Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Misreading Charlie Hebdo

Where Critics Went Wrong with the ‘Muslim’ Question

Vol - L No. 2, January 10, 2015 | Kaushik Dasgupta 

• Web Exclusives

Charlie Hebdo’s critics have got one thing wrong – the real target of such terrorist attacks  is not the “Islamophobic” Western establishment, it is the Muslim heretic who wants to defy the cleric and redefine her/his identity. 

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The Antinomies behind the Peshawar Killings

Vol - L No. 2, January 10, 2015 | Aasim Sajjad Akhtar 

• Commentary

The ruthless attack on schoolchildren in Peshawar has precipitated a clamour for stronger military action against the "terrorists", and the Pakistani army and government have responded by stepping up the Zarb-e-Azb operation and hanging a handful of incarcerated convicts. This article uncovers the tangled yet well-known roots of violence in Pakistan today to illustrate how the military-dominated State's designated ideology and political machinations have brought the country to this pass. The strengthening of democracy is the only way to prevent such incidents from recurring, but the Peshawar attacks have been used precisely to weaken democratic institutions vis-á-vis the military establishment.

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Web Exclusives Planning by the People The Colombian Urban Experience Aravind Unni Colombia’s social urbanism and inclusive transportation projects have left a lasting impression on urban planning in the global south. The author explains how urban planning got democratised in Colombia and why India is still far behind. Read more	Editorials Land, Livelihoods and Company Sarkaar The ordinance amending the new Land Acquisition Act validates Modi sarkaar as Company sarkaar. Read more
Web Exclusives Will the Neoliberal Economy Change? Verdict of the Sri Lanka Elections The Collective for Economic Democratisation While the election victory for President Maithripala Sirisena was due to a unique political moment that united minorities and many in the Sinhala electorate to vote out an authoritarian regime, expectations of major change in economic policy need... Read more	Reports From the States / Web Exclusives Sleepy Backwaters to Real Estate Haven Andhra Pradesh New Capital Development S Ananth A series of photo essays will document the change in the peripheries of Vijayawada, slowly transforming into the Andhra Pradesh state capital. This is the first one in the series.  Read more
Editorials Still Searching for the GST Introduction of the GST Bill in Parliament does not mean all the contentious issues have been sorted out. Read more	Editorials Paving the Way for Privatisation? The Coal India workers' demands merit more than bland assurances. Read more
Commentary Discrepancies in Sanitation Statistics of Rural India Arjun Kumar The inadequate availability of drinking water and proper sanitation, especially in rural India, leads to innumerable deadly diseases, harms the environment, and also affects vulnerable populations, such as persons with disabilities and women,... Read more	Commentary Right to Abort in Surrogacy Contracts An Enquiry Shamba Dey This article makes an enquiry into the right to abort in surrogacy contracts as visualised by the bill on Assisted Reproductive Technology drafted by the Indian Council of Medical Research and introduced in Parliament in 2010. It argues that the... Read more
Commentary Tobacco Taxation Pritam Datta, Chetana Chaudhuri The tax hikes on smoking tobacco in 2014 appear large in the aggregate, but have little effect on the price of single cigarette sticks, a popular mode of retail in India. Analysing the seemingly large tax hikes on smoking tobacco, it is argued... Read more	Commentary Health and Economic Impact of Unsafe Drinking Water A Study of Ludhiana Jasdeep Kaur Bedi, R S Ghuman, A S Bhullar The article is based on a study of the problem of contaminated water supply in Ludhiana. It finds that the incidence of water-related diseases and their economic impact on households is reasonably high. The quality of water was identified as a... Read more
Book Reviews A Handbook of State Politics Niraja Gopal Jayal Handbook of Politics in Indian States: Regions, Parties and Economic Reforms edited by Sudha Pai (Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2013; pp 443, Rs 1,495. Read more	Book Reviews Nursing Labour Markets Sujata Gothoskar Rethinking Unequal Exchange: The Global Integration of Nursing Labour Markets by Valiani Salimah (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 2012; pp 197 +xviii, $27.95. Read more
Perspectives Kerala and the Rest of India What We Can Learn from Each Other’s Development Experience Pulapre Balakrishnan Kerala has shown that it is possible to improve the quality of life of a people even at low levels of per capita income through efficient provisioning of public services in health and education. At the national level there has been a dramatic... Read more	Special Articles Has Globalisation Flattened the Phillips Curve? Rohit Azad, Anupam Das This paper seeks, theoretically as well as empirically, to argue that one of the most important effects of globalisation has been on the working class of the advanced capitalist countries. While the workers in the South have always had a... Read more
Special Articles Returning to the Histories of the Late 19th and Early 20th Century Immigration Ranabir Samaddar The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a period of globalisation when migration controls were put in place. As at present, then too, control of migrant labour was not the concern of governments alone. Employers, recruitment agents, labour... Read more	Special Articles Growth, Structural Change and Wage Rates in Rural India A Amarender REddy Examining the structural transformation in India and its developed states to know whether they have passed the Lewis turning point, this paper finds that there was slow structural change in labour markets at the national level. But states such as... Read more
Notes Lake Fisheries in Kashmir A Case More Undone Than Done Neha W Qureshi, M Krishnan The Dal and Wular lakes produce 70% of the total fish production in Jammu and Kashmir. In addition to introduction of carps, negative externalities of tourism, excessive fertilisation of vegetable crops on floating gardens leading to algal blooms... Read more	Discussion Counting the Poor Measurement and Other Issues C Rangarajan, S Mahendra Dev Since the submission of the report of the 2012 expert group on poverty measurement, there have been a few comments on it. The purpose of this note is to clarify some of the issues raised by researchers and others on this report. The clarifi... Read more
Postscript The Sweet Swan of Avon Vithal Rajan As the 450th birth anniversary of William Shakespeare passes into history, doubts linger about the motives and authenticity of the world’s best-known playwright. Read more	Postscript Decay and Darkness in Bihar Shobhit Mahajan Once praised for its exemplary governance, Bihar is today in an advanced state of decline and poor development, despite the presence of unbelievably fecund land. Read more
Postscript The Best News Shyam G Menon As the frontier of exploration, space technology stands on the shoulders of more mundane developments to reach the vast expanse above us. Read more	Reports From the States / Web Exclusives Fair Price Medicine Shops in West Bengal An Interesting Price Discovery Mechanism Sugata Marjit The 24x7 Fair Price Medicine Shops in the public hospitals of West Bengal have visibly reduced the average price of critical medicine and appliances. Their services should now be extended beyond hospitals so that they reach out to a larger share... Read more
Reports From the States / Web Exclusives Leopard Landscapes Coexisting with carnivores in countryside and city T R Shankar Raman The Wildlife Institute of India survey to estimate the number of leopards in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, on the peripheries of Mumbai, will add a critical piece of information to assist and better prepare people to live in a landscape with... Read more

90% Indian MBAs unemployable’

India produces about three lakh management graduates every year, but hardly 35,000 of them are employable, said the experts.

According to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), 3,54,421 students enrolled for MBA in 3,364 institutions across the country last year. Speaking at the southern regional round table conclave of business school directors and deans, J Philip, former director of IIM-Bengaluru, said, “Today, the requirement of managerial candidates in the Indian market is between 35,000 and 40,000 every year. There are two reasons for unemployment: Lack of global skills and excess supply.”

Philip said India is probably the only country that could help supply managers to European countries and Japan. “Most countries in Europe are facing a crunch,” said Philip, now the director of Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship, Bangalore. An expert, who did not wish to be named, said, “Around year 2000, there were about 10 world class business schools in India. Now we have 25, but we have a long way to go. We need an industry-oriented syllabus and interaction with industry to improve employability.”

Parag Kalkar, director of Singhad Institute of Business Administration and Computer Application, Pune, said in the past 10 years the number of management institutes in the country had doubled. “While the previous central governments aimed at reaching the global enrolment ratio for higher education (27%), AICTE randomly allowed institutes of engineering,” Kalkar said.

According to AICTE, the number of management institutions has risen from 2,614 in 2006-07 to 3,364 in 2013-14. While the numbers continuously rose till 2011-12, at least 71 institutes shut shop in 2012-13 and 107 in 2013-14.

Kalkar said, “While quantity has improved, the government and AICTE have been compromising on quality. Institutes have been given approval without examining or inspecting documents, infrastructure, faculty and other basic requirements.”

Lack of industrial exposure of faculty and students is another issue. “Many institutes do not have faculty with industrial experience. Some wish to join a management institute immediately after completing their postgraduate study,” said R Nandagopal, director, PSG Institute of Management. The same applies to students, too. “Many engineering graduates do not want to waste time. Hence they apply for MBA immediately after graduation,” said Nandagopal. “While in the US and Europe, institutes consider work experience as a criterion for admission to MBA. It is a mid-career education for them,” he said.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2015/01/90-indian-mbas-unemployable/#sthash.F3LVhGae.dpuf

Primary education in India a secondary responsibility: Report 

India would appear to have partially arrested the downward spiral in the quality of learning of school children in rural areas but there is little to cheer about the country’s performance, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) published on January 13. The enrolment level is near universal with 96.7% of children registered in schools during 2014, the same as 2013, according to ASER 2014, published by education non-profit organization Pratham Education Foundation.

The proportion of all children in Class 5 who can read a Class 2 text has improved by 1 percentage point from 2013—48.1% children of Class 5 could read a class 2 text in 2014 against 47% in the previous year. This means every second Class 5 student in rural India can’t read the text of a class three levels below.

In 2005, when the first ASER report was published, three out of five children in Class 5 were able to read a Class 2 text. This is the 10th ASER report. This year, the foundation surveyed 577 rural districts across India for the report. “Stagnation has happened but at a low level. That is the reality,” said Madhav Chavan, chief executive and president of Pratham. He said things have not changed much despite government levying a tax to fund education and enacting a law to ensure access to education for all children in the 6-14 age group. And arithmetic, the last of the three Rs, still remains a challenge. For example, only 44.1% of Class 8 students in rural India managed to do a division in 2014, as against 46% in 2013. “The all India (rural) figures for basic arithmetic have remained virtually unchanged over the last few years. In 2012, 26.3% of Class 3 children could do a two-digit subtraction. This number is at 25.3% in 2014. For Class 5 children, the ability to do division has increased slightly from 24.8% in 2012 to 26.1% in 2014,” said the report. The situation in the ability of school children to comprehend English too seems to be stagnating. “Children’s ability to read English is relatively unchanged in primary school. In 2014, about 25% of children enrolled in Class 5 could read simple English sentences. This number is virtually unchanged since 2009,” the report said.
The situation is worse in middle school. In 2009, 60.2% of children in Class 8 could read simple sentences in English but in 2014, this figure was 46.8%, the survey said. Experts said the numbers indicate that India’s school education is in deep crisis and needs urgent attention. If India wants to reap the so-called demographic dividend, then the school is where it must focus, experts said. “How will you reap the demographic dividend when your school children are not learning the basics?” asked Yamini Aiyar, director of Accountability Initiative, part of think-tank Centre for Policy Research. Administrators have talked about IITs, IIMs and skill development but less about what is happening inside classrooms in schools, she added. “In the pursuit of excellence, we cannot leave the basics behind.” She said the ASER report should influence the centre and states to set specific goals and work towards it. Chavan said the report is, in a way, a summary of what “we have observed over the tenures of UPA I and II. It is also a baseline for the new government and what it has to deal with.” Rukmini Banerjee, director of ASER centre, said that she would like to see the report as a “glass half full than half-empty”. “Stagnation has happened and we hope the upward mobility will start soon,” she added. Banerjee pointed out that some states had done better. In 2014, a higher proportion of Class 5 students in Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu Haryana, Bihar, Odisha and Karnataka could read a Class 2 level text than in 2013. The survey also said that the Right to Education Act and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have resulted in an improvement in infrastructure in government schools, if not the learning outcome. It also said that more students are now enrolled in private schools than even before. In 2014, 30.8% of all children between the ages of 6 and 14 were enrolled in private schools. This number was 29% in 2013 and 16.3% in 2005 when the first ASER report was published.

Jan 16 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi) Walk 20 minday, beat early death London: PTI   A brisk 20-minute walk each day could be enough to reduce an individual's risk of early death, according to a new research.The study of European men and women found that twice as many deaths may be attributable to lack of physical activity against those attributable to obesity.Cambridge University researchers analysed data from 3,34,161 people participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study. Between 1992 and 2000, the researchers measured height, weight and waist size, and measured levels of physical activity. The researchers found that the greatest reduction in risk of premature death occurred in comparison between inactive and moderately inactive groups. They estimated that a 20-minute brisk walk each day would take an individual from the inactive to moderately inactive group and reduce risk of premature death by 16-30%.

Jan 16 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi)

At 21, India has the most public holidays in world

Mumbai: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Can Be More In Certain States, Shows Study

India has the most public holidays in a year, followed closely by her Asian neighbours Philippines, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia.India has 21 such holidays every year, even more depending on which state one lives in, a study by an online travel portal has shown.
The study compared public holidays enjoyed by workforces of various nationalities. “In the AsiaPacific region, the Philippines follows with 18 and China and Hong Kong with 17. Thailand has 16, Malaysia and Vietnam 15,“ Wego chief marketing officer Joachim Holte said.
Europeans don't fare too badly, with Sweden and Lithuania having 15 (the latter with an additional 28 days of paid leave), followed by 14 in Slovakia, 13 in Austria, Belgium and Norway and 12 in Finland and Russia.
“China is not only one of the fastest-growing travel segments, its government makes it easy for workers to take longer breaks. Should the year's public holidays fall on a weekend, the government swaps the official dates with weekdays, maximizing the time off,“ said Holte. “This year, 17 public holidays equates to 28 days off. For the Taiwanese, 13 public holidays results in 29 days off, inclusive of weekends.“
Mexico has the least pu blic holidays (seven) each year, although the country's government permits `optional' public holidays at the employer's discretion.
“Some countries provide a little more by way of statutory holiday leave, which can top up public holidays nicely ,“ Holte said. “The Philippines public holiday count of 18 is increased with five more days mandatory holiday leave, and while Australian workers get 10 public holidays depending on which state you live in, annual holiday leave entitlement is an additional 20 working days.“