James Wilson, the British economist who presented India’s first ‘budget’

 In 1859, as the British Crown was still recovering from the injuries caused to it by the mutiny of 1857, it appointed a Scottish businessman to find a solution to India’s financial crisis. James Wilson, better known at that time as the founder of The Economist newspaper, had a credible presence in England for his firm grasp over economic theory and policy as well as a practical knowledge of commercial affairs. Karl Marx in his ‘Capital’ had described Wilson as ‘an economic mandarin of high standing’.

Wilson would go on to present the first-ever budget in India in 1860. He is credited with introducing a financial budget in India framed upon the English model. Although Wilson’s budget did receive some criticism for not taking into consideration Indian conditions, it did lay down the foundations of the way in which several economic institutions in India would go on to function, especially that of the income tax.

Who was James Wilson?

Wilson was born in Hawick, a town at the Scottish borders in 1805, to a Quaker family. At the young age of 16, he became an apprentice at a hat factory. While he worked through the day, Wilson would spend tHis father, a woollen manufacturer, went on to buy the factory for Wilson and his brother. In 1824, the two brothers shifted the business to London where it flourished.

During the economic crisis of 1837, Wilson lost most of his wealth. He sold most of his remaining property to avoid bankruptcy.

A decade later in 1853, Wilson founded the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, which later became the Standard Chartered Bank in 1969.

A strong critic of the Corn Laws which imposed heavy restrictions on imported food and grain, Wilson in 1843 founded The Economist as a newspaper to campaign for free trade.

Wilson’s intellectual engagements with the economic issues of the time were reflected in his writings including ‘The influence of Corn laws’ (1839), ‘Fluctuations of currency’ (1840) and ‘Capital, currency and banking’ (1847).

He entered the House of Commons as a Liberal member of Parliament from Westbury in 1847. Given his economic expertise, Wilson was appointed Secretary of the Board of Control, which oversaw the activities of the EIC in British India. Incidentally, he played a leading role in the organisation of railway construction in India during this period. He also served as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1853 to 1858.
In August 1859, Wilson resigned from his seat in the Parliament as he was sent off to India, to remodel the country’s financial system which remained battered after the Mutiny.

What were the changes brought about by Wilson’s budget of 1860?

The crisis being faced by the British empire post the Mutiny is well evidenced by the enormous increase in annual military expenses. “The annual expenditure for the army, military police, new levies, police, and military public works went up from R. 13.2 crores (1856-57), to Rs. 17.2 crores (1857-58) and Rs. 24.7 crores (1858-59) and in the same period the debts of the government of India increased by 36 percent,” writes historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya in his book, ‘The Financial foundations of the British Raj: Ideas and interests in the reconstruction of Indian public finance (1858-1872).he nights reading up on economics.

Reacting to the needs of the time, Wilson wrote, “reforms become possible only when an emergency arises. Such an emergency has now arisen and reform and changes are now possible that have not been possible in our day.”

As the Indian Finance Member, the man appointed to solve the Mutiny crisis, Wilson resolved to introduce major institutional changes and hoped to ensure the influence of economic principles in the financial management of India. The major proposals made by Wilson included taxing the trading classes, a government paper currency, reform of the financial system with budgets, estimates and auditing, creation of a civil police, and a department for public works and roads. He is also credited for having set up a military finance commission and a civil finance commission.

Wilson presented his budget on February 18, 1860. He introduced three kinds of taxes- income tax, license tax and tobacco duty. However, only the first one went through, as the other two were dropped on the demand of the governor-general of India, Charles Canning.

The budget did receive some criticism, chief among them being from the governor of Madras, Charles Trevelyan, found Wilson to be too ‘theoretical’ with a tendency to ignore ‘Indian conditions’. Wilson’s biographer, Walter Bagehot, however, acknowledged the thought put by him in formulating the budget: “Although the people had to be gently led towards the path of economic science, yet he wished to show the kindest consideration towards the thought and sentiments springing from their historical antecedents.” Bhattacharya in his book notes that Wilson “took enormous care to establish the view that income tax was in consonance with the ancient Hindu laws codified in Manusmriti.”

Wilson died the same year he presented the budget, having contracted dysentery in the scorching heat of Calcutta. Despite the prominent public role he played in the economic history of India, he was buried inconspicuously at the Scottish cemetery in Mullick Bazaar in Calcutta. It was only in 2007 that the grave happened to be discovered by C P Bhatia, a joint commissioner of income tax who was researching for a book on India’s taxation history.

Written by Adrija Roychowdhury 

Source: Indian Express, 1/02/21

KVS admission 2021: Know how to apply, important dates and other details

 Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan will start the online registrations for class I on April 1 from 10 am onwards. The schedule for KVS admissions is available on the official website kvsangathan.nic.in. Along with the schedule, KVS admission guidelines for the 2021-2022 session have also been released indicating details of the minimum age for admission and the complete procedure for admissions. 

KVS is allowing a 19-day window for registration. The last date to apply online for class I admissions in the 2021-2022 session is April 19 till 7 pm. 

Once the registration window is closed, KVS will release the provisional select and waitlist of registered candidates. The lists are released online at the official website as per schedule. From the select list, the admission of eligible candidates is done first for the RTE category, followed by the Service Priority Category (I & II), and finally for the shortfall of reservation quota. 

As per the official schedule, the first provisional list will be out on April 23. In case seats remain unfilled from the first list, then a second provisional list will also be declared on April 30. Likewise, if seats remain unfilled even after the release of the second list, then a third provisional list will be released by KVS on May 5. The provisional select list of candidates as per the priority service category for unreserved seats is to be declared from May 3 to 5 keeping the leftover reserved seats blocked. 

The extended date for the second notification for offline registrations is May 10, 2021. The second notification is for offline registrations for admission to be made under RTE provisions, SC/ST, and OBC-NCL in case a sufficient number of online applications are not received. Registrations in this category will end on May 13, 2021. The display of lists for admission will commence on May 15, 2021, and will end on May 20, 2021. 

For admission to class II and onward (except class XI), offline registrations will start from April 8, 2021. The last date to register offline for such admissions is April 15, 2021. On April 19, 2021, at 4 pm, the provisional select and waitlist of candidates eligible for admission to class II and onward (except class XI) will be declared. Admission to class II and onward (except Class XI) for the 2021-2022 session will be done from April 20 to 27, 2021. 

Parents must take note that the last date for admission to all classes from I to VIII is May 31, 2021. For existing KV students, registration for admission to Class XI will begin within ten days from the declaration of Class X results. For non-KV students, registrations for admission to Class XI will commence only after the admission of KV students in Class IX is over.

As per the guidelines, admissions to Class I to VIII may be granted without a school transfer certificate subject to fulfilment of eligibility criteria and given that the birth certificate is issued by a Government Body. It may be noted that proof of birth date will be required for verification at the time of online registrations. It may also be noted that the registrations are free of cost. 

For admission to Class I, admission is conducted as per reservations for RTE, SC, ST, OBC, and PWD categories. Only for admission to Class I, the procedure is conducted online while for the other classes, the admission is done offline. At first, one must register online for Class I admissions to generate the Login Code. Using the code, one must fill up the application form and upload scanned copies of the candidate’s photograph, birth certificate (age proof), EWS certificate (if applicable), etc. A valid mobile number & email ID must also be furnished. One must note down the Application Submission Code and the list of documents need to be submitted during admissions after submitting the online form. 

For admission under the Special Provisions category (except for the Single Girl Child category), incumbents have to submit online applications at first. Thereafter, one must contact the Principal of the concerned Kendriya Vidyalaya directly. One must have the Application Submission Code as well as all the specified documents for admission under this category. 

On the contrary, for admission under the Single Girl Child category, applications must be submitted online although there is no need to contact the Principal of the concerned Vidyalaya directly. It may be noted that twins/triplets are also eligible for admission under the Single Girl Child category as per KVS guidelines. However, for each sibling, the application form must be submitted separately. These individual applications must be linked using a linking code for admission under this category.

For admission to Class IX, an admission test is to be conducted in the subjects of Hindi, English, Maths, Science and Social Science. Aspirants are advised to refer to CBSE Sample Papers and NCERT solutions to prepare for the test. In addition, all candidates and their parents are requested to keep a close tab on the official website for any further updates and information regarding admission 2021. 

Source: Indian Express, 31/03/21

MTP law’s patriarchal bias

 On March 16, the Rajya Sabha passed the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Amendment Bill 2020 despite much opposition and calls to send the Bill to a Select Committee. The Lok Sabha had passed the bill last year. Some relevant objections in the Upper House included the lack of consultation with stakeholders, raised by Amee Yajnik of the Congress, lack of inclusion of transgender people within the MTP framework, raised by Fauzia Khan of the Nationalist Congress Party, the lack of emphasis on centring women’s autonomy, raised by Binoy Viswam of the CPI. The fact that medical boards would constitute violations of privacy, and cause inordinate delays in abortion access due to lack of specialists, and lack of time limits for decision-making, ambiguous representation of women, and the extensive procedural hurdles, were raised by Yajnik, Khan, Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena and P Wilson of the DMK. Unfortunately, the government did not pay heed to these objections.

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan insisted that the government had “held extensive consultation process with experts representing a range of stakeholders from central ministries and departments, state governments, NGOs, academic institutions, professional bodies and associations like the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India, that is, FOGSI, Indian Medical Association, Indian Nursing Council, and, of course, the legal professionals also.” He also said that the Bill was cleared by an Ethics Committee and a “Group of Ministers headed by Shri Nitin Gadkariji, and there were very senior ministers in this, including Smriti Iraniji and many other female ministers also”. We also had consultations with the Law and Justice Ministry, he said. The minister emphasised that there are several models of abortion regulation globally, one of which includes abortion on request. However, abortion under the MTP Amendment Bill will not be allowed at the request of a pregnant person, but is conditional on authorisation by the doctor. This goes against the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on reproductive autonomy and bodily integrity. Further, the Bill will allow for abortions without any upper gestation limit only for foetuses with “abnormalities”, thereby fostering the ableist rationale of the State. The Bill is also overwhelmingly cis-heteronormative, with only cisgender women being contemplated in it, and not persons with other gender identities.

The Bill calls for the mandatory setting up of Medical Boards in every state and Union Territory which rely on inconsistent criteria for approval of abortions. This could cause severe delays in the abortion process; people living in rural areas in large parts of the country could find these Boards inaccessible. Over the last year, concerns have been voiced by the disability rights movement, health rights and feminist groups, and other civil society groups on the regressive and impractical provisions of the Bill. Failure to carry out substantive consultations with communities actually affected by the law gives a telling picture of how the Central government has been drafting and enacting laws that are harmful to the people they affect the most.

One example of this is the Indian Agriculture Acts of 2020 (Farm Bills), whose enactment sparked one of the largest protests in the country’s recent history. The government claimed that it consulted farmers before passing the Farm Bills, with Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claiming that “extensive consultations, training and outreach programmes (were) conducted on the Agriculture Laws with stakeholders” and that 92.42 lakh farmers had participated in webinars conducted by them. However, all these interactions with farmers’ groups took place only after promulgation of the Ordinances in June 2020. This meant, first, that no pre-drafting consultations took place, and, second, that any suggestions which may have emerged during subsequent consultations were not incorporated into the Bills.

The process of drafting and enacting laws in a democracy must necessarily involve consultations and deliberations with representatives from civil society and grassroots organisations, all of whom have a stake in the implementation of such laws through their lived experiences. The equating of “stakeholders” with elite groups of healthcare professionals, bureaucrats and politicians – as mentioned by the health minister – and the exclusion of important civil society actors and marginalised groups whose lives are likely to be substantially affected by the law raises questions over the consultative process. Passing laws without a robust pre-legislative, consultative and deliberative process often leads to aspersions being cast on the legitimacy of these laws, rendering them increasingly subject to constitutional challenges and judicial interventions.

In passing the MTP Amendment Bill, the State continues to control women’s reproductive and sexual rights while wielding the argument of “progress”. The narrow understanding of women’s rights, which underpins the legislation, serves to explain much of the hetero-patriarchal regulatory orientation of the law. The co-option of “women’s rights” in the rhetoric to promote the Bill is ironic, as its provisions continue to criminalise abortion, and perpetuate harmful stereotypes and stigma around reproduction, sexuality and motherhood. The persistent notion that women are “natural” mothers, as reiterated in the Rajya Sabha debates, furthers the paternalistic idea that women need hand holding in making decisions related to their sexual and reproductive rights.

Written by Dipika Jain

This article first appeared in the print edition on April 1, 2021 under the title ‘Against her choice’. The writer is professor, Jindal Global Law School

Source: Indian Express, 1/04/21

Quote of the Day March 31, 2021

 

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
Anatole France

“महान वस्तुओं को प्राप्त करने के लिये, हमें सिर्फ कर्म ही नहीं करना चाहिये, बल्कि स्वप्न भी देखना चाहिये; सिर्फ योजना ही नहीं बनानी चाहिये, बल्कि विश्वास भी रखना चाहिये।”
एनाटोल फ्रांस

University of Dundee offers scholarship for Indian students

 The University of Dundee in collaboration with the British Council is offering the ‘Great scholarships’ 2021-22 for Indian students to study a full-time, on-campus, postgraduate course of value £10,000. The offer starts in September 2021. Interested and eligible candidates can apply for the scholarship by May 7.

The scholarship is given for the tuition fees. It offers international students who want to study at the UK university a one-year postgraduate course. It also encourages the students to apply and demonstrate an interest in the chosen subject, through examples of work or academic experience.

Eligibility criteria:

— Candidate is a passport holder from India;
— Candidate should have an offer to study a full time, on-campus, postgraduate taught programme at the University of Dundee, starting in September 2021;
— Candidate should have an international fee status, as verified by the University of Dundee

The ‘Great scholarship’ programme is offered across several postgraduate courses such as Anatomy / Forensic Anthropology / Forensic and Medical Art, Architecture and Urban Planning, Art and Design, Biological/Biomedical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering / Medical Imaging, Business (Accountancy / Economics / Finance / International Business), Civil Engineering / Structural Engineering, Computing / Applied Computing / Data Science / Data Engineering, Education, Electronic Engineering, Energy Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, English, Geography / Environmental Science, History, Law, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering / Industrial Engineering, Nursing and Health Sciences, Philosophy, Physics, Politics, and International Relations, Psychology, Social Work.

The University of Dundee currently has 14 ‘Great scholarships’ available for the 2021-22 academic year for students from China (two), Egypt (one), Ghana (one), India (one), Indonesia (two), Kenya (one), Malaysia (two), Pakistan (two) and Thailand (two) for all subjects.

Source: Indian Express, 30/03/21

Indian education system must stop chasing ‘learning outcomes’

 In the present context, which seeks to demonstrate, measure and quantify learning, learning outcomes (LO) have become a fetish with policymakers and textbook developers, an idea popularised by large-scale assessment surveys, such as the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), in India. LO essentially refers to grade-appropriate, basic competencies in numeracy and literacy, which schoolgoing children are supposed to acquire.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the apex body responsible for making curriculum, syllabus and textbooks, has already come out with two documents listing learning outcomes at elementary and secondary stages, while the one for the higher secondary stage is underway. This is because the new National Education Policy 2020 underscores the importance of foundational skills as being central to a child’s schooling. State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) will be soon expected to toe the line. However, the government of Andhra Pradesh has already initiated the exercise. Besides deciding to convert all government schools from Classes I to X to English medium, the state education department was directed to prepare “mirror image” textbooks — with lessons printed in English and Telugu, side by side. This seems to be more of a mechanical exercise without any sound pedagogic rationale. A quick review of the new textbooks shows that they centre around LO and follow a didactic approach of essentially presenting information/facts that children are supposed to passively consume and memorise. Such books typically deny the agency of both the teacher and the student, making them subservient to the printed text. They are physically heavy but conceptually terse.

It was with great difficulty that National Curriculum Framework, prepared by NCERT in 2005, changed the form and nature of textbooks. Any change of government at the Centre or state level was/is usually followed by a change in textbooks, particularly history. Besides blatant misuse as a political tool, textbooks suffer from other limitations. They reproduce social inequalities by either omission of diverse social groups or their misrepresentation. The landmark Learning Without Burden (LWB) committee (1993) identified dense, poorly written and weakly conceptualised textbooks as being primarily responsible, in addition to unwieldy syllabi and rote-based exam system, for burdening children’s school lives. The NCF 2005, with its roots in LWB, redirected the meaning of quality education to curricular, pedagogic and assessment practices being followed inside the classrooms. It sought to connect the life of the child outside school with learning in the classroom.

Soon after, NCERT developed “exemplar/model” textbooks which were conceptually sound and used a variety of pedagogic techniques to bring in real-life issues in the book. The social science textbooks particularly acknowledged social conflicts which children experienced in their lives and helped make sense of them. They also gave fresh life to the meaning of learning which was no longer a one-way track of passing on information to children but became a process of constructing knowledge meaningfully by both the teacher and the student.

A few states took the lead and initiated the formation of state curricular frameworks, position papers and the development of textbooks. Undivided Andhra Pradesh was one of them. However, with the revision of the earlier written books, which were both pedagogically sound and collaboratively developed, it seems like the state is bent on undoing its own achievements.

There is no denying that textbooks, just like curricular frameworks, syllabus, and assessment practices, need to be revised periodically. However, textbooks tailored to measure the acquisition of LO on part of children is a self-defeating exercise. This singular focus on LO will take the teaching-learning processes away from the possibility of a meaningful co-construction of knowledge to a teacher teaching to the test. Since teachers’ own appraisal is contingent on children’s performance in these tests, they feel pressured to ensure that children know the basic minimum and somehow pass the test.

The choice is ours — whether we will allow testing to take precedence over learning or celebrate learning as a meaning-making exercise by both the teacher and the student.

Written by Disha Nawani

This article first appeared in the print edition on March 31, 2021 under the title ‘Testing over learning’. The writer is professor and dean, School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Source: Indian Express, 31/03/21

The ecological concerns around river-linking projects

 The controversy over the river-linking project is not new; it’s a part of a larger development versus ecology debate that India faces with every big project. But in an era of climate crisis, which has a multi-sectoral impact, addressing ecological concerns is crucial and ensure long-term safety and benefits.

This week, the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh governments signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to start work on the country’s first major project interlinking two rain-fed rivers, Ken and Betwa. The agreement was signed 18 years after the project was first conceived as a part of country’s programme to interlink rivers to provide water to areas facing scarcity. The project is expected to ensure drinking water to 6.2 million people and irrigate one million hectares of land in 13 districts across both states, the majority of which fall in the water-starved Bundelkhand region, which has seen back-to-back droughts in the last decade.

Experts have flagged two concerns. First, project proponents fail to take into account the fact that the water crisis is not just a natural one; it’s partly man-made. The region’s granite topography does not allow rainwater to seep in and recharge the groundwater table, but this problem has been aggravated by policies that support faulty cropping patterns, encourage groundwater exploitation, degrade the soil and hack away at forest cover. Second, the project may submerge 6,107 hectares of the old and biodiverse forests of the Panna Tiger Reserve and Ken Ghariyal Sanctuary. This can impact water availability, rainfall patterns and destroy local ecosystems. Instead, the government could have pushed for low-cost, local interventions such as renovating and building water harvesting systems, desilting reservoirs and lakes and working towards a change in cropping patterns.

The controversy over the river-linking project is not new; it’s a part of a larger development versus ecology debate that India faces with every big project. But in an era of climate crisis, which has a multi-sectoral impact, addressing ecological concerns is crucial and ensure long-term safety and benefits.

Source: Hindustan Times, 25/03/21