In Economics, what is life-cycle hypothesis?

his suggests that individuals even out their consumption in the best possible manner over their life cycles. The hypothesis is that people who are young usually have several years of productive employment ahead of them, so they tend to borrow money to fund their education and consumption needs, while people who are older tend to be more conservative about their borrowing and spending habits as they have fewer years of productive employment ahead of them. The life-cycle hypothesis was proposed by Italian economist Franco Modigliani and his student Richard Brumberg in 1957.

Source: The Hindu, 7/01/2019

Removing fear

The private member’s Bill aimed at protecting literary freedom from threats is welcome

Literary freedom is taken for granted in democracies, but forces that threaten or undermine it are always at work. Each age has to fight the battle afresh. In recent times, several attempts to get books withdrawn, pulped or sanitised of offending content have achieved full or partial success in India. Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History was withdrawn from circulation, and A.K. Ramanujan’s essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’ was dropped from a Delhi University syllabus. Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s Madhorubagan was withdrawn by the author under mob pressure but resurrected by a Madras High Court verdict. Public order, national unity and social or religious harmony are the principles commonly invoked against the practice of literary freedom. Threats to free expression, especially artistic freedom, in our times mainly come from those claiming to espouse the interests of a particular religion or social group. It is in this context that Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP and writer, has introduced a private member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha seeking to protect freedom of literature. Its objective — that “authors must be guaranteed the freedom to express their work without fear of punitive action by the State or by sections of society” — commends itself to any society that upholds liberal values. It seeks the omission of three IPC sections, including 295A, in effect a non-denominational blasphemy law, as it targets deliberate or malicious acts to outrage religious feelings.

Section 295A is a grossly misused section, often invoked in trivial ways to hound individuals, harass writers and curtail free expression. It deserves to be scrapped. Sections that relate to the sale of obscene books and uttering words that hurt religious feelings are also sought to be omitted. However, it is unclear why Section 153A, which punishes those who promote enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race or language, and Section 153B, which criminalises words and imputations prejudicial to national integration, do not draw Mr. Tharoor’s attention. In the process of proscribing a book, he proposes a tweak in the form of a 15-day prohibition. Thereafter, the onus should be on the State government to approach the High Court to seek a permanent ban. It favours the scrapping of the provision in the Customs Act to ban the import of books, but makes a public order exception. It wants to limit the bar on obscenity in the Information Technology Act to child pornography. Private Bills rarely become law, but they are useful in highlighting gaps in the body of law. Seen in this light, Mr. Tharoor’s initiative is most welcome as a step towards removing or diluting penal provisions that inhibit literary freedom.

Source: The Hindu, 7/01/2019

Artificial Intelligence is not the silver bullet for human development

If its potential to do good is to be fully realised, focus more on the obstacles that is preventing its uptake.

The excitement surrounding artificial intelligence nowadays reflects not only how AI applications could transform businesses and economies, but also the hope that they can address challenges like cancer and climate change. The idea that artificial intelligence could revolutionise human well being is obviously appealing, but just how realistic is it?

To answer that question, the McKinsey Global Institute has examined more than 150 scenarios in which artificial intelligence is being applied or could be applied for social good. What we found is that artificial intelligence could make a powerful contribution to resolving many types of societal challenges, but it is not a silver bullet – at least not yet. While artificial intelligence’s reach is broad, development bottlenecks and application risks must be overcome before the benefits can be realised on a global scale.

To be sure, artificial intelligence is already changing how we tackle human-development challenges. In 2017, for example, object-detection software and satellite imagery aided rescuers in Houston as they navigated the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. In Africa, algorithms have helped reduce poaching in wildlife parks. In Denmark, voice-recognition programmes are used in emergency calls to detect whether callers are experiencing cardiac arrest. And at the MIT Media Lab near Boston, researchers have used “reinforcement learning” in simulated clinical trials involving patients with glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer, to reduce chemotherapy doses.

Moreover, this is only a fraction of what is possible. Artificial intelligence can already detect early signs of diabetes from heart rate sensor data, help children with autism manage their emotions, and guide the visually impaired. If these innovations were widely available and used, the health and social benefits would be immense. In fact, our assessment concludes that artificial intelligence technologies could accelerate progress on each of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

But if any of these artificial intelligence solutions are to make a difference globally, their use must be scaled up dramatically. To do that, we must first address developmental obstacles and, at the same time, mitigate risks that could render artificial intelligence technologies more harmful than helpful.

On the development side, data accessibility is among the most significant hurdles. In many cases, sensitive or commercially viable data that have societal applications are privately owned and not accessible to non-governmental organisations. In other cases, bureaucratic inertia keeps otherwise useful data locked up.

So-called last-mile implementation challenges are another common problem. Even in cases where data are available and the technology is mature, the dearth of data scientists can make it difficult to apply artificial intelligence solutions locally. One way to address the shortage of workers with the skills needed to strengthen and implement artificial intelligence capabilities is for companies that employ such workers to devote more time and resources to beneficial causes. They should encourage artificial intelligence experts to take on pro bono projects and reward them for doing so.

There are of course risks. Artificial intelligence tools and techniques can be misused, intentionally or inadvertently. For example, biases can be embedded in artificial intelligence algorithms or data sets, and this can amplify existing inequalities when the applications are used. According to one academic study, error rates for facial analysis software are less than 1% for light-skinned men, but as high as 35% for dark-skinned women, which raises important questions about how to account for human prejudice in artificial intelligence programming. Another obvious risk is misuse of artificial intelligence by those intent on threatening individuals’ physical, digital, financial, and emotional security.

Stakeholders from the private and public sectors must work together to address these issues. To increase the availability of data, for example, public officials and private actors should grant broader access to those seeking to use data for initiatives that serve the public good. Already, satellite companies participate in an international agreement that commits them to providing open access during emergencies. Data-dependent partnerships like this one must be expanded and become a feature of firms’ operational routines.

Artificial intelligence is fast becoming an invaluable part of the human-development toolkit. But if its potential to do good globally is to be fully realised, proponents must focus less on the hype and more on the obstacles that are preventing its uptake.

Michael Chui is a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute. Martin Harrysson is a partner in McKinsey & Company’s Silicon Valley office.

Source: Hindustan Times, 7/01/2019

The Rocks In Our Path

Prayer, time, distance and balance are needed to give us perspective. We get distracted by a thousand things. A rock along the path can become a mountain we cannot move. Sometimes all we need is a helping hand to lift it up. William Breault recounts a story. A monk was walking down a country road. He was going to meet friends who lived a great distance away. Around noontime he began to tire. Uncentred and distracted, he stumbled upon a rock right in the middle of the road. Why would a rock be right in the centre of the road? As though someone had intended it! (The rock started to grow in size.) Someone had put the rock there for him to fall! (The rock grew even larger.) Someone who didn’t like him? (The rock by now had grown so large that it blocked the road entirely.) Along came a lady who just picked up the rock and threw it to one side. The monk was surprised at this great feat of strength. Ever so slowly the reason why he had started on his journey in the first place came back to his mind —Yes! The journey to see his friends! That was the important thing. Sometimes the rocks we encounter along the way are labels that people put on us. Like the paranoid monk we often get distracted by these labels and expectations and forget where we are headed and why we started on our journey. The paradox of living is that those who are most confused themselves and who lack real purpose in their lives, often are the very people who burden others with their unrealistic expectations.

Source: Economic Times, 7/01/2019

What is object relations theory in psychology

his refers to a branch of psychoanalysis which describes the process by which children develop an internal image of various people around them during their initial years of growth. It is believed that the psyche that children develop during their early years through constant exposure to various objects around them determines their behaviour as adults to a significant extent. The first image of an object that a child usually forms in life is that of her mother, so object relations theorists generally emphasise the importance of the relationship between a mother and her child. Object relations theory has been employed in the treatment of various mental illnesses.

Source: The Hindu, 4/01/2018

Dark recesses

Meghalaya tragedy reveals absence of regulation, state complicity in rat-hole mining

In 2014, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had banned rat-hole coal mining. (Source: Meghalaya Police)

The mining tragedy at Ksan, in Lumthari, East Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya would have gone unreported had there not been a lone survivor — Sayeb Ali of Panbari, Assam. This is not the first time that a tragedy has struck the state’s rat-hole mines. If this inhuman form of coal mining is not halted completely, we can be sure that many more labourers will be buried because mine caving accompanied with flooding is not an unknown phenomenon.

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In 1992, nearly 30 mine labourers in South Garo Hills were caught in a similar flood — about half of them escaped death somehow. The rest were never found. In 2012, 15 miners were buried in a mine in Garo Hills. Their bodies too were not recovered. Most of the mine workers are migrant labourers, forced by stark poverty to undertake this hazardous work.

Nearly three weeks after the disaster in Ksan, pumps were sourced from the Odisha Fire Service. These can suck out 1,600 litres per minute. However, the water in the mine remained at the same level. Similar pumps were deployed to pump out water from the surrounding abandoned mines as well but the water level went down by a mere six inches. The pump manufacturing company, Kirloskar Brothers, had earlier talked of sending100 HP pumps but these have not yet arrived at the accident site, and water continues to leak into the ill-fated mine. Mining expert Jaswant Singh Gill, who is known for having rescued 65 miners in 1989 from the Mahabir mines in Raniganj, West Bengal, has rightly asked: Do the agencies present at the site, the NDRF, the Indian Navy divers and mining engineers from Coal India Ltd, have knowledge of the area’s topography? And can they get a handle on where exactly the water is flowing into the mine in order to drain out its source or seal it completely?

On December 29, when I visited the mine, the NDRF told me that the water is 176-feet deep. The navy divers cannot plunge straight into a perpendicular hole, which branches out into horizontal rat holes. They are trained to dive into the sea and in open waters, not into a hole that is barely 10 square feet. The mine in the Jaintia Hills is not likely to have enough oxygen, even though it is said to have some air pockets. Moreover, the water inside is very cold, perhaps even freezing — we experienced this while crossing the knee-deep Lytein river at three places to reach the mine site. One ardently hopes that the miners can survive the cold inside, considering this is winter.

On visiting the mine site, one gets the impression that the rescue personnel, while giving their best, don’t actually know what’s in store for them. The East Khasi Hills District Administration has been found wanting from day one. Much time was lost before the rescue operation was launched. I put this down to the absence of a Standard Operation Procedure for such a mining disaster. The mines are privately owned and do not follow any regulatory protocol. When an accident happens, the administration is caught in a bind and does not know what to do first or how to go about it.

There was delay in requisitioning the high-powered pumps and the NDRF is right in saying that the district administration should have been equipped with these pumps in the first place, given the history of mining disasters in the region. The state government was caught napping. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma is yet to visit the site. Two of his ministers, including the minister for disaster management who actually represents the area in the state legislature, visited the site two weeks after the accident. Perhaps the government is embarrassed at being caught unawares.

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Just two weeks before the disaster, Sangma and a few other Meghalaya ministers, denied that coal mining was continuing illegally in the state after the National Green Tribunal banned it in 2014. But their statements were essentially meant to convince the Supreme Court that all the coal lying near the collieries was mined before the NGT ban. The pleas had the desired effect: Last month, the Court allowed transportation of coal till January 31. But the mine disaster has exposed the state government’s lie.

The Meghalaya disaster did not get the kind of media attention that an accident in Thailand in June last year did — a school football team strayed into a cave even when there were clear instructions not to enter it. The cave was flooded and the boys could not find their way out. India sent Kirloskar pumps to drain out the water from the cave. British navy divers finally rescued the 13 boys. But Meghalaya is in the back of beyond and when the state government is slow in seeking help, because it has to defend its own back, things are bound to go awry. What comes out clearly from this incident is that the lives of the poor and the voiceless don’t really matter, not to the mine owner, not to the state government certainly not the Centre, and not even to large sections of the media. We live in our own bubbles.

Coal mining in Meghalaya enjoys political patronage because elections are funded by coal barons. Several elected MLAs are coal-mine owners. In fact, it would be interesting to find out which politician, which bureaucrat and which police official does not own a coal mine. The MP from Shillong constituency, Vincent Pala, and his family, own mines. Recently Pala raised a zero hour motion on the mine tragedy but instead of calling for strict action against illegal mining, he pleaded for the legalisation of rat hole mining. This is a blatant display of self-interest

Source: Indian Express, 4/01/2019

Endangered species are key to our survival

Animal, plant and marine biodiversity keeps our ecosystems functional.

Last week, India submitted its sixth national report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. The report was a mixed one: While the country is on track to meet most of its national biodiversity targets, the bad news is that the list of animal species from the country under the international ‘red list’ in the critically endangered, endangered and threatened categories has been increasing over the years. It is clear that there is severe stress on biodiversity and wild habitats. The report states that India is working on preventing the extinction of species by developing a landscape- and seascape-based approach. This aims at holistic, systemic approaches to integrate biodiversity concerns with social and economic values and development aspirations. The endangered species (birds and animals) in conservation priority include the Asian wild buffalo, Asiatic lion, Brow-antlered deer or Sangai, Dugong, Edible Nest swiftlet, Gangetic river dolphin, Great Indian bustard, Hangul, Indian rhino or Great one-horned rhinoceros, Jerdon’s courser, Malabar civet, Marine turtles, Nicobar megapode, Niligiri tahr, snow leopard, swamp deer and vultures.

The stress on India’s wildlife is increasing by the day. Almost every other day, there are reports of cases of man-animal conflict, thanks to the increasing human population and urbanisation. Just as often, there are reports of or animal deaths from accidents because project developers don’t take into account animal corridors while building infrastructure. Wildlife crime is also becoming a key threat due to the increased demand for wildlife derivatives ranging from tiger and leopard bones to pangolin scales and bear bile. India recorded 460 leopard deaths in 2018, the highest mortality rate of the big cat species in the country in the last four years, the Wildlife Protection Society of India said in December.

How does the loss of species alter ecosystems? The loss of iconic species is a tragedy with broad and deep impact. Animal, plant and marine biodiversity keeps ecosystems functional. Healthy ecosystems allow us to survive, get enough food to eat and make a living. When species disappear or fall in number, ecosystems and people — especially the world’s poorest — suffer. A recent study published in Nature reveals the extinction of plant or animal species from extreme environmental change, which we are witnessing now, increases the risk of an “extinction domino effect” that could annihilate all life on Earth.

Unfortunately, as this paper reported earlier this year, India might not meet the international target of identifying wildlife and marine-protected areas by 2020, making the challenge of conserving species much more difficult.

Source: Hindustan Times, 4/01/2019