Fighting for those on margins in both genders

Enacting the Women’s Reservation Bill would be the next step in translating the Mahatma’s vision on gender into reality

The global women’s rights movement has seen a phenomenal push with the advent of social media. Women worldwide have stepped forward to call out harassment, reclaim their spaces, and demand more seats at the decision-making table. But it has taken enormous efforts by various social and political reformers, in the form of three different waves of feminism, to get here.

This International Women’s Day coincides with the 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi. This provides us an opportunity to reflect on the Mahatma’s role in promoting gender equality in India. Certainly his opinions on the subject were layered, complex, and sometimes contradictory. Nonetheless, if we contextualise his views in the socioeconomic environment that he lived in, his contribution to advancing gender rights stands out.

Gandhi’s context, in the last century, was one in which child marriage, dowry and purdah were widely prevalent in society. Indian women had an average lifespan of just 27 years. Only 2% of women had basic education. It was in such an environment that Gandhiji set forth to redefine the role of women in society. He called out regressive practices towards women that were justified in the name of tradition saying, “It is good to swim in the waters of tradition, but to sink in them is suicide.”

For Gandhi, men and women were on a par with each other. “I make no distinction between a man and woman. Woman should feel as independent as man. Bravery is not a man’s monopoly.” He was deeply hurt by the usage of the term weaker sex for women, and chastised men for it. He wrote, “Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none to me, is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity, the female sex as the weaker sex.”

Gandhi understood that undoing years of oppression would not be possible without building women’s self-confidence. He considered education as the only route through which it would be possible. “I’m uncompromising in the matter of women’s rights. In my opinion, she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by man. I should treat the daughters and sons on a footing of perfect equality. As woman begin to realise their strength, as they must in proportion to the education they receive, they will naturally resent the glaring inequalities to which they are subjected.”

Globally, women are fighting for more political representation today. There is a gradual rise in the number of women running for office in different countries. Gandhi encouraged women to participate in politics. During the freedom struggle, women held political rallies, spun khadi, and picketed foreign shops.

The popular notion that women leaders empower more women’s voices was originally espoused by Gandhi. Advocating the cause of women workers, he had said, “Women workers should enrol women as voters, impart practical education, teach them independent thinking, release them from the chains of caste, so as to bring about a change in them which would compel men to realise a woman’s strength and give her places of honour.” Enacting the Women’s Reservation Bill would be the next step in translating the Mahatma’s vision into reality.

The women’s movement today is not just fighting for women alone but also for the rights of the marginalised, including men. Gandhi words — “I advise women to resort to civil rebellion against all undesirable and unworthy restrictions” — ring true in this era of fourth wave feminism. The Mahatma strongly believed in the immense potential of women to effect change through rebellion. It’s time for us to show through our actions that we believe this too.

Rajeev Gowda is member of Parliament and chairman of the AICC research department

Source: Hindustan Times, 8/03/2019

My Grandma and a Prayer

My grandma lived in a village all her life. She was absolutely hale and hearty. She claimed to have completed one hundred years, though according to our calculations, she was probably in her mid-90s. She was a strong woman, a leader in her own way. She was the lady-member of the village panchayat — an adviser, negotiator and storyteller. She lived on her own quite independently. We saw that she was generous. We also found that she was frugal. As children, we were a little confused by her personality. We were also in awe of her. I had never seen grandma perform any sacred rituals seated in front of deities. She was never seen reading or reciting scriptures. Anyway, she could not read. She was a woman of principles and no one could make her swerve from her path. What made her so strong and confident? As far as we knew, she lived in total gratitude. For all she did in the day, she would just fold her hands, close her eyes for a split second, and say, “Shukriya Tera,” which means, “Thank you.” Another prayer that grandma said twice daily was, “Hey Prabhu, meri aankhen aur ghutne salamat rakhna” (O God, please protect my eyes and knees). And God did grant her the boon of good eyesight and strong knees till she breathed her last. Was it the power of prayer that got translated into power of thought that, in turn, somehow manifested in her as good health? Or did she enjoy stable health because of her physical and mental routine and the selflessness with which she expressed her gratitude to God every day in the form of a thanksgiving prayer? We don’t know…

Source: Economic Times, 8/03/2019

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

 The rise of women in male workplace

Replace Up To 15% Of Jobs That Are Traditionally MenDominated: Study

Gender diversity numbers may not be statistically balanced yet. However, women today are not only seen to be breaking age-old patriarchal doctrines but also raiding male bastions as well. A study by TeamLease Services, done exclusively for TOI, reveals 12-15% of traditionally maledominated jobs are estimated to have been replaced by women. These include train/ bus drivers, mining engineers and private detectives (see graphic). ITC Hotels said the number of women in the food & beverage departments increased 41% in three years. When Manisha Bhasin started out as a summer trainee at ITC Maurya, she had her eyes fixed on the chef ’s cabin. Today, Bhasin dons the chef ’s hat at the same hotel. “If you are persistent, have a clear focus and are passionate about your work, you can achieve your goals,” said Bhasin, who is designated senior executive chef at ITC Maurya, New Delhi. Bhasin credits mentoring by her seniors as a key enabler for the growth in her career. She doesn’t believe women chefs are paid less than male chefs, clearly debunking any theory of a gender pay gap. “A chef is a chef is a chef. Irrespective of gender, one works equally hard,” she said. Women in India may be shining in sports and services, but they are also roughing it out on the shop floor in manufacturing. Yogita Raghuvanshi, a heavy commercial vehicle driver, chose the field to earn a good income. “The job provides me Rs 2,000-3,000 a day. This was an important aspect for me because I had to raise two children on my own as my husband had passed away,” said Raghuvanshi. “I also fulfil my passion of driving and travelling across states,” added Raghuvanshi. Some of the lines at Mahindra & Mahindra’s (M&M’s) manufacturing plants are run 100% by women. In automobiles, M&M has increased the strength of women on the shop floor from 33 in FY14 to 301 till the first half of FY19. It now plans to double this number by FY21. Before hiring 33% women engineer graduates, along with hiring women in support functions, M&M began with preparing a gender-friendly infrastructure. Today, M&M has women as forklift drivers, plant engineers, welders and painters. M&M chief of manufacturing (automotive division) Vijay Kalra said, “They have broken all stereotypes.” TeamLease Services co-founder & executive VP Rituparna Chakraborty said, “Traditionally, occupations with a very poor representation of women are found in sectors like construction, manufacturing and engineering.” On the other hand, women have made great inroads into banking & financial services, consumer goods & durables, automotive, insurance, pharma and healthcare. “Though the level of dedication shown by females is equal to their male counterparts, yet the salaries of women in male-dominated jobs are less. Women get paid 20% less than men,” said Chakraborty.

Source: Times of India, 8/03/2019

Does god exist? There are several possible hypotheses

What I would recommend to you, dear reader, is my own philosophy of scepticism, which has stood me in good stead and which can be summed up in a simple dictum: Anything that is not logically impossible is possible.

Meeting my old friend, Michael Menezes, at the beautiful Pali Village Café in Mumbai recently, my mind drifted back to our college days in Delhi and another café.

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This was in early 1972, maybe March or April. Our three years in St Stephen’s College were drawing to a close, three magical years of fun and friendship. I did poorly in my final exam but that seemed like a small price to pay for all the joy of not studying. Mike and I decided it was time to do some good deed and our plan was to match one of our classmates, whose name will remain anonymous, to a very charming student of Miranda House, whose name, alas, I do not remember. So we devised a remarkable entrepreneurial scheme. We wrote a letter to her pretending to be him, professing to be in love with her and pleading her to come to the university Coffee House to meet him. And we wrote a letter to him pretending to be her, professing love and that he come to the Coffee House at the same time.

When that momentous day came, Mike and I headed off to the Coffee House to witness the fruits of our match-making. On the way, we had to make a phone call and stepped into one of those phone booths, so ubiquitous those days, where you insert coins to make a call. And there we struck gold, or, more precisely, a 10 rupee note, left behind by someone on the phone counter. There was no one to be seen nearby, and it was too small an amount to go searching for the owner. The thought struck us both that this was an occasion for free coffee. Mike, being a Catholic, wondered if we were about to commit a sin. I assured him of the flexibility of the Hindu gods. Further, somewhere in high school, I had ceased to believe in god. I saw no evidence of god and, in case he was there and had hid the evidence of his existence, he would surely be irritated by the dishonesty of the believers who claimed to see evidence.

In any case, we decided this was a good test of god’s existence. We would see whether or not he punished us for this sin. We walked over to the Coffee House and, soon, as expected, our classmate came in, looking tense. He sat alone in a far corner, an eye on the main entrance. Within minutes she came in, and walked unsurely to his corner. They began chatting. We could not hear the conversation but it was clear that it was running into heavy weather, each claiming the other had asked them to come. Then we saw them both pull out letters from their pockets and thrust them at each other, at which point, Mike and I decided it was time to leave the scene of crime.

As we walked out of the Coffee House, Mike got proof (in his case, a reminder) of god’s existence. He reached into his pocket and his wallet was mysteriously missing.

The salad days of college came to an end in June. I packed my bags from my residence in Stephen’s Rudra South, bid farewell to my dearest friends and left for a short vacation in Calcutta and then for the London School of Economics. (Luckily, LSE had given me admission before seeing my final-year performance in St Stephen’s.

Three years later, I was delighted when Mike, by then a chartered accountant, came come to LSE do a master’s degree. On a walk one afternoon, we stepped into one of those iconic, red phone-booths of London to make a call. And, yes, an abandoned five pound note was lying, at roughly the same place as the ten rupee note three years ago. There was no one in the vicinity who could be its rightful owner. We gasped at how uncannily similar the situation was. Was god testing us to see if we had learned our lesson? We, on our part, decided we had to check how consistent god was. So we picked up the money and set off to have coffee at Wimpy.

Like Alexander Fleming in his laboratory waiting to see if the bacteria would grow, we sat, drinking our coffee but with our minds transfixed on the experiment. Time ticked away. We finished our coffee, paid for it with our ill-gotten gain and walked out nervously, and back to our hostel. What happened then, was the following: Our wallets were not lost.

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Given nature’s different response to our picking up abandoned notes in Delhi and London, the question remained open: Does god exist? There are several possible hypotheses: There is no god, and the loss of the wallet in Delhi was a fluke; there is god but he believes in punishing people for drinking coffee using ill-gotten gains, but only when that is coupled with writing letters in other people’s names. However, when Mike revealed later that the experiment was not quite the same because this time, while having coffee, he had clutched on to his wallet, we realised there was a third hypothesis — there is god but he is not that powerful, and in particular, he cannot wrestle wallets out of clenched fists.

The upshot basically is that there is no firm answer. What I would recommend to you, dear reader, is my own philosophy of scepticism, which has stood me in good stead and which can be summed up in a simple dictum: Anything that is not logically impossible is possible.

Live by it and you will make better decisions in life.

Kaushik Basu

The writer is C Marks Professor at Cornell University and former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, World Bank

Source: Indian Express, 7/03/2019

Urban employment guarantee scheme signifies India’s failure to address inequality

Half-baked countercyclical policies such as the promise of an urban employment guarantee are an apology for the larger failure to address the unequal distribution of fruits of economic growth.

The opposition is reportedly mulling on including the promise of an urban employment guarantee scheme in its Common Minimum Programme ahead of the 2019 elections. In principle, the idea sounds tempting.

The rural employment guarantee scheme, which was launched by the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, has proved to be a useful countercyclical policy tool in the rural economy. The recently leaked findings of the first Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) have shown the unemployment rate to be at significantly higher levels than it has been in a long time. GDP data shows that the present government has fared relatively badly in terms of growth in employment intensive non-farm sectors such as construction. Can an urban employment guarantee scheme can solve these problems?

The rural guarantee scheme works on self-selection. All of the work under the scheme is of the unskilled manual nature such as digging ponds and making link roads in villages. This means that no special skills are required for the job seekers. Can (and, more importantly, should) such a framework be implemented in the urban economy?

The basic premise of a healthy rural to urban economic transformation is to transfer workers from low-skill and low-productivity professions to high-skill jobs. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for an urban employment guarantee scheme to ensure this. Given the fact that common land — which is where most of the rural guarantee works happen — is more scarce in cities than in villages, even a perverse (and undesirable) unskilled job guarantee would be difficult to implement in cities.

Are the opposition parties and their advisors not aware of these facts? Most probably, they are. Why are they making such promises, then? The explanation probably lies in the perverse evolution of India’s political economy narrative in the post-reform period. Most political parties agree that reforms have been good for economic growth. But they are also aware of the rising inequality and an acute shortage of quality jobs in this phase. The tragedy is that there are very few political actors who have the imagination and political will to widen the transformative impact of economic reforms for the mass of the population.

Half-baked countercyclical policies such as the promise of an urban employment guarantee are an apology for the larger failure to address the unequal distribution of fruits of economic growth. But such moves will not be able to douse the aspirational anger which characterises the urban unemployed. They will also divert scarce resources which could have been better utilised.

Source: Hindustan Times, 5/03/2019

Strengthen NREGS to support the rural economy

We began our own work on the NREGS from a posture of skepticism, documenting corruption and seeking to mitigate it. But our results from a highly-credible randomised evaluation suggest that NREGS may be a surprisingly effective tool both for improving the welfare of the landless rural poor and also increasing overall rural productivity.

The increased policy attention on reducing economic distress among farmers is welcome. Yet, it is as or more important to consider the welfare of the millions of landless rural households who depend mainly on wages, and not cultivation. They do not benefit directly from subsidies, loan waivers, minimum support price increases, or even income transfers to farmers. Further, the one component of India’s safety net designed primarily to benefit them — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) — is under pressure.

The NREGS is the world’s largest public employment programme, with over 600 million eligible workers, and it has generated a commensurate amount of controversy. Proponents argue that it provides a lifeline to the rural poor in the lean season, raising rural wages and enabling the creation of productive assets. Detractors argue that it is wasteful, plagued by corruption and creates unproductive holes in the ground. Much good research has been done on these issues, but all are subject to important technical limitations, and policy views on NREGS seem to be informed more by ideology and opinion than credible evidence.

To make progress, we use data from an unusually large-scale experimental evaluation where the government of (then unified) Andhra Pradesh randomised the rollout of biometric smartcards for making NREGS payments across nearly 20 million people. In prior work studying the impact of smartcards on NREGS implementation quality, we found substantial improvements on several dimensions: Leakage fell by 41%, programme participation increased by 17%, the time lag between working and getting paid fell by 29%, the time to collect payment fell by 20%, and the variability in the payment lag fell by 39%. In other words, the use of smartcards substantially improved the effective presence of NREGS on the ground and brought the implementation quality closer to what NREGS architects had intended.

In addition to informing the ongoing debate on the role of biometric authentication in social programmes, the experiment also gives us a unique opportunity to answer a core question about NREGS itself: What happens to the rural poor when NREGS implementation is improved? The results are striking. In treated areas, the incomes of NREGS jobcard holders increased by 13% while overall poverty fell by 17%. These results from our survey data match those using the completely independent Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), which also shows a significant reduction in poverty.

Some of these gains simply reflect the fact that corruption fell, and NREGS earnings increased. But this turns out to be a relatively small part of the story. In fact, nearly 90% of the income gains we measure come not from the NREGS itself but from increases in market earnings. In particular, we find a significant increase in market wages, perhaps because a better-implemented NREGS forced private employers to raise wages to attract workers. Moreover, private employment did not fall as a result; once we account for spillovers into neighbouring sub-districts, we find that it actually increased.

How could both wages and employment go up at the same time? First, lower leakage could have improved public asset creation, thereby increasing productivity, wages, and employment. Second, if employers had monopsony power and were able to coordinate to keep wages low, then economic theory predicts that an increase in minimum wages can also increase employment. Finally, reduction in credit constraints (which we find evidence of) could have boosted private investments and productivity. Over time, the increase in rural wages may also speed up mechanisation of agriculture, which would further increase productivity as seen in historical evidence from the US.

Overall, a better implemented NREGS reduced poverty without crowding out private sector economic activity. Regardless of the underlying economic mechanism, this is a crucial fact for policy making. It has certainly shifted our own thinking. We began our own work on the NREGS from a posture of scepticism, documenting corruption and seeking to mitigate it. But our results from a highly credible, randomised evaluation suggest that NREGS may be a surprisingly effective tool both for improving the welfare of the landless rural poor and also increasing overall rural productivity.

Policies that improve both equity and efficiency are quite rare, and a well implemented NREGS may fit this category. Given what we currently know, the government should strengthen NREGS rather than cutting it, or letting it slowly atrophy though weak implementation. It is good that the recent budget has increased the allocation for NREGS. The government should now follow through to deliver on the full potential of this allocation, ensuring that funds reach projects and beneficiaries in a timely manner. Prioritising timely wage payments as well as asset quality will improve both short term beneficiary welfare and long term rural productivity.

The authors are economics faculty members at UC San Diego (Karthik Muralidharan and Paul Niehaus), and the University of Virginia (Sandip Sukhtankar)

Source: Hindustan Times, 6/03/2019

Nothing Lasts Forever

 Living in the limelight is exciting, but it is fraught with the liability of losing all that a celebrity has got accustomed to, and perhaps learnt to expect as his right. Call it the law of opposites or the law of physics, the fact is that what goes up has to come down. And, so, while a man is at the peak of his period of glory, he should remember that this period will not last forever; a time will come when he will be confronted with his vulnerability and his inability to sustain this acme of fame and good fortune. Rudyard Kipling understood and expressed the need for detachment in the poem: “If ”. The poem is steeped in philosophy, and the lines that have become memorable for sportspersons are the ones that are etched at the entrance to Wimbledon, “To meet triumph and disaster and treat the two impostors the same.” The Vipassana meditation programme explains the need for detachment when students are asked to chant the message of impermanence, “Anicca, anicca, anicca”, at the end of every round of meditation. The Gita embodies this message throughout, with Krishna explaining to Arjuna that change is the law of life. “What have you lost, that you are weeping? What have you brought, that you have lost? What have you made, that has been destroyed? You brought nothing. What you have, you got from here. What was given was given here. You have come empty-handed and shall go empty-handed. What is yours today was somebody else’s in the past and will be somebody else’s in the future. You think it is yours and are deeply engrossed in it.

Source: Economic Times, 7/03/2019