Loopholes in CBSE’s NET

n 2014, the University Grants Commission (UGC) handed over the responsibility of conducting the National Eligibility Test (NET), for qualification to the post of Assistant Professor, to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Though this did not seem, on the face of it, much of a change, the harsh reality of this change sunk in on the day of the exam. The exams used to be conducted in universities or colleges earlier. These were places easily accessible, and had canteens and small time eating places around their campuses. With the exam centres shifting to CBSE schools, of which a large number are inaccessible, came their inherent culture that does not take into consideration those without a deep pocket to dip into. Many of these schools are located in the outskirts and fringes of the ever-growing cities. And many such schools exist within townships that are cut off from the rest of the world. For instance, an international school in Coimbatore is bordered off on all sides from the world outside. Probably this is how parents want their children to grow up. With the time given for lunch break, it is impossible for a candidate to reach the gate by foot and have something to eat and return to the hall on time. To add to the misery, there aren’t any eateries around such state of the art educational institutions. The management of the school also ensures that the children who study there don’t catch a glimpse of the common man’s eateries or shacks as that is not what parents want today. While some schools are kind enough to allow a classroom for students to keep their bags in which many carry their food, there are schools that don’t provide such space to leave bags too. Not every student will have a driver outside waiting with the bag in a car or parents who stand in the sun all day outside such gated communities or sit down by the shade of some lonely tree. A particular centre in Kerala had more frisking than in many airports. And it was really amusing to find a young teacher taking a man, almost twice his age to the washroom to attend nature’s call. It is, incidentally a spectacle when elderly persons, sometimes with grey hairs, attempt to clear this eligibility test to teach in colleges. When the man raised his eyebrows, the teacher told him that the rules demanded this. Thank god CBSE does not insist that the exam invigilators are supposed to ensure that the candidate uses the washroom properly. Again take the case of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, a city burgeoning on all sides, and with increasing demand for education from the new elite, many new schools are opening up in the fringes. After CBSE took the responsibility of conducting the NET exams, the centres have shifted towards such schools. For students travelling from unknown places in order to get an opportunity to serve this very nation by becoming college and university teachers, it is really inaccessible.
Another issue is that many such townships might not have local bus services and even if there is, it might be very less frequent. As for people living in such places and going to such big schools, they would definitely be using AC school buses or cars. These are issues any organisation or autonomous body must be concerned about. Like the IITs and IIMs, wouldNET too become inaccessible to the marginalised in this country soon? Change is good and development is needed, as long as it is inclusive. Any change or development that is exclusive would only lead to the increase in disparities. This is similar to the hole in the ozone layer, which if big, will destroy the nation even faster. The educational system in India is already heading towards a disaster with its disparities. A chance to save the nation is a better tomorrow. For a better tomorrow we need to educate the students today. And for that we need good teachers. And the necessary devil to become a teacher is the NET. Many have argued against the very format of this examination for the selection of a very matured and responsible position. But let us now get together and stop the very exam from becoming exclusive and bring this to the notice of the UGC and request them to look into the matter and hence make this exam candidate-friendly and more sensible and sensitive.

Source: DNA, 29-01-2017

Auto driver shares his success story with Class 10 students 

Mahesh Shah asked the students at the event to follow Sandeep Bachche’s advice, to have self esteem, be dedicated in their vocation, and to aim to be a good human bein

 

One does not need fancy degrees to inspire anyone. A small act of social work is enough to motivate others. The management and students of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Vividhlakshi Vidylaya, Kandivli invited a special guest, Sandeep Bachche, a popular autorickshaw driver from Bandra, on Monday to deliver an inspiring lecture for students of Class 10 appearing for the upcoming Board exams.
Principal Dr Sangeeta Srivastava did the unthinkable to conduct an experiment with her students to empower them through music, art, dance, dramatics and chess in order to improve their academic performance, to reduce their aggression and increase their self esteem. But why an autorickshaw driver?
Bachche, who is also known as ‘Munnabhai SSC’, shared his story and experiences with the students. He narrated how he had to stop studying after Class 10, and did odd jobs to help his ailing mother. He started driving an autorickshaw 17 years ago, but he always had an urge to do something extraordinary for people around him. Through his profession he started contributing to society —helping road accident victims, giving free rides to cancer patients and serving them food, charging only Rs 10 from students, serving hot tea in his autorickshaw, equipping his vehicle with Wi-Fi, daily newspaper, drinking water, LCD screen, public phone, and a phone charger etc.
Bachche wears his pride and humility on his sleeve. Even when he is invited to speak on bigger platforms, or is housed in five-star hotels by invitees, he continues to wear his uniform and ensures that his feet are on terra firma.
Mahesh Shah, Trustee of Kandivli Education Society, asked the students at the event to follow Bachche’s advice, to have self esteem, be dedicated in their vocation, and to aim to be a good human being.

Source: DNA, 31-1-2017

India: in search of prosperity 

The state does things that it should not and does not do things that it should

Y.V. REDDY

Iwas on my way to Bhopal to deliver a lecture on “Understanding Black Money In India”. Vijay Joshi’s book India’s Long Road: The Search For Prosperity caught my attention at the airport bookstall. I bought it, and read it in one stretch. Little did I expect that on 8 November, five weeks later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would announce demonetization as a means of attacking black money.
My initial reaction to the announcement was that it was a historic moment, which it still is. I felt that there was bound to be a paradigm shift, which is not improbable. And I thought that the system was ripe for a change, of which I am now certain. After noticing the patience of people in undergoing the pains associated with the process, without serious protests, I am even more certain now.
But there is a big issue. While the pain is now near and clear, the gain is unclear and uncertain.
The gains, in fact, have to be immense and lasting to accord some meaning to the suffering of millions in the effort to nail the few through the process of demonetization.
To be assured of good times to come, structural and institutional changes, well beyond the current agenda of the next generation of reforms, are essential. The manner in which the state functions, the behaviour of market participants and the framework of the relationship between state and market in India, need to change. And they need to change in a fundamental manner. That change should be initiated now when public opinion is demanding it and not later when entrenched interests assert themselves.
In Joshi’s book, I found a work that addressed fundamental issues relevant to black money in India. He has been researching and writing extensively on Indian policy for decades. It was of further interest to me as he had worked as adviser in the Reserve Bank of India. Joshi says, “The argument of this book is that with ‘business-as-usual’ policies, India will be hard put to achieve high-quality and enduring per capita growth of even 6% a year, let alone 8% a year, which would be necessary for it to become a prosperous nation in the next quarter century” (page 6).
Joshi is spot on. What is wrong with what we have been doing? The state (i.e. the government) does things that it should not and does not do things that it should. Joshi is at his best in describing the disease and its symptoms. “The Indian state has systematically underestimated the prevalence and the cost of ‘government failure’. It often intervenes, arbitrarily or to correct supposed market failures, without any clear evidence that the market is failing, and so ends up damaging resource allocation and stifling business drive .... At the same time, the Indian state does not deliver in the areas that fall squarely in its province, such as administering law and order, ensuring macroeconomic stability, delivering speedy justice, making sure that public services are provided, and creating an effective and adequate safety net for poor people” (page 8).
But, what is missing in the book, at least in detail and emphasis, is the problems with the private sector. With this caveat in mind, one should have no hesitation in endorsing his inferences illustrated below.

“It follows from this sorry tale that both the state and the statemarket relationship need urgent reform, which is no easy task in the context of India’s political economy, with its democratic turbulence and powerful vested interests” (page 9).
What is the current status? Chapter 11, called “The State Of The State”, provides an excellent overview. It starts with the sentence, “States do not function in a vacuum, but in specific social and political settings” (page 217).
The critical question before us at this momentous juncture is: Has demonetization changed the social and political setting? Does it represent more of the political awakening that Joshi refers to? If so, the institutional decay that Joshi refers to would impede the positive effect of political awakening. Joshi gives two illustrations.
“Firstly, the competence of the state has declined in relation to the increased demands on it, manifested, for example, in the dire condition of the provisioning of public goods such as education and healthcare. There is a glaring ‘administrative deficit’ which needs to be corrected. Secondly, money and crime have taken over politics to a growing extent. Corruption in public life has increased manifold; the prediction of some analysts that it would abate as a result of the 1991 reforms is now seen to be hopelessly optimistic” (page 223). Joshi adds: “Ordinary citizens find that back-handers to police and government officials are necessary to get even the simplest things done” (page 223).
Obviously, the challenge is to ensure, for example, that in government schools, teachers teach; in public hospitals, patients get treated, and common persons do not shy away from them.
Doubtless, Joshi misses some important issues. For example: How to ensure that legislators legislate and that the, judiciary focuses on and dispenses justice in a timely manner. If employees in railways, electricity and water supply follow the example of Parliament, what would be the consequences?
The concluding chapter, “What Is To Be Done? What Lies Ahead”, is a courageous attempt to define the tasks, and deserves to be debated. I agree with much of the book, though I do not share the views expressed in the two appendices, one on inflation targeting and the second on providing a basic income; but that is not relevant.
The recent developments related to demonetization have given a special meaning and great relevance to this book by an economist who is rooted in the real world, devoting a lifetime to study the Indian economy.

Sour


Source: Mint epaper, 31-1-2017

 

The economics of illegal immigration

It can contribute to the economy, but it disproportionately affects low-skilled native workers

US President Donald Trump’s first steps to tighten American border policy have, unsurprisingly, courted controversy. His executive order clamping down on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations is aimed at bolstering national security. The issue that had dominated his campaign trail and much of the first week of his presidency—stopping illegal immigration from Mexico—is a different matter. The driving impulse here, even if obfuscated by unfortunate rhetoric and a border wall solution that is essentially a boondoggle, is economic. That impulse is more complicated than it may initially seem.
The US state of Arizona makes a good starting point. A border state with a high number of illegal immigrants, it started cracking down in 2004. A study carried out by Moody’s Analytics for The Wall Street Journal, distinguishing between the effects of the recession following the financial crisis and that of the crackdown, estimated that the outflow of illegal immigrants from the state had lowered its gross domestic product by an average of 2% between 2008 and 2015.
While the lack of precise data and the consequent risk of confusing correlation with causation should be kept in mind, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that the crackdown will eventually cost American workers as a lower growth trajectory results in fewer jobs. This is exacerbated by the fact that the replacement rate of American and legal immigrant workers in the jobs vacated by illegal immigrants is low—less than 10%, according to Moody’s. US Bureau of Labor Statistics seem to bear this out, showing a worker shortage as the Arizona economy recovered following the crisis.
Yet, it isn’t as cut and dried a case as these numbers suggest. Those bureau statistics show that wages for American low-skilled workers rose significantly between 2010 and 2014. In short, while clamping down on illegal immigration hurt overall growth and thus the employment prospects for American workers—and is likely to do so in the medium-to-long term too as employers go in for automation to deal with worker shortages and rising wages—it also had a redistributive effect.
Economist Gordon Hanson’s The Economic Logic Of Illegal Immigration highlights these trade-offs on a national scale. He contends, provocatively, that illegal immigration is more responsive to economic growth than legal immigration. The former exists outside the legal framework and can thus respond swiftly to business cycles. In contrast, the latter must be filtered through layers of bureaucracy and is thus relatively unresponsive to the economy’s immediate needs, lagging the business cycle by as much as two-three years. The compromise, as Harvard economist George Borjas has pointed out, is that low-skilled American workers are disproportionately affected when it comes to employment prospects and wage levels. And while the prices of labour-intensive goods also tend to drop because of the productivity yields of illegal immigration, nominal wage decreases will always be more politically visible than real wage decreases. The other trade-off, as Hanson notes, is that the strain illegal immigration places on the state and tax-paying citizens varies from region to region. It is dependent on a range of factors such as the size of the immigrant’s family and the social safety net the state provides. While the strain illegal immigrants place on the education, medical and law-enforcement systems might be balanced out by the taxes they pay and the value they bring to the economy on a national scale, there might be specific states such as New Jersey where they cause a net loss to the exchequer.
And there’s the main takeaway from the illegal immigration debate in the US. Its effect on the larger economy is a wash, according to most economists—neither beneficial, nor harmful to any significant degree—but it changes the proportion in which the pie is distributed. This effect is pronounced in states that have a lower proportion of highly educated people and thus more citizens competing for low-skill jobs with illegal immigrants. Witness India’s north-east and east, for instance. Bangladeshi immigrants have contributed to a rise in agricultural productivity—but the large section of the native population working in the informal economy and thus competing with them, as well as the state’s poor ability to collect taxes, means that they have imposed a considerable cost.
In a 2009 testimony before the Senate judiciary subcommittee on immigration, refugees and border security, Alan Greenspan said, “There is little doubt that… illegal immigration has made a significant contribution to the growth of our economy… Some evidence suggests that unskilled illegal immigrants… marginally suppress wage levels of native-born Americans without a high-school diploma…. However, the estimated wage suppression and fiscal costs are relatively small, and economists generally view the overall economic benefits of this workforce as significantly outweighing the costs.”
This cavalier dismissal of the trade-offs and the costs imposed on citizens in lower socio-economic brackets—not to mention of noneconomic concerns such as cultural—is at the heart of the rise of populism and populist politicians, whether in the US or in Europe. The issue requires debate shorn of demagoguery from both left and right—a rare commodity in present political climes.

Source: Mint epaper, 31-1-2017 

 

How land use affects climate change 

 

The interaction between people and land is as old as human evolution. When early hunter-gatherers started to settle down in the Neolithic transition and practise agriculture, they began to change their relationship with land in a major way. Starting with the Holocene, approximately 11,500 years ago, many plants were domesticated for agriculture. These and the associated social and technological changes led to dense human settlements that then paved the way for the formation of early cities. As is evident, even now human interventions transform land, water and local ecologies, and in doing so deeply affect the availability of resources. Over the past half-century or so, it has become clear that these changes have so profoundly modified the earth that a geological transformation to the Anthropocene is now firmly in place.

Land use change lock-in

Land-use change takes place through human activity in several ways. For example, in Indonesia, about 500 sq km of forest area are cleared each year, much of which is replaced with oil palm plantations. Another pattern of changing land use is seen in expanding cities. In many countries, including India, cities are expanding well beyond their formal limits, either along inter-city corridors or in other directions. Various forces shape these patterns of urbanisation, transforming land use from agriculture and forests into industry, residential and commercial buildings and associated infrastructure, and horticulture. Often the contested spaces of peri-urban areas (outside city limits but not quite part of the rural hinterland) become sites from which groundwater is pumped and transported to the city, where new industrial zones are developed, where urban waste is dumped, and where vegetables and other high-value crops are grown for nearby urban centres.These land-use changes are alarming for climate change because they tell us how deeply locked into semi-permanence they can be, just by proliferating at a rapid pace. Cars are replaced on average every decade or so and new breakthrough vehicle technology may spread and change the fleet in one to two decades. Coal power plants may be replaced every four to five decades. However, cities and urban ‘tissue’ last over 500 years. Urbanising areas grow and expand in different ways, parts of them planned, with other portions of informality containing infrastructure, homes, slums and industries, waterbodies and marshlands.
In India, there are multiple patterns of urban and peri-urban growth resulting in different consequences for each region. For example, whether infrastructure is able to guarantee some degree of equity of access to services in cities varies depending on both history and geography. The suburban trains and excellent network of BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking) buses, for instance, defined Mumbai early on in its growth. But in some cities such as Hyderabad and Bengaluru, expansion and infrastructure development took place primarily outside the core areas with the view to establishingsupporting public sector companies such as HMT, Bharat Electronics Limited, and the Defence Research and Development Organisation, and later Information Technology companies. They also serviced an auto-led transport network and associated land-use change. In fact, Chennai, quite intentionally, set up industrial hubs for automotive and parts suppliers. Gurugram, south of Delhi, is a privatised Mecca for several kinds of industries and has developed into a financial and industrial hub. Similarly, the peri-urban areas of many other cities — New Town in Kolkata, Navi Mumbai, and so on — have each had their own version of sprawl, or vast planned or unplanned spaces, that have together extended a large footprint across India.

Implications

The specific patterns of urban growth of a city and its periphery have implications for poverty, food, water, health, jobs and access to services. A city can, therefore, based on its pattern of growth and expansion, lead to particular lifestyles and circumscribe a quality of life for its many residents.
Interventions like converting agricultural land for housing or industry, filling up ponds and building housing complexes on lake beds, etc. impact ecosystem services and climate adaptation. These especially affect the poor who are largely reliant on ecosystems for their livelihoods. Keeping water in the ground, in tanks and waterbodies is regarded as a precaution for dry spells or irregularity in precipitation. These measures can improve resilience towards the possible effects and f climate change.According to some scientists, unlike carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas whose effects last for hundreds of years, land cover and land management generate drivers in climate systems that influence local and regional weather patterns. This is largely due to changes in aerosols, carbon, nitrogen and other gases along with the moisture in the air, heat and light. The urban heat island effect is understood readily, but this also affects peri-urban regions of expansion.

This subject clearly requires more research to provide guidance to policymakers. But we already know that protecting waterbodies, conserving groundwater, reducing our ecological footprint and living in more compact communities are good ways to address both climate change mitigation and adaptation, which are about reducing greenhouse gases and preparing to live in a warmer world.

Sujatha Byravan is Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, Bengaluru.

Source: The Hindu, 31-01-2017

It would be disastrous for India to sign the Hague convention on child abduction

 

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is an international treaty that establishes procedures that provide for the prompt return of children wrongfully retained or removed from their habitual residence. Although the minister for women and children, Maneka Gandhi, took a decision not to have India sign the treaty for good reasons, there is now some reported rethinking.
It would be disastrous for many reasons for India to sing the Convention. The Convention deals with what has come to be known as “international child abduction”. The Law Commission of India has recently addressed the issue, and the first and most important point made by the Commission is that the word “abduction” when used by a parent is misplaced as no parent can ‘abduct’ her own child. The Commission recommends the passing of a domestic law and the signing of the Convention. The recommendation is surprising since the report itself notes that it is mainly women who are compelled to return to a foreign country to fight lonely battles for custody with no support.
Although the discussion whether or not to sign the Convention is taking place in gender-neutral terms, the fact is that as the Commission itself notes, 68% of the taking parents were mothers; 85% of these respondent mothers were primary caregivers of their children and 54% had gone home to a country in which they held citizenship.
So the first point to note is that this is a gendered issue, which concerns women who live in what has come to be known as NRI marriages. Often a male Indian migrant who is a green card holder comes to India to marry an Indian woman, not a green card holder, who he takes back on a dependent visa. They settle for example in the US and have children.
Trouble erupts between them, the matter is taken to a US court and decisions in relation to child custody are made there, or perhaps ex-party decisions when she has had to leave the country with her children. It is here the Hague Convention will enter the picture and require that if there was a court order in a foreign jurisdiction, and woman has returned to her country of origin with the child, her husband can apply to an executive authority for the return of the child based only on an order of a freight court which could be an ex-parti order or if the husband is “entitled “ to custody under a foreign law.
The mother, will be a “child abductor” and an application can be made to the authority in India for the return of the child to the place of: “habitual residence”, that is the US or any other reciprocal country who has signed the convention.
I have seen cases without number where women fleeing a violent marriage have returned to India with the children, with no desire to return or any chance of going back for want of a green card.
To compel such a child to return to the foreign country, who would obviously go with her mother, would be compounding the original problem.
It is argued that the mother can go to the foreign court and convince that court that she should be allowed to take the child back. To deny a woman to apply in a foreign court for a variation of a custody order in favour of the husband means returning to a foreign land with no support structure in place, with no independent right to reside in that country and would virtually mean a separation between mother and child.
Often such litigation is carried only by husbands with a view to compel a woman to give up her claims to alimony and any separation settlement. It is a known fact that when faced with such a choice, custody of children or alimony, women choose to exit a bad marriage with custody of the children with no alimony.
It is in this context that the issue whether or not to sign the Hague Convention must be seen.
The solution lies in a reverse law on protection of children found in the jurisdiction of the Indian courts. Our courts exercise parens patriae jurisdiction over children, in other words they are the ultimate guardians of children in their jurisdiction.
When faced with a claim from a father who says that the child has been removed from his custody in the face of a court order granting him custody, the court must decide whether it is in the best interest of the child to be sent back to a foreign land.
Indian law does not automatically recognise foreign judgments. Now by signing the Hague Convention, we will be compelled to recognise a foreign judgment regardless of the justness of the decision on custody under Indian law or whether was delivered ex-parte.
We have moved from the father being the sole guardian of the child to joint guardianship, we must now recognise that there is a rational way of resolving the problems of children when a cross-country marriage breaks. It is not my suggestion that the father must have no contact with the children; there are ways in which the non-custodial parent can develop a genuine caring relationship with the child, through access orders, and through sharing vacations, provided there is trust between the separated or divorces spouses.
It is here that the law must focus its attention rather than on its authoritarian and coercive role in punishing mothers who flee bad marriages.

Indira Jaising is a senior advocate, Supreme Court
The views expressed are personal 

Source: Hindustan Times, 30-01-2017

Don't be a Worrier





Worry causes fear, anxiety , tension and stress. These emotions deplete energy and weaken the immune system.Worriers become sick and this is manifested in poor health, because of all the problems that are eating into their vitals. And worry is certainly not the same as constructive thinking. If it were, we would have found solutions to most of our problems. Worry usually occurs when we find ourselves faced with a likely outcome we feel is beyond the scope of our control -an outcome we think will be wholly damaging and detrimental to us. But how can we be so certain? Maybe some good comes out of it as well. So why despair and agonise over something that may actually turn out well, or if it does not now, it might be okay in the long term?
It would be sensible to look at life as a long chain of surprises and new revelations. So live it sportingly . The goal of life is not to achieve some mythical point of perfect materialism. No such apex exists. The goal of life is simply to work hard at becoming better than you were yesterday .
In life, there are no wars to be won, only battles to be fought -personal, physical social, psychological and spiritual.In our efforts to live life sensibly , God plays the role of the eternal comrade, the invisible companion, the universal friend.