Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

An Empty Verdict

Vol - XLIX No. 47, November 22, 2014 

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The Machil case will make little difference unless AFSPA is withdrawn.

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Relief at the WTO

Vol - XLIX No. 47, November 22, 2014 

• Editorials

The public distribution system is out of scrutiny, but this is no clear “victory”.

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Editorials The World's Oldest Debate The debate for and against legalisation of sex work must get more attention. Read more	Commentary Doesn't India Already Have an IPR Policy? Sunil Mani The National Democratic Alliance government has constituted the IPR Think Tank which, among other things, is to draft the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy. India may not have a policy per se but it has a strong legislation on IPRs, a... Read more
Commentary Strategic Dilemma of the Indian Left Arup Baisya While the Communist Party of India and the CPI (Marxist) follow a strategy based solely on the category of a "war of position", the CPI (Maoist) is trying to implement a strategy based entirely on a "war of manoeuvre". The... Read more	Commentary On a Wild Goose Chase for Black Money in Switzerland D Ravi Kanth The noisy call to "bring back black money" from Swiss bank accounts of Indians ignores the larger and growing deployment of illegal wealth in financial centres like Dubai. It is also overlooked that such money is rarely kept in the... Read more
Commentary Redefining Domestic Violence Experiences of Dalit Women D Sujatha Domestic violence against dalit women has not caught the attention of social science researchers. The National Family Health Survey 2006 showed that the prevalence of violence is much higher against women belonging to the scheduled castes and... Read more	Commentary Climate Change Adaptation Linking Assessments with Actions Jyotiraj Patra Climate change vulnerability assessments as well as adaptation actions in India are on the rise. Ensuring efficiency and cost-effectiveness of these actions is essential to tackle the uncertainties and complexities. This article suggests ways to... Read more
Commentary Occupational Health and Safety in India The Need for Reform Gurumurthy Ramachandran, Panneer Sigamani In light of the focus on the manufacturing sector it is important to scrutinise the existing occupational health and safety provisions in Indian law and their implementation. This article argues that the current disregard for workers' health... Read more	Book Reviews Insights on Film Piracy Lawrence Liang Piracy in the Indian Film Industry: Copyright and Cultural Consonance edited by Arul George Scaria (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press), 2014; pp xiv + 324, Rs 795. Read more
Book Reviews The Revolutionary, Literature and the Interlocutor Samir Banerjee Between Love and Freedom: The Revolutionary in the Hindi Novel by Nikhil Govind (New Delhi: Routledge), 2014; pp xvi+180, Rs 645. Read more	Book Reviews Transnational Organised Crime Its Impact on People and Democracies Chittaranjan Satapathy Transnational Organized Crime: Analyses of a Global Challenge to Democracy edited by Heinrich-Boll tiftung and Regine Schoenberg, 2013; Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, pp 308, price not indicated. Read more
Perspectives Jawaharlal Nehru's Radical Cosmopolitanism Neera Chandhoke Nehruviannon-alignment is finished, South-South solidarity remains a dream, and anti-imperialism appears today as a quaint remnant of a past, even though imperialism is alive and kicking. In the process we have lost out on something that is... Read more	Special Articles Masculine Spaces Rural Male Culture in North India Prem Chowdhry In rural north India, there are thriving and exclusive all-male spaces in the villages which play an important role in constructing gender identities. These extend from the home to the public domain. Reserved and used almost exclusively by the... Read more
Special Articles Crisis in Female Employment Analysis across Social Groups Neetha N This paper, based on NSS employment and unemployment data for various rounds since 1999-2000, highlights the trends and patterns of inclusion and exclusion in female employment across social groups. It provides evidence of increasing social... Read more	Special Articles Measuring Progress towards Universal Health Coverage An Approach in the Indian Context T Sundararaman, Girija Vaidyanathan, S D Vaishnavi, K Rahul Reddy, Tushar Mokashi, Jitendra Sharma, Rajani Ved,Umakant Dash, V R Muraleedharan This paper proposes an approach to periodically measure the extent of progress towards universal health coverage using a set of indicators that captures the essence of the factors to be considered in moving towards universalisation. It presents... Read more
Perspectives The Poverty Line: Getting It Wrong Again There has been an upsurge of public discussion on a number of inter-related issues revolving around official assessments of poverty, the linking of welfare entitlements to poverty status, the reasonableness of officially stipulated money-metric... Read more	Notes Is the Recent Reduction in India's Poverty Inclusive? Vachaspati Shukla, U S Mishra It is said that reduction in poverty has been the highest ever in India between 2004-05 and 2009-10. But evaluating the data across various population subgroups, it turns out that this reduction is not inclusive. It entirely excludes some groups... Read more
Discussion The Double Bind of Modern Education and Pedagogy Sasheej Hegde This response to Krishna Kumar's "Rurality, Modernity and Education" (EPW, 31 May 2014) attempts to make clear and re-thematise the double bind of modern education and pedagogy. Read more

An extra helping

Engineering students spend long hours at college, but now many of them take coaching in specific subjects to gain an edge.

Engineering or medicine? The reduction of study choices to this binary has resulted in stiff competition for seats in good colleges for these disciplines. As a result, study at school is supplemented by hours of coaching — for exams and entrance exams. Now, however, this saga does not end with school. Many engineering college students are now continuing with the practice of attending coaching classes or taking home tuitions to supplement the training they get at their institutions of learning.

The reasons are varied: lack of proper attention from the faculty, the need to clear arrears, the need to improve expected grades and more.

Backlogs and brainwork

Senthil (name changed) had some arrears when he finished four years of his engineering course. Disheartened, he left for a stint abroad and worked for a few years. Something pulled him back and he came back to Chennai. Staying in a hostel, he joined a tuition centre and with this support, cleared all six papers within a year.

This is not an uncommon occurrence, according to Mr. Paul who runs the Vidhyodaya Academy in Chennai which coaches students for their B.E. and M.E. exams. “With the teaching in colleges not being up to the mark, students flock the tuition centres,” he adds. Faculty in his tuition centre are highly qualified, with M.E., M.S. and Ph.D. not being uncommon. “They are mostly young faculty from colleges who can come down to the level of the students,” he remarks.

That is not to say that only students with arrears come for tuitions. Many students come because they want to score more, or because the faculty in the colleges they study in do not “connect” with them.

Vignesh, who is in the third year of engineering at a private engineering college, takes up coaching in Maths-3. “In the college, we are taught one or two problems in a unit and we end up mugging them up. But in the tuition class, we are taught many problems in each unit, which helps us grasp the concept better,” he says.

In his tuition class, he is taught several ways to approach the problem. “This is more helpful than the two problems that we are taught in college, because definitely the exam paper will not be from those two problems! I feel I have learned a bit of Maths-3 only after joining the tuition class,” he says.

Kalaiarasi Karthik Kumar is a permanent faculty member in a tuition centre in Chennai, which caters to B.E., Diplomas and M.E. After getting her M.E., she worked in various engineering colleges before joining this centre. She says that the students get more personal attention there. “In contrast to a classroom (in college) where there are fifty students, here there are just two or three. I explain by writing in the notebooks of the students. They are free to clear their doubts. Also, the problem sessions are two hours long, and I make them do problems and then give a lot of homework so that they get good practice.”

Intensive sessions

Mallika (name changed), who is a final-year student of Computer Science Engineering in a private engineering college, is confident of scoring in her “home subjects,” but when it comes to Digital Signal Processing, she panics. “It is an electronics subject, and I felt I needed a boost. So a tutor comes home to teach me just this subject,” she says. It is a two-week intensive dose of the subject so that she can skim through the exam which will be held next month. She too talks about how the particular faculty member at her college is not able to do a convincing job of teaching this subject. The advantage of having a home tuition is personalised learning and intensive coaching.

From needing regular support to bridging over arrears to concentrated mini-programmes, tuitions seem to be complementing college teaching, and, at times, even making up for lacunae in the latter. The need for personalised attention, problem-solving and scoring in exams seems to be driving this trend. Would this end up repeating the phenomenon sometimes observed in school — of having first rankers without the capacity to practically apply their knowledge — or would it just improve education in general? The answer is, probably a bit of both.

Keywords: engineering education, medical education

IIT-Madras joins CERN experiment

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which is part of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, is famous for its role in the discovery of the Higgs Boson a.k.a the god particle. It is expected to start collecting data once again around March 2015. But this time, it will include another member from our environs — IIT-Madras.

IIT-Madras has been accepted as a full member of the collaboration and is looking forward to make best use of the opportunity. Now, PhD students from the physics department will get to work in the collider; undergraduate students can do short summer projects at CMS; members of physics, computer science and electrical engineering departments at IIT-M can work on data analysis, grid computing and high-end detector building related to the experiment. “Being connected to CERN can give many more students a taste of the power of fundamental research,” says Prafulla Kumar Behera of the physics department of IIT-Madras, pointing out that this is the first IIT and, in fact, the first institute from the southern States to have become a full member of the CMS. It is to be noted that Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have long been members, as also Delhi and Panjab Universities.

The key areas where they hope to work is in data analysis and upgrading of the detector, according to Dr. Behera, who also feels that the experience of building up the silicon detector will come in useful in developing indigenous technology in medical (imaging) science and R&D in general. At present, the CMS experiment has gone up to 8 teraelectronvolts energy (TeV) and is geared to touch 14 TeV. This will involve having to upgrade the detector to handle the radiation and increased rate of data taking, which is where the group expects to be able to contribute.

Broadly speaking, the questions the experiment will probe are: whether the Higgs boson will undergo a decay in B quarks; whether there exist charged versions of the Higgs particle, which would mean physicists need to look beyond the standard model; whether dark matter can be produced by collision experiments and so on.

Keywords: IIT-Madras, CERN, Higgs Boson

	President of India attends the 12th Convocation of Tezpur University

New Delhi: The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee attended the 12th Convocation of Tezpur University as the Chief Guest at Tezpur, Assam today (November 20, 2014). 

Speaking on the occasion, the President stated that he was happy to be at the 12th Convocation of Tezpur University which is considered as one of the important centres of higher education in the North-Eastern part of our country. He said that whenever somebody visits Tezpur, the visit reminds him of its magnificent cultural heritage and the rich and diverse tapestry of its history. It is believed that Lord Krishna fought Banasura’s army here to rescue his grandson, Aniruddha. The archaeological site, Da Parbatiya, manifests architecture of the sixth century AD. Tezpur is a leading cultural centre of Assam. It is associated with Bhupen Hazarika, who spent a part of his early life here; Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, the first Assamese film-maker; and Kalaguru Bishnu Prasad Rabha, a doyen of the Arts and others. 

The President said that Tezpur University, which was started in 1994, began with a modest start with 57 students in three departments. It has now come a long way. This centre of higher learning today offers 63 academic programmes through 19 departments to over three thousand students with a faculty-strength of 250. It conducts research in frontier areas of knowledge. He said that he was happy to learn that it has established a facility to house sophisticated analytical instruments. Several departments of this University like computer science, chemical sciences and engineering, energy and languages have entered into collaborations with renowned European institutions. He said that he had been informed that today, about 1,500 students belonging to sciences, humanities, engineering and management disciplines have been awarded degrees and diplomas. 

The President said that as the graduating students bid adieu to their alma mater, they should be confident that their education here has provided them the implements to shine wherever they go and flourish in whatever they do. Quoting Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the President said that “All education is, on the one side, a search for truth; on the other side, it is a pursuit of social betterment. You may discover truth but you should apply it to improve the status of society”. The President said that while the students should try and fulfill their own dreams, they should also try to fulfill the expectations of the society and country which is theirs and which has nurtured them. 

The President said that education has shaped the destiny of nations in no small measure. Nations consigned to poverty, social disorder and economic malaise have advanced through superior knowledge built by a strong education system. In ancient India, there were globally-famed seats of learning like Nalanda and Takshashila and others. The scenario today is starkly different. Our institutions lag in international rankings brought out by reputed agencies. Few of our leading institutions deserve a better position though. They need to adopt an effective strategy to project their achievements. 

The President stated that only change can lead to progress. It is truer for our academic system, where multiple interventions are now necessary. Faculty shortage has to be mitigated through expeditious recruitment of talented scholars; faculty development promoted through regular conduct of faculty recharge programmes; teaching as a career made appealing; ICT networks used extensively for collaboration of ideas, thoughts and knowledge; expertise and experience of alumni utilized in curriculum development and mentoring of students; and the industry engaged through institutional mechanisms. The President said that it was decided in the Conference of Vice Chancellors of Central Universities held in Rashtrapati Bhavan this year that each Central University ought to set up an Industry Interface Cell, comprising representatives of the local industry, industry associations, alumni and faculty. The cell would draw up a calendar towards various collaborative activities like joint research, faculty exchange, and sponsoring of chairs and endowments. Success of initiatives like ‘Make in India’ hinges on manufacturing quality industrial products where academia-industry interface would play a very crucial role, he said. 

The President stated that we, as a developing nation, have to search for solutions to issues like renewable energy, climate changes, drinking water, sanitation and urbanization. It is incumbent on our universities to align their research priorities with these challenges. Our universities have to be the breeding ground for creative quests and cutting-edge technological developments. They have to encourage their students to satiate their curiosity and chase their creativity. They have to imbibe in these young minds a scientific temperament and a spirit of inquiry. Our universities have to support an eco-system where innovative ideas born out of novelty of the common man are mentored. To spur an innovation culture and to translate the slogan of ‘inclusion in innovation’ into a workable framework, the President said that he had earlier called upon the central institutions to open innovation clubs. He was happy that such a platform has been created in several institutions. Our universities have to now make an effort to link these clubs to innovation incubators in technical and research institutions to transform ideas into useful marketable products. 

The President stated that Central Universities have a pioneering role to play in setting standards for higher education across the country. They have to be a catalyst for rejuvenating other institutions of higher learning in their region thereby reducing regional academic imbalance. More importantly, Central Universities have to become a vehicle of social rejuvenation by extending the reach of education through extension work in adjoining areas. They have to reach out to people in their region by disseminating knowledge, encouraging innovation, promoting environmental conservation and developing skills. They have to elicit the participation of talented local youth, increase their employability and usher in upward mobility of the deprived sections of the society. Their work must resonate the needs and aspirations of the people. 

The President stated that recently the Government has announced Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana with the objective to develop model villages with improved basic amenities, enhanced human development, access to rights and entitlements and wider social mobilization. Financial inclusion, creation of digital infrastructure and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan have been dovetailed into this scheme. He said that in the Conference of Directors of NITs held in Rashtrapati Bhavan last month, he gave a call to the NITs to start working with at least five villages each to transform them into model villages. He said that he expected the Central Universities too, including Tezpur University, to follow suit. The University must organize resource persons and experts, if so required, from other Central institutions to provide solutions to the wide range of issues concerning the adopted villages. He was sure higher educational institutions in general and Central Universities in particular will actively involve themselves to make an India which is progressive and equal. 

What is your footprint?

As the carbon footprint grows with each passing day we can help reverse this pattern. Are you ready for the challenge?

What is a carbon footprint?

Carbon footprint is not really a footprint. It has nothing to do with your feet.

It’s what you leave behind when you aren’t listening to what the earth is saying. It’s like when you walk home after playing outside and leave muddy footprints around. Despite your mother telling you not to.

It is, when you don’t switch off the fans in your room and walk away while they're all running. They motor on, unable to switch themselves off.

Or don’t use lights that save energy. They burn angrily through your electricity bills!

Or don’t turn off the tap when you brush your teeth. And let the water run. The water pools into a pond, lake, river and then, a sea of waste water that could have helped millions of others. If only you had turned off that tap.

Or don’t throw away plastic without recycling, and it piles up like a mountain in a remote corner of the world.

Mountains of trash as tall and mighty as the Himalayas, with nowhere to go

Or take the car to school instead of a bus, where 50 cars carrying one child each release more harmful gases than one bus that carries all 50. And what about all that noise from the honking, when those 50 cars get caught in a traffic jam?

They leave a permanent mark on the planet.

The more harmful toxins released into the air, the bigger your footprint.

But, stop.

You can make it better. Just change all the don’ts to dos. And watch your carbon footprint grow smaller and smaller.

Keywords: carbon footprint

CO2 emissions must be nil by 2070 to prevent disaster: U.N.

The world must cut CO2 emissions to zero by 2070 at the latest to keep global warming below dangerous levels and prevent a global catastrophe, the U.N. warns.

By 2100, all greenhouse gas emissions — including methane, nitrous oxide and ozone, as well as CO2 — must fall to zero, the United Nationals Environment Programme (UNEP) report says , or the world will face what Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists have described as “severe, widespread and irreversible” effects from climate change.

Finite carbon budget

The UNEP report published on Wednesday is based on the idea that the planet has a finite ‘carbon budget’. Since emissions surged in the late 19th century, some 1,900 Gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 and 1,000 Gt of other greenhouse gases have already been emitted, leaving less than 1,000 Gt of CO2 left to emit before locking the planet in to dangerous temperature rises of more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Jacqueline McGlade, UNEP’s chief scientist, told The Guardian that scientific uncertainties about the remaining carbon budget had diminished and the real uncertainty now was whether politicians had the will to act.

“The big uncertainty is whether you can put enough policies in place from 2020-2030 — in the critical window — to allow the least-cost pathways [to lower emissions and temperatures] to still stand a chance of being followed,” she said. “The uncertainties have shifted from the science to the politics.”

All scenarios in the UNEP report now require some degree of ‘negative CO2 emissions’ in the second half of the century, through technologies such as carbon capture and storage or, possibly, controversial, planetary wide engineering of the climate known as geo-engineering. UNEP is “extremely interested” in the subject and is planning a report in the months ahead.

Consideration should also be given to compensatory schemes for investors in fossil fuels companies to address the ‘stranded assets’ issue, Ms. McGlade added.

She acknowledged “donor fatigue” ahead of a pledging conference for the Green Climate Fund on Thursday — which has so far racked up close to $10bn (£6.4bn) — and called for up to 20 per cent of the final money pot to come from citizen bonds for local environment projects, with the remaining 80 per cent split between public and private sources.

Maroš Šefèoviè, the European Commission’s vice-president for energy union told a Brussels press conference that the report would be of use in preparing bloc positions for next month’s Lima climate summit.

The EU has not, however, supported UNEP’s call for zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2100 .

Climate neutrality

Christiana Figueres, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s executive secretary, said: “This important report underscores the reality that at some point in the second half of the century, we need to have achieved climate neutrality — or as some term it zero net or net zero — in terms of overall global emissions.” A key theme in the emissions gap study is the cost-effectiveness of taking early action and the dangers of not doing so. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2014

Keywords: carbon dioxide emissions, United Nations, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change