the second largest number of people on treatment in any single country.

In India, HIV prevalence among female sex workers dropped from 10.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent but it increased in the states of Assam, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, the report said.

A look at the HIV prevalence among sex workers:

(Source: UN GAP report)

The estimated population size of sex workers is 868,000, of which 2.8 per cent is HIV—positive. In India, HIV prevalence among women who inject drugs was nearly twice that or more than the figures for their male counterparts, it said.

Keywords: UN AIDS, HIV infected people, India sex workers

Outreach plans for scientists

The decision of the Union Minister of Science and Technology to tap the talent pool of about 6,000 scientists from institutions and centres that come under the umbrella of the Department of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Earth Sciences and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to give lectures to school and college students is a good initiative. Scientists dedicating 12 hours a year each to engage with students to impart scientific knowledge and inculcate a scientific temper in them is bound to go a long way in attracting young talent to science and grooming them. This is a much-needed step as India, like several other countries, faces an alarming situation of steadily decreasing numbers of school students opting for science, and a lack of long-term interest among those who have chosen it. While the intent behind the initiative is good, a coordinated approach by different Ministries would be more effective in achieving the goal. Not involving scientists from the 32 institutions of the Indian Council of Medical Research and similar nodal bodies is unjustified. The lapse becomes all the more glaring as the outreach programmes are to be made mandatory and scientists’ performance is to be evaluated once every three years. As it stands, the initiative could cause resentment among the 6,000 scientists as their counterparts in institutions that come under other nodal agencies face no such compulsions. The government should act swiftly to ensure that all the scientists working in government institutions become involved in student outreach programmes. The metrics of their performance can be used to reward them while assessing their research proposals and promotions.

Several institutions and individuals in the U.S. engage in student outreach programmes and India has a great deal to learn from their experience. We should make sure that as we belatedly embark on this ambitious goal, we conscientiously avoid committing the same mistakes that have been seen elsewhere. The first and foremost pitfall to be avoided is compelling scientists to teach science by replacing teachers. Teaching should be made active rather than passive. Excellent results can be achieved when scientists guide students and teachers to do real science that is open-ended, inquiry-based and driven by a sense of exploration — which only scientists are best-equipped to offer. This will foster critical thinking and imagination and impart skills of scientific investigation. Also, it will arouse children’s curiosity and set off a series of questions prior to, during and after a project. Information and knowledge thus gained remain indelible, and science becomes fun. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s work of guiding students from a handful of engineering colleges to build satellites, which were eventually launched, is one of the best examples of imaginative student outreach programmes.

Keywords: CSIR, Scientists, Researchers, Schools, Colleges, HRD Ministry, KIRAN, free lectures

India's first step towards Mars is worth the price. [Infographic]

India is different than many wealthier countries with respect to population and resource management. So creatively making things in limited budget or as the Indians call it ‘jugaad’ has become the national strength. 

Click here to enlarge. 

(Enlarge the Infographic here.)

With just a fortnight away from making history in the Martian atmosphere, India’s MOM is a feat in its own right. It is only a $75 million mission that has showcased to the world that you don’t have to empty your banks to reach Mars. 

It is unarguably true that India faces significant developmental challenges that need considerable action and lot of money. Nevertheless, stopping space missions will not stop poverty or development! 

However, “The budget of MOM, is just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year’s space-based hit, “Gravity.” And, Diwali firecracker market in India costs Rs.5000 Cr, in this budget, ISRO can send an average of 10 Mangalyaans every year at the cost of Rs. 450 Cr to Mars!

But how did ISRO manage to make technologically advanced MOM cost effective?

Cost effectiveness is the mantra of many IT companies in India and ISRO is not an exception. Most obvious way to save cost is by saving on engineering talent. Recruiting young engineers saved India 15% of the Mars mission budget. Of all the 2500 scientists and engineers working on Mangalyaan , majority are in the age group of 27 to 32. 

Terri Bresenham’s , “if necessity is the mother of innovation, constraint is the mother of frugal innovation” correctly suits this Indian scenario where a strict development schedule contributed to its low cost. The task was scheduled on an hourly basis, in order to meet the November 2013 geometry of the sun, mars and earth for the launch. 

Like the Americans, Europeans or other space agencies, India did not build a qualification model, a flight model and a flight spare model of MOM. The modest budget only allowed one robust spacecraft that is ready to fly as soon as it is ready. 

As Mr. Radhakrishnan, the chairman of ISRO explains the cost effectiveness of MOM, ours is the ‘Old is gold’ philosophy. The launch vehicle used in the mars orbiter mission was developed in 1970 and has been successfully used since then as GSLV launcher. 

The Indian secularism has everything to do with its participation in the space race. Many systems like altitude controller, gyro, star tracker and other sensors were not tailor made for MOM but kept the same across many ISRO missions. Although a reliable backup is always handy in case of emergencies. 

However, India is no longer poverty-ridden. It is developing at a decent pace and is learning to balance in house development, along with international competition and what better than showing off its abilities once in a while, by shooting at the red planet!

Let the countdown begin!