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Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The Urban Fellows Programme (UFP)

[A Full-time 9 month Fellowship starting in August 2016 till May, 2017]

BY/AT: The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS, Bangalore (INDIA)

ABOUT: The UFP is a fully-funded, nine-month, full-time, inter-disciplinary programme for recent graduates and young professionals from varied educational backgrounds or practice domains. Through the UFP, Fellows will:
  • Gain cutting-edge knowledge and perspectives in core urban sectors
  • Gain professional skills to enable rapid career development across private, public and community-based organisations
  • Engage with global, national and local thought leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers from diverse fields of urban practice
  • Network with national and international urban practitioners and experts
  • Access experiential learning that is linked to professional practice and is tailored to the aspirations of young professionals
  • Learn from a diverse and experienced faculty who bring together theory and practice
  • Develop a comparative perspective on urban development across cities in India
  • Apply new learning immediately within the course and through an internship
IMPORTANT DATES: The UFP 2016-17 will award 35 fully-funded Fellowships on a competitive basis. Candidates are strongly encouraged to apply within the first deadline. It is estimated that the UFP 2016-17 class will be nearly entirely filled in the first round. A second round will be held for limited remaining seats, if any.
We have received an overwhelming response to the Urban Fellows Programme, with more than 1300 candidates starting applications. We strongly encourage everyone interested in applying to the Programme to submit your application by Tuesday, 10th May 2016 (Tuesday 11:59 pm, IST).

The timeline for the admissions procedure is as follows:
10th May 2016 (Tuesday 11:59 pm, IST): First round of applications close
12th- 13th May 2016 (Thursday- Friday): Shortlisted candidates will be contacted to set up interview times and dates. Interviews will be in person or via Skype (phone interviews will be conducted only in exceptional circumstances)
14th May- 18th May 2016 (Saturday- Wednesday): Interviews will be conducted
23rd May 2016 (Monday): Selected and wait listed candidates will be informed
Second Deadline: 30 May 2016
2nd – 5th June 2016 (Thursday – Sunday): Interviews for second round of admissions
10 June 2016 (Friday): Second admission decisions


FEES and COSTS: The UFP is a fully funded programme. All fellowships include tuition and accommodation. Applicants with significant financial need may also apply for an additional living stipend.
All admitted Fellows will be asked to submit a Rs 20,000 deposit to secure their admission. This will be refunded upon successful completion of the Fellowship. Applicants in financial need may request a waiver of the deposit to be considered on a case by case basis.
The Urban Fellows Programme is supported by the H. T. Parekh Foundation.

CONTACT: ufp.info@iihs.ac.in
IIHS Bangalore City CampusNo. 197/36, 2nd Main Road, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080. India
Tel: +91 80 6760 6666; Fax: +91 80 2361 6814.

Source: http://iihs.co.in
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Farmer suicides in Marathwada cross 400 mark in 4 months; toll reaches 1,548 - 

 92 more than 2015, Govt taskforce says crisis too big, will take time to turn things around.

 The farmer suicides, which have remained unstoppable for past few years in eight districts of Marathwada, have crossed the staggering 400-mark in just over four month period in 2016. Compared to 2015, as many as 92 more farmers have embraced deaths in the first four and half months of 2016, highlighting the failure of the government schemes launched in August to curb the spate of suicides. A special taskforce appointed by the Devendra Fadnavis government on Tuesday conceded that the agrarian crisis was too “substantial” and results of the government efforts to put brakes on suicides will take time to show up. 

 In 2015, the collective figure of suicides in all eight districts of Marathwada stood at 1,130 – three suicides every day and throughout the year. In past 16 months, 1,548 distressed farmers have been reported dead in the Marathwada region which is witnessing fourth successive years of drought with wells, rivers and dams having gone dry. In 2015, Beed, from where Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde hails, had witnessed nearly 300 farmer suicides. In 2016, in just over four months, it is again on top with 75 suicides. In Aurangabad where Shiv Sena and MIM raise decibel levels on every other issue stands second with 64 suicides. Nanded, from where MPCC president Ashok Chavan comes from, is at third spot with 62 suicides. Other districts where farmer suicides have become common includes Latur 55, Osmanabad 54, Jalna 43, Parbhani 39 and Hingoli 26, according to officials at the Aurangabad divisional commissionerate which monitors the farmer suicides. In 2015, from January to April, as many as 278 had ended their lives. In the same period in 2016, 370 – 92 more than 2015. Till May 7, in 2016, 392 farmers were reported dead. In 2015, the figure of suicides stood at 300 in the same period. “It is true that compared to last year, this year’s figure of farmer suicides is on the much higher side,” said Jitendra Papalkar, Aurangabad Deputy Commissioner (revenue). Osmanabad which was picked by the state government’s “zero-suicide district” reflects what, official sources, say the failure of government’s so-called efforts to put brakes on the farmer suicide saga. It has reported 54 suicides since January. Officials have been citing two main reasons for farmer suicides: crop failure and mounting debts. Conceding that government efforts have not yielded results so far, Kishore Tiwari, who heads the state government-appointed Vasantrao Naik Shetkari Swavlamban Mission, said the agrarian crisis in Marathwada was so “substantial” that it will take time before the turn around happens. “We have launched a number of schemes to halt the suicides of farmers in Marathwada and other parts of the state. Among the plans includes Food Security Act, critical illness, waiver of fees, counselling for farmers as also vigorous implementation of crop insurance. Since farmer suicides are growing, it is clear that our effort will take time to yield results,” he said. Tiwari said the government has aggressively launched the crop cultivation campaign in Marathwada. “Under this, we are urging farmers to go for food crop likes pulses, jowar, maize instead of water guzzling crops like sugarcane,” he said. “One acre of sugarcane crop guzzles water of 100 acre of cotton crop. This difference is stark. Therefore, in places like Latur, Beed and Osmanabad which have been hit hard by water shortage, it will be in their own interest if farmers shun sugarcane crop and instead prefer food crops,” he said. The government, said Tiwari, is even providing seeds for free and imparting teaching on cultivation methods. Clarifying that government was not against sugarcane crop, Tiwari said,”Where ever there is ample amount of water like in Western Maharashtra, sugarcane remains the favourite crop. But in drought-hit areas, the crop pattern should change in favour of crops that consume less water,” he said.

 Tiwari said in drought-hit areas where farmer shun sugarcane crop, the taskforce will urge the government to provide compensation to sugar factories. “But all this needed concerted efforts, especially on the part of local politicians, who should come together and take a united decision vis-a-vis changing cultivation pattern,” he said. State Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, “While the state government is claiming that it had launched a number schemes to halt farmers suicides, the figures tell a completely different story. All this means that the plans are only on paper and at ground zero, nothing is reaching the farmers. How can the government sitting in Ivory Towers know what is happening in faraway in Marathwada? This government is busy with paperwork and not doing any ground work,” he said. 

 Source: Indian Express, 24-05-2016
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Now, an app to find the closest blood bank

Bengaluru-based engineer’s Ausodhyatmika gives details of all registered banks

Moved by the plight of people who frantically search for blood donors and blood banks during medical emergencies, a Bengaluru-based software engineer has developed a mobile app that provides details of these facilities situated close by, from any location in the country.
Access on Google Maps
Krishna Kant Tiwari has designed Android appAusodhyatmika (available for free in Google Play) that lists the details of all registered blood banks of the country and their location, with contacts that can be accessed through Google Maps.
All blood banks located within a 100 km radius, with their distance, can be checked.
Blood banks beyond this limit can also be located using the advanced search option.
The app offers an option for any donor to enrol his/her name on the list of prospective donors to help people who are in need of a blood group, which is not available in any blood bank.
“Mobile phone users could easily find donors’ contact number and also can track them using the in-built GPS system,” said Mr. Tiwari.
The app also has a list of ambulances and names of all the registered hospitals of the country, their contact numbers and their addresses.
The app provides details of other healthcare entities such as clinics, nursing homes, pathology labs, diagnostics, pharmacies, and veterinary hospitals that are registered with the Government of India.
Database of medicines
Besides this, the app also has the database of over one lakh medicines and their combinations.
Mr. Tiwari said that in order to prevent any misuse, the app has an option called ‘Report Abuse’, using which, any user can report wrongful use of the app.

Source: The Hindu, 24-05-2016
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We will always be young adults

India still does not have its Judy Blume, but a clutch of new books are pushing the boundaries of the genre of YA

I read Priyanka Mookerjee’s Hedon in big gulps, taking breaks because I had to, because its intensity clung to me in an almost oppressive way. In fact, I don’t think I realised till I was done reading that I had liked the book; that this dense, raw world with its fevered pace had appealed to me. Till I finished, I hadn’t had time to think; the pages crowded, words tumbling over each other in a rush to tell their story.
But afterwards, I wondered. Here is this new book with its fairly typical world, created with building blocks we know far too well now — a young girl (“plain”, precocious) and an older man (handsome, unattainable), a meet-cute that almost borders on trite, and the story of an Indian girl in a college abroad, juggling aspirations and heartbreaks and temptations. Routine stuff, really. So why does it work? Why does this young adult novel, with all its expected ingredients and predictable plot twists, seem to stand a little apart?
Expectation and reality

More than anything else, it is perhaps how the book feels that distinguishes it; how its convoluted, angst-ridden self-awareness stops just short of posturing, so while you expect one thing (teen pop romance laced with tried and tested tropes), you get quite another (a kind of breathless unravelling of everything, all at once). Young adult fiction’s late entry to the Indian literary market makes Hedonespecially rare, and I cannot find the exact comparison by an Indian author. The only one that perhaps comes close is Jobless Clueless Reckless by Revathi Suresh, published in 2013 by Duckbill. Suresh’s intelligent grasp on the teenage psyche and her easy ability to navigate its labyrinth finds an echo inHedon, but whereas Suresh’s voice is younger, Mookerjee’s is older and somehow darker.
At one level, Hedon was familiar to me in the way my own teenage years are — hazy half-memories that seem both intensely private and completely alien. It reminded me that while I can pretend I’ve forgotten how seventeen felt, its raw intensity is easy to summon. At least, Hedon helps make it easy.
The book’s protagonist Tara Mullick’s life isn’t every teenager’s life. It was certainly not mine, but even while her own world follows a trajectory I cannot draw parallels with, it is the voice Mookerjee gives her that pulls at you — its vulnerability, beating steadily behind the thin veneer of nonchalant self-confidence that only teenagers can pull off, so that Tara shifts between an indulgent assurance of her own intelligence and a deep insecurity about her own place in the world she inhabits. I’ve seen that voice used before, but rarely, so that when it does appear, it holds you captive. It creates a book that only just fits into that youth adult shelf we’ve created, its pages bleeding into all the other spaces that surround it. The label refuses to stick, and you find that there’s no space for it anyway, because while you’ve got yourself a book that’s about a young adult, written in the voice of a young adult, and entirely accessible to young adults, you’ve also got a book that belongs to every reader who picks it up.
Perhaps that statement is true of any book. But reading Hedon reminded me of how amorphous the term ‘young adult’ really is. How fiction overtly written for this age bracket exists in a state of perpetual shift, so that sometimes it seems strange that we’ve set these limits at all; that when it comes to books, we are so sure about what goes where. After all, in life, things are a lot more muddled, the lines a lot more blurred. Who can tell, really, when exactly they grew up?
When Tara falls immediately and completely in love with a near stranger, she’s just seventeen; when she writes poetry for her dead neighbour or when she tumbles through chapters’ worth of casual sex and experimental drugs, you see awkward innocence in her desperate rush to grow up. You see her pull and push at these conflicting notes, and when the plot seems to spiral out of control, Mookerjee keeps up, laying down for us the very moments that change Tara. Together, these moments become the strength of the book, lending it a kind of universally relatable quality that has nothing to do with actual plot developments.
The voice of the teenager

Perhaps this is why there are so many adults dipping into young adult fiction, and why books like Hedoncannot entirely define their readership. I remember reading Judy Blume in school, going through her books one after the other in a greedy rush to read them all. I always devoured them with a kind of guilty thrill, because back then Blume’s books were really a few of the only ones that would discuss certain things — puberty, sex, boys, death, even love in a way — with a frankness that was refreshing and unnerving. I don’t know how Blume did it, but she made her teenagers breathe — she made them say and do things that rang true, and her books pulsated with unfettered honesty. When I pick up the same books now, the voice is just as honest, the book just as relatable. Only, I find myself appreciating things I didn’t then. I know that I’m not reading a different book; just reading it differently.
Over the years, I’ve come across several voices that have reminded me, in one way or the other, of Blume’s. Before, these were books written by international authors, reaching India with their stories intact, even if their context gained distance — the once obscure cult favourite, Christopher Pike, with his dark and disturbing world brimming with the unnatural and supernatural; Lois Lowry’s The Giver with its beautiful complexity; or Sherman Alexie’s The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian riddled with the kind of funny that twists your stomach and makes you grin, all at the same time. These will thankfully keep coming, but now our options back home are steadily growing, whether it is Paro Anand’s gritty attempts to explain and understand a world from the eyes of a teenager, Himanjali Sankar’s exploration of homosexuality in Talking of Muskaan, or Mookerjee’s Hedon.
swati.d@thehindu.co.in
Keywords: Books, genre, Young adults
Source: The Hindu, 24-05-2016
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Who Is The Greatest Guru Of All Time?
Pulkit Sharma


The Mahabharata narrates the story of Eklavya, a tribal with immense potential who aspired to study archery from Dronacharya, the revered guru of the Kauravas and Pandavas. But, when he approached Dronacharya, his request was turned down as the guru was appointed to teach only royalty . Drona did not wish to accept a tribal boy as his disciple. Heartbroken, Eklavya made a statue of Dronacharya and every day he would seek guidance and support from the statue besides doing rigorous self-taught practice in archery .In due course, Eklavya turned out to be so magnificent an archer that he had the potential to defeat even the students trained personally by Dronacharya.Who really was Eklavya's guru? Was it just his own aspiration inspired by Drona's skill or was there some kind of Divine intervention? When relating to a guru, people often confuse the physical body or mental intelligence to be the guru. They may even compare different gurus. The truth is, though, that there is only one guru in the universe ­ the Divine.According to Siddheshwar Baba, since time immemorial, the Divine has assumed different names and forms and has manifested in realised persons so that they could guide sincere seekers on the path of transcendence.
Some great spiritual experiences bestowed upon disciples through their guru may not be even known to the guru. This is because Divine Consciousness is utilising the form of the physical guru as an instrument to manifest itself and help genuine seekers in their evolution. Thus, all gurus, avatars and prophets put together represent One Reality . In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali highlights that `Ishvara' or Divine Consciousness which can manifest in different forms is unbound by time and has the unparalleled seed of omniscience.Ishvara is considered to be the earliest teacher ­ the teacher of all teachers.Success in yoga can be achieved by submitting to, reflecting on and meditating upon Divine Consciousness.When we surrender ourselves before the Divine, this seed of omniscience is positioned in us and in due course of time it sprouts and flourishes, thereby dissolving all falsehoods.
Whenever a seeker has the sincere aspiration to progress, Divine Consciousness graciously appears on the scene either in its original formless state or by assuming a form to guide the person.There are people who spend a lot of time in searching for an ideal `guru' in the external physical realm.They take initiation from several places but rarely show any commitment and quickly shift from one school of thought to another. They also try to compare various schools of thought with the intent of figuring out which is the better one. This is nothing but sheer ignorance and wastage of time.
What one requires to progress is a deep faith. When it is the same force that illuminates all masters, why bother about external attributes and practices?
Why should one waste time in fighting wars over which particular school of spirituality or religion is the superior one when all of them are only instruments for realisation? All paths are equally good because their end goal is the same. One must seek the One in everyone with reverence and gratitude.Therefore, one must never be hopeless but always pray to Divine Consciousness for guidance, support and enlightenment.And when the prayer is sincere and comes from the soul, it will be heard.(The writer is a clinical psychologist.)
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Monday, May 23, 2016

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents:

Vol. 51, Issue No. 21, 21 May, 2016

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Labour law reforms are a necessity

It is ironical that a country with so many unemployed youth mostly exports capital-intensive goods

While it is heartening to note that Indian policymakers seem to have realized the importance of manufacturing in providing jobs, it is also equally important to realize that the path leading to higher manufacturing employment has to necessarily cross a difficult bridge called labour reforms. Careful research done by several leading economists using nationwide plantlevel data and also employing cutting-edge econometric techniques has shown that labour reforms is sine qua non for achieving employment growth in India.

Given its criticality, the issue of labour reforms has attracted a lot of mainstream media attention. However, most of the arguments advanced, both in favour of and against labour reforms, are coloured by the ideological worldview or the economic status of the people making the arguments. Many a time, arguments are driven by passion rather than reason. For example, all those who represent workers or subscribe to a leftist worldview believe that labour reforms are likely to have a detrimental impact on employment and hence oppose even simple procedural reforms in this area. On the other hand, industrialists and those subscribing to rightist worldview call for radical labour reforms without appreciating the plausible political consequences and immediate human costs.
In order to understand the real impact of labour reforms on employment growth, it is important to move beyond self-selected anecdotes and engage in careful empirical analysis. Fortunately, a number of prominent scholars have taken up this task and produced a wealth of evidence regarding the association between labour reforms and many real outcomes such as employment growth, firm growth, plant productivity, etc. Almost all of them use the data provided by Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) compiled by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation. The survey provides plant-level information pertaining to inputs used and output produced by thousands of factories. More importantly, the survey is conducted every year—allowing the researcher to track the growth of a factory over the years.
Professors Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess (BB henceforth), in their seminal research paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, examine if labour regulations hinder economic performance in India. They examine all the statelevel amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1949, made between 1949 and 1992. They carefully construct an index of changes by classifying all the amendments into those that ease labour laws and those that further tighten them. Using the plantlevel ASI data described above, they relate the labour law index to plantlevel outcomes such as employment, productivity and output. They find that rigid labour laws lead to significant reduction in employment, productivity and growth. More importantly, they document a strong relationship between labour laws and urban poverty. In other words, rigid labour laws are also associated with increased urban poverty. BB conclude that rigid labour laws ultimately end up hurting the very same constituency that they are supposed to protect.
To illustrate their point, BB compare manufacturing growth in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh during their sample period. West Bengal, which was the largest producer of manufactured products during the beginning of their sample period, experienced a negative 1.5% growth in manufacturing, whereas Andhra Pradesh experienced a positive growth rate of 6%. Interestingly, as per the labour law index constructed by BB, West Bengal further tightened labour laws, whereas Andhra Pradesh liberalized them.
One of the limitations of BB is that they look at only amendments made to the Industrial Disputes Act and ignore other important labour reforms. Another criticism stems from the fact that BB ignore industry level heterogeneity in terms of labour orientation. Sean Dougherty, Verónica Robles and Kala Krishna (SVK) conduct a comprehensive study which overcomes the above mentioned weaknesses. Apart from the Industrial Disputes Act, SVK look at formal and informal labour market reforms in seven additional areas: the Factories Act, the State Shops and Commercial Establishments Acts, the Contract Labour Act, the role of inspectors, the maintenance of registers, the filing of returns and union representation. More importantly, they distinguish between labour-intensive and capital-intensive firms. The idea here is that if the negative impact pointed out by BB is due to rigid labour laws, then the impact should be higher in industries that are heavily dependent on labour. They indeed find such a result. They also find that the negative impact on growth and productivity is higher for firms in industries that face a lot of volatility. This is understandable given such firms require a lot of flexibility. Similar results have been obtained on studies done on other countries such as Mexico and Brazil.
Given the rigidity of labour laws, it is not surprising that the share of manufacturing in India’s gross domestic product has stagnated between 14% and 18%. A close look at the composition of exports further points out the distortionary impact of labour laws. It is ironical that a country with surplus labour and a large number of unemployed youth mostly exports capital-intensive goods such as petroleum products, gems and jewellery, transport equipment, machinery and instruments, and pharmaceutical products.
Given the current political and economic scenario, it is very difficult to expect a political consensus emerging at the national level. However, states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have made positive moves with respect to labour reforms. Given the emerging competition between states to attract investments, one may hope that other states also are likely to follow suit sooner rather than later.

Source: Mintepaper, 23-05-2016
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