Jnanpith Award 2021- Winners

 56^th and 57^th Jnanpith Awards were announced recently, for the year 2020 and 2021 respectively.

Key Facts

• Assamese Poet Nilmani Phookan Jr. and Konkani Novelist Damodar Mauzo have emerged as the winners of 56th and 57th Award respectively. They were selected for their contribution to Indian literature.
• Jnanpith Awards are India’s highest literary honour, which is bestowed on the writers for their outstanding contribution in Literature.
• Both Phookan and Mauzo are also the winners of Sahitya Akademi Award. They are known for their significant contribution to the respective regional literature.
• Damodar Mauzo is from Majorda in Goa while Nilmani Phookan is from Guwahati in Assam.

Assamese Poet Nilmani Phookan

Assamese Poet Nilmani Phookan received the highest literary honour ‘Jnanpith Award’, honouring his lifelong devotion to literature.

Other Assamese to won the award

Assam has received Jnanpith Award for the third time. Before Nilmani Phookan, Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya won the award in 1979 while Mamoni Raisom Goswami won it in 2000.

Konkani Writer Damodar Mauzo

Damodar Mauzo is a 77 years old Konkani writer. He has been awarded the 57th Jnanpith Award. He is known for his novels like Tsunami Simon and Karmelin as well as for short stories like Other Stories from Goa and Teresa’s Man.

About Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith Award is the oldest and highest literary award. Award is honoured annually by Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their contribution to literature. The award was established in 1961. It is bestowed only on the Indian writers who are write in the Indian languages mentioned in the 8th schedule of Indian Constitution, besides English.

The rich-poor gap in India

 

The latest World Inequality Report flags India as a poor and very unequal country, with the top 10% holding 57% of national income in 2021, and the bottom 50% holding just 13%. Breaking down the key findings.

India stands out as a “poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite”, where the top 10% holds 57% of the total national income, including 22% held by the top 1%, while the bottom 50% holds just 13% in 2021, according to the World Inequality Report 2022. Released this week, the report also flags a drop in global income during 2020, with about half the dip in rich countries, and half in low-income and emerging countries. It attributes this primarily to the impact of “South and Southeast Asia, and more precisely” India.

The report has been authored by economist and co-director of the World Inequality Lab, Lucas Chancel, along with economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“India stands out as a poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite,” the report says. It says India’s middle class is relatively poor with an average wealth of Rs 7,23,930, or 29.5% of the total national income, compared with the top 10% and 1% who own 65% (Rs 63,54,070) and 33% (Rs 3,24,49,360), respectively.

The average annual national income of the Indian adult population is Rs 2,04,200 in 2021. The bottom 50% earned Rs 53,610, while the top 10% earned over 20 times more (Rs 11,66,520), the report states. The average household wealth is Rs 9,83,010, of which the bottom 50% owns Rs 66,280, a mere 6%.

The share of the top 10% and bottom 50% in pre-tax national income has remained broadly constant since 2014. The quality of inequality data released by the government has seriously deteriorated, making it particularly difficult to assess recent inequality changes, the report says.

As per the recent Multi-dimensional Poverty Index prepared by Niti Aayog, one in every four people in India was multi-dimensionally poor. Bihar has the highest such proportion (51.91%), followed by Jharkhand (42.16%) and Uttar Pradesh (37.79%).

Pandemic impact

The impact of the pandemic was reflected in a drop in global income, which was impacted significantly due to India. “When India is removed from the analysis, it appears that the global bottom 50 per cent income share actually slightly increased in 2020,” the report says.

Also, even as countries have become richer over the last 40 years, their governments have become significantly poorer, a trend magnified due to the pandemic. “The share of wealth held by public actors is close to zero or negative in rich countries, meaning that the totality of wealth is in private hands. This trend has been magnified by the Covid crisis, during which governments borrowed the equivalent of 10-20 per cent of GDP, essentially from the private sector,” the report says.

The rise in private wealth has also been unequal within countries and at world levels. Since the mid-1990s, the top 1% globally took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated, whereas the bottom 50 per cent captured just 2%. “The wealth of the richest individuals on earth has grown at 6 to 9% per year since 1995, whereas average wealth has grown at 3.2% per year. This increase was exacerbated during the COVID pandemic,” it says.

Global, regional trends

The poorest half of the global population “barely owns any wealth” at just 2% of the total, whereas the richest 10% owns 76%, the report says. The richest 10% currently takes 52% of global income, and the poorest earns just 8% (Figure 1).

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are the most unequal regions in the world, whereas Europe has the lowest inequality levels, the report says. In Europe, the top 10%’s income share is around 36%, and in MENA, it is 58%; in East Asia, it is 43%, and in Latin America, 55%.

Global wealth was equal to around 510 trillion euros in 2020, or about 600% of national income. The ratio of total wealth to total income rose from around 450% in the early 1990s to about 600% today. In high-income countries, in 1970, private wealth–national income ratios ranged between 200-400%. By 2008, when the global financial crisis began, these ratios averaged 550%.

Large emerging economies such as China and India experienced faster increases than wealthy countries after they transitioned away from communism (in China and Russia) or from a highly regulated economic system (in India). In India, private wealth increased from 290% in 1980 to 560% in 2020.

Global inequalities seem to be about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century, the report said.

Other key inequalities

Women’s share of total incomes from work was about 30% in 1990, and is less than 35% now, the report notes.

Inequalities within countries are now greater than those between countries. Within countries, the gap between the average incomes of the top 10% and the bottom 50% almost doubled from 18 times in 1820 to 41 times in 1910, reached an all-time high of 53 in 1980 and 50 in 2000, before declining to 38 in 2020.

It notes that global income and wealth inequalities are “tightly connected to ecological inequalities and to inequalities in contributions to climate change”. The top 10% of emitters is responsible for close to 50% of all emissions, while the bottom 50% contributes 12%.

If the rich were taxed

The report has suggested levying a modest progressive wealth tax on multimillionaires.

In 2021, there were 62.2 million people owning more than $1 million (measured at market exchange rates). Their average wealth was $2.8 million, a total of $174 trillion. More than 1.8 million individuals (top 0.04%) own over $10 million, 76,500 (0.001%) own over $100 million, and 2,750 (0.00005%) own more than a billion dollars. The billionaires own more than $13 trillion, or 3.5% of global wealth (Table 1).

A global effective wealth tax rate of 1.2% for wealth over $1 million, the report said, could generate revenues of 2.1% of global income. A tax rate of 0.6% for wealth between $1-10 million can yield 0.6% of global income, a 1.1% rate for wealth group $10-100 million can generate 0.4% of global income, and a 5% rate for wealth between $1 billion and $10 billion could generate 0.3% of global income.

Written by Aanchal Magazine

Source: Indian Express, 10/12/21

Across India, minorities are overrepresented in jails

 

Christophe Jaffrelot, Maulik Saini write: This is a clear indication of the communalisation of the police that tends to prevail, irrespective of the ideology of the ruling party.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports show that in almost all the states of the Indian Union, irrespective of the party holding office, religious minorities are over-represented in jail.

Muslims are a case in point. During UPA II, they represented 21 to 22.5 per cent of the “undertrials” and under NDA II (from 2014 to 2019) 19 to 21 per cent. But law and order being a state subject, this question needs to be scrutinised at this level. Muslims are (and were) over-represented among jail inmates in almost all the Hindu-majority states: In Assam, Muslims, according to the 2011 census, are 34 per cent of the population and they represent 43 to 47.5 per cent of the “undertrials”; in Gujarat, Muslims are 10 per cent of the population and since 2017, they have been about 25 to 27 per cent of the “undertrials” (they were 24 per cent in 2013); in Karnataka, Muslims are 13 per cent of the population and they are 19 to 22 per cent of the “undertrials” since 2018 (they were 13 to 14 per cent in 2013-2017); in Kerala, they are 26.5 per cent of the population and 28 to 30 per cent of the “undertrials”; in MP, Muslims are 6.5 per cent and 12 to 15 per cent of the “undertrials” since 2017 (they were already 13 per cent in 2013); in Maharashtra, Muslims are 11.5 per cent of the population, and their percentage among the “undertrials” peaked at 36.5 per cent in 2012 (it went back to its 2009 level, 30 per cent, in 2015); in Rajasthan, Muslims are 9 per cent and they represent 18 to 23 per cent of the “undertrials” (they were 17 per cent in 2013); in Tamil Nadu, Muslims are 6 per cent, and 11 per cent of the undertrials since 2017; in Uttar Pradesh, Muslims are 19 per cent of the population, and 26 to 29 per cent of the “undertrials” since 2012; in West Bengal, Muslims are 27 per cent of the population, and they represent more than 36 per cent of the “undertrials” since 2017. The only major state where Muslims have been under-represented among the “undertrials” is Bihar, where the latter are 15 per cent when Muslims constitute 17 per cent of the population.

The over-representation of Muslims in jail is to some extent a reflection of the communal bias of the police. In many states, the percentage of “convicted” Muslims is much lower than their percentage amongst “undertrials”. Take 2019: The percentage drops from 47.5 per cent of “undertrials” to 39.6 per cent of “convicted” in Assam; from 19.5 to 14 per cent in Karnataka; from 31 to 27 per cent in Kerala; from 12 to 10 per cent in MP; from 30 to 20 per cent in Maharashtra; from 18 to 17 per cent in Rajasthan; from 29 to 22 per cent in UP. These data show that when the judiciary, at last, take up the cases of many “undertrials”. the judges realise that there is not enough evidence and they release people who have spent a lot of time — years sometimes — incarcerated for no reason. The police and judiciary are, therefore, somewhat at cross purpose in many states, to such an extent that the share of the convicts is not much larger than the share of the Muslims in many states, including Karnataka, Kerala and even UP. At the pan-Indian level, the proportion of Muslim convicts was 2.5 percentage points above the percentage of Muslims in the population, according to the 2011 census (14.2 per cent).

The police and the judiciary are on the same page in only a few states. The percentage of Muslim “convicts” is equal to the percentage of Muslim “undertrials” in only one state, Tamil Nadu (11 per cents) and the former are more than the latter in only three states: Gujarat (31 against 25 per cent), West Bengal (38 against 37 per cent) and Bihar (18 against 15 per cent).

If Muslims are overrepresented among jail inmates in most of the Hindu-majority states — among “undertrials” more than “convicts” — Hindus are overrepresented among jail inmates in the only Muslim majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. In this state, where Hindus represent 28.5 per cent of the population, they were 34 to 39.5 per cent of the “undertrials” between 2014 and 2019 and were even more over-represented among convicts — between 42.6 and 50.5 per cent. Muslims, 68.3 per cent of the state population, followed the opposite trajectory: Their percentage of “undertrials” (between 60.5 per cent and 56 per cent) was much higher than their share of the “convicts” (between 53 and 43 per cent). Similarly, in Punjab, Sikhs — 58 per cent of the population — tend to be under-represented among the undertrials at 51 per cent in 2019 and 52 per cent in 2018, whereas Muslims (2 per cent of the population) are over-represented at 4-5 per cent.

These detailed figures suggest something very disturbing: In almost every state, the minorities are over-represented in jail and the majorities are under-represented. This is a clear indication of the communalisation of the police that tends to prevail, irrespective of the ideology of the ruling party. One of the only ways to correct this state of affairs could be the recruitment and promotion of policemen from minority communities. Indeed, Muslims are under-represented among the IPS officers, except in J&K.

Written by Christophe Jaffrelot , Maulik Saini 

Source: Indian Express, 10/12/21

Ambition without idealism is dangerous

 

CJI N V Ramana: Law students, young lawyers cannot remain aloof from social reality.

The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, once remarked, “Youth are agents for transformation”. The history of modern India would be incomplete without acknowledging the role played by students and youth of this country.

Many social revolutions and changes were brought about through politically conscious and socially responsible students, who raised their voices against existing inequities. Students have been the face of the Indian independence movement. In fact, the youth have often taken up certain causes and inspired many political parties to take up the same subsequently.

Education has a social agenda. The agenda is to develop our human resources, which meet the requirements of society. An educated citizenry is the greatest asset for any democratic society. Students are known for their readiness to fight for all the right causes because their thoughts are pure and honest. They are always at the forefront, questioning injustice. Any keen observer of Indian society would notice that in the past few decades, no big leader has emerged from the student community. This appears to be correlated with diminished participation of students in social causes after liberalisation. The importance of students’ participation in a modern democracy cannot be played down.

It is necessary for you (students) to take part in current debates. You must have a clear vision. It is essential that more and more well-meaning, forward-looking, and upright students like you enter public life. You must emerge as leaders. After all, political consciousness and well-informed debates can steer the nation into a glorious future as envisioned by our Constitution. A responsive youth is vital for strengthening democracy.

It is, therefore, necessary for students to realise the importance of their relationship with society. Students are an integral part of society. They cannot live in isolation. Students are guardians of freedom, justice, equality, ethics, and social equilibrium. All this can be achieved only when their energies are properly streamlined. When the youth become socially and politically conscious, the basic issues of education, food, clothing, healthcare, shelter, etc. would come into focus in the national discourse. The educated youth cannot remain aloof from social reality. You have a special responsibility.

Consider this: Nearly one-fourth of our population still lacks access to basic education. Only about 27 per cent of those in the age group of university students are enrolling for university education. While most of you leave these institutes with degrees and titles, always be aware of the world that you are a part of. You cannot remain self-centred. Do not allow narrow and partisan issues to dominate the nation’s thought process. This will ultimately hurt our democracy and the progress of our nation.

The youth of today is driven by idealism and ambition. Idealism without ambition may not achieve any positive results. Ambition without idealism can be dangerous. Combine the two in the right proportion and enable our country to emerge as one of the most powerful and harmonious.

The learnings of my generation were different. In addition to formal learning in school and college, tough circumstances taught us many valuable lessons. When we left college in search of a livelihood, the change was not abrupt. There was freedom for us to experiment, work, play and learn from society.

Unfortunately, the focus nowadays is on professional courses to the total neglect of equally important subjects such as humanities and natural sciences. In an anxiety to secure highly remunerative and profitable job opportunities, children are sent to exile in privately-run residential schools and coaching centres. The formative years of budding talents are spent in a suffocating atmosphere that unfortunately resembles prisons. The harsh reality is that even after the students enter professional universities, the focus is on classroom learning, and not on the world beyond the classroom.

My general observations on the power and responsibility of students and the youth are even more relevant when it comes to all of you who are graduating today. You are all law graduates of one of the premier law universities in the country. All of you have a special responsibility to society.

Lawyers cannot be strangers to socio-economic and political realities. With countless tools at your disposal, all the knowledge and information in the world a click away, you are in a privileged position. While it is not wrong to choose a life of convenience, I hope that you choose a life of service as well, for the future of this nation.

Be aware of prevailing inequities and ask yourselves: Can I be a part of the solution? Particularly, in a country like India, you need to be social architects. The legal profession is not about profit maximisation. It is a service to your client. Remember your duty to the court and to the law. Carry out your sacred task with utmost sincerity and honour.

When you enter the profession you will take an oath on the Constitution. Always remember your solemn duty to uphold the Constitution. You all are aware, independence of the judiciary is sacrosanct in ensuring the rule of law. As officers of the court, you must always guard the institution during testing times. You must always remain vigilant about possible attacks. This is our collective responsibility towards the Constitution.

It is for you to shape the future of this country. The opinions you write, policies you draft, pleadings and submissions that you file in Court and the ethics that you hold dear, will have a far-reaching effect.

As the former US President John F Kennedy famously said: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

Written by N V Ramana

Source: Indian Express, 10/12/21

Nagaland’s people deserve neither AFSPA nor gun culture

 

Patricia Mukhim writes: The Northeast is not only less understood by distant Delhi but also considered ‘alien’ to the nation.

The sight of a dozen or more coffins being laid in a row while young, helpless widows and elderly grief-stricken parents come to terms with their loss is an image that is both outrageous and painful. The dead were ordinary citizens going home to their village in Nagaland after work. In one shattering moment, their lives were extinguished; just like that. For the Army’s special unit, it was an intelligence error to which they overreacted. What’s the source of that information? Surely, the government cannot hide behind the smokescreen of “classified information”. There have been too many killings based on such wrong intelligence in Nagaland, Manipur and Assam.

With every such encounter in which the innocent are mowed down, the clamour for revocation of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) grows strident — but is rarely sustained. Some years ago, all the northeastern states had come together to demand the annulment of this Act. That remained in the realm of yet another “demand”.

How can a country adopt a colonial Act meant to counter the Quit India Movement of 1942 to fight its own people? How can independent India impose an Act that gives legal protection to the armed forces to shoot down anyone on “suspicion” of being a terrorist/extremist/insurgent? In 1997, after Nagaland’s most enduring insurgent outfit, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN), led by Isak Swu and T H Muivah, first decided to talk peace with the Indian government, the Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) had approached the Supreme Court for revocation of the Act. But the apex court had then upheld its constitutionality, and said it was an enabling legislation that confers minimum powers on the army to operate in situations of widespread internal disorder. Public memory is short and it’s important to jog that. Irom Sharmila of Manipur had undertaken a 16-year fast against the law, with the state insisting on keeping her alive through regular medical intervention. Sharmila gave up her lonely battle in 2017 when she decided to contest the Manipur Assembly elections. Why did it take over 60 years for AFSPA to become an election issue? It was only in 2016, after many PILs were filed in the Supreme Court, that the court sought details of the 1,528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings between May 1979 and May 2012 by the Manipur Police and the armed forces. The CBI was asked to go into a few of those cases. But in its report filed in March this year, it said it had no conclusive evidence and, therefore, closed the cases.

The unasked questions remain: Why are the northeastern states of India and Jammu and Kashmir singled out for imposition of AFSPA? Aren’t there internal rebellions in the rest of India too, such as “left-wing extremism?” Why are those areas not termed “disturbed areas” followed by the invocation of AFSPA? The reality is that the Northeast is not only less understood by distant Delhi but is also still considered “alien” to the nation because of racial and cultural dissimilarities. Nation-building in the region is work in progress; insurgency is the result of a colonial power — the British — being replaced by a power that people in Nagaland see as akin to its predecessor.

Many are wondering if the peace talks between the NSCN (IM) and the government of India now lie in tatters. Unfortunately, the media has focussed exclusively on the NSCN (IM) and ignored the other Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs), who have been brought on board because they are Nagaland-based and speak exclusively for Nagaland. The NSCN(IM) is led by a Tangkhul Naga from Manipur and the majority of its cadres are also Nagas from Manipur. The NNPGs and the Gaon Bura Association of Nagaland doubt NSCN(IM)’s ability to bring lasting peace in Nagaland. They know that the NSCN(IM) is not an organisation with whom dialogue is possible or which is in the habit of examining its conscience and regretting its actions. It exists to recruit resentment and to direct that resentment against the usual target — Delhi or India.

It is important to take stock of the situation on the ground as it has existed since 2015. NSCN(IM) cadres, although living in a designated camp at Mount Hebron near Dimapur, move around freely with arms and extort with impunity. In the past, they have mercilessly gunned down rival factions but there has been no reaction because the people of Nagaland are a traumatised lot. Having faced the wrath of state and non-state powers, they had lost their voice, until a few years ago when people started expressing their anger against such killings and extortion over social media.

Since 2015, the Nagaland Gaon Bura Association, the apex body of Nagas which includes all the 16 recognised tribes and the NNPGs barring the NSCN (IM), have sent several memorandums addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, asking that whatever terms are agreed upon with the NSCN (IM) should be concluded and the remaining issues be resolved through peaceful means. Why has the Centre ignored these petitions?

These representatives of the Naga people do not demand a separate flag or constitution because they understand these are tenuous demands. It is a settled issue that there will be no territorial rearrangement and the Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam will not be reorganised for that would unleash a Frankenstein’s monster. These groups have also never raised the sovereignty issue. The working committee of the seven NNPGs, roped in to join the peace talks, are also opposed to the idea of changing interlocutors as and when the NSCN (IM) decides.

Today, the people of Nagaland are being held hostage by governments both at the state and the Centre. People question why the Centre is pandering to the NSCN (IM) at the cost of the people of Nagaland. Why continue to use the army and AFSPA when killings have reduced considerably? The apex body has specifically mentioned that they want to be delivered from the gun culture. Why is the Centre not responding to that call? In fact, the GoI is seen as pandering to the political leadership of Nagaland, which is alienated from the people, instead of responding to the aspirations of the Naga people. It’s a given that if the state uses armed forces, there will be excesses because the army is trained to kill the enemy. Deploying the army means that the Government of India considers the areas where AFSPA is invoked and the people who live there as the enemy.

Countering insurgency in the Northeast is fraught also because of the Free Movement Regime (FMR) between India and Myanmar. India shares a 1,643 km border with Myanmar. The FMR signed between the two countries allows movement up to 16 km inside each other’s territory for trade and commerce. But it is misused by militants to smuggle drugs and arms. The FMR was suspended in March 2020 due to Covid — but smuggling has only increased. This border is the most difficult terrain to police. These issues need to be addressed for enduring peace to prevail.

Written by Patricia Mukhim

Source: Indian Express, 10/12/21

Quote of the Day December 9, 2021

 

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”
Freya Stark, The Journey's Echo

“सुख हमें नहीं मिल सकता यदि विश्वास हम किन्हीं चीजों में करें और अमल करें किन्हीं और चीज़ों पर।”
फ्रेया स्टार्क द जर्नीज़ ईको

NCW launches ‘She is a Changemaker’ programme

 

National Commission for Women (NCW) launched a pan-India capacity building programme called “She is a Changemaker” on December 7, 2021.

Highlights

• She is a Changemaker programme was launched for women in Politics.
• It is a capacity building programme, which will be undertaken in association with region-wise training institutes.
• It will be implemented with an objective of undertaking capacity building of women political leaders as well as improving their decision making & communication skills.

Launch of training programmes

Launch of training programmes under the She is a Changemaker programme was held in collaboration with Rhambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, Thane, Maharashtra.

Who launched with programme?

Programmes under the campaign were launched by the Chairperson of NCW, Rekha Sharma.

National Commission for Women (NCW)

NCW is the statutory body of Government of India. It is usually concerned with advising the government on all policy matters related to women. NCW was established on January 31, 1992 in accordance with the provisions of National Commission for Women Act, 1990.  The first chairperson of the commission was Jayanti Patnaik.

Functions of NCW

The NCW work with the objective of:

1. Representing the rights of women in India
2. To provide a voice for issues and concerns related to women.

Subjects of campaigns

The subjects of campaigns of NCW include politics, equal representation for women in jobs, dowry, religion, and exploitation of women for labour.

Rashtra Mahila

The Rashtra Mahila is the monthly newsletter, published by NCW in both Hindi and English.