'MGNREGS reduced poverty, empowered women'

The programme reduced poverty by up to 32 per cent and prevented 14 million people from falling into poverty.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) reduced poverty by up to a third and gave a large number of women their first opportunity to earn cash income, a new research has found.

Officials from the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) released a new report Wednesday evening which used data from two rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) – 2004-5 and 2011-12. The survey was conducted by the NCAER and University of Maryland, involving over 26,000 rural households across the country.

Comparisons between the two survey rounds found that the programme reduced poverty overall by up to 32 per cent and prevented 14 million people from falling into poverty. “Economic growth contributed to overall poverty reduction during this period, but we found that the MGNREGS also played a significant role,” Sonalde Desai, principal author of the study, said.

The numbers show that the MGNREGS is likely to have had a much smaller impact on the rural job market and on rural wages than is commonly believed. At an all-India level, the average days worked under the MGNREGS is less than four, pointing to the relatively small impact of the scheme to the overall rural job market. “On the surface, MGNREGS has virtually no impact on rural employment patterns since it fails to add to the number of days that individuals work. But it seems to attract individuals who were previously employed in less productive work, thereby raising their incomes,” the report notes. Overall, while the period of 2004-5 to 2011-12 saw a sharp rise in rural wages, MGNREGS plays only a modest role in wage increases, the report notes. The United Nations Development Programme on Wednesday also released a review of recent research studies on the MGNREGS which found similarly, and found that the scheme’s uptake is far greater in the lean season that in the peak agricultural season.

The part of the rural job market that the MGNREGS did seem to have a more significant impact on was for female work. About 45% of female MGNREGS workers were either not working or worked only on a family farm in 2004–05, indicating that the MGNREGS “may well be the first opportunity many women have to earn cash income”. As a result, there was a substantial increase in women’s control over resources — including cash in hand and the likelihood of having a bank account — and improvement in women’s ability to make independent decisions about their health, the report found.

Children from MGNREGS households were likely to obtain higher levels of educational attainment than their non-MGNREGS peers, the report found, and were less likely to be working.

While financial inclusion rose in general during this period and reliance of moneylenders declined, the effect was much greater for MGNREGS households, as was the decrease in the overall interest paid by the household. Simultaneously, accessing of formal credit grew.

What holds the MGNREGS back is “work rationing” — the inability of all interested households to get 100 days of work — as a result of mismanagement or pressures, and affects the poorest the most, the report finds.

“These findings clearly show that there is a large unmet demand for MGNREGS work,” Jugal Kishore Mohapatra, secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, said, adding that a paucity of funds at the level of implementations and erratic fund flows, particularly in 2014-15 had affected both demand and supply. “For the last four months, our job has been convincing everyone that the scheme is not going away and rebooting demand,” Mr. Mohapatra said.

Keywords: MGNREGA, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Scheme, rural job scheme, Ministry of Rural Development, National Council of Applied Economic Research, United Nations Development Programme

Source: The Hindu, 13 August, 2015

Scholarships to study in New Zealand, check it out here

Faculty of Business and Economics of University of Auckland is inviting applications for Dean’s Asia Scholarships. Scholarships are available for Asian international undergraduate students to complete a bachelor of commerce, bachelor of business information management or bachelor of property degree at the University of Auckland Business School. The scholarship is paid as a tuition/compulsory fees credit over three years in two installments per year, one in the first semester and one in the second semester.

Eligibility: The scholarships will be awarded to international undergraduate students from any country in the Asian continent.

The scholarships will be awarded by the University of Auckland Council upon the recommendation of a selection committee comprising the dean of the University of Auckland Business School (or nominee), the associate dean, academic programmes (or nominee) and one head of department from the business school (or nominee).

The scholarships will be paid as a tuition/compulsory fees credit over three years in two installments per year. The deadline is November 26, 2015.

For more information about this award contact:

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The Scholarship OfficeThe University of Auckland
Phone: (09) 373 7599 
Email: scholarships@auckland.ac.nz
Also visit The University of Auckland Scholarships webpage: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/for/current-students/cs-scholarships-and-awards 
Search for University of Auckland scholarships on: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/cs-search-for-scholarships-and-awards 

Naga peace treaty: Look back to move ahead

Every effort at resolving the Naga imbroglio has been embroiled in a challenging quagmire of unending and conflicting demands. While most commentaries on the recent consensual framework for a long-term agreement between the Centre and the NSCN(I-M) have focused on the here and now and sought to define the long road to peace, I will focus on the critical pre- and post-World War II years that have had a significant impact on both the Naga movement and India’s responses.

The Nagas, one of the most robust, reflective and remarkable communities in south Asia, have challenged every Indian government since Independence through a war of weapons, ideas and words. The gauntlet was laid down in 1918 with the formation of the first political association among the Nagas, the Naga Club, followed by a presentation on January 10, 1929, to the Indian Statutory Commission, commonly referred to as the Simon Commission.

The Commission was looking at future constitutional structures under a possible reforms package. Members of the Naga delegation included a range of government employees: Interpreters and teachers as well as a doctor, an overseer and a clerk. It demanded that the Nagas be placed under direct British rule and rejected the reforms plan which sought to bracket them with the rest of India.

The memorandum’s closing paragraph has been at the core of Naga political mobilisation since: “ … we pray that the British Government will continue to safeguard our rights against all encroachment from other people who are more advanced than us by withdrawing our country that we should not be thrust to the mercy of other people who could never be subjected; but to leave us alone to determine ourselves as in ancient times”.

A member of that commission from the British Parliament was the Labour Party leader Clement Attlee, who succeeded Winston Churchill as prime minister after World War II and played a key role in India’s Independence.

The impact of the visit to Kohima, then little more than a village and not the bustling town that it is today, on the MPs, especially on the future premier of Britain, has not been documented. But it was substantial enough for the Commission to propose that the Nagas, along with other hill tribes such as the Mizos, Garos, Khasis, Jaintias and parts of Lakhimpur and what is today’s Arunachal Pradesh, be placed in the Excluded Area category, which would be directly administered by British officers who were responsible to the governor and not the chief minister of the province (Assam).

“Nowhere in India is the difference between the life and outlook of the … hill-men and the totally distinct civilisation of the plains more visible,” the report said. Referring to the need for change, it prophesied: “If progress is to benefit and not to destroy these people, then it must come about gradually and the adjustment of their needs with the interests of the immigrant will provide a problem of great complexity and importance for many generations to come.”

Then came a sentence which was drowned out in the tumult of the anti-colonial sentiment sweeping the subcontinent: “It is a matter for the most serious consideration that whether the British Government which found the hill tribes independent can leave them dependent.”

The scholar Marcus Franda says that when the Commission’s report was debated in the British Parliament in 1935, its members said that they were advocating protection, not independence, for the hill groups.

Over a decade later, political conditions were dramatically different. World War II was over and the British were preparing to leave. But how were they to leave the backward and excluded areas? There was serious consideration of a Crown Colony plan, devised by Sir Robert Reid, who served as Assam governor, which would have ensured direct British rule of a large swathe of territory from parts of western Burma across the Chittagong Hill Tracts till the Tibet border. Naturally, this was unacceptable to the Congress and the plan fell through.

Attlee himself was to tell Parliament in 1947 that as far as the “hills in the Northeast Frontier are concerned, they come into the Province of Assam and will be dealt with by the constitutional assembly of which Assam forms a part”.

In between there were more complex moves and counter moves including the accord of July 1947 between the first Indian governor of Assam, Mohammed Saleh Akbar Hydari, and the Naga National Council, where the Nagas were given the option of reconsidering their relationship with India after 10 years. Hydari’s interpretation was that they had acceded to India for they had agreed in the interim to be with New Delhi.

Charles Pawsey, the knowledgeable administrator of the Nagas hills, who had been through the critical war years, foresaw trouble. (The battle for Kohima, celebrated as one of Britain’s greatest battles and a key to the outcome of World War II, was fought on the tennis courts of his official bungalow.)

In a note to a junior officer on the eve of Independence, Pawsey remarked pensively: “I don’t know what the eventual fate of the Nagas will be, there’s nothing more to help them that we haven’t already done. But it seems a pity that we couldn’t have had a few more years to get things straight.”

Sanjoy Hazarika is director, Centre for Northeast studies, Jamia Millia Islamia University. The views expressed are personal.

the speaking tree - Pledge Your Organs Today

BIMAL MOHANTY





There are several misconceptions with regard to organ donation. Firstly , do not harbour the feeling that organ donation is charity . We simply return a tool (faculty) that was a gift from the Divine for a purpose, for which we have no use any more. Entertaining the vanity of charity is ahamkara, or ego, of one kind that belittles one's sublime action of donation.Secondly , the misconception that a spiritual compatibility between the recipient and the donor is necessary , is not true.Essentially , it is the divinity inherent in all organs that is always conscious equally with everybody . The apparent inequality in consciousness is a superimposition caused by physical conditions only . There is no conclusive proof that an organ received from a criminal will make the recipient a criminal. That is the domain of individual actions and thoughts and sanskaras from past lives.
Thirdly , physical compatibility is important only to the extent that the donated organ must be compatible with matching tissues and so on to avoid a rejection. You need not worry about matching other physical parameters.
Fourthly , a donated organ must be able to perform the same function for the recipient. Simply sacrificing one's body or an organ is not organ donation. The examples of Dadhichi donating his rib bone to make a weapon or Ghatotkacha sacrificing his whole body by falling over the Kaurava army , or even a soldier sacrificing his body in fighting -noble actions as they may be -are strictly not organ donation.

Aug 13 2015 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

FOREST RIGHTS ACT - Don't Rush On Tribal Land Rights: Centre

Nidhi Sharma

New Delhi:





Taking No Chances: Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand told to follow law in letter and spirit

The Centre has sent a stern directive to Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh governments to follow proper procedure for settling land rights claims of tribal people under the Forest Rights Act.The directive has come after the state governments issued circulars to hold gram sabhas and get certificates from the tribals that their rights had been settled by a certain deadline.While Chhattisgarh had issued a circular on July 27 asking all district collectors to wrap up the process on August 15 by calling special gram sabha meetings, Jharkhand government set a deadline of October 2. The tribal affairs ministry intervened, asking the two states not to settle the land rights claims in a hurry .
“While this ministry appreciates the efforts of the government towards taking pro-active measures for implementation of the Forest Rights Act, it is also important to draw attention to the fact that the vesting and recognition of forest rights under the said Act requires careful consideration by the gram sabha,“ the ministry said in letters to chief secretaries of the two states.
The ministry has also asked Chhattisgarh not to settle the claims in the special gram sabha meetings called on August 15. Pointing out specific rules under the Forest Rights Act, the ministry said, “As these meetings have multiple agenda items, it is apprehended that the sabhas will not be able to consider the question of whether rights recognition process under Forest Rights Act is complete in the area under their jurisdiction with the requisite attention and application of mind.

Life After Death





On Organ Donation Day, let's resolve to donate as well as set up an effective policy mechanism

Hundreds of thousands of Indians die of organ failure every year. Many of these deaths could be averted by timely organ transplants. However, the country is beset with a monumental deficit of organs available for transplants. According to latest data, as against the demand for 1.75 lakh kidney transplants, only 5,000 are carried out. Similarly , 1,000 liver transplants take place while 50,000 die of end stage liver disease. Statistics are distressingly poor in case of heart or lung transplants too. Indeed, India's organ donation rate stands at an abysmal 0.34 per million population. A country like Spain, on the other hand, has managed to ramp up the rate to 36 PMP and, hence, save many lives.Today is Organ Donation Day, an initiative of this newspaper. It aims to give a fillip to India's efforts to develop an effective organ donation ecosystem. Last week health minister J P Nadda declared that the government would soon announce a policy mechanism to facilitate cadaver organ donation and address institutional roadblocks. Those roadblocks are formidable, but hardly insurmountable.First and foremost the government, in tandem with all stakeholders, must set up a national registry of potential organ donors and recipients. Time is of the essence when it comes to organ transplants as a heart or a lung cannot be stored. A centralised database indicating demand and supply can eliminate time lag and ensure an organ harvested from a brain dead patient reaches the recipient in time to save his or her life. In fact, this week the heart and lungs of a brain-dead patient were airlifted from Kochi to Chennai and used for a successful transplant.
But such instances are exceptions rather than the rule. Indeed, the government needs to adopt a host of other measures ­ from mandatory reporting of brain death, to developing infrastructure and logistics for speedy transportation of organs, to preparing standards for transplants in registered hospitals ­ to ensure organ donation and transplants can take place smoothly .
No less important is the task of raising awareness so more and more people sign up for organ donation. Rope in film stars and role models to lead a public awareness campaign. Institute the help of religious leaders so relatives of brain dead patients do not baulk at agreeing to their loved ones' organs being harvested. Death may be inevitable. But organ donation allows you the chance to give life to someone else.

25% of Indians may die of lifestyle diseases before they are 70: Study

Sushmi Dey

New Delhi:





`Heart, Lung Ailments Claim 5.8m LivesYr'

With increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases in India, one out of four Indians is at risk of dying from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cardio-vascular ailments or cancer before the age of 70, according to estimates of various global and domestic organizations. The findings are part of a white paper released by the Confederation of Indian Industry and academia on Wednesday .“Every year, roughly 5.8 million Indians die from heart and lung diseases, stroke, cancer and diabetes.In other words, 1 in 4 Indians risks dying from an NCD before they reach the age of 70,“ the white paper said. Experts say the government needs to urgently build awareness programmes for NCDs in line with that for HIV and tuberculosis.
“Prevalence of NCDs is a result of lifestyle patterns which have changed significantly over the last decade.The government's programmes so far have been focused around HIV and tropical diseases. But with the increasing NCD burden, awareness needs to be created and ramped up from community level to across the country,“ said Kevin L. Walker, Executive Director, Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, a global organization working towards raising awareness about how to counter diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disabilities.
Many other global organizations including World Health Organisation and other agencies of the United Nations have now carved out specific strategies to tackle the rising disease burden due to changing lifestyle and eating habits.
The government said it is set to roll out a preventive and promotive programme in six districts to spread awareness about the disease.
“We have chosen six districts. Around 200 doctors will be posted in each district.They are currently undergoing training and the programme is expected to be launched by the end of this month,“ Dr Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services, said at the National NCD summit organized by CII.
According to the NCD country profiles of 2014 released by WHO, diseases like cancer, chronic respiratory problems and cardiovascular diseases are the biggest global killers accounting for 38 million deaths every year.