Nutrition, effective cash transfers: How to ensure social protection

Small and marginal farmers comprise 85% of the land holdings in India. Social protection is a survival tool for the rural poor, who have no easy access to wage labour. India recognised the need for social protection early on and introduced a slew of social protection programmes like the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provides 100 days of assured labour wages to every rural poor household. The minimum support price serves as a social protection instrument for farmers. But are these schemes reaching their target audience?

That’s where the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) is currently assisting the government on plugging leaks in the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). “Biometric identification of beneficiaries in Kerala and Odisha has already eliminated families who should not fall under the programme. This alone could yield savings running into millions of dollars,” says Hameed Nuru, the WFP’s country director. Under the mid-day meal scheme, the WFP is also assisting Odisha in overcoming the nutrition deficit through iron fortification of rice.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which is working among the rural poor with the Madhya Pradesh government, finds that addressing hunger nutrition is often overlooked. It feels that communities should be made aware of the nutritive value of food available in their natural habitat. “Promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture through revival of highly nutritive traditional crops such as kodo kutki and other millets can be a good strategy,” says Meera Mishra, country coordinator, IFAD.

Growing local and procuring local eliminate the need to transport food and its carbon footprint. In this context the Madhya Pradesh government’s Samagra database and model of cash transfers deserve special mention. The model is now being used by almost all the departments of the state for various programmes, including a pilot on cash transfers for the PDS to implement the National Food Security Act. Coupled with good governance, cash transfers can eliminate pilferage, which eats into benefits meant for the poor.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) work shows that besides plugging leakages, cash transfers have a multiplier effect on farm outputs and initiating microenterprises. In Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, cash transfers have improved access to health, education services and reduced child labour. Social protection is particularly helpful for households as women take charge of food and nutrition, children’s education and wellbeing.

“Programmes like the MGNREGA can transform India’s rural economy through creation of public and private goods such as terracing, irrigation and other infrastructures, besides injecting income into the local economy,” says Shyam Khadka, the FAO’s India representative. Brazil’s Bolsa Familia programme is a shining example of how about 50 million people are assisted. Since its introduction 12 years ago, 36 million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty. For every Brazilian Real spent, the economy at large gains an estimated 1.87 Brazilian Reals. Brazil has shown how rather than just giving handouts, social protection should focus on sustainable pathways out of poverty and food insecurity.

Ashim Choudhury is communications consultant, Food and Agriculture Organization

Source: Hindustan Times, 2-`11-2015

TISS beef docu runs into ABVP on JNU campus

Sadaf Modak TWEETS @sadafm_MIRROR





Caste On The Menu Card screened after standoff with ABVP

Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) documentary Caste On The Menu Card ran into further trouble after the Films Division of India blocked its screening at a private film festival, with the Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University’s administration banning it on campus as well.The documentary was finally screened on campus at 9.30 pm on Sunday after the standoff with BJP's youth wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) was resolved Permission for a public screening of the documentary on campus had been sought by the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Student Association (BAPSA), a student organisation at JNU, from the Dean of Student Welfare.
When this was denied, BAPSA sought permission to screen the documentary in the JNU hostel. “The hostel warden had allowed the screening, but permission was withdrawn after pressure from some groups. We will ensure the screening happens at any cost,” a BAPSA member said.
ABVP representatives said they came to know of the screening through posters announcing it.
“The JNU administration told us that permission had not been granted for screening Caste On The Menu Card.
We realised that some students were planning to go ahead nonetheless and appealed for action to stop it,” Ravi Ranjan Choudhary, ABVP president at JNU, told Mumbai Mirror.
Saurabh Sharma, ABVP joint secretary at JNU, added, “Security is in place at the screening venue, and Delhi police has been deployed at the gates.” H e s a i d t h e I n f o r m a t i o n & Broadcasting ministry has directed that films on beef not be screened publicly, given the current tension in the country over its sale and consumption.
Meanwhile, Caste on the Menu Card received two awards at the 12th Jeevika Asia Livelihood Documentary Film Festival, where its screening had first been banned by Films Division of India. The 21-minute film on beef politics on campuses and issues of livelihood and caste surrounding beef won the Best Student Documentary and the Jeevika Freedom Award.
Festival director Manoj Matthews told Mumbai Mirror the jury had decided much before the controversy.
“The film was chosen for its content on how policy issues on meat hamper the livelihood of those in the leather and meat industry,” he added.
Other institutions including FTII and Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune, too have invited the film for a public screening.

Source: Mumbai Mirror, 2-11-2015

GLOBAL CITIZEN - Erasmus+: A New Chapter in EU-India Educational Ties

Ishani Duttagupta





The Erasmus Mundus programme has provided a pathway for Indian students to study in European Union countries, and gain mobility across universities there. India was at the forefront of the programme with around 3,000 Indian students and scholars having studied and researched in European universities in the past decade. Around 50 Indian universities have also been involved in these partnerships.Since 2008, EU and India have been engaged in jointly promoting higher education. The partnership started as a mutually beneficial mechanism for the exchange of information and experiences, of best practices, as well as a process of peer learning between administrations.
From 2014, with the launch of the new Erasmus Plus programme (2014-2020), the European Union is looking at a new chapter in educational ties with India to increase the visibility and popularity of the region as a popular higher educational destination for Indian students. Currently, there are around 50,000 Indian students enrolled in higher education institutions across EU.
“In the past, India has been the No.1 destination for Erasmus students and we are looking at attracting the same kind of interest for the new programme too,“ said Brian Toll, senior policy adviser, international cooperation in education and youth, European Commission, Brussels He said Erasmus+ provides new opportunities for cooperation between Indian and EU universities, including joint degrees, and also mobility for Indian students to study in the EU.
“With increasing globalisation of education, Indian students will benefit in a big way from the EU-funded Erasmus programme. An exposure to higher education in the best of universities in Europe often paves the way for jobs across the world. The universities covered by the Erasmus programme are recognised as among the best globally ,“ said Toll.
Despite a great deal of interest in higher education in Europe in the past, European Commission authorities are concerned over the slow pickup in enthusiasm for Erasmus+ which was launched last year despite substantial scholarships to cover travel, living expenses and tuition for diverse courses across Europe.
“The policy-level partnership be tween India and EU has only deepened through Erasmus+ with India having been signed up as a strategic partner. Besides students, Erasmus+ also provides an opportunity for the university authorities, faculty members and administrative staff in India to get involved in the projects and increase their understanding about the European educational system,“ Toll said.
The programme now covers shortterm mobility and exchanges both ways; joint degrees and institutional capacity-building.
While in the short-term students from India can visit universities in Europe to study and earn credits from there, and fi nally get an Indian degree. In the long term they can en roll for joint mas ter's programmes in one or more European univer sities and earn joint master's de grees with Indian universities. “The funding for such programmes is substantial and covers board, lodging, tuition and airfare when in Europe. It works out to around 25,000 per year per student on an average for master's degrees,“ Toll said.
The overall funding for Erasmus+ till 2020 is 14.7 billion covering institutions and students. Further, 1.68 billion is available for international cooperation with countries outside Europe.
Erasmus+ programmes cover a range of subjects including engineering, technology , maths, science and liberal arts. “The STEM courses have been very popular among Indian students in the past. Many of them have stayed back in Europe for their student projects and internships, which is the first step towards global job opportunities,“ Toll said.

Source: Economic Times, 2-11-2015

Miracles in Daily Life

TG LIYER





People become enlightened in three main ways: through suffering, outcome and purpose.Sudama's life is an example of enlightenment through suffering. Living in poverty , he could enjoy bliss remembering the Lord. When he returned from Dwarka, seeing the prosperity showered on him, he lamented, “Oh Lord! You think that you can imprison me with this material prosperity , but you forget that you are imprisoned in my heart till eternity .“Enlightenment through outcome arises out of setting goals and ambitions. We're all taught to mask our true feelings.We are afraid of the unknown, our feelings, our intuitions, because the outcome is unknowable. When we hold back our genuine feelings, we become frustrated and lose confidence in ourselves. But when we follow our intuition and the outcome is right, we get that special experience called enlightenment. The intuition comes from the unconscious mind.
The third way of enlightenment is through purpose.Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi lived deliberately to achieve something noble and lofty . In the later years of his presidency , Lincoln had ceased to blame anger and had developed a brilliant, philosophical sense of humour. Gandhi experimented with nonviolence and in his later years did penance and self-purification by going on fast for a cause.
Miracle is not materialising something from nowhere; it is living a fulfilled life everyday .The Dhammapada says that it is everyone's duty to get free of hate, disease and restlessness.

Surging India world's 7th top nation brand: Study

PTI





India has moved up one po sition to become the world's seventh most valued `nation brand', with an increase of 32% in its brand value to $2.1 billion.The US remains on top with a valuation of $19.7 billion, followed by China and Germany at the second and the third positions respectively, as per the annual report on the world's most valuable nation brands compiled by Brand Finance.
The UK is ranked fourth, Japan is at fifth position and France is sixth on the list.While India and France have moved up one position each since last year, all the top five countries have retained their respective places.
However, a surge of 32% in India's `nation brand value' is the highest among the top 20 countries on the list.
China retained its second position despite a 1% decline in brand value to $6.3 billion.
Brand Finance said it measures the strength and value of the nation brands of 100 leading countries using a method based on the royalty relief mechanism employed to value the world's largest companies. The report also said the `Incredible India' slogan has worked well, while Germany suffered due to the Volkswagen crisis. The nation brand valuation is based on five year forecasts of sales of all brands in each nation and follows a complex process. The gross domestic product (GDP) is used as a proxy for total revenues.
About the US, the report said it remains a powerful brand with an inviting business climate. “However its value comes in large part from the country's sheer economic scale... The US' world-leading higher education system and the soft power arising from its dominance of the music and entertainment industries are significant contributors too.
“This soft power will help the US to retain the most valuable nation brand for some time after China's seemingly imminent rise to become the world's biggest economy,“ it added.
The study further said that China's recent stock market turbulence and slowing growth will also extend the US' tenure of the top spot.
Among Brics nations, India is the only country to have witnessed an increase in its brand value with all others -Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa -seeing a dip in their respective brand valuations.
India is the second most valued among these emerging economies after China, followed by Brazil, Russia and South Africa.

Source: Times of India, 2-11-2015

That volcano within

What does one do with anger? How does one subdue, express and deflect it?

On a delayed train, passengers were talking to one another about their lives and problems. “There have been at least four people in my life whom I’d like to have shot but didn’t,” said a government officer who was being harassed by a local mafia in a small town. The rest of us stared nervously at him. Had we been so tested?

Who among us has not felt rage burning through the scalp and exploding into words? Quite often it is impossible to stop the hot words that rise to our lips. That’s just it. At some point we cannot control anger. It controls us. When face to face with planned dishonesty, blatant injustice or repeated meanness it makes us long to respond violently. The moral compass deep within us will not let us rest.

Fear and fury

“Put that down now or I’ll hit you!” That is a different kind of fury isn’t it? Fear plumes into hysterical anger in a parent instructing a child who innocently picks up something dangerous. One of the instincts that causes this fountain of anger is surely a feeling of helplessness and the need for urgent action. As reactions spin out of control all the primal instincts come rushing out and disturb our carefully arranged social faces.

Well — it is normal to feel angry. No human, be she a saint or he a rishi, can avoid the rise of anger in the mind. However, unless one’s life is in danger or the environment is one of war, it is abnormal to act violently. The point is what one does with that anger — how does one subdue, express, deflect it, for the good of others and oneself? Most of us also know that anything that is long suppressed has a tendency to either burst forth or dig into us like an acid, causing ill-health and loss of stability. Listen to what William Blake said 200 years ago:

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

Yes. Anger has to be tackled either by tackling the person or situation which is causing it or by sorting it out within yourself because you see that there is no shortcut solution. It is an emotion no one can afford to give in to because it clouds judgment and quickly builds roads to mistakes from which we may never recover.

Unless we learn to recognise the forces that lead to conflict both within and without, and hit the brakes on them before they grow into uncontrollable monsters, they will simply take over. Remember this … angry people forget themselves, parents injure children, cars and bikes on the road run amuck and a helpless colleague might lose his or her job if a superior who has the power to use it, misuses the same in a fit of anger. The Bhagavad Gita links kama (desire) and krodha (anger) and condemns these in the strongest terms — a madness which leads on to self-destruction but not before you’ve destroyed others. In the end the damage is permanent. One of my favourite sayings is, “The boneless tongue is sharper than a knife.”

Kinds of anger

All right. Let us widen this circle of thought to include another type of anger. It is impersonal. It concerns what happens to others. It comes from a sense of outrage. It is the anger when one’s bus or train is late; when a stranger is needlessly and cruelly rude in a queue or makes obscene gestures at your friend or sister. Can you, as you go about your day, think about three kinds of anger listed below?

Anger against authorities — thoughtless or outdated rules

Anger against an equal at work, or fellow student — someone who seems to enjoy putting another in a difficult position

Anger against a member of family — someone who is continuously critical of you or your parents.

Anger is a reaction to a situation but when it is expressed as action, it becomes the cause for something else. Anger-driven action, if emotional and impulsive, can be very harmful (to all concerned). Anger tempered by thought and a sense of fairness should also be carefully considered because cold preparation could lack compassion.

If something unethical or annoying makes you furious, the action arising out of that feeling still needs to be ethical and based on a moral decision and not thoughtless explosions.

A question to ask yourself 

Are there some people who cannot afford to display their anger no matter how enraged they might be? Who are they?

Suggested reading

What can you do about negative emotions within and around you?

by Mariamne Paulus (available on the Internet)

Email: minioup@gmail.com

Keywords: Ethics and you, anger management

Source: The Hindu, 30-10-2015

The Bihari versus the bahari

The significant migrant population from Bihar could affect the poll outcome if many choose to return to vote.

Notwithstanding the political rhetoric of bihari versus bahari (outsider), many commentators have suggested that Bihar’s migrant population, living and working in other parts of the country, may play a crucial role in determining the final outcome of the ongoing State Assembly elections. The State has the highest net migration rate (out-migration minus in-migration) in the country and in the last two decades the out-migration has increased manifold. The most recent data on migration patterns in India from the 64th round of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) conducted in 2007-08 puts the net migration rate per 1000 persons in Bihar at the highest in the country (- 56) followed by Kerala (-44) and Uttar Pradesh (- 31).

The pre-poll survey conducted by Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Bihar in the last week of September reflects this with approximately half the sample reporting that they had at least one member of the household living outside the State. Also, as the NSSO data suggests, the size of this emigrant population in absolute numbers is huge. Thus, its effect on the final election outcome — which most pollsters and political analysts have been describing as “too close to call” — could be very large. In the 2010 Assembly elections, the average winning margin was 15,000 votes, and approximately 50 seats were decided by a difference of less than 5,000 votes. And if one does the math using the migration data from the NSSO and the electorate size of this election, then the average winning margin of the 2010 elections and average migrant population per assembly constituency turns out to be roughly the same.

How much impact would the migrant population have on the final tally? In our opinion, the overall effect of the migrant population in the final instance would be determined by four inter-related factors. First, how many of these migrants will return to vote. Second, do these returnees overwhelmingly belong to certain communities and a certain economic class? Third, do they vote along with other members of their household or are their voting decisions independent? And finally, do migrants influence the voting decisions of their family members even when they are not visiting their native places during elections?

However, an important caveat is in order before we delve into exploring the possible effect of the migrant voters. As there are no reliable estimates that suggest otherwise, we have assumed that a large proportion of the migrant population is registered as voters in Bihar.

Women’s turnout puzzle?

The assembly constituencies where the polling took place on October 12 and 16 saw an increase of approximately five percentage points in voter turnout when compared to the 2010 elections. More significantly, the turnout among women was once again much higher. What explains this higher rate of turnout among women ? Some have suggested that women are increasingly participating in the political arena thanks to relatively greater economic independence and political empowerment. Other analysts, however, argue that it is entirely plausible that the turnout differences are largely a result of differential rates of migration as approximately four of every five migrants from Bihar is a male.

While it is difficult to resolve this debate in the absence of more fine-grained data, it appears that the turnout difference between men and women is due to an increase in turnout by women and that is independent of migration, at least partly. There could be other reasons as well such as the decline in incidents of violence at polling booths, or the proximity of polling stations.

Migrants as decision makers

Many studies have pointed out that the political socialisation of migrants is different from other members of their family, and in many cases, as the sole earning members, their guidance is sought even in matters related to voting. Migrants look beyond local factors while making political decisions. For example, the pre-poll data suggests that households with at least one member living outside the State are more likely to consider the performance of the Central government than State government even during State elections. They are also more likely to own a mobile handset, a television, and have higher media exposure. Thus, these migrants can influence the voting decisions of their family members even without being physically present.

The pre-poll survey indicates that the migrant factor makes a difference to a respondent’s voting choices. In the survey, the NDA had seven percentage point lead over the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) among non out-migrant households, which gets reduced to just one percentage point among the out-migrant households. The data presented in the graphic shows that this pattern is visible across all economic classes. While the NDA had a lead of five percentage points over the Grand Alliance among poor households with no member living outside Bihar, the vote share of the two alliances is almost same among poor households with at least one out-migrant member. Similarly, the NDA trails theMahagathbandhan by nine percentage points among the lower middle class out-migrant households and by five percentage points among households in similar economic condition but no family members living outside the State. Even among the upper middle class households, where the NDA usually does well, the migrant factor makes a difference, with the NDA leading the Grand Alliance by 18 percentage points among non out-migrant households while the gap declines to 11 percentage points among out-migrant households.

Thus, the turnout of the migrant population and their family members could change the electoral equations in many parts of Bihar. Many analysts with special interest in Bihar politics have pointed out that the polling dates this time (especially phase 3 onwards) overlap with the holiday season and a significant number of migrants return to home during October-November every year. While the number of returnees may not be enough to close the gender gap in voter turnout, it can definitely influence the election results.

Our knowledge about how migrant populations participate in the political arena is very limited. The sooner we make systematic efforts to collect data on this, the better we will understand the changing nature of electoral democracy in increasingly urbanising India.

(Rahul Verma is with Lokniti-CSDS and the Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Shreyas Sardesai is with Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi.)

Keywords: Bihar Assembly elections, migration population, pre-poll survey

Source: The Hindu, 30-10-2015