India Still a Country of 282 Million Illiterates

n India, around 282 million people are illiterate. The country is still lagging behind to fill this gap. But despite a growing annual budget in education, it just does not do enough.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), which handles school/higher education and adult literacy, grows richer every year, however it still accounts for only 5% of the government’s expenditure of over Rs 17 lakh crore ($289 billion).

The Ministry of Finance topped the list (with 35%), followed by the Ministry of Defence (16%), Ministry of Food (6%) and Ministry of Rural Development (4.7%). In the last financial year, the MHRD was ranked 5th, with only 4.6% of the total central government budget set aside for education.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised to increase the spending on education to 6% of GDP in its election manifesto. The first budget by the Narendra Modi-led government did not see much change in the allocation to MHRD.

MHRD has two departments – the department of school education and literacy and the department of higher education. The department of school education is also responsible for adult literacy programmes. All universities and technical/professional schools come under the

Education Sector Allocated Rs. 68968 Cr while Rural Development gets Rs 79526 Cr in the Year 2015-16

The Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley has said that adequate provision has been made for the schemes for the poor and disadvantaged in the Budget of 2015-16. Delivering his Budget Speech in the Parliament today, the Finance Minister said that an amount of Rs. 68,968 crore has been allocated to the Education Sector including Mid Day Meals, Rs. 33,152 crore to the Health Sector and Rs. 79,526 crore for Rural Development Activities including MGNREGA in the Budget for 2015-16. An amount of Rs. 22,407 crore has been provided for Housing and Urban Development, Rs. 10,351 crore for Women and Child Development and Rs. 4,173 crore for Water Resources and Namami Gange. 

In order to support programmes for Women Security, Advocacy and Awareness, another Rs. 1000 crore have been allocated to the Nirbhaya Fund in the year 2015-16. 

Shri Arun Jaitley said that the National Optical Fibre Network Programme of 7.5 lakh Kilometre, networking 2.5 lakh villages, is being speeded up as a part of progress towards making digital India. 

The Finance Minister disclosed that an initial sum of Rs. 1200 crore has been given for the DMIC corridors in the current year. The Ahmedabad-Dholera investment region in Gujarat and the Shendra-Bidkin Industrial park near Aurangabad, in Maharashtra, are now in a position to start work on basic infrastructure. Additional funds will be provided for the Industrial Corridors as the pace of expenditure picks up, he added. 

‘Neither UPA nor NDA promised livelihood-based rehabilitation’

Interview with social activist Medha Patkar on why she opposes the Land Bill proposed by the Centre

Social activist Medha Patkar has been in the forefront of the struggle for the rights and rehabilitation of project-displaced populations for over two decades, and has relentlessly pursued the formulation of a national rehabilitation policy. She spoke to Gargi Parsaiat the site of the agitation in Delhi about the pitfalls in the National Democratic Alliance government’s proposed new Land Bill brought through an ordinance to amend the earlier Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, (LARR) 2013, enacted by the United Progressive Alliance government.

The government maintains that the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in LARR (Amendment) Bill, 2014 to replace the Ordinance is not against farmers and will help development. Your view?

That is not correct. We too are for development but the government’s idea is different because it not only wants to go in for corporatisation of every sector. But for that it does not mind misusing resources such as land — the life support of millions of people. Over decades people have been waiting for full-fledged livelihood-based rehabilitation which is neither fully promised in the new Bill nor is there in the 2013 Act of the UPA.

Was the NDA justified in bringing an Ordinance to change the land law?

There are about 100 Acts all over the country under which land acquisition goes on. Of these, 16 are Central Acts. The UPA brought three under the 2013 Act but 13 were left out as they had to be amended in order to make them consistent with the new Act within one year, that is by December 31, 2014, after approval from both Houses of Parliament as provided under Section 105. The NDA is giving this as the reason for bringing in the Ordinance, but the question is why did they wait till December 31? If the NDA amendments were in favour of the poor, then they could have made them public instead of bringing it through an Ordinance.

What does Social Impact Analysis involve?

It is the first pre-conditional phase before any rehabilitation. It is an analysis of the impact of the project on displaced peoples’ livelihoods, whether they would become jobless with cash but no permanent source of livelihood; whether their relationship with natural resources, the ecosystem will be affected; whether their community integration, as in the case of tribals and even non-tribals in rural India, will be shattered and they would be dispersed, as also, the effect on forests, fish and the food security when agricultural lands are going to be taken away. Under the Constitution, gram sabhas and panchayats have the right to planning and management of land, water, electrification, etc. Without granting that primacy to the local units, to take away hectares of land for mega projects is undemocratic.

Has the NDA removed the SIA and consent clause altogether?

Yes, and apart from those 13 laws, they have added five more categories for exclusion which include everything. This Act is applicable to public purpose projects besides public sector projects. So while defining public purpose projects, they have included infrastructure projects as notified by Department of Economic Affairs which includes mining, tourism, water power, [private] educational institutions, [private] hospitals and so on. The NDA proposes to bring the 13 Acts in line with the 2013 Act but have knocked off infrastructure projects from SIA and Consent provisions. This is a tricky matter. The most interesting part is that the maximum land acquisition, and so maximum social impact, will be in irrigation projects, but those have been excluded from SIA and consent and industrial corridors.

The government says corridors will bring agro industry into rural areas, promising employment.

That industrialisation immediately brings employment to local and project affected people has not happened anywhere. The latest CAG report on SEZs says that the land which is taken is not even used for industries and lies vacant for many years. That is why the 2013 Act said that acquired land lying unused for five years will have to be returned to the owner. But the NDA’s proposed Bill changes that, and has added that the land for which a project has been planned will not be returned. But they will go on extending the planning period and will never return the land to the original farmers. If the acquired land is not used for industry, where is the promised employment? There is no ceiling on how much land can be acquired for PPP and private companies, now defined as private entities. Remember there is a ceiling on agricultural land while the farmer is contributing to food security.

But land use has changed.

Yes. Consent was required of 80 per cent of people whose land is going to be acquired for private projects and 70 per cent for public-private projects. None for government projects — for mega dams or mega city or industrial development projects. In many cases, government acquires land and hands it over to corporates within a year. It becomes a government project for which consent is not necessary. Therefore, the Land Use Policy and any change in land use must have the consent of the people.

The government says it needs land for development and growth.

Yes, it needs land, but what kind of land? There is banjar land and wasteland lying in each State and also PSUs lying vacant for decades, and now they want to continue to acquire even multiple crop land. It is clear that agricultural land being diverted for non-agricultural use is reaching its limits. Within 10 years, according to the Economic Survey of India, about 150 lakh hectares was diverted. Multiple crop land should be the last resort, the 2013 Act says. But the NDA wants to remove this too.

The government proposes giving good compensation equal to four to six times the market rate.

This was hugely publicised by the UPA too. Actually what is provided for in the law is that for rural areas they will give two to four times of the market value and that too is left to the States to decide. States are defining the market value as decided by the guidelines set by the village tehsildar, which is kept so low that it is nowhere near the real market value which is five to 10 times more.

So do farmers have recourse under the law if they are short-changed?

Section 87 in the 2013 Act said that if an official violates any provision in the law for social impact or seeking consent or paying compensation and rehabilitation and so on, then the affected person could file an FIR. Now the Ordinance has changed that and it says for this the farmer will have to seek the permission of the head of the department or the State government…

Has the government spoken to activists during the protest?

We had been taken on board by the Congress government in the formulation of the 2013 law. During the NDA rule, even on the Narmada dam issue, the Prime Minister has not given us an appointment. No, there has been no dialogue with us on this issue that defines the fate of the country.

gargi.parsai@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: Land Bill, land acquisition, Medha Patkar interview, UPA, NDA, rehabilitation, land ordinance, Land Acquisition Ordinance

India’s Rs. 3.8 lakh crore subsidies don’t always reach the poor

Which are India’s most effective subsidies, the ones that best reach the poor?

Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian devoted considerable space in the Economic Survey released on Friday to subsidies, how much they cost, whom they really go to, and how leaky they are.

In terms of cost, the combined subsidy for rice and wheat clearly accounts for the largest share, a third of India’s total subsidy bill.

It would appear that the Public Distribution System (PDS)-delivered grains and staples are actually best at reaching the poor. This has been borne out by other research, like the 2011-12 round of the National Council for Applied Economic Research’s India Human Development Survey, which showed that the poor were indeed most likely to use PDS shops.

Two of the worst performing subsidies – the fertiliser subsidy and the water subsidy respectively – have not been quantified, but of them, the Survey says that the fertiliser manufacturers derive the maximum benefit from the fertiliser subsidy since farmers have elastic demand, and the water subsidy goes to private taps, while 60% of the poor get their water from public taps.

But the relatively good news ends there.

Over half of all the wheat allocated through the PDS, and over 40 per cent of kerosene and sugar never reached the consumer in 2011-12, Mr. Subramanian calculates. The Economic Survey recommends using technology-led solutions including mobile phone technology and Aaadhar cards in order to better target subsidies, and a shift to cash transfers.

Soon, you could talk with computers like friends

New York: PTI





Humans may soon be able to talk to computers and robots the same way they talk to their friends, scientists say.A new programme from the US Defence Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to get computers to express themselves more like humans by allowing them to use spoken language, facial expressions and gestures to communicate. “Today we view computers as tools to be activated by a few clicks or keywords, in large part because we are separated by a language barrier,“ said Paul Cohen, DARPA's communicating with computers (CwC) programme manager. “The goal of CwC is to bridge that barrier, and in the process encourage the development of new problem-solving technologies,“ Cohen said.
One of the problem-solving technologies CwC could help further is the computerbased modelling used in cancer research.
Computers previously developed by DARPA are already tasked with creating models of the complicated molecular processes that cause cells to become cancerous. But while these computers can churn out models quickly, they are not so adept at judging if the models are actually plausible and worthy of further research. If the computers could somehow seek the opinions of flesh-andblood biologists, the work they do would likely be more useful for cancer researchers.
To get computers up to the task of communicating with people, CwC researchers have devised several tasks that require computers and humans to work together toward a common goal, `Live Science' reported.
Better communications technologies could help robot operators use natural language to describe missions and give directions to the machines they operate both before and during operations.

the speaking tree - Getting Along With Followers Of Diverse Faiths

Vanamali





The main message of Hinduism is that of satya and ahimsa ­ truth and nonviolence. If you look on everything as divine, you can never hurt or harm anything, either in Nature or in the human being. Thus, the Hindu has never wanted to `conquer' or control anything except his own mind. India has never invaded any country in the last ten thousand years of its history. This is the best accolade that can be given to this culture and one that shows its uniqueness.Traditional Hinduism has always been the most tolerant, patient and welcoming of all religions. It has never persecuted others merely because they had a different theological belief. Hinduism has always sought to live side-by-side peacefully with the followers of other religions, whether they were the indigenous religions of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism or the foreign religions of Christianity and Islam.
Hindu India has been the sole nation on earth where the Jewish community has never been persecuted even though they have been living here for more than two thousand years. Similarly, Zoroastrian refugees escaping the destruction of the Persian civilisation at the hands of Islamic conquerors were warmly welcomed in India more than a thousand years ago. The Zoroastrian community (now known as the Parsis) has thrived and lived amicably with their Hindu neighbours in peace and mutual respect. Recently when China overran Tibet, India was the only country that gave asylum to the Dalai Lama and allowed the Tibetans to come and settle down on Indian soil without hindrance, with freedom to practice their own religion ­ Buddhism.
The mistake that is now being made by modern Hindus, especially those living abroad, is to confuse the long-held Hindu tradition of tolerating other religions, with the notion that Hinduism encourages us to believe that all religions are exactly the same. The leap from toler ance of other faiths to a belief that all religions are equal is not a leap that is grounded in logic. Nor is it grounded in the history, literature or philosophy of the Hindu tradition itself.
Hinduism is its own uniquely independent religious tradition, different and distinct from any other religion on earth. This distinction has been asserted by all our great saints who used to have debates with the protagonists of non-Hindu traditions like Buddhism, Jainism and Charvakins (atheists). The sages of Hinduism met all philosophical challenges and succeeded in defeating their philosophical opponents in open assemblies.
Adi Shankarachrya, founder of Advaita Vedanta, went all over the peninsula, defeat ing all his learned opponents in open debate. This was known as his `digvijaya', or `conquest of all directions'. Indeed, Shankara is attributed as being partial ly responsible for the decline of Buddhism in India, due to his great ability to debate by which he totally annihilated his opponents' arguments and proved the superiority of vedantic doctrines.
Madhvacharya, founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta, is similarly seen as being responsible for the sharp decline of Jainism in south India due to his acute intelligence and great debating skills in defence of the Vaidika Dharma (Vedic Dharma).
All pre-modern Hindu sages and philosophers recognised and celebrated the singularly unique vision that Hinduism has to offer the world. They clearly distinguished between Hindu and non-Hindu religions, and they defended Hinduism to the utmost of their formidable intellectual and spiritual abilities. They did so unapologetically, professionally and courageously. The Hindu worldwide makes sense and will survive only if we celebrate Hinduism's uniqueness today. (From `The Science of the Rishis' by Vanamali.) Post your comments at speakingtree.in

Mar 02 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Northeast to be on DU's course map

Shreya Roychowdhury

New Delhi:





A Northeast Studies Programme (NEISP) has been approved by the council of the department of sociology , Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. The proposal for a full-fledged course is yet to be placed before DU's academic council but an initial project­a “think tank“ bringing together academics, administrators and police­will be launched on March 12.“Since 2011, I have been conducting surveys on certain key issues in Delhi,“ Kamei Aphun of department of sociology said. “Some of these are that the academic curriculum doesn't talk about the northeast, ineffi ciency and ineffectiveness of the law and order apparatus in the face of discrimination and hate, improper guidelines and policies of the government and the role of the media. Then I figured out that it is best to bring all the representatives on one forum.” NEISP will first exist as a “think tank” featuring academics from JNU, JMI, North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Guwahati), media professionals, Delhi Police and representatives from the DONER (Development of North Eastern Region) ministry and NEC (North Eastern Council).
“I have prepared a vision statement with seven points,” Aphun said.