Next Bihar govt should transform administrative machinery into being responsive and people oriented

 

Lessons have to be learnt from the past, difficult decisions taken, quick-fixes avoided

Whichever party or combination forms the next government in Bihar in the next few days has to avoid some intractable mistakes being made across the country over the last three decades. Joe Biden, in his victory speech, spoke about leading not just with the example of their power, but by the power of their example. Where does Bihar stand on that parameter?

All parties are competing to roll out more and more freebies to a majority of the population — often undeserved and without a sunset. There are scant plans for long-term capital formation and employment generation. What began in the 1980s as a small measure to help the old, the poor and the infirm, has degenerated into a race to empty the treasury by doling out more and more cash into households and even offering utensils, colour TVs and gold for daughters’ weddings in some states. The focus on educating her, improving her employability and empowering her, is absent. Farm loan waivers and unemployment allowances are becoming the norm. What is the example being set?What is the power being wielded?

The next government must look at the state of the economy and its own administrative capability before committing to any major long-term populist (but unproductive) expenditure. While the last two decades in India have seen buoyancy in government receipts, the ability to splurge for the new government in Bihar is going to be seriously constrained during the next few years, mainly due to COVID-related economic shocks. Lift the hood and the statistics are stark: Bihar’s per capita net state domestic product in 2019-20 was just Rs 46,664, against the national average of Rs 1,34,226: A mere 34.7 per cent. In spite of higher yearly growth in the last 10 years, this ratio has moved only by 0.4 per cent (from 34.3 per cent to 34.7 per cent) during this period. We had a low base to start from, which makes for attractive percentages, but when it comes to even catching up with the rest of the country, it is inconceivable how many decades it would take.

While agricultural production has shown encouraging improvement, Bihar does not manufacture anything of consequence. Poverty continues to be high and unemployment much above the national average. The manufacturing sector’s contribution to Bihar’s economy is just 8.7 per cent of the national average. Data for 2017-18 shows that a mere 1.5 per cent of the nation’s factories are registered in Bihar; the needle on fixed capital formation has remained static on 0.6 per cent for over a decade. FDI in the state in 2019-20 was a mere 0.01 per cent of the national average, and Bihar’s rank in ease of doing business was 26 in 2019. Entrepreneurship seems to be systematically discouraged in the state. Bihar is the only major state in the country from where not a single company was trading on the BSE or NSE in 2017. Private equity or venture fund investments in the state are nearly nil.

Bihar continues to be the Gangotri supplying unskilled labour to the rest of India. It is a sad refrain that still rings true — a Bihari must leave Bihar to make it. Highly educated and accomplished Biharis are making significant contributions in different parts of the world in IT, finance, medicine and engineering. A young person, Amanullah, recently started a small initiative of creating an alumni group of the once prestigious Patna Science College. Hundreds of Biharis from across the world offered to help out. The next government needs to create conditions to tap this resource to initiate a reverse brain-drain.But a look at the manifestos in this election paints a disappointing picture. The BJP has promised to create conditions for 19 lakh jobs — 4 lakh directly in government — and provide free COVID vaccines for all. The RJD has promised 10 lakh direct jobs in the government, loan waiver for farmers and unemployment allowance to the youth. The Congress and JD(U) have promised unemployment allowance and farm loan waiver. The LJP has promised to construct a Sita temple, among other things. Is that the best we can do for the people of Bihar? Temples, loan waivers and unemployment benefits? Is this the future Biharis are clamouring for?

Besides the obvious worry (who pays for this), a key concern is the state’s capacity to even execute these promises. While lakhs of jobs in the government have been promised, the fact is that for decades, no major recruitment has taken place in the state without controversies around nepotism, mismanagement and corruption. It is not uncommon for candidates waiting for results to be announced even three or four years after their recruitment tests. Officials of the agencies conducting recruitment have landed in jails and endless litigation has taken years to resolve — often reaching the Supreme Court.

Our exaggerated faith in DBT is getting exposed in scandals in schemes like distribution of scholarships and mid-day meals. The new government will have to internalise that while technology can be a great enabler, it can only go thus far. For a state once proud of its administrative machinery, today the population faces harassment, lack of accountability and sensitivity. The core tenets of command, supervision and grievance redressal appear to have broken down. Higher levels of administrative supervision and accountability at all levels have to be ensured before any big ticket expenditure programmes are launched.The next government must tackle head-on the reluctance amongst all the political parties to grapple with fundamental issues of economic stagnation, lack of employment opportunities, absence of private investment and administrative decline. The solutions will require deep structural changes, often difficult and unpopular.

It will not bring immediate results and will require support from all sections of society. The confrontational social and political sentiments generated during the election will have to make way for an effort to build consensus for an economic revival. My call to the next government is to work towards transforming the administrative machinery into being responsive, sensitive and people oriented. Its task is to create an environment for private investment, improve productivity and value addition in agriculture, education, healthcare and industry. It has to lead by example. It is incumbent upon it to do so.

This article first appeared in the print edition on November 10, 2020 under the title ‘Government Bihar needs’. The writer is former chairperson of SEBI

Source: Indian Express, 10/11/20

Quote of the Day November 6, 2020

 “Loneliness is the ultimate poverty.”

‐ Abigail Van Buren

“अकेलापन निर्धनता की पराकाष्ठा है।”

‐ एबिगैल वैन ब्यूरेन

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs

 

Table of Contents

Volume 76 Issue 3, September 2020

Editorial Himanshu Prabha Ray, Madhu Bhalla First Published July 19, 2020; pp. 359–360 Abstract

Articles

Thinking About the Indian Ocean and the Mausam Initiative Madhu Bhalla First Published July 29, 2020; pp. 361–374 Abstract Preview

Culture and Diplomacy: Maritime Cultural Heritage of the Western Indian Ocean Himanshu Prabha Ray First Published September 11, 2020; pp. 375–391 Abstract Preview

Where Facts and History Meet Myth and Legend: Groups or Communities in the Marvels of India Stories Model Dionisius A. Agius First Published July 24, 2020; pp. 392–410 Abstract Preview

Sailing Ships, Naval Expeditions and ‘Project Mausam’ Himanshu Prabha Ray First Published August 5, 2020; pp. 411–424 Abstract Preview

Studying the Asian Ocean-Sea Rila Mukherjee First Published September 11, 2020; pp. 425–443 Abstract Preview

Maritime Theory Approach for Functional Effectiveness in the Indo-Pacific Odakkal Johnson, Priyanka Choudhury First Published August 5, 2020; pp. 444–460 Abstract Preview

Emerging Contours of Contemporary Asian Maritime Connectivity: Economic and Strategic Objectives Vivek Mishra, Sayantan Haldar First Published July 24, 2020; pp. 461–478 Abstract Preview

Review Essay

The BRI and Strategic Revival of the Silk Road: Implications for Asia Vivek Mishra First Published July 22, 2020; pp. 479–484 Abstract Preview

Book Reviews

Book review: Krishnan Srinivasan, James Mayall and Sanjay Pulipaka (Eds.), Values in Foreign Policy: Investigating Ideals and Interests Ajay Darshan Behera First Published July 9, 2020; pp. 485–488 Abstract Preview

Book review: Sujata Aishwarya, Israel’s Mediterranean Gas: Domestic Governance, Economic Impact, and Strategic Implications Deepika Saraswat First Published September 11, 2020; pp. 489–491 Abstract Preview

List of Contributors

List of Contributors First Published September 11, 2020; pp. 492–492 Abstract

Education, the nation and the States

 

The National Education Policy 2020 underestimates the problem of reconciling the three systems of education in India

Towards the end of a recent webinar on the National Education Policy 2020, a retired civil servant asked a question. Referring to Centre-State relations and roles in education, he asked whether the new policy gives the Centre a predatory role. The use of the word ‘predatory’ felt a bit sharp in the context of education, but the intention obviously was to ascertain whether the new policy observes federal courtesy. Even the 1986 policy didn’t fully acknowledge the variety prevailing in provincial practices and the legacies those practices are rooted in. The trend has been to assume that a national system will evolve and iron out provincial variations. That is a strange assumption. For education to fulfil its social role, it must respond to the specific milieu in which the young are growing up. India has sufficient experience of attempts made from the national level to influence systemic realities on the ground. There is a considerable history of strong recommendations made by national commissions and of provincial recalcitrance. States have their own social worlds to deal with, and they often prefer to carry on with the ways they became familiar with in colonial days. A prime example is the continuation of intermediate or junior colleges in several States more than half a century after the Kothari Commission gave its much acclaimed report.

Evolution in the provinces

Historically, the system of education evolved in the provinces. One hundred years ago, the Central Advisory Board of Education was created to co-ordinate regional responses to common issues. The ‘advisory’ character of this administrative mechanism meant that the Board served mainly as a discussion forum. The Constitution, in its original draft, treated the States as the appropriate sphere for dealing with education. But unlike some other federal countries, India chose to have a Ministry of Education at the Centre. Its role was not merely decorative or confined to coordination among differing State perspectives and practices; rather, the Centre was expected to articulate aims and standards, or to pave the road to nation-building and development. Soon after independence, a more substantial sphere of the Centre’s activities in education emerged in the shape of advanced institutions in professional fields and schools specifically meant for the children of civil servants transferable across India. Such institutions received higher investment than the States could afford. The same can be said for national-level resource institutions which guided policy and encouraged new practices.

Thus, concurrency was already a reality before the 1976 amendment formally included it in the Constitution. What it might mean after the Emergency was an open question. A decade later, when the national policy was drafted under a youthful leader, it emphasised national concerns and perspective without specifically referring to provincial practices that indicated strong divergence. Engagement with the States remained a function of the Planning Commission. In the meantime, a burgeoning private sector had begun to push both public policy and popular perceptions of education. The force of this push can be measured from the difference between the 1986 policy and its own action programme published six years later. Throughout the 1990s, those in charge of education remained hesitant to explain publicly how exactly liberalisation would apply to this traditionally public responsibility. The rapidly expanding and globalising urban middle class had already begun to secede from the public system, posing the awkward question of why education cannot be sold if there are willing buyers. Systemic chaos grew, leaving the policy behind.

Three systems

India now has three systems. To call them sectors would be an understatement. There is a Central system, running an exam board that has an all-India reach through affiliation with English-medium private schools catering to regional elites. Two school chains run by the Centre are part of this system. The Central system also includes advanced professional institutes and universities that have access to greater per capita funding than what their counterparts run by the States can afford. These latter ones belong to the second system which also features provincial secondary boards affiliating schools teaching in State languages. The third system is based on purely private investment. Internationally accredited school boards and globally connected private universities are part of this third system. These institutions represent a new level of freedom from state norms.

An explicit attempt was made under the Right to Education (RTE) Act to bridge the first two systems. The RTE is a parliamentary law, providing a set of standards for elementary education and a call to private schools to provide for social justice via the quota route. In higher education, such an attempt to balance private autonomy with an obligation to provide social justice is yet to be made in any palpable sense. Accreditation norms and recognition procedures create a semblance of public accountability. Coordination among the three systems has proved unmanageable, even in purely functional terms. The least we might expect would be a reliable mechanism to reconcile the marking standards of different Boards and universities. Far harder is the coordination required in adherence to social responsibilities in a period of rapid economic change. Inequalities have become sharper with the rise in overall prosperity. Education must mediate between different social strata divided by caste and economic status. The recent attempt made by Tamil Nadu to create a modest quota in NEET for students who attended government schools points towards an endemic problem exacerbated by centralisation.

Social vision

The new policy document underestimates the problem of reconciling the three systems. The architect of many of our national-level institutions, the late J.P. Naik, used to say that we must ask what kind of human being and society we want before we draft a policy in education. Apart from that philosophical question, we also need a systemic vision: both for recovery from institutional decay and for future progress. Functional uniformity is unlikely to offer any real solution. That is what the new policy seems to favour. In higher education, it proposes nationally codified and administered measures to oversee institutional transformation across State capitals and district towns. The assumption is that old structures will melt like wax under the heat of an empowered vision. The idea of a monolithic regulatory architecture to control a system that is privatising at a rapid pace suggests a tempting impulse rather than a considered plan. Sufficient indication has existed for many years now that economic policy favours greater private enterprise in higher education. How to reconcile this push with the necessity of equitable public education is a nagging question. Similar is the question of autonomy; it cannot be interpreted in financial terms alone. The many different ways in which the States have maintained their colleges and universities cannot all be regarded as signs of a dysfunctional or failing system. If failure is the criterion for choice of remedy, gradations of failure will have to be determined first and their causes studied before remedial steps are contemplated. To accept that one size does not fit all, and then to push every foot into a chosen shoe takes self-contradictory parlance to a new level.

At the school level too, the new policy proposes a post-RTE structural shift, ignoring the fact that the RTE itself has not yet been fully implemented. It is useful to recall that the RTE was drafted with prolonged involvement with the States, not mere consultation. The consensus for such a law was no less difficult to create than the formulation of its content. A vital role was played by the highest judiciary in pushing the polity towards recognising children’s right to be at school rather than at work. This was a historic social turn towards greater parity between sharply unequal strata. It might not have been accomplished if the Centre had not played an assertive role. Further progress of this role called for continued financial support for the implementation of RTE and policy guidance for the proper use of this support so that regional disparities diminish.

Krishna Kumar is a former Director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training and editor of the Routledge Handbook of Education in India

Source: The Hindu, 3/11/20

Keep a positive attitude, it will help boost your memory: Study

 

Science gives you another reason to have a happy outlook towards life; find out!

Even the most positive and optimistic of people have struggled with their outlook this year, because of the strange global situation brought about by the pandemic. But, even if you have had no reason to be in a celebratory mood this year, you need to consciously maintain a positive attitude towards life, because it can help you immensely with your mental well-being and your memory.

A recent study, carried out by Northwestern University in Illinois, has revealed that people who are positive and generally enthusiastic about life, are less likely to experience memory loss when they become old. Weakening of memory is a natural thing to happen to a person as they age, but their mental outlook can slow down this process.

Published in the journal Psychological Science, the research was done with 1,000 adults in the US, and was carried out over a period of time, as the participants got older.

For the study, between 1995 and 1996, 2004 and 2006, and 2013 and 2014, the participants were asked to describe the emotions they felt over 30 days leading up to the study, before being asked to take a memory test. The test had them recall words directly after hearing them, and again 15 minutes later.

The participants’ age, gender, education and history of depression was taken into consideration, and the researchers were able to find a link between “positive affect” — how a person experiences positive emotions — and memory loss.

In other words, while all participants for the study showed a natural decline in memory with age, those with “higher rates of positive affect, had a better ability to recall information”.

“Individuals with higher levels of positive affect had a less steep memory decline over the course of almost a decade,” Emily Hittner, lead author of the study, was quoted as saying.

Source: Indian Express, 5/11/20

UGC releases guidelines for phased reopening of higher education institutions

 

The number of students attending classes on campus, at a given time, should not be more than half the total student strength, the guidelines state

Higher institutions and schools across the country are closed since March 16, on the orders of the union government, to break the chains of COVID19 transmission. Last month, the Ministry of Home Affairs allowed state governments to decide on phased reopening after October 15. The Punjab government, for instance, has announced the reopening of universities and colleges after Diwali, from November 16.The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Thursday released guidelines advising higher education institutions, outside containment zones, to reopen in phases, starting first with research, masters and final-year undergraduate students. However, the number of students attending classes on campus, at a given time, should not be more than half the total student strength, the guidelines state.

Aside from standard precautions of regular disinfection of premises and screening of teachers and students on campus, the higher education regulator has also suggested institutions extend teaching hours and follow a six-day schedule to accommodate students in batches and ensure social distancing. Wearing a mask is mandatory for all teachers and staff on campus. Attendance for students will be voluntary. Universities have been asked to continue online classes for students who wish to study remotely.Residential campuses will be allowed to operate hostels “where it is necessary”, but sharing of rooms has been forbidden. “Symptomatic students should not be permitted to stay in the hostels under any circumstances,” the guidelines state.
“Isolation facilities for symptomatic persons and quarantine facilities for those who were in contact with the positively tested persons should be there on campus or a tie-up may be made in advance with some Government hospital or approved premises or as advised by the local authorities so that, in case of necessity, prompt action may be taken. Proper arrangement of safety, health, food, water etc. should be ensured for those in quarantine and isolation facilities,” the guidelines also state.

Source: Indian Express, 6/11/20