Monday, November 12, 2018
Protect the little helpers
Hundreds of species of pollinators may be in dangerous decline
Across India’s agrarian plains, plantations and orchards, millions of birds, bats and insects toil to pollinate crops. However, many of these thousands of species may be in dangerous decline.
In 2015, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that pollinators lead to huge agricultural economic gains. The report estimated pollinator contribution in India to be $0.831-1.5 billion annually for just six vegetable crops. This is an underestimation considering that nearly 70% of tropical crop species are dependent on pollinators for optimal yields.
The decline of moths, bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinators is undeniably linked to human activity: large tracts of natural habitats have been cleared for monoculture cultivation, while the use of pesticides and fertilisers is pushing out nature’s little helpers. In a series of studies at the University of Calcutta, researchers have showed that native Indian bees, when exposed to multiple pesticides, suffer from memory and olfactory impairment, lower response rates, and oxidative stress which damages cells. Parthiba Basu and his team estimated that between 1964 and 2008, there was a 40-60% growth in relative yields of pollinator-dependent crops, while pollinator-independent crops such as cereals and potatoes saw a corresponding 140% rise in yields. In Kashmir, researchers have pinned lowering yields of apple trees on the declining frequency of bee visits. In north India, lowering yields of mustard cultivation may be caused by disappearing pollinators.
At the turn of the millennium, many countries, particularly the U.S., observed with some anxiety the phenomenon of bees deserting their hives. By 2014-15, the U.S. had established a Pollinator Health Task Force and a national strategy that focussed on increasing the monarch butterfly population and planting native species and flowers in more than 28,000 sq km to attract pollinators. Around the same time, the U.K. developed 23 key policy actions under its National Pollinator Strategy. Meanwhile, after the IPBES report, almost 20 countries have joined the Coalition of the Willing on Pollinators.
Apart from promoting organic farming and lowering pesticide usage, landscape management is key. The EU Pollinators’ Initiative adopted in June can provide pointers to India, particularly a policy of direct payment support to farmers to provide buffer strips for pollinators for nectar- and pollen-rich plants. India has millions of hectares of reserve forests, some of which have been converted to pulpwood plantations. Much of this can be restored to become thriving homes for pollinators. The same can be done in gram panchayat levels. Fallow areas and government land can be used to plant flowering species for pollinators.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Hindu’s Bengaluru bureau
Source: The Hindu, 12/11/2018
What is 'degree creep' in education?
This refers to the increase in the number of degrees required to land a job over time. Jobs that required candidates to hold a Bachelor’s degree some years ago, for instance, might now require a Master’s degree. It is believed that degree creep is the result of an increase in the number of candidates competing for a limited number of jobs. The reduction in the cost of education due to an increase in subsidies offered by governments is also seen as a reason to get more educated.
Source: The Hindu, 12/11/2018
Not so easy business
India’s jump in Ease of Business ranking is welcome. But there is much that it does not capture
The improvement in India’s “Doing Business” rankings was quite a surprise, and among the few pleasant ones in recent weeks. What did the government do right? If business has become so much easier, why don’t we see a boom in new businesses and investment? Such questions are critical to help evolve a more focussed set of policy priorities for India.
The jump in the ranking, from 100 to 77, is correlated with an improvement in the ratings, a jump of 6.6 per cent over last year. This is the second year that India has seen a massive jump in the same ratings with its ranking going up by 23 places this year, on top of 30 places last year. In two years, therefore, India’s position has improved from 130 to 77. Of the 10 categories that together make up the aggregate index, eight saw some improvement over the last year, and two were the same. What was even more interesting was that construction permits and cross-border trade were two aspects that showed maximum improvement; index value for the two improved by 34 and 19 per cent respectively.
Notably, the ease of doing business survey does indicate that little has changed over the last year in some areas where India historically performs poorly — enforcement of contracts, paying taxes, and registering property stand out, in my mind. Each of these are multi-sectoral issues where improvements would require coordinated efforts across multiple layers of the government and, therefore, legal and procedural changes would be more complex. And while the slow speed of change is understandable, it is also true that these are important aspects where much action is required.
Do such rankings reflect the reality of business in India? The answer, in my understanding, is a partial yes. There has been, no doubt, a significant improvement in the paperwork associated with business in many areas of the government. Permissions and form submissions of various types have become much easier for those who keep good records. This is true both at the states and the Centre, and the improvement is therefore understandable.
However, the jump in the ratings is not aligned with the experiences of people conversant with the business climate. Construction, as a business, is typically not very easy to do and requires a multitude of submissions, permissions and even side payments. While some improvement has occurred across the country, the jumps appear to be non-commensurate with these improvements. It is possible that India is “gaming” the ratings. This is relatively simple to do and would require finding those elements within the ratings that are the easiest to change and focusing on those items, rather than taking on the more difficult ones.
Arguably, there is nothing wrong in this as long as it leads to a real improvement in business conditions and not just a numerical one. But on the other hand, gaming the ratings implies that an international agency is effectively setting the priorities of the government.
This is, of course, not to say that things are all made-up. Significant improvements are happening, and many of those are through improved use of information technology. We will find this across many government departments both at the central and state level. And they are steadily improving the ease of business in recent years. Such improvements have an instant impact in terms of costs of transactions. However, their impact on economic growth rates tends to be felt over a longer time period — and can sometimes take many years to be reflected in any measurable macro-economic outcomes. We must, however, recognise that dependence on IT has also perversely made things more difficult for those entrepreneurs who are less digitally able. This will no doubt change with time and familiarity, but it would require the government to constantly keep on working at making its IT-enabled interfaces more user-friendly for the small and micro-business entrepreneur.
What does this say of Make in India? Process changes such as those captured in the survey will impact in the long term, the short-term effect on investments and new business and employment growth will be limited. Those are more driven by macroeconomic conditions, labour climate, demand conditions, infrastructure issues etc.
But we must recognise that there is much that this ranking does not capture.
First, they do not capture the out-of-the process issues related to the daily running of a business, the various investigations conducted by the revenue department, or company law matters, or labour-related issues, or, for that matter, the various demands of the inspectors of quality and processes. Changes that can do away with such inspector raj require more than simply a technology infusion. They require a rethinking of the many rules and regulations governing this sector and the over-dependence on an ill-motivated bureaucracy and technocracy. India has been reluctant to address these issues for many decades because it involves the dirty job of clearing through the messy lobbying of many groups, both within and outside the government.
Second, the reality of business in India requires the entrepreneur to focus on a whole range of aspects not covered adequately in such ratings. For instance, businesses have a problem of employability, poor skills, corruption, and controls on internal trade, avenues for accessing capital for small and micro-businesses being some examples. Some of these issues are very India-specific and global comparability ratings will rarely capture them in the depth required.
Third, input costs, demand factors and infrastructure issues are another class of factors that ease of doing business does not intend to capture. While that enables it to retain its focus, these are important factors that impact both global and domestic investment.
To sum up, the ease of doing business ratings’ improvements are very welcome and are an affirmation of the changes occurring within both the state and central governments. The objective of improving India’s economic climate, however, requires the government to take on far tougher tasks, some of which are included in the ratings, but many are not. Finally, while we can and should celebrate the improvement, the focus and prioritisation need to remain on issues relevant for India, which may or may not be, captured in the ratings.
The writer is an economist and heads Indicus Foundation
Source: Indian Express, 12/11/2018
There’s a near total exclusion of women from decision-making on mitigating climate change
Maybe this is too much to hope for, but what a mighty leap it would be for India both economically and socially to invest in capacity and skill building for women to combat climate change
It is that time of the year when one routinely encounters people hacking and coughing in the metros, thanks to the toxic pea soup that is the atmosphere. With this come expert opinions on why this is so and how the air can be cleared. By and large, the consensus is that the poisonous air is part of climate change in progress, whether man-made or natural.
It is also the time of the year when many people are forced to stay away from work thanks to the debilitating effects of pollution or other climate-related issues. And here is where the gender factor comes into play, especially in a low income country like India. Women face a much higher risk of the ill-effects of climate change. For a start, a majority start life with nutritional deficiencies as a result of prejudices against the girl child. Climate affects health through a multiplicity of ways from extreme heat or cold, poor air quality, poor water quality and lack of food security.
All these factors are common to both genders but where women are at a disadvantage is in their lack of or limited access to healthcare. Despite commendable strides in making healthcare accessible to all, facilities in rural areas, even in many urban ones , are not geared to cater to climate-related health problems. Women do not go to clinics or hospitals due to lack of transportation, fears related to their safety, and the simple fact that their health is a low priority for the family. . Unlike educated and empowered women, rural or uneducated women who suffer pollution-related illnesses don’t even realise this. There is little public communication and awareness of this. They believe their illness is just tiredness or a fever which will pass.
Cooking indoors using wood or coal is another reason why women suffer from pollution-related ailments. In rural areas, women spend much longer inside their homes cooking with fuels which give off carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and particulate matter all of which are detrimental to their health. Many of these pollutants affect not just the women but their unborn children as well.
Poverty plays a major role in the health of women who are forced to migrate from rural to urban areas. The homeless in cities are often forced to make do with inadequate housing or none at all leaving them vulnerable to polluted air and toxins from poor cooking or heating infrastructure.
The big problem in countries such as India is the near total exclusion of women from the decision-making process on mitigating climate change. Women are powerful vehicles of social change in many areas. Rather than a faceless bureaucrat or expert in a distant place speaking about the benefits of decreasing the impact of climate change, women who are at the greatest risk should. They should be among the key stakeholders in marrying traditional knowledge with scientific and technological inputs.
Now that it is election season and pollution and other climate change aspects are talking points, all parties have a chance to take this up as a serious development issue. Maybe this is too much to hope for, but what a mighty leap it would be for India both economically and socially to invest in capacity and skill-building for women to combat climate change. The first thing to be done should be institute mechanisms to gather data on area-specific environmental problems. Many of us think a pastoral life is conducive to clean living. It is not. The threats are different but they are there.
It is not as simple as distributing smokeless chullas which many NGOs believe to be a panacea. The answer has to come with local inputs and local knowledge. The number of work days lost and the health costs of pollution in Delhi alone, if computed, should give an idea of how short-sighted it is to let things slide once the visible signs of danger are over. The problems are clear and present all year around to millions who do not have air purifiers, masks, clean water or fuel. When it comes to cleaning up the air (and the environment), women can lead the way. They just need to be given a chance to do so.
lalita.panicker@hindustantimes.com
Source: Hindustan Times, 11/11/2018
For Success and Peace
All actions that are undertaken can have four parts, not necessarily in sequence. These are: focus on the action at hand; discrimination between right and wrong to help us act appropriately; devotion to objectives of the action; and insulation from results of the action, not allowing it to affect the doer. The four parts form a wonderful combination of mind and body to the one performing the action. To focus means not allowing diversions and distractions to interfere in the action. This means application of Raja Yoga, that helps hone a meditative focus on the job on hand. To discriminate between right and wrong and take the right path is application of one’s knowledge, which is the practical side of Jnana Yoga. To be devoted, as it were, to the objectives at hand is Bhakti Yoga. Not to allow results of the action to affect the doer is Karma Yoga. To disallow positive outcomes getting into one’s head, one has to give credit to others involved in the action and God. If the result happens to be negative, the other three parts help the doer to take course corrections to achieve the objectives. If this doesn’t work, at least the doer will be happy with the efforts and not lose morale. The four-parts approach helps us to handle success with humility; failure with creative course corrections. With practice, the approach improves one’s chances at success in one’s endeavours, and it provides peace of mind, and amplifies one’s scope for further prosperity
Source: Economic Times, 12/11/2018
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