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ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS LINE

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

HINDU

INDIAN EXPRESS

PIONEER

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TRIBUNE

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                                            CONTENTS

BLACK MONEY 3-8

CIVIL SERVICE 9

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 10-14

EDUCATION 15-21

ELECTIONS 22-28

ENTERPRISES 29-31

ENVIRONMENT 32

GOVERNORS 33

HEALTH SERVICES 34-42

JUDICIARY 43-44

LIBRARIES 45-47

MINORITY GROUPS 48-50

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 51-54

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 55

PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM 56

TAXATION 57-62

WOMEN 63

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BLACK MONEY

HINDU, NOV 8, 2017Discordant notes: a year after demonetisationPuja Mehra

A year after demonetisation, its effects have still not been quantified

The National Democratic Alliance government is celebrating November 8, the anniversary

of demonetisation, as Anti-Black Money Day. Cabinet Ministers will disperse to State

capitals where they will elaborate on demonetisation’s numerous putative successes. The

Prime Minister may be in Gujarat, which goes to polls next month. All day there is bound to

be much speech-making. Evidence and analysis that tax officials have compiled is likely to

be taken on board to add substance to political rhetoric. The bandobast details, released to

the media in advance, suggest that the planning has been meticulous.

In the days after more than 80% of the cash in circulation was removed via demonetisation a

year ago, chiefly in the quest to stifle the black economy, the discourse turned so extreme

and divisive, the goals were sought to be shifted so fast, that getting a fix on demonetisation

became tough. So the anniversary is a good occasion to revisit the question: has the note-ban

proved to be an effective policy tool to attack the black economy and control corruption?

The flow of information recently from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) makes some

analysis possible.

A few good clues

Both former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and Deputy Governor R. Gandhi have,

following their departures from the central bank, made a few things clear. One, the central

bank’s recommendation to the government was that demonetisation would prove to be a

weak weapon in the war on black money, and that superior policy alternatives were

available for achieving the objective. Second, the government pressed ahead with

demonetisation, overruling this expert advice.

It appears the government was in fact out of its depth on the subject. The results from its

counting of the returned notes show that the RBI did have a point. With 99% of the

demonetised 500 and 1,000 notes back in the banking system₹ ₹ , little of the stock of the

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black money in the country was evidently extinguished. Which means it was successfully

converted into other forms, thereby delaying, if not altogether escaping, detection.

Now, the tax authorities say that they are on the trail of the bank deposits made after

November 8, 2016, and are investigating suspicious accounts.

The amounts under investigation so far, however, constitute a drop in the ocean. Yes,

demonetisation delivered leads, but establishing criminal evasion and ensuring that the

corrupt are punished is a monumental effort. Plus, the tax department’s past record of

proving evasion is unlikely to be giving offenders nightmares. The faulty system is skewed

in their favour. Procedures are time-consuming; there are limitations of administrative and

judicial capacity, handicaps the government seems to be grossly underestimating. It could

well be years before any serious large-scale clean-up is accomplished, representing at best a

promise of a deferred payback from demonetisation.

Another challenge is that of measurement. Although the chief goal of demonetisation was to

place a check on black money, the central theme of the Prime Minister’s policy agenda, the

government has no official estimate of the size of the black economy. Unofficial estimates

range from a third of the white economy to as much as the country’s GDP. Without an

official estimate, it is impossible to meaningfully evaluate by how much demonetisation

successfully down-sized the black economy, if at all.

Some contradictions

The agenda itself is fraught with contradictions. For weeks now, the rules requiring

purchase of gold and diamonds (for 2 lakh or less) to be linked to PAN (Permanent₹

Account Number) are in suspension. Conversion of black money into gold and diamonds

has gone on unencumbered. The window opened when the rules were taken down for a

technical reason — they had to be reworded. No one knows how long this window will

remain open.

A year after demonetisation was announced, the questions seem to outnumber the answers.

Electorally, voters may judge the policy in terms of intent rather than outcomes. Economists

may quibble over the undue costs owing to the debilitating impact on the momentum of

economic growth, even as damage to the vulnerable informal sectors remains unmeasured.

The government’s spokespersons may extol the shrinking cash economy and growing

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digitisation. But an assessment of demonetisation on Anti-Black Money Day can be

complete only if its deliverables on the state of corruption and the corrupt are established.

Missing from the jumble of successes, data and analyses to be exhibited today will be

conclusive proof of reduced corruption with evidence-backed answers to questions like: Are

fewer bribes being paid and demanded than a year ago? Is corruption down? Are Indians

evading less tax post-demonetisation? It would seem India is all set to celebrate what has

probably not — can possibly not — actually be measured.

Puja Mehra is a Delhi-based journalist

HINDU, NOV 2, 2019Demonetisation: the great reset, a year laterS. Gurumurthy

Demonetisation was a fundamental corrective to the economy much like liberalisation of the 1990s

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship economic agenda of demonetisation, that stunned

the nation as a financial Pokhran, has been caught in the political crossfire between Mr.

Modi and the Opposition from the word ‘go’. When millions (a word that was hyped by the

media) were standing in queues before banks and there was hardship caused to diverse

people, the Opposition thought that Mr. Modi had found himself in a tornado that would

sweep him away. They began a massive campaign against demonetisation and Mr. Modi.

With the media feeding the Opposition with news of near financial anarchy, and in turn the

Opposition feeding the news hungry media by shutting down the winter session of

Parliament, and the two together creating the ecosystem in which the Supreme Court

justifiably said there could be “riots”, the opponents of Mr. Modi concluded that his end was

very near.

The political angle

But facing the biggest challenge of his political life, Mr. Modi went to the people, telling

them that the measure was directed at corruption and black money — the terminology which

the masses easily understood — and asked them to bear with him for 50 days. Crores of

Indians stunned the media, the Opposition and even the world by patiently standing in

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queues for days and giving him total support. They endorsed demonetisation by voting for

the Bharatiya Janata Party, giving it unprecedented victories in local body elections in

Chandigarh, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha and even in the Assembly polls in Uttar

Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. But the hostile political build-up turned the

demonetisation debate into a street fight, with both the BJP and the Opposition appealing to

the masses in the language they easily understood; the Opposition using hardship to incite

people’s anger against demonetisation and the BJP appealing for their support terming it as

a war on black money. The hardship versus black money focus reduced the discourse on

demonetisation — a multidimensional venture — to just a single point; a war on black

money, which won the BJP the people’s support.

Ceasing to be economic

The reductionism diminished the debate to a sole test of the quantum of demonetised notes

returned to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). But the demonetisation project formed a much

larger landscape. Its fundamental aims were many. It terminated the asset price-led, spurious

jobless growth and averted a crisis in the making. The rise in the share of high denomination

notes (HDNs, 1,000/ 500) in the total currency from 47% in 2004 to 78% (2004-10)₹ ₹

fuelled unprecedented asset price rise — gold, stock and land prices rose by 10 times in the

six years over the previous five years (1999-2004). The high GDP growth (8.5%) in six

years (2004-10) was largely led by private consumption powered by the financial and real

estate sectors — both driven by cash. The rise in private consumption (60%) in these six

years over the previous five years was directly sourced in the rise of 69% in finance and real

estate in that period. Thus, the high growth (8.5%) between 2004 and 2010 was fake,

yielding only 2.7 million jobs as against 60 million jobs which the moderate growth of 5.4%

between 1999 and 2004 had produced.

Here is an example of how the asset price-led growth had hurt real growth. Liases Foras

indices of housing affordability and prices (both equal at 100 in January 2005) peaked in

March 2014, with the index of price curving steeply to 529 and affordability slowing at 173.

This huge affordability gap, of almost three times, was due to cash driving up land prices

and secondary housing market that constituted two-thirds of housing buys. With a 95%

shortage in affordable housing, this wide gap virtually killed real housing growth since

2011.

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Demonetisation is an effort to reverse this dangerous trend. Had this intervention not taken

place, by 2021, HDNs could have touched as high as 36-40 lakh crore, which would have₹

dynamited the real economy through asset price inflation — much like subprime lending did

in the U.S. before the 2008 crisis.

Multidimensional correction

Had the government aligned demonetisation with the Income Declaration Scheme, 2016, it

would have fetched a minimum of 2-3 lakh crore as tax upfront. By unintelligently₹

separating them, it is now chasing demonetisation depositors for tax. Yet, the black money

agenda of demonetisation is no failure, though ill-executed. Black money of 45,000 crore₹

has been uncovered and 2.9 lakh crore of cash deposits are under tax probe. Against this₹

whopping 3.35 lakh crore, yields in previous disclosure schemes have been minuscule.₹

Following demonetisation, there are 56 lakh more assessees, advance tax receipts have gone

up by 42% and self-assessment tax risen by 34%. It has also led to an attack on benami

assets. Even as intelligence agencies note a 50% drop in hawala-related calls post

demonetisation, nearly 2.24 lakh shell companies that have been used for hawala have been

uncovered; 35,000 have been found laundering 17,000 crore; one of them, 2,484 crore.₹ ₹

Demonetisation means much more. The currency to GDP ratio is down from 13% to 9%,

post-demonetisation. Household financial savings have risen and savings in currency form

crashed. Interest rates are down, with the RBI cutting rates by 25 basis points, and banks by

96 basis points. According to a study, digital payments have accelerated by 93% between

January and June 2017. Without demonetisation, it would have just grown by just 21% —

by a fourth of it. Demonetisation has forced the extra cash floating around into term and

time deposits, which have risen by 17 lakh crore. A huge formalisation of the informal₹

economy, which generates half the nation’s GDP and 128 million jobs or 10 times the jobs

in the formal sector, is under way. Demonetisation is an effort to bring about a fundamental

shift in the economy.

The future and a caveat

That GDP growth would slacken for a year is implicit. But it was not as bad as when Paul

A. Volcker, as U.S. Fed chief, applied Milton Friedman’s monetary theory and contracted

bank credit, a kind of demonetisation for the U.S. That led to the U.S.’s GDP, far from

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rising, turning minus 3% in 1982, though it later vaulted to 6% in 1983 and 8% in 1984. But

despite the fact that demonetisation would slow the GDP, the government, under attack by

economists and the Opposition alike, was in denial mode. Now, the RBI expects growth to

improve in the second half of (calendar year) 2017. The rise of the Index of Industrial

Production (IIP) by 4.5% in August 2017 over August 2016 and 8 core sector IIP (this

consists of eight core industries data) for September by 5.2% seem to signal high growth

ahead, though the intervention of the goods and services tax may delay it for a while.

A caveat at the end. Demonetisation has robbed the informal sector of non-formal credit; the

formal credit assured to them through the Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency

(MUDRA) formula has not been fulfilled as yet. MUDRA was premised on the assumption

that banks cannot reach credit to the informal sector and need last-mile private credit

intermediaries, which the RBI opposes. The government must convince the RBI on the need

for MUDRA as conceived. Subject to this, demonetisation, in sum, is a fundamental

corrective to the economy much like liberalisation was in 1990s. Sadly, this vital aspect is

missing in the current discourse.

S. Gurumurthy, a chartered accountant, is visiting faculty at IIT Bombay, Distinguished

Research Professor, Legal Anthropology, SASTRA University, and also Editor, Thuglak

Tamil magazine

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CIVIL SERVICE

PIONEER, NOV 15, 2017UP IAS ASSOCIATION TO COMMENCE FROM DECEMBER 14

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The four-day-long IAS Week, the annual event organised by the UP IAS Association, will commence from December 14. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will address the administrative conference on the second day of the week on December 15.  The UP cadre IAS officers are members of the association. This will be the first occasion that the Chief Minister will address the conference after taking oath of office on March 19 last. The IAS Week will conclude on December 17. On December 15, after the administrative conference to be addressed by the Chief Minister, IAS officers will attend the lunch hosted by Yogi Adityanath at his official residence on Kalidas Marg.  UP IAS Association will host a dinner for members of the association at MB Club on the same day. The annual general meeting of the association will be held on December 16. The week will conclude on December 17 with the cricket match between the IAS XI and IPS XI. Earlier, during the previous Samajwadi Party regime, a cricket match was played between the Chief Minister XI and IAS XI. However, the match   could not be organised in 2016 due to the UP Assembly elections. Then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had set a record of sort by emerging as a man of the match for four consecutive years.

 

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

TELEGRAPH, NOV 9, 2017Spreading it out- Inequality and growth reconsidered

Bhaskar Dutta

Thomas Piketty's unlikely bestseller - Capital in the TwentyFirst Century - generated renewed interest in inequality amongst both academic researchers and policy economists. Distributional issues have, of course, always been at the forefront of economic research, particularly amongst development economists. But, their typical concern has been with issues involving the incidence of poverty in developing countries rather than with inequality per se. But Piketty and others established conclusively that income (and wealth) distribution is a matter of serious concern even in the advanced economies - there is a wealth of evidence that the fruits of economic growth have been captured almost entirely by those at the top of the income ladder. Not surprisingly, rising inequality levels have created a lot of social unrest and political upheavals, Brexit and Donald Trump's victory being leading examples of the latter phenomenon.

An important consequence of the renewed interest in inequality has been the change in the mindset of international agencies which have in the past paid scant attention to distributional issues, focusing (and preaching) on policies that they believed would accelerate growth. Perhaps the best and most dramatic example of this is the International Monetary Fund, hitherto one of the bastions of rightwing economic orthodoxy. Several recent studies by IMF staff economists have re-examined the trade-offs between sustained growth and inequality levels. One study indicates that lower inequality may actually drive faster and more durable growth for a given level of redistribution. Moreover, redistribution appears generally benign in its impact on growth. There is very little evidence suggesting that countries which emphasize redistribution suffer from low rates of growth once other factors have been taken into account. These suggest that the combined direct and indirect effects of redistribution, are, on average, pro-growth.

Another IMF study published in its Fiscal Monitor is perhaps more striking. It concludes on the basis of an analysis of tax rates in the countries of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development that there is no strong relationship between the degree of progressivity of tax rates and economic growth. In fact, the study adds that if countries prefer to redistribute wealth and incomes, then "there may well be scope for increasing the progressivity of income taxation without significantly hurting growth". This must come as music to the ears of the sizeable number of people who feel that "right wing" governments are simply not doing enough to promote the interests of those at the bottom end of the income ladder.

The received doctrine in much of the neoclassical literature on growth and development has been that implementation of equality-inducing policies must also retard economic growth. This was, for instance, the central theme in Arthur Okun's influential book written in 1975. Much earlier, Nicholas Kaldor described a theoretical model with just two income classes - the rich

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and poor. Kaldor made the quite plausible assumption that the rich save a larger fraction of their gross income. This immediately implied that the higher the fraction of total income accruing to the rich, the greater would be the overall volume of savings and investible resources in the economy. To the extent that the availability of capital is the only constraint on growth, this may be one channel through which efforts to reduce inequality may slow down the growth process.

While there may be a grain of truth in the Kaldorian paradigm, it is rather naïve to assume that the growth tap will be turned on as soon as capital is made available. In particular, the major constraint on growth may be an inadequacy of aggregate demand. Entrepreneurs may cut back on production and meet low levels of demand by drawing down inventories. A more equal distribution of incomes can generate additional demand precisely because low income earners spend virtually all their incomes. This may well be a principal cause of the recent slowdown in India and many other economies.

A more 'modern' or recent approach is to bring in the negative incentive effects of redistribution through higher tax rates. A first impression must be that any increase in income tax rates will reduce the marginal return of work. This tends to make work less rewarding and correspondingly leisure more attractive. However, there is a countervailing effect. The increase in tax rates also reduces incomes and reduces demand for all goods and services. Since leisure can be treated like other goods, this effect will make people demand less leisure - that is work more. So, there is no unambiguous effect of income on the incentive to work. Of course, what is crucial is the level of taxation. There is no doubt that the exorbitant marginal tax rates that we had at one time - over 90 per cent - must have left the top income earners either with no incentive to work or promoted large-scale tax evasion.

The report in the IMF's Fiscal Monitor alluded to earlier also has interesting policy implications for India. The IMF's analysis reveals that if governments intend to maximize revenue, then the optimal tax rate on higher incomes should be 44 per cent. While such a precise quantitative estimate must be taken with a pinch of salt - the optimal rate must surely depend on specific country circumstances such as the level of indirect taxes - it does suggest that the super-rich in India are getting off rather lightly with marginal tax rates in the mid-thirties. A common argument against raising income tax rates is that this may encourage a greater degree of tax evasion. However, increased computerization and streamlining of operations of the tax authorities has forced greater tax compliance. It is that much harder to evade taxes and so an increase in marginal tax rates of, say, 3-4 per cent is unlikely to result in more people evading taxes.

It is fair to claim that the recent debate on distribution versus growth shows that that the equality-growth trade-off is nonexistent. That is, there is little reason to believe that efforts to achieve a more equitable distribution of incomes must come at the expense of lower rates of growth. In fact, redistribution may even result in higher rates of growth. Of course, our concern with rising or even static but high levels of inequality should not be based purely on instrumental grounds. A better distribution of the national cake is a legitimate objective of development policy. But, it helps that instrumental reasons reinforce welfare-theoretic arguments in favour of a more equitable distribution of national incomes. This should surely

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ensure that there is less opposition to future efforts at redistribution.

The author is professor of Economics, Ashoka UniversityBUSINESS LINE, NOV 8, 2017It’s a major structural changeARUN JAITLEY

India is one of the few economies in the world which has been excessively cash-dominated. A cash-dominated economy has several features, the most obvious being that the percentage of cash currency in circulation in relation to GDP is very high. In India, it was between 12 and 12.5 per cent; 86 per cent of this currency was high denominational — ₹500 and ₹1000.

The obvious consequence of this is a tendency and an encouragement to deal more in cash. Cash becomes the lubricant and the instrument of exchange. What did this excessive cash in the system create in the Indian economy? The size of the shadow economy became much larger over the decades.

Could anyone buy property in India and not pay partly in cash and partly in cheque? To do business, people maintained two sets of accounts. Sales across the counter were taking place without receipts.

This, in turn, would naturally lead to evasion of both direct and indirect taxes.

Of course, it would also lead to economic activity. But this informal economic activity would be outside the formal order. The net result has been that the size of the formal economy contracted and that of the shadow economy became much larger.

Social impact

Cash also has social consequences. It leads to corruption. The instrument of bribery is always cash. Cash leads to expenditure on conspicuous items like gold and luxury items. Cash is also the instrument for fuelling crime, extortion. Terrorism thrives on cash. And, therefore, in the larger national and public interest as also for good economic reasons, the quantum of cash in the society and the economy has to be curbed.

Analysts and thinkers the world across have done research on what the cost of cash is and what the curse of cash can be. In this context, ever since the NDA government under Mr Narendra Modi assumed charge, we were very clear that the menace of black money is to be attacked. Look at the series of decisions we have taken so far.

In 2011, the Supreme Court had asked the Government to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by two retired judges. The then Government did not do so. We did it.

Immediately thereafter, we came up with a scheme that those who have illegal money and assets abroad must bring them back on payment of 60 per cent tax and penalty or they will be

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prosecuted. The Black Money Law for overseas assets was enacted and it provided for a 10-year punishment.

We then started entering into agreements with countries across the world through G20, the FATCA agreement with the US to improve international tax compliance through mutual assistance in tax matters, agreement with Switzerland so that we can get real-time information with regard to transactions done by Indians overseas and vice-versa. Three major international double tax avoidance treaties with Mauritius, Cyprus and Singapore have been rewritten.

We then brought in the Benami law which brings into its ambit businessmen and politicians alike and applies to shell companies through which money is laundered. We brought in the income disclosure scheme to disclose income which has escaped assessment. Finally, on November 8, 2016, the Government took the historic decision of demonetising the ₹500 and ₹1000 notes.

Objectives and achievements

There were three major objectives and some incidental achievements. The first, of course, was that the quantum of cash should be curbed. The situation now is that the amount of currency available in the market, particularly high denominational currency, has been squeezed by about 30 per cent. I hope it continues to be squeezed. The number of digital transactions — people using cards, people using e-wallets, people using electronic modes of payments — has multiplied.

The number of individuals paying tax and filing assessments has significantly increased.

An incidental advantage that we have seen is that freezing of funds of terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh has taken place. The nature of protests there which depended on large economic resources has altered.

Some people confuse the fact that money in circulation came back into the banks. It had to. That was the objective of the demonetisation exercise. Cash currency is bearer money without the name of the owner.

A currency note is a bearer document. Its ownership is anonymous. The moment it gets deposited in the bank account, it gets identified with the owner. The onus is now on the owner to show that the acquisition of such a large amount of money was legitimate or otherwise. And under Operation Clean Money, we have been able to identify through data mining 1.8 million people who made deposits disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Therefore, the net effect of this whole exercise has been that a message has gone home loud and clear that it is neither fair nor in the larger national interest, but to the contrary, it is dangerous to deal excessively in large amounts of cash. You will be held accountable. And people have responded well. By nudging this process, we are gradually increasing the tax-base size. Our import transactions have started coming in the tax net.

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Additionally, we have taken other measures. There are curbs on expenditure. You need to have your PAN card if you want to spend beyond a limit. Cash transactions beyond a particular limit are not permitted. The GST chain itself makes generation of cash quite difficult.

Towards a formal economy

At the end of the day, if India aspires to be a developed country, and we are today one of the fastest growing large countries in the world, we really need a large formal economy. Payment of taxes, dealing within the official structure is a part of patriotic duty.

The state needs resources for defence, development and uplift of the poor. Therefore, it is the responsibility of every citizen to cooperate with the Government. That is why I think this is one of the major structural changes — that we gave a nudge to the Indian economy in this direction.

How does it impact GDP and growth? Obviously, a step like demonetisation brings a transient interruption in money supply. But in the Indian case, the process of remonetisation has been quick. Therefore, by April 2017, we had substantially completed the remonetisation exercise.

We were always conscious of the fact that when you execute a major structural change, for a transient period — a quarter or two — there would be some marginal impact on the GDP which our economy has the capacity to absorb. But in the medium and long term, bringing about a different culture of how India and Indians manage and spend their money, I believe it is a much larger gain.

Finally, I believe that this was one decision taken for a larger national benefit to try and introduce greater ethics into India’s public life. And therefore, it has been and will always be a move that will continue to be supported by the people of this country.

As told to Poornima Joshi

(This article was published on November 7, 2017)

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EDUCATION

BUSINESS LINE, NOV 13, 2017Indian universities are a messNARENDAR PANI

If we were to undertake the unpopular task of identifying the areas where India is today possibly worse off than it was at the time of Independence, the stature of our universities would be a primary contender.

We could endlessly debate the appropriate criterion to decide the quality of a university but Indian universities do quite poorly in terms of most criteria. For those who like to use Nobel prizes (other than the peace prize) as an indicator, the last time someone working in an Indian university won a Nobel prize was CV Raman in 1930.

For those who prefer contemporary ranking systems, Indian universities typically come way down the list. And even if we were to occupy the intellectual high ground and go beyond mere rankings to focus on learning as a whole, we do not do much better.

There are institutions that attract bright young Indian minds and provide them some technical inputs, notably the IITs and the IIMs, but they often fall well short of being bastions of original thinking.

Long overdue exercise

It is against this backdrop that the comparative and international perspectives on the future of Indian universities that have been brought together in this volume, The Future of Indian Universities: Comparative and International Perspectives , edited by C Raj Kumar represent a long overdue exercise.

The apparently simple task of bringing together diverse opinions on Indian universities is often more difficult than it should be. The deep ideological divides that percolate all the way down to the prescribed textbooks make it more convenient for open discussions to be confined within the boundaries set by those you agree with.

The situation is further complicated when the nationalist credentials of individuals are challenged, as happened in the case of economist and former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan. It does not also help that there are new lines being drawn, such as the one between the inclinations of faculty and those of academic administrators.

This volume manages to brush aside most such divisions with the contributors cutting across ideologies, nationalities and roles within the working of universities. This commitment to comprehensiveness is not without its costs. The wide range of thinkers who contribute to this

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volume ensures the book cannot be expected to come up with a cohesive view of the way forward for Indian universities.

The contributions to this volume are too diverse to allow room for even broad agreement on the direction Indian universities should take. It is hardly a surprise that the only thing they agree on is that Indian universities are a mess.

And even here the causes for their disappointment are quite varied. The administrators of education lament the extent to which the best Indian universities lag behind the best in the world; others point to specific shortcomings, and yet others find fault with the very notions of a university that post-Independence India has adopted.

Variety of insights

The eclectic nature of the book does however allow us to tap into a variety of insights to create our own impression of the future of Indian universities. Among the more valuable of these insights is provided by Shiv Visvanathan, building on the distinction between liberatory and emancipative knowledge. He writes: “Liberation is the overthrow of the oppressor where the oppressed in turn can turn oppressor... Emancipation seeks to examine the possibility of oppression. It realizes that any form of knowledge can turn dominant and seeks to build pluralist conditions against such a possibility” (p 52).

This pluralism would also recognise that knowledge defeated at one point of time could be reinvented to suit another situation. The university then becomes the home of knowledge, including that which is continuously repaired and recycled. Such a university would have to be democracy driven rather than market driven.

This perception of a university undoubtedly makes a worthy ideal, but the question of how do we get there remains unanswered.

Other contributors to this volume set out with less ambitious targets. They come to terms, some of them quite enthusiastically, with the possibility that the market can be the fountainhead of the resources universities quite desperately need. This is particularly true of those who have set their eyes on climbing up the global rankings of universities.

For one, Kanti Bajpai believes that a major reason for the ‘shambolic’ state of Indian universities “is their alienation from the world” (p 168). A seemingly obvious remedy is to increase the role and number of private universities.

But the ownership of universities does not in itself guarantee their quality. The experience of private educational institutions has not always been without blemish. There is sufficient evidence of the growth of private institutions resulting in what Barbara Harriss-White has referred to as “the process of commodification and the supplanting of the public interest by private interests” (p. 247).

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We are thus left with the less than heartening conclusion that while it is now obvious that Indian universities are in a terrible state we still don’t quite know what to do about it. But what is somewhat more reassuring is that the book provides a wide range of possible alternatives, and an apparent willingness to talk across the deep divides of Indian academia.

The reviewer is a professor at the School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru

The contributions to this volume are too diverse to allow room for even broad agreement on the direction Indian universities should take.

HINDU, NOV 13, 2017New education policy draft by Dec.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said in Ahmedabad on

Sunday that the Kasturirangan Committee on the new education policy was expected to

submit its first draft by the end of December.

Mr. Javadekar, however, did not offer a clear date as to when the policy — expected for the

past three years — would be implemented, saying this would happen well in time to ensure

quality education from 2020 to 2040.

“In the leadership of Dr. Kasturirangan, an eight-member team was formed. Two days ago,

they had a two-day meeting, which was their fifth meeting. They say they will give their

first draft by December-end,” Mr. Javadekar said.

To the next level

“I can say with certainty that this new education policy will for the next 20 years take the

country to the next level. It will offer a new vision of modern thought and growth in science,

technology and human values. It will ensure that good human beings and good citizens are

nurtured,” the Minister said.

Stressing that the exercise was going through wide consultations, he said, “It will ensure that

the quality of education improves and research and innovation are facilitated. For this, a

good policy is in the works. MPs and MLAs of all parties, educationists and teachers, those

who run schools, parents and grandparents — all have offered lakhs of suggestions. Their

inputs are being considered for this policy. The draft will be discussed and promptly

implemented.”

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Ideal policy

Asked by when this would happen, the Minister said, “The idea is to have an ideal policy

effecting positive changes in education from 2020 to 2040. It will be implemented well in

time for this.”

Earlier, a committee had been set up under the leadership of the former Cabinet Secretary

TSR Subramanian to prepare a draft, which was eventually submitted but accepted just as

“inputs” for the policy.

The Kasturirangan Committee was set up after the submission of this draft.

ECONOMIC TIMES, NOV 13, 2017Rajasthan may make Sanskrit compulsory in schoolsShoeb Khan

AIPUR: Rajasthan education department may make Sanskrit a compulsory third language from Class IV to Class X in state board schools to ensure that students have access to "ancient wisdom regarding Bharat Varsha". The decision will be implemented in both government and private schools. 

Currently, students have the option to choose their third language from Sanskrit Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Sindhi and Bengali. 

State education minister Vasudev Devnani said, "The department is chalking out feasibility of making the ancient language compulsory in schools. Soon a detailed proposal will be shared with chief minister Vasundhara Raje and HRD minister Prakash Javdekar." He added that the department will focus on developing a curriculum, structure and teaching pedagogy and make the subject more "job-oriented." 

The decision will impact 13,983 secondary and senior secondary government schools and 20,744 upper primary schools. It will apply to 16,239 upper primary and 14,227 senior secondary private schools. 

The department had recently announced 13,500 teaching positions that included recruitment of 5,000 Sanskrit teachers.

"It will make sure that every senior secondary school has at least one Sanskrit teacher. It will create an ecosystem for the creating scholars in Sanskrit," said Devnani. 

When asked if CBSE schools will come under the ambit of compulsory Sanskrit education, the minister said that nothing has been confirmed as yet. 

INDIAN EXPRESS, NOV 12, 2017

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UGC: Deemed-to-be varsities must drop ‘university’ from nameThe move would affect institutions such as Manav Rachna University and Lingaya’s University

in Haryana, Christ’s University and Jain University in Bengaluru and Symbiosis International

University in Pune.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has directed all 123 deemed-to-be universities to

refrain from using the word “university” in their names, failing which the higher education

regulator will take punitive action against the institution.

The directive has come in the wake of the Supreme Court suspending all B.Tech degrees granted

between 2001 and 2005 through distance learning.

While hearing this case, the Supreme Court had observed that many deemed-to-be universities

were calling themselves universities and directed the UGC to stop this.

“The institutions are hereby directed to restrain from using the word ‘university’ with its name,

failing which necessary action would be initiated in accordance with the UGC (institutions

deemed-to-be-universities) Regulations, 2016. Instead, the Institution may mention the word

‘Deemed to be University’ within parenthesis,” the UGC said in its directive issued on Friday.

The move would affect institutions such as Manav Rachna University and Lingaya’s University

in Haryana, Christ’s University and Jain University in Bengaluru and Symbiosis International

University in Pune.

These institutions will have to remove the word ‘university’ from their names.

Interestingly, the circular carries a tacit acknowledgment that some deemed universities may not

be at fault as the government, while notifying their deemed status, did so with the word

‘university’ in their name.

“Such deemed-to-be-universities can also apply for an alternative name with the HRD Ministry,”

UGC secretary P K Thakur said.

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INDIAN EXPRESS, NOV 11, 2017Cabinet clears national body to conduct entrance tests for higher educationThe Ministry expects that the examination fee paid by 40 lakh students should make NTA fully

self-reliant and financially independent to meet all administrative and operational expenses.Aspirants coming out after appearing for National Eligibilty cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS at one of the centre in Sector 15 of Chandigarh on on Sunday, May 05 2013. Express photo by Sumit Malhotra

The Union Cabinet on Friday approved the establishment of the National Testing Agency

(NTA), an independent body dedicated to conducting entrance tests for higher education, on the

lines of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the United States. The NTA will conduct

entrance tests entrusted to it by any department or ministry. As a first step, it will take over all

entrance examinations being organised by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE),

including UGC’s National Eligibility Test (NET), Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) and

NEET.

Sources said the Human Resource Development Ministry is aiming to set up NTA in the next

eight months, either in IIT Kanpur or IIT Delhi. Currently, more than 40 lakh students appear for

seven entrance tests — CAT, JEE (Main), JEE (Advanced), GATE, CMAT, NEET, NET — held

by the CBSE, IITs, IIMs and AICTE every year.

Although NTA has been envisioned as the country’s largest exam conducting body, it remains to

be seen if the IIMs and IITs will be willing to hand over CAT and JEE (Advanced), respectively,

to this body. “All those decisions can be taken once the NTA is set up,” said a senior HRD

Ministry official.

“The entrance examinations will be conducted in online mode at least twice a year, thereby

giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best,” stated the government’s press

statement released on Friday. “NTA will be established as a Society under the Societies

Registration Act, 1860 as an independent, autonomous, self-reliant and self-sustained premier

testing organization, with flexibility to pay market salaries to the experts.”

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Several governments in the past have proposed and, subsequently, shelved the idea of

establishing such an agency. The Programme of Action (1992) for implementation of the

National Policy on Education (1986) advocated the setting up of a national testing body.

Successive committees, such as the National Knowledge Commission (2006-2009) and the

Ashok Misra Committee on review of JEE system (2015), recommended constituting an

independent body for the conduct of the examinations.

The ministry expects that the examination fee paid by 40 lakh students should make NTA fully

self-reliant and financially independent to meet all administrative and operational expenses. This

body will be subjected to a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit. Initially, the

government will provide a one-time grant of Rs 25 crore for NTA to start operation. It will have

a board of governors and a director general, who will be an eminent educationist.

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ELECTIONS

ECONOMIC TIMES, NOV 15, 2017Election Commission bars Gujarat BJP from using 'Pappu' in electronic advertisement

The Election Commission has barred the ruling BJP in Gujarat from using the word "Pappu" in an electronic advertisement, which apparently targeted Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, calling it "derogatory". 

"Pappu" is perceived as a social media slur coined to target Gandhi. 

Confirming the development, sources in the BJP today said the script of the advertisement did not link the word to any individual. 

According to BJP sources, the media committee under the Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) objected to the word mentioned in the script of the advertisement which was submitted by the party for approval last month. 

"Before making any election-related advertisement, we have to submit a script to the committee to get a certificate. However, they raised objection to the word 'Pappu', saying it is derogatory. They asked us to remove or replace it," a senior BJP leader said. 

He said the party will replace the word and submit a new script for the EC's approval. 

"Since there was no direct mention or linkage with any person while mentioning 'Pappu' in the entire script, we had appealed to the committee to reconsider their decision, but they rejected it. Now, we will change that word and submit a new script for approval," he said. 

When contacted, Gujarat CEO BB Swain said he was not aware of any such development and can comment only after getting the details tomorrow. 

HINDU, NOV 8, 2017Straws in the Gujarat breezeZoya Hasan

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Can the Congress pitch its campaign strong enough to make up for organisational weaknesses?

More than three years after the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) stormed to power at the Centre

with an unprecedented victory, it finds itself on the defensive, especially on the economic

front. This defensiveness extends to the political front as well, evident in the

Gujarat election campaign where after 19 years of unbroken rule, the party is facing a

serious challenge.

Tell-tale signs

Three developments signal that political equations in the country may well be in a state of

flux. First, the rejection of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in recent

university elections indicates a strong sense of discomfort with the BJP’s politics among the

youth who gave the party solid support in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Second, the Election

Commission’s decision to de-hyphenate the Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat Assembly

election notification which allowed the Central and State governments more time to

frantically announce sops, including slashing rates of the goods and services tax (GST) on

select items, loan waivers for farmers, and benefits for government employees. Third, Prime

Minister Narendra Modi’s attempt to pass the blame for the disruptive introduction of the

GST and its shambolic implementation on the Congress implies that something is really

changing on the ground.

For the first time, he argued in favour of collective ownership of the GST after taking sole

credit for its introduction in a midnight session of Parliament, saying that all State

governments, including of the Congress, are responsible for the GST.

This has created opportune conditions for the Congress Party to come out of its self-imposed

hibernation since 2014. It suddenly appears to be eager, even aggressive, in taking on the

BJP on its home turf. This coincides with a rising discontent across the country over the

economic slowdown and growing job losses. The double blunder of demonetisation and

GST seems to have infused new life into Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s

floundering political career just weeks before his likely elevation as the party president.

The Gujarat election, which was expected to be an easy win for the BJP, has unexpectedly

developed into a possibly close and certainly engrossing contest.

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For the past several years, the BJP has constantly harped on the Gujarat model of

development claiming that it was a perfect formula for growth, and it could be extended to

the rest of the country. But in the meantime, Rahul Gandhi and his party upped their game

in Gujarat, seeking to puncture the mythology built around the Gujarat model with pointed

attacks on the government’s economic policies and the inadequate development in the Prime

Minister’s home State.

Against this backdrop, the Congress put the BJP on the back foot with its Gujarat campaign

highlighting joblessness, decelerating economic growth and poor social infrastructure

through the hashtag “Vikas Gando Thayo Chhe” (development has gone crazy).

Where is Vikas?

It has gone all out since then to broadcast and publicise the social media campaign captured

by the image of an upturned state transport bus with its wheels off. While the Gujarat model

proved extremely persuasive in 2014, three years later people seem to have a more sceptical

take on it and what lies beneath it. Despite three decades of high growth rates, Gujarat’s

performance on social indicators has not improved significantly; this has damaged its

credibility.

For the first time in more than two decades, people are freely criticising the ruling

dispensation, mocking the Gujarat model through jokes, caricatures, and parody. One witty

message posted on Twitter sums up the popular take on the model: “In a conversation, on

seeing the railway tracks submerged in water, a person asks why Vikas is not visible. He

gets the reply that as Vikas is sitting in the bullet train, he is invisible.”

The growing number of humorists poking fun at official policies has struck a chord among

people. It forced BJP president Amit Shah to urge the State’s youth not to fall prey to the

Congress’s anti-BJP propaganda on social media. Thanks to this campaign, the ruling party

is facing its toughest fight in State, in sharp contrast to the 2012 Assembly elections, for

instance, when Mr. Modi had made powerful use of social media in his campaign against

the Congress.

Aside from the advantages of political humour, the Gujarat campaign underlines the

effectiveness of a State-specific approach. Ensuring that the Gujarat election remains a State

battle, the Congress has fashioned its campaign around governance, law and order and failed

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promises of the Gujarat model, and questioning the leadership of incumbent Chief Minister

Vijay Rupani and his predecessor Anandiben Patel while targeting specific social

constituencies. Finding itself on the defensive on issues like nationalism, terrorism and

corruption, the Congress has shifted the discourse to development failures to preempt Hindu

consolidation; it is cornering the government on the economic front and at the same time

shunning cultural and emotional issues. The Congress is keen to shed its pro-minority image

and deflect attention from Hindu-Muslim tension in order to prevent the BJP from diverting

the simmering discontent towards the familiar territory of minority appeasement and the

projection of Congress as a Muslim-centric party.

However, while drawing attention to the government’s economic failures, the Congress has

not offered any alternative model of growth. In his speech at the University of California,

Berkeley in September, Mr. Gandhi said the Congress can steer a new development model

in the future and that “creating jobs in a democratic environment” is vital for inclusive

growth. But what this new model is has not been spelt out so far. A critique of economic

failures is not enough; a party must shape it with a social and economic agenda of its own.

Also, the weakness in the Congress’s organisation remains glaring: it has no strong State

leader and no organisation. The party has been rendered organisationally quite weak in

Gujarat over the past two decades; it needs a dedicated cadre of grassroots workers and an

organisation to fight the formidable RSS/BJP election machine, which it does not have,

leave alone the capacity to micro-manage elections as this political machine can.

Map of disaffection

To harvest the collective discontent in the State, the Congress has reached out to disaffected

groups, including the Patidars, by attempting to build a social coalition with like-minded

civil society leaders in Gujarat against the BJP.

The new coalition is pivoted on socio-economic issues, and not identity politics. That’s the

new strategic dimension of the campaign. Hampered by the lack of a strong local face, it

revolves around bolstering the anti-BJP sentiment whipped up by the troika of young

leaders: Alpesh Thakor, Jignesh Mewani and Hardik Patel. In theory, the support of OBCs,

Dalits and Patels, represented by these three leaders, along with that of Adivasis, can give

the Congress an edge over the BJP; in any event, their support has helped to create a public

mood against the BJP.

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It is too early to say what electoral dividends this fascinating campaign will pay, but one

thing is clear. It has unsettled and disrupted the official narrative about the much-hyped

Gujarat model of development that paid rich dividends for Narendra Modi in the 2014

elections.

Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

HINDU, NOV 11, 2017A reality check on GujaratT.M. Veeraraghav

The Congress needs more than Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor to swing the election

Every Indian election needs a star and a script, and ever since Prime Minister Narendra

Modi started his journey as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001, he has been the star and

the scriptwriter in the Gujarat election stories of 2002, 2007 and 2012.

This time around, three young political activists — Hardik Patel, Jignesh

Mevani and Alpesh Thakor — hope to rewrite the Gujarat 2017 story with the backing of

the Congress. But starring in an election narrative is far easier that rewriting the climactic

scene.

Their caste mobilisation — Patidars with Mr. Patel, Dalits with Mr. Mevani and a segment

of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) with Mr. Thakor — has to crystalise into votes for

the Congress, else they will end up as also-starred in the Gujarat story, which has revolved

around the same old NaMo theme, with minor changes, for over a decade and a half. It’s

important to understand the three leaders, their conflicting caste constituencies and where

they stand in these elections to assess their ability to shape the outcome.

A loose association

First, all three rose to fame championing the aspirations of their respective caste

constituencies on specific issues: reservation for Patels, OBC consolidation and justice for

Dalits. Their movements did not project the Congress as the party that could realise their

aspirations.

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While Mr. Thakor has joined the Congress, Mr. Patel and Mr. Mevani have only created an

anti-BJP platform. Their message is that they are backing the Congress because they are

challenging Mr. Modi, not necessarily because it is the solution.

In an election, especially one which is a clear two-party fight with the towering image of a

Prime Minister on one side, it’s not enough to state a problem — there needs to be a rallying

leader who can promise a solution. Without that, it is difficult to channelise political

mobilisation and discontent towards an electoral result.

Second, Mr. Thakor, as a Thakor Kshatriya OBC caste leader who has built his profile as

the champion of a section of OBCs in central Gujarat, and Mr. Mevani, as the Dalit voice,

only reiterate the Congress’s existing caste constituencies and do not open a new social base

for the party. For instance, Mr. Thakor’s father is a Congress leader in Ahmedabad district

and the caste he represents has been predominantly with the party.

The former Congress Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki, father of the present State

Congress President Bharatsinh Solanki, forged a winning caste alliance towards the end of

the 1970s known as KHAM, that is, Kshatriya, Harijan (i.e. Dalit), Adivasi and Muslim.

This was to take on the dominant Patel vote in the State which had gravitated away from the

Congress, first towards the Janata movement and the late Chimanbhai Patel, and later

towards the BJP. Eventually, the Patels became, and remain, the bedrock for the BJP.

Consistent with its caste constituency, the Congress has largely projected strong Kshatriya

caste leaders such as Shankarsinh Vaghela, who migrated to the party after failing to sustain

his breakaway from the BJP, and Bharatsinh Solanki at the helm of campaigns in the last

two decades.

Till Mr. Modi’s arrival in Gujarat, the Congress retained fair parts of the KHAM alliance in

central and north Gujarat and the BJP became formidable in Saurashtra, the bastion of the

Patels. But when Mr. Modi, an OBC, became Chief Minister from the Patel-dominated party

and brought a sharper Hindutva outreach, he broke the Congress’s caste alliance in central

and north Gujarat, without diluting the BJP’s core vote base. The Patels continued to get

large representation in the State cabinet, but the perception of the party had changed.

In Mr. Mevani’s case, electorally the Dalits are seen to have been predominantly with the

Congress. They make up about 7% of the State’s population. Unlike many other States, in

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Gujarat the population of Scheduled Tribes is much higher than that of the Scheduled

Castes, and the Sangh Parivar outfits had successfully wooed large sections of the

Scheduled Tribes in areas like Dangs in South Gujarat.

This is why it seems doubtful that Mr. Thakor and Mr. Mevani alone can make a remarkable

difference for the Congress. Mr. Patel’s case is different and he is the one chipping away at

the BJP’s core Patel vote. But this is not the first time that Patel discontent or rebellion has

hit Mr. Modi or the BJP.

Series of rebellions

The first time a full-blown political rebellion to hit Mr. Modi happened was in 2004. Having

reiterated his position with a victory in the aftermath of the 2002 riots, the party was stunned

when the Congress won 12 out of the 26 seats in the 2004 parliamentary polls. The rebellion

against Mr. Modi was led by former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and had the backing of

several senior BJP leaders from the Saurashtra and Kutch regions.

In fact, Mr. Modi had himself become Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001 due to infighting in

the party and was appointed as a compromise candidate to keep the factions together. The

rest, of course, is history — but till he came, the BJP saw a series of Chief Ministers being

toppled.

Patel rebellions have been part of every election story, but none has been strong enough to

derail the Modi story. In the run-up to the 2007 elections, several Patel leaders, like Gordhan

Zadaphia, Home Minister during the 2002 riots, had launched an open rebellion. Congress

leaders even attended campaign meetings of BJP rebels.

The rebels had the blessings of Keshubhai Patel though he remained with the BJP. All that

happened was that the BJP’s numbers came down from 127 in 2002 to 117 in 2007.

In 2012, Keshubhai Patel himself quit the BJP to launch the Gujarat Parivartan Party. Again,

a consolidation of Patels and a strong interrogation of Mr. Modi’s economic policies were

seen. But Mr. Modi returned as Chief Minister with 116 seats and the rebels polled less than

4% of the vote.

This recap is by way of a reality check that neither discontent with Mr. Modi's economic

policies nor a Patel rebellion is a new phenomenon in Gujarat. The trouble for the

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opposition has been that there is no clear candidate or opponent who can consolidate these

rumblings into an electoral victory. Instead, such discontent has been used by Patel leaders

to pressurise the BJP to get greater representation and sway within the party. It is not yet

clinchingly clear that it will be any different in 2017.

Veeraraghav T.M. is a Bangalore-based journalist

ENTERPRISES

STATESMAN, NOV 8, 2017Business conundrumRaghu Dayal  

Russia is on course to jump its Doing Business rank from 120 to 20 in six years, as decreed by President Vladimir Putin. Can India pole-vault to 50 as coveted by Prime Minister Modi? There is a striking example of how a dramatic improvement in DB ranking can be achieved.

Following President Putin’s May 2012 decree ordering Russian bureaucrats to strive towards improving the country’s Doing Business ranking from 120th to 20th by 2018 ~ a “hundred-step” transition ~ Russia rose to the 51st place in 2015. It has been steadily improving ~ from 120 in 2012 to 112 in 2013, 92 in 2014, 62 in 2015, 51 in 2016, and 35 in 2017. Business and industry have for long demanded that India’s DB regime be simplified.

At its meeting with the Prime Minister in September 2015, India Inc. claimed that the complex regulatory system had made the country a tough place to do business in. Entrepreneurs abroad spoke in the same vein. From example, most of the 41 CEOs from top US corporations, who had assembled at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, pleaded with Narendra Modi for quick action. During the launch of the ‘Make in India’ initiative on 25 September 2014, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would strive for India’s DB rank to be within the top 50.

In terms of Doing Business, India’s leap from 130th in 2016 to 100th in 2017 suggests that the country will achieve the target set by Prime Minister Modi. The 15th annual Doing Business (DB) report crucially signifies an endorsement of Modi sarkar’s thrust on economic reforms. The World Bank’s DB 2018, like its 14 preceding annual editions, analysed the health of 190 economies based on detailed diagnostics, with quantitative indicators on a range of activities.

Ten economies ranked at the top are: New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Georgia and Sweden. According to DB 2018, India finds a place “among the 10 top improvers”, inter alia, on the strength of greater ease in the payment of taxes online, facility to combine PAN and TAN, reduction in the time required to complete Provident Fund and state insurance applications, possibility of submitting building plans in advance for a construction permit.

India’s current ranking on starting a business is 156th, against 155th in 2016, involving 29.8 days to deal with 11.5 procedures. New Zealand at No.1 takes just half a day to handle only one

29

procedure. The issue of construction permits in Denmark ~ at top of the chart for this activity ~ takes 64 days for seven procedures. India takes 143.9 days for 30.1 procedures, and ranks 181st (183rd: DB 2017). For obtaining an electricity connection, India ranked 70th as per DB 2017, improved to 29th now, covering 45.9 days. New Zealand takes one day for two procedures. India is ranked 154th (138th, DB 2017); it takes 53 days for eight procedures.

As regards payment of taxes, Singapore, commanding the No.1 position, takes 49 hours per year; India ranks 119th (157th in DB 2017). It takes 214 hours per year. Likewise, India’s rank in the insolvency index is 103rd (136th, DB 2017), in contrast to Norway at No.1. The average duration of bankruptcy proceedings in India is around 4.3 years. For getting credit, India ranks 29th (42nd, DB 2017). Going by this parameter, New Zealand is No. 1. India’s rank in respect of enforcing contracts is 164th (178th as per DB 2017); South Korea is No.1. In India it takes 1,445 days on an average for the judicial process to be over, in stark contrast to Korea’s 290 days for enforcing contracts. India needs to compel the departments concerned in the states and at the Centre to address the reason why the country continues to score low.

Enforcement of contracts is a key parameter since it has a multiplier effect on several other parameters for deciding the rank in terms of Doing Business. Specifically three other activities that can substantially improve our position include construction permits, registration of property, and cross-border trade. The quality of the country’s judicial process has led to the low ranking. India’s flattering rank for protecting minority investors is rooted in strong corporate laws. A concerted exercise to weed out unnecessary rules, vague regulations, and obsolete Acts is imperative. Human intervention must also be minimised.

Despite certain sporadic initiatives taken by central and state governments, there has been no tangible systemic reform to really ease the process of Doing Business on a sustained basis. The bureaucracy has routinely revelled in the licence-permit ethos, creating different layers of intervention, involving a huge cost on the exchequer, and making life difficult for entrepreneurs as well as aam aadmi.

The government took some baby-steps to make starting a business by the eliminating minimum capital requirement and the need to obtain a certificate. The e-government initiative MCA-21 in 2006 reduced registration time. The time to obtain the certificate of incorporation, now available online, has also been dropped. But the bureaucratic stranglehold came through the backdoor because an applicant is still required to await a copy of the certificate before starting operations. Federal India is large and complex. Local regulations and their enforcement differ from one place to another.

An analysis by a World Bank group, called Coordinated Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms, revealed that States occupied different levels of implementation of the 98-point action plan on ease of Doing Business. While Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh scored over 60 per cent, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Haryana performed above 40 per cent but below 60 per cent. Delhi, Punjab, Kerala and Goa figured in the 20- 40 per cent range, and all others below 20 per cent. A Rajya Sabha sub-committee on ease of Doing Business concluded

30

that the regulatory framework in India remained fragmented, and there was urgent need to bridge the gap between implementation on paper and on the ground.

It recommended that a simple online single-window approval mechanism coupled with self-assessment/declaration of having complied with the applicable regulations needed to be ensured. Instead of requiring two separate post-construction certificates ~ and often two separate inspections ~ only one single completion and occupancy certificate would simplify the process considerably. The country’s economic progress is linked to the ease of Doing Business. The government is anxious to break the mould and change the paradigm.

As The Economist has stated, “India’s regulations for foreign investors are more attractive than in most of East Asia, but overzealous bureaucrats weave webs of red tape”.

The Modi government has been trying to enforce the concept of “minimum government, maximum governance” by pruning the bureaucratic behemoth and applying a surgeon’s scalpel to rid the body of accumulated growth because of which accountability gets diffused.

A large state is not necessarily a strong state. The gigantic character of public entities makes them slow and clumsy.

(The writer is Senior Fellow, Asian Institute of Transport Development, and former CMD, Container Corporation of India)

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ENVIRONMENT

BUSINESS LINE, NOV 13, 2017Urban dystopia

Delhi’s toxic smog is a governance failure, spanning multiple agenciesCome winter, and the capital and other cities in the region are enveloped in a noxious smog that only gets worse each year. Galling statistics on pollution levels — for a day as a whole the air quality index for Delhi is in the region of 470-500, whereas anything greater than 300 is considered ‘hazardous’ and a reading below 50 considered ‘good’ — have triggered a blame-game between various governments (Centre, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana) and their agencies, even as various emergency steps have been announced in recent days, such as a ban on construction activity and on burning dirty fuels. The mess is the result of a ‘perfect storm’ of factors such as the burning of paddy stubble in Punjab and Haryana, low temperatures, low wind speeds, and vehicular and industrial pollution. However, the solutions are not far to seek; it only entails government agencies rising above scoring petty brownie points and acting in concert.

To begin with, the Punjab government has not been able to abide by the National Green Tribunal’s order to implement a ban on burning paddy straw — nearly 20 million tonnes of it. The farmers are not at fault — they need to clear the land in quick time to prepare for the wheat crop, whereas the combine harvesters leave too tall a stubble of paddy straw for it to be manually removed, both expediently and cheaply. Incidentally, the residue of the basmati crop, which is generally manually harvested in regions around Amritsar because it fetches a better support price, is not burnt. The technological solution — ‘the super straw management system’ which, when attached to a mechanical harvester, shreds the waste to small bits so that it need not be burnt and can instead be put to better uses such as biomass and ethanol and electricity production — has not worked out because of subsidy wrangles between the Centre and the States. Millions of citizens, including farmers, are paying a price for this short-sighted niggardliness.

That said, straw burning is a seasonal issue whereas vehicular pollution is arguably the rhinoceros in the room. The Delhi government was set to implement its odd-even scheme for the third time with effect from today, only to be stopped in its tracks by the NGT which has raised questions on its efficacy and wondered why two-wheelers should be excluded. Extending the scheme to two-wheelers can lead to a huge load on buses and metros, beyond their capacity, whereas a curb on cars can lead to pooling. The assertion that the two earlier attempts led to an increase in particulate matter is not convincing as the time-period was too small. The solution for

32

large cities is to ramp up public transport (Delhi’s bus fleet has actually been falling, and it needs land for bus depots) and encourage a shift away from cheap industrial fuel to solar, clean thermal power and natural gas. But the fight for better air quality cannot be successful without citizens exercising lifestyle choices to that end.

GOVERNORS

ASIAN AGE, NOV 13, 2017L-G must be apprised of govt decisions: SC

J. VENKATESAN

New Delhi: It appears prima facie that it should be the duty and obligation of the chief minister of Delhi and his council of ministers to communicate all the decisions to the lieutenant-governor, though every such decision might not warrant concurrence from the lieutenant-governor, the Supreme Court orally observed on Tuesday.

A five judge bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.K. Sikri, A.M. Kanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan made this tentative observation when senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for the Kejriwal government, argued that the lieutenant-governor (L-G) had assumed overriding powers, though he is bound to function with the aid and advice of the council of ministers.

The CJI, quoting the Business Rules, said to the counsel, “Prima facie it appears that once the government takes a decision, it is duty bound to communicate the decision to the L-G even though it might be a remote decision. This is the working situation envisaged by the Parliament, which has plenary powers as far as the Union Territory of Delhi is concerned. This can’t be construed as interference. Every decision might not warrant concurrence, but the decision has to be communicated.”

The CJI also noted that the L-G has power to call for information on “any matter”. 

Justice Chandrachud said to the counsel, “Some matters require prior orders from the L-G. Though the Business Rules provide for immediate approval from the L-G, the decision becomes enforceable the moment the government communicates its decision to the L-G.”

Quoting Article 239 AA (4) of the constitution, the counsel said that if the L-G is the boss in terms of governance and decision-making process, the Parliament in its wisdom would not have provided for a council of ministers headed by a chief minister and who are answerable to the legislative Assembly. He said that this provision was intended to bring the principle of sovereignty in the government and the L-G could not set at naught this principle by his actions.

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He said that disputes have arisen on the question whether Delhi government can act in relation to certain issues without the prior approval of the L-G. Several of the orders of Delhi government, such as increasing the salaries of DANICS officers, have been declared null and void by the L-G on the ground that the Delhi government has no power to increase the salaries of its staff. The issues raised here relate to the federal structure of the constitution under which the Centre and the states have plenary powers within their respective spheres. Arguments will continue on Wednesday.

HEALTH SERVICES

INDIAN EXPRESS, NOV 11, 2017Entry pay scale reduced, AIIMS faculty shoots letter to directorMove despite 17 faculty members leaving AIIMSWritten by Kaunain Sheriff M 

The AIIMS faculty has written a letter to the director, complaining that their pay scale will be

“diluted” as the Centre has reduced entry pay for various positions at the institute under the

Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC). This, despite 17 faculty members quitting AIIMS in

the last three years — including five in the last six months.

The faculty has pointed out that as per a recent order issued by the government, the entry pay for

a professor would be Rs 58,500 now as compared to Rs 62,100 under the Sixth CPC; for

additional professor it would be 52,300 as compared to Rs 55,500; for associate professor it

would be Rs 49,200 as compared to Rs 51,800; and for assistant professor it would continue to

be at Rs 38,000.

“We have sought a meeting with the ministry regarding this decision. We have also written to the

AIIMS director. The pay scales at AIIMS have been diluted. Under the Sixth CPC, the entry pay

at IIT is less than at AIIMS. But if you apply the same pay scales under the Seventh CPC for

AIIMS and IIT, it would devalue AIIMS faculty,” a senior member of the AIIMS faculty told

The Indian Express.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), on November 1, had issued a notification

for pay revision for faculty of AIIMS, PGIMER, Chandigarh and JIPMER, Puducherry.

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Interestingly, on October 27, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had issued

a circular to Directors of all centrally funded technical institutes like IIMs and IITs about the

revised pay scale. And on November 1, these same revised pay scales were recommended by the

MoHFW for AIIMS. The AIIMS administration, on November 7, issued a circular to its faculty

members to submit their “form of option and undertaking” to implement the revised pay scale.

“It is for the first time that that they have linked revised pay scales of autonomous institutions

under MHRD with those of autonomous institutions under the Health Ministry. We were not told

why this decision was taken,” an AIIMS faculty member said.

Earlier, a committee formed by the Health Ministry to recommend implementation of a revised

pay scale, which included the AIIMS director, had highlighted the problems of “unattractive pay

at the institute” as the reason behind the exits.

To counter the exits of professor-level faculty at AIIMS, the committee had recommended that

40 per cent of professors be made senior professors; and 10 per cent of senior professors be

promoted as well. “However, even with promotions, the faculty (will) be hit financially as entry

level pay for each position has been reduced,” the faculty said.

STATESMAN, NOV 4, 2017Health of the nationJaydev Jana     

Good health stands at the centre of sustainable development. Good health is at the centre of well-being and is vital for everything else we hold dear.

 — Jeffrey D Sachs, American economist

Healthcare ought to be easily accessible to all sections of the populace. In life, nothing is more important than health. Poor public health conditions can deter investors and tourists. It has been established that states with lower literacy and poorer health levels have found it difficult to alleviate poverty.

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In India, the poor are affected by debility, reduced earnings, increasing expenditure on health and eventual death. The rich suffer from repeated spells of morbidity and this is reflected in the high level of stunting and under-nutrition among children. Studies have revealed that an individual’s access to healthcare services is linked to his/her social or caste background. Discrimination rooted in social, caste, or racial origins severely affects the people’s health. Inequality in health condition is also the major challenge for national and sub-national public health policies. Life expectancy at birth, a basic measurement of health inequality, varied from 77.9 years in rural Kerala to 64.1 years in rural Assam during 2009-13. Similarly, the child mortality rate among mothers without education is more than 10 times the child mortality among mothers with the advantage of schooling.

While healthcare of all rapidly developing nations gets progressively better as GDP increases, it would seem that India is bucking the trend. Global experience shows that more public spending on health and education reinforces growth as well as development. Brazil and Thailand have achieved close to universal health coverage. The government’s share of healthcare in India as percentage of the total health expenditure that is incurred by the people is one of the lowest in the world. We spend just around 1.2 per cent of our GDP, while the total health expenditure is around at 4.2 per cent. Insufficient funding of public facilities, combined with faulty planning and inefficient management, have militated against expansion of the workforce to train and retain them, and this has affected service delivery, regulatory and management functions, as well as research and development. The draft National Health Policy (NHP) 2015 emphasised that unless the country spends 5-6 per cent of its GDP on health, with a major part of it from the government outlay (at least 2.5 per cent of GDP), basic healthcare could hardly be met.

India has followed commercial principles in healthcare by involving the private sector in a big way. Private health services have grown by default, without checks on cost and quality. There is no safety net for the poor in private establishments. The government’s policy on public health is the weakest link in the chain.

The steady deterioration of public health services is attributed to the increase in health insurance coverage, the mushroom growth of private hospitals and misuse of the financial provisions of government health welfare schemes. Data garnered in course of various surveys confirm that instead of providing basic healthcare, the common practice is to engage in unnecessary medical procedures, tests, hospitalisation and surgeries. The vulnerable and gullible are being cheated. The prevailing scenario has been described by the World Bank as ‘medical overuse’. The Jan Swasthya Abhijan has referred to the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) which offers BPL families a cashless yearly insurance of Rs 30,000 as one of the schemes which is also being misused by unscrupulous doctors.

Child mortality, expressed in terms of Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR), is a sensitive indicator of the country’s socio-economic development. The country continues to lose thousands of children below the age of 5 every day. Globally, India ranks fifth

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in terms of child mortality; but in terms of numbers the figure is a whopping 14 lakh which is the highest in the world. In a country, that is poised to grow at 7 per cent annually, more than half of the children die within 28 days of their birth, and of causes which are preventable. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are way ahead in preventing infant and maternity deaths. Even China with almost the same reproductive and child health indices as India has marched ahead. Every 10 minutes, a young woman dies during childbirth somewhere in India and 3 lakh children die the day they are born.

We need to make citizens aware of the fact that public health services, conceptually distinct from clinical services, play a key role in curbing exposure to diseases, for example through food safety and other health regulations, vector control, monitoring waste disposal and water systems, and health education to improve personal health habits. Sanitation is indeed the major cause of diseases and malnutrition. If more people understood these connections, they would be better able to protect themselves and their families.

Governments have long been focusing on tertiary hospital care, deviating from the earlier emphasis on primary health care, which must be improved, starting with sub-centres. The size and quality of the health workforce should also be upgraded. This can be achieved by closely linking healthcare delivery with medical education. According to World Bank data, Cuba produces the largest number of doctors per capita in the world (6.7 per 1000 against 2.5 per 1000 in the US and 0.7 per 1000 in India) and its health indices are better than that of the US, which spends the most on healthcare. It is unfortunate that in 69 years, post-independence India is short of 3 million doctors and 6 million nurses, and its paramedical training programme is virtually non-existent. 

It has been estimated that around 25 per cent of the drugs sold are spurious. Quality assurance of discounted drugs must be substantiated with adequate measures for spot checks and appropriate punishment. Otherwise, patients will slowly become skeptical about the quality. Moreover, regulatory systems need to be strengthened  —  from hospital accreditation to health education and from drug licensing to mandatory adoption of standard management guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of different diseases at each level of health care.

The lack of commitment at the highest levels and the absence of a work ethic have led to a widespread systemic crisis in healthcare. US academic Lant Pritchett had an appropriate explanation for why things go so shockingly awry in India, and why it is incapable in adopting policies and programmes and implement the same. He calls this the flailing state syndrome  — “A nation state in which the head, that is elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level remain sound and functional, but that this head is no longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its own limbs”. As a result, nothing works here. Pritchett terms flailing as the inability to maintain sufficient control of the administrative apparatus to effectively deliver services through the government “in spite of democracy and strong capability at the state level”.

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The writer is a retired IAS officer.

STATESMAN, NOV 12, 2017Antibiotic apocalypse~IJaydev Jana  

The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of the man who succumbs to infection with the penicillin resistant organism.

-Sir Alexander Fleming, Nobel laureate

This is an age of complexities, contradictions, and challenges. Anti-microbial resistance (AMR) poses the most serious challenge to public health the world over. It is complex, multi-dimensional, and threatens the prevention and treatment of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. Louis Pasteur, who evolved the science of microbiology and was a key figure in the development of vaccines in the 1880s, suggested that humans had the power ‘to make parasitic maladies disappear from the globe.’

But all too often, his suggestion and our expectations get frustrated. Anti-microbials include all agents that act against microorganisms ~ bacteria (antibacterial / antibiotics), viruses (antiviral), fungi (antifungal) and protozoa (antiprotozoal). Antimicrobial drugs once seemed like a miraclous antidote in the fight against microbes that have killed hundreds of people and infected many more. We are now in danger of losing the efficacy of that weapon.

Old “adversaries” are returning back with vengeance and new infections are emerging. Despite the development of various vaccines and drugs, hundreds of people die of infectious diseases, notably tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, dengue, cholera, and influenza. Even 40 years after the discoveries in molecular biology ~ DNA cloning, the sequencing of human genome, and human stem cell research ~ we still face the forbidding challenge of virulent, yet preventable, illnesses.

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, Assistant DirectorGeneral, WHO, warns: “A postantibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very possibility for the 21st century.” In 1945, after receiving the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the miracle cure ~ penicillin antibiotic ~ the Scottish scientist, Sir Alexander Fleming, raised the alarm regarding overuse of antibiotics.

In his acceptance speech he warned, “The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily under-dose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug, make them resistant.” In the wake of the discovery of penicillin, which was not used in a significant way until the early 1940s, many other potent antibiotics were discovered in the 1950s and Sixties.

In the last few decades, the indiscriminate and overzealous use gave rise to mutant pathogens that are rapidly eroding the effectiveness of the limited arsenal of life-saving anti-microbials. In

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April 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its first global report entitled ‘Antimicrobial Resistance (Global Report on Surveillance) 2014’ on the issue by focusing on the rate of AMR to microbes responsible for many common infections, including pneumonia, diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, gonorrhea and sepsis.

On the basis of data garnered from as many as 114 countries, the report stated, ‘Situations are increasingly arising where bacteria that are resistant to most, or even all, available antibacterial drugs causing serious infections that were readily treatable until recently’.

How the progress of modern medicines, which relied on the availability of effective anti-bacterial drugs, is at risk has been highlighted in the report. “Common community-acquired infection such as pneumonia, which used to be readily treatable after the introduction of penicillin, may not respond to available or recommended drugs in many settings, putting the lives of patients at risk.

Common infections in neonatal and intensive care are increasingly becoming extremely difficult, sometimes impossible to treat. Patients receiving cancer treatment, organ transplants and other advanced therapies are particularly vulnerable to infection.

Anti-bacterial drugs, that are used to prevent post-operative surgical site infections have become less effective or ineffective.” In the words of Dr. Margaret Char, WHO Director-General: “The world is on the brink of losing these miracle cures.”

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin claimed that there was a persistent ‘struggle for existence’ in nature, and that only the fittest would survive. Like humans, micro-organisms are merely responding and fighting for their survival. Indeed, they are better adept at evolving the conditions around them because of their staggering numbers.

The evolution of resistant strains is a natural phenomenon and this is accelerated by the selective pressure exerted by widespread, indiscriminate and irrational uses of antibacterial drugs. Their self-defence strategies appear to be so strong that in 2011, scientists stumbled upon a 30,000-year-old bacteria under permafrost in Canada’s Yukon province. It defied modern antibiotics, suggesting that genes that resist antibiotics have existed since ancient times.

A major problem associated with the use of anti-bacterial drugs is that resistant strains are able to propagate and spread where there is non-compliance with infection prevention and control measures. For example, when microbial drugs unleash a lethal attack on the body’s trillions of bacteria, some bacteria still survive.

The bacteria, that is sensitive to anti-microbial agents, can become resistant by acquiring DNA with genetic coding for resistance. Bacteria sensitive to an antimicrobial can “mate” with bacteria containing resistance genes, or they can acquire these resistance genes by transduction. Some bacteria may acquire multiple resistance genes simultaneously and become resistant to several antibiotics. One of the major problems associated with the transfer of resistance genes is that they can be transferred not only among similar but also to quite different bacteria by

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horizontal gene transfer (HGT). In the never-ending arms race our first mistake has been the failure to respect our opponent or even to recognize the landscape of the battlefields.

We are speeding up the process of AMR dramatically by using inappropriate and irrational doses of drugs. Doses prescribed by physicians are often self-adjusted or stopped midway by patients. There are several instances of such misuse of antibiotics. Cough and cold infections are caused by viruses, yet antibiotics are used as the prime line of treatment. Even pharmacists prescribe antibiotics on their own without being qualified to do so.

Researchers of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) examined 13 studies conducted by various government and private hospitals across the country between 2002 and 2013. The result was startling.

Resistance was very high against ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, tetracycline, most commonly used antibiotics. In certain studies reviewed by CSE, pseudomonas enterobacter, escherichia coli and klebsiella were found to be resistant to ciprofloxacin.

Moreover, replying to a question in Parliament in 2014, the Union Health Minister said that the number of MDR-TB cases in the country has increased five times to 23,325 between 2011 and 2013.

Almost one-third of all MDR-TB cases are resistant to fluoroquinolone, which forms the backbone of MDR-TB treatment. Even about 50 per cent of the antibiotics used in US hospitals are unnecessary.

(To be concluded)

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

STATESMAN, NOV 13, 2017Antibiotic apocalypse~IIJaydev Jana  

As worrisome as the AMR crisis is the risk of disrupting the ecological system within our bodies due to non-judicious uses of antimicrobials. Indeed, all of us have a microbiome of bacteria (and a much smaller number of viruses, yeasts, and amoebas) that outnumbers the cells of our bodies by the approximate ratio of ten to one. They live and work synergistically with our bodies in an adaptive community of which we are part. One of the functions performed by this microbiome is the ‘tutoring’ of the acquired immune system.

The essence of the problems is that microbial drugs themselves fail to discriminate between harmful bacteria and beneficial bacteria. By using antimicrobial drugs to tackle diseases, we are inadvertently destroying bacteria that we need in order to maintain a healthy balance. Expressing grave concern over such a ‘friendly-fire’ situation, Julie Segre of the National Human Genome Research Institute said: “I would like to lose the language of warfare. It does a disservice to all the bacteria that have co-evolved with us and are maintaining the health of our bodies.” AMR is

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a threat to global public health, but nowhere is it as stark as in India. The portents are really ominous as it is the world’s largest consumer of antibiotics.

According to a report in The Lancet, in 2010, India consumed about 13 billion units, followed by China’s 10 billion, and the USA’s almost 7 billion units. The mortality rate due to infections is around 417 per one lakh persons. In Europe, around 25,000 people die every year from AMR bacteria contracted in hospitals, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US, estimated that antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause two million ailments and around 23,000 deaths a year in the US.

In the not-too-distant future, people going in for basic surgeries may have to weigh the risk of contracting an infection for which there is no cure. According to The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, commissioned by the British Government, by 2050 and every year, AMR is likely to claim 317,000 lives in North America, 390,000 in Europe and over 4 million in Asia and Africa.

Use of antibiotics is no more restricted to humans. Nor is it limited to treating diseases. To cater to the growing demand, even poultry farmers use feed containing a variety of antibiotics, vitamins and other feed supplements. Non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics act as growth promoters as they kill microbes in the intestine and thus help absorb feed nutrients better, resulting in weight gain.

Indiscriminate and routine use of antibiotics in low doses during the chicken’s short lifecycle of 35-42 days for faster growth promotes the growth of AMR bacteria. Poultry farmers also ignore the mandatory withdrawal period, as a result of which high levels of antibiotics residues infect farm workers, meat plant workers and people in general along with the resistant bacteria.

Consumers also encounter resistant bacteria while handling meat and consuming undercooked meat. Antibiotic residue and resistant bacteria in waste can pollute the soil, streams, ponds, groundwater and transfer resistance to other bacteria through horizontal transfer of genes. Poultry farms are reservoirs of multi-drug resistant bacteria. The fish that we eat contains a cocktail of antibiotics. Those antibiotics that are important for humans are also added to the feed or ponds even when symptoms of infections or injury are detected in only a small quantity of fish.

A CSE team recently visited six key fish producing districts in West Bengal and detected rampant use of antibiotics in aquaculture for non-therapeutic purposes and growth-promotion. The aquaculture waste is also directly discharged into canal and agricultural fields untreated, thus increasing the risk of antibiotic resistance in the environment.

Resistance to antibiotics by those who had never used antibiotics are often reported. In those cases it is the prime source of AMR bacteria that could have infected them. Governments worldwide are adopting regulations to control the use of anti-microbials. Several EU countries have curbed AMR substantially by banning indiscriminate use of drugs.

But in case of India the attitude appears to be perfunctory. In 2007, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) recommended that systemic antibiotics must not be used in poultry feed. In 2011

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the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had set maximum residue limits for antibiotics in sea-food and prohibited the use of certain others in sea-food processing units.

But there are no prescribed standards for the domestic poultry industry. The national policy on containment of AMR has been finalized, but it does not focus on antibiotic resistance emanating from the large-scale use of antibiotics in animals. The government can follow Denmark’s example by eliminating antibiotics in the meat and dairy industry. Humans are facing an ‘antibiotic apocalypse’.

What we urgently need is a plan of action to prevent the misuse of antimicrobial drugs through awareness campaigns, devising tests that can reveal if a patient actually needs them, and also scouting for new ones. New categories of antimicrobial drugs were discovered during the 1980s. Since the late 1980s we are witnessing a void in the discover of antibiotics.

Therefore, it is essential to preserve the efficacy of the existing drugs. Coupling antimicrobial drugs with anti-genetic transfer agents could eliminate the need to ration drugs. If we can strategically develop a gene that enables strains of resistant microbes to eat our food instead of our flesh, they will be effectively disarmed. The most outstanding feature of life’s history is the constant domination of microbes as they are capable of developing new strategies every now and then for their survival.

Citing the ‘catastrophic threat’ of AMR, the World Health Organisation has warned that it could lead to ‘a return to the pre-antibiotic era’, where curable infections proved to be fatal. Mere paper-cuts can kill and superbugs could easily wipe out humanity. In the light of the legendary resilience of microbes, the least that humans can do is to keep them at bay by waging a limited war.

In the continuing epic struggle with microbes we are in critical need for novel strategies to boost the antimicrobial arsenal. But in any event we should not forget what the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once said: “We live in the age of bacteria… as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, until the world ends”.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

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JUDICIARY

INDIAN EXPRESS, NOV 10, 2017Central govt nod to panel to look into salary hike of lower court judges

The commission will submit its recommendations in early 2019 and the hike again is expected to

be given with retrospective effect.

In a good news for 21,000 judges of the lower courts, the Union Cabinet on Friday gave its nod

to set up a commission to recommend hike in their salaries. With the Cabinet granting its

approval, the Law Ministry would now notify the formation of the second National Judicial Pay

Commission.

The commission would be headed by Justice P Venkatrama Reddi, retired Supreme Court court.

R Basant, a former judge of the Kerala High Court is the member of the panel. The commission

would make its recommendations to the state governments, preferably within a period of 18

months, a statement said.

The judges and judicial officers of subordinate courts got the last pay hike in 2010, a three-fold

jump, from their salaries decided in 1999. The 2010 hike was applied retrospectively from

January 1, 2006.

The current entry level salary for a junior civil judge is Rs 45,000 while a senior judge gets

nearly Rs 80,000. The commission will submit its recommendations in early 2019 and the hike

again is expected to be given with retrospective effect.

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The move comes after directions from the Supreme Court in May. The first judicial pay

commission, headed by Justice Jagannatha Shetty, was set up in March 1996 and it submitted its

report in November 1999.

The Supreme Court had appointed a one-member committee under Justice E Padhmanabhan, a

retired high court judge, who submitted his report in July 2009 recommending the three-fold

hike.

The recommendations of the commission will help in promoting efficiency in judicial

administration, optimising the size of judiciary etc. and to remove anomalies created in

implementation of earlier recommendations, the statement said.

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LIBRARIES

TELEGRAPH, NOV 14, 2017Fulfilling spaces- Working in the house and in the library

Ruchir Joshi

There is something quite wonderful about a space where people can really get down to work without obstacle, hindrance or distraction. You can sense this energy when you enter some people's houses, the homes of some who live and work from the same place. The house can be large or small, neat or chaotic, blessed with natural light or be a dark burrow, but the moment you enter you feel that everything there is geared to helping the person living there do their work. Sometimes, if you stay with someone like this, you yourself find yourself more easily getting into a daily rhythm of work, whether your labour has to do with reading and writing, or with scouring the net, or even producing some kind of visual art. In the houses of some musicians you can feel the music, whether it's a piano near a window or the room that's dedicated to riyaaz, in the houses of painters or sculptors - where the studio is part of the house - you can smell the paint and turpentine or the whiff of whatever other material pervading the house, in the house of a scholar you might have the standing witnesses of books looking quietly and unblinkingly at you from the bookshelves.

Staying as a guest in one of these places you find yourself obliged to respect the work rhythms of your hosts but perhaps in the gentlest of ways. You find yourself inspired to get down to work yourself, just as your host does, without fuss or show, right after the morning tea or coffee and breakfast. By the time you look up from your work, it's lunch time; you realize you have made no time-wasting small talk; you find yourself happy that you've been in a kind of silent jugalbandi of work with someone who has far greater discipline and focus than yourself. After lunch (with a full helping of laughter, small talk and scurrilous gossip), when you would normally have a siesta, your host or hosts go back to work, and your own volition towards a nap is cut off mid-yawn and you find yourself once again working happily. Come evening, you've done a reasonable day's sadhana-parishram and everybody is ready to party with full irresponsibility.

Teaching us about daily work rhythms, a teacher in my undergraduate college in America would give us her own example: both herself and her partner were poets, living at one time in a beautiful cottage in Oregon. The couple decided they were wasting too much energy every day in unnecessary conversation and arrived at an agreement. They would wake up in the

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morning and speak normally over breakfast. After this each would go to their own work-space and get down to work. During the day they might bump into each other while getting coffee from the kitchen, and they would usually eat lunch around the same time, but the rule was to maintain a kind of maun-vrat, absolute silence, no talk, until they knocked off work in the evening.

There is something entrancing and fulfilling about being totally immersed in your work (and here it goes without saying that I'm not speaking of any kind of exploitative, soul-assaulting work, whether physical or mental, but of work that is chosen and carried out more or less willingly), where the more you do the more you want to do, till at the end of the day it's almost as if someone has to drag you away from what you are doing.

A great image for this comes from Pier Paolo Pasolini's film, Il Decameron. Taking off from Boccaccio, Pasolini's film is made up of a series of connected short episodes. In one of these, monks at a monastery commission a great painter to make a set of frescoes. The painter (played by Pasolini himself), arrives with his team of assistants, puts up his scaffoldings, quickly mixes his primer and paints and sets about his work. Soon the painters are working with a quiet frenzy and you can see the frescoes getting in from the outlines of the underdrawing. The scene shifts to the monks gathering for their lunch, which is a long and elaborate procedure of gluttony. As the monks gnaw at their haunches of meat and greedily quaff their wine, the painter and his team storm in and sit down at their allotted table. With the drooling friars staring, the artists scoop the food into their mouths and are gone, the ingesting of sustenance completed.

This focus, this keeping the bead on the pupil of the eye of Arjun's bird on the branch, is often quite difficult to achieve. Also, concentrating on work at home - whether one's own or someone else's - is quite different from trying to work in a public space while rubbing shoulders with other people. I myself have therefore been quite leery of public libraries, avoiding them since I finished college a long time ago. Recently, however, I managed to pleasantly ambush myself. For a few years I used to look at the new British Library building in London from the outside and find it quite daunting. There was a nice play between the lines of the building and those of the old St Pancras-King's Cross station just behind but I always thought of the Brit Libe as a red brick fortress with the dour ghosts of Marx and company hovering guard outside, ready to expel all but the most dedicated readers and scholars.

Finally, I wound up the courage to go inside and get myself a card. The process was ridiculously simple and took about twenty minutes. Then, after a few days of looking warily at my card, I decided to take my notebooks, pens and bottle of water and enter the building with intent. There was a friendly security check at the entrance. At the cloakroom it was made clear that one could not take into the reading rooms any food or liquid, any jackets with pockets or any writing implement other than erasable pencils. Inside, in the section which houses the India Office papers the idiot-proof staff were unimaginably friendly and helpful, pointing me to the right catalogues and showing me how to use the website to order the documents I wanted. Within a couple of days I found myself in a regular routine, accessing old newspapers via a computerized microfiche machine that is a relative of those old Moviola film editing machines, controlled from the computer screen by the buttons of an early video-

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editing system. In the newsroom, which is where you read your old newspapers, there was quiet but not one of those draconian silences you associate with old-fashioned libraries. Again, the staff would come and help patiently as I got the hang of the entanglements of the moviola-microfiche. Sitting next to me I found a mixture of people, from young students to the typical bearded, bespectacled, walking stick- wielding ancients you associate with the old British Library. Soon, the hours were passing with remarkable speed, the gap between the start-of-work coffee and lunch sandwich shortening, the afternoon hours, with some nodding off going on in every direction, swimming by. I became dimly aware of the evenings drawing in as one by one the other readers began to wrap up their stuff, the whirr of their microfilms rewinding indicating it was time to go.

As I spent more time at the library, any idea of the place being a fortress evaporated. There were cafes, a tad over-priced but of reasonable quality, there were hordes of college students from all over the world, rocking their devices on the desks in the open areas at the different levels, then there was the Harry Potter celebration that stretched over the school half-term holidays, using the references to libraries in the Potter books to encourage kids to hit the bookshelves. At some lunch-times and some evenings you also got someone playing piano or trombone in the atrium. None of this impeded the work. In fact, everything seemed geared to helping you conduct your studying in the simplest, most unpretentious way. At lunch I found myself eating without greed or procrastination, at tea-time the Flat White was quickly drunk. It wasn't the same as working at the home of a disciplined friend, but the results were comparable.

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MINORITY GROUPS

TRIBUNE, NOV 14, 2017Hindus too a minority in some statesFaizan Mustafa

Minorities are defined on the basis of numerical inferiority only and it is the state in relation to which the status is determined. Recently, dismissing a plea for minority status to Hindus in 8 states, the SC directed them to the NCM.

Faizan Mustafa

Vice-Chancellor, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad 

The BJP believes in 'justice for all, appeasement of none' and, therefore, opposes minority rights. It still criticises Manmohan Singh for saying that the "minorities have the first claim to national resources" without realiaing that Hindus too are entitled to minority rights. Now BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhaya has gone to the Supreme Court, seeking declaration of Hindus as minority in more than half a dozen states. Hindus too are religious minority in non-Hindu majority states. But what the BJP does not understand is that Hindus can also be a linguistic minority in other states, eg Tamil Hindus are entitled to the rights of minorities in all states other than Tamil Nadu. 

The expression 'minorities' has been employed only at four places in the Constitution. The headnote of Article 29 uses it. Then, 'minorities or minority' have been employed in the headnote of Article 30 and clauses (1) and (2) of Article 30. Interestingly, no definition of the term minority is given in the Constitution.

 A minority is a group that is numerically smaller than the majority in society. This basic definition is, however, not enough. Since the criterion of numbers, though essential but is not a sufficient for any definition of a minority, we need to go further. The second component of the definition is that the group concerned must be non-dominant in the given society. A group can be conceptualised as a minority, when its values and worldviews are either not reflected at all, or

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insufficiently reflected both in the public sphere and the constitution of societal norms. Both these factors reinforce each other. Thus, marginalisation and exclusion are most important yardsticks to determine minority status. The Sachar Committee, for instance, brought to fore the non-dominant status of Muslims. Yet, the Allahabad High Court in 2006 held that the Muslims are not a minority in UP.

Indeed, minorities are groups that possess distinct and stable ethnic, religious and linguistic characteristics. The crucial point is that (i) these characteristics differ from the rest of the population, and (ii) that these groups wish to preserve their distinctive identity. The definition of a minority is thus relational to the majority in terms of numbers, of domination or the lack of domination, of possessing distinctive characteristics, and in terms of its desire to preserve these characteristics even if they conflict with the sensibilities of the majority.

The Supreme Court has consistently maintained that minorities are to be defined on the basis of numerical inferiority only and it is the state in relation to which the minority status is to be determined. There has been no deviation from the above principle laid in the Kerala Education Bill case (1957). The 11-judge bench of the apex court in the TMA Pai Foundation (2002) case again explicitly held that in the absence of any special definition of "minorities", any community, religious or linguistic, which is numerically less than 50 per cent of the population of the state is entitled to recognition as minority. So, in the states of Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab, Hindus on the basis of numerical inferiority test are entitled to religious minority status. In fact, in N. Ammad (1998), the apex court had held that minority status is a matter of fact and does not need state recognition or declaration. Thus, this petition is unnecessary. On November 10, the Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gagoi dismissed the PIL seeking minority status for Hindus in eight states, including Punjab and J-K, and asked the petitioner to approach the National Commission for Minorities.

The Supreme Court in the DAV College case (1971) held the Hindus as minority in the state of Punjab. Punjab & Haryana did hold that Sikhs are not a minority in Punjab. When Jains who were already having the religious minority status in a number of states such as UP, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, MP and Chhattisgarh and about whom the National Minority Commission had made positive recommendation for the conferment of minority status wanted such a status from the central government, the Supreme Court became highly regressive in the Bal Patil case (2005) and made certain observations which were nothing short of rewriting minority jurisprudence. 

The three-judge Bench observed: "It was not in contemplation of the framers of the Constitution to add to the list of religious minorities....Ideal of a democratic society, which has adopted right

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of equality as its fundamental creed, should be elimination of majority and minority and so called forward and backward classes". The court directed the minority commission to eliminate minorities. In fact, when Jains protested their inclusion in definition of 'Hindu' in Article 25 on January 31, 1950, Pt Nehru had clarified in writing that Jains are a distinct religious minority.

The Constitution nowhere says that the minorities should assimilate with the majority. Appeasement of minorities was a motivated propaganda of rightist forces. All communities, including Hindus, are fully entitled to rights both as religious as well as linguistic minorities. The constitution does not believe in the 'melting pot' theory, but for a 'salad bowl' concept where distinctive identities of all groups are to be celebrated and preserved. Heterogeneity, not homogeneity, describes India. Unity in diversity is our cherished constitutional value. Let it not be diluted.

Definition of minority

A minority is a group that is numerically smaller than the majority in society. Its values are insufficiently reflected both in the public sphere. It possesses distinct and stable ethnic, religious and linguistic characteristics.

The DAV College case (1971) held the Hindus as minority in the state of Punjab. But the Punjab & Haryana did hold that Sikhs are not a minority in Punjab.

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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

TELEGRAPH, NOV 13, 2017Autonomy matters- Most Indians are ignorant of Kashmir's history

WORM'S EYE VIEW-MANINI CHATTERJEE

It might be tempting to view the prime minister's vitriolic attack on the former Union minister, P. Chidambaram, for his remarks on Kashmir last month as election-time rhetoric, aimed at playing the 'nationalist' card in poll-bound Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

In an interaction with local businessmen and intelligentsia in Rajkot on October 28, Chidambaram - not exactly a seditious jholawallah by any stretch of the imagination -advocated a more accommodative approach to India's most intractable national problem.

In reply to a question, the Congress veteran said: "The demand in Kashmir Valley is to respect in letter and spirit Article 370. And that means they want greater autonomy. My interactions in Jammu and Kashmir led me to the conclusion that when they ask for azadi, most people - I am not saying all - (but an) overwhelming majority want autonomy. Therefore, I think we should seriously examine that question and consider in what areas we can give autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir."

Granting such autonomy, he added, would be "perfectly within the Constitution of India" and that the state would remain an "integral part of India but it will have larger powers as promised under Article 370".

His comments were met with an avalanche of abuse from the leading lights of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Union ministers, Piyush Goyal and Smriti Irani, put out tweets slamming him for batting for "separatists" which Chidambaram clearly didn't.

Arun Jaitley, reading out from an oft-repeated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh script, told reporters in Mumbai, "It was the flawed policy of the Congress right since 1947 which is responsible for the Kashmir problem." He went on to accuse the Congress of "encouraging separatism in Jammu and Kashmir".

And much like a lead singer who takes the mike after the orchestra has played the opening bars, Narendra Modi lashed out at Chidambaram - without naming him - during a visit to

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Karnataka the next day. Unmindful of the facts of history, Modi thundered: "Those in power until yesterday have suddenly taken a U-turn and are shamelessly raising their voice for autonomy in Kashmir."

Resorting to characteristic theatrics, he added, "The mother who lost her son and the sister who lost her brother and the children of soldiers who fought to protect Kashmir are asking questions and the Congress shamelessly uses the language of separatists in Kashmir and the language used in Pakistan."

Taking a cue from the prime minister, BJP leaders and RSS cadres have made the Congress's 'anti-national' views a part of their campaign in both Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

Modi himself made a particularly odious remark during a speech in the Himachal town of Una on November 5. Insisting that demonetization had starved terrorists of their funds and ended stone pelting in Kashmir, he said, Himachal ke hamare veer jawan Kashmir ke raksha ke liye seena taan karke khade the, aur kuch bachhen aakar maar dete the (the brave soldiers from Himachal were bravely guarding Kashmir when some children threw stones at them...) - an unprecedented attempt by a prime minister to pit state against state, religion against religion.

But that should neither surprise nor shock us. Narendra Modi, after all, is a dyed in the wool RSS pracharak, and sheds all pretence to be anything else when campaigning for elections. Just as his "kabristaan versus shamshaan" speech during the Uttar Pradesh election was aimed at furthering the Hindutva agenda of polarizing the electorate, his tirade against Chidambaram is part of the consistent campaign of the RSS-BJP combine against Article 370.

What is disconcerting, though, is that large sections of educated Indians are also equivocal on the question of Kashmir's autonomy. The Congress itself was quick to distance itself from Chidambaram's remarks. The party spokesman, Randeep S. Surjewala, issued a statement on the night of October 28, saying, "Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh is an integral part of Indian Union and will always remain so unquestionably... (the) opinion of an individual is not necessarily the opinion of the Indian National Congress."

This squeamishness on the part of even those who are otherwise critical of the Hindutvaagenda stems from two reasons. One, an assertion that Kashmir is an integral part of India with no ifs or buts has become the touchstone of patriotism, more powerful than any Tebbit test, and few of us dare fail it. And second, many of us are ignorant about the genesis of the Kashmir problem since it does not figure in textbooks or in mainstream consciousness.

That is perhaps why the BJP's view of Kashmir that sees Pakistan as the chief trouble-maker, Jawaharlal Nehru as the chief villain, and Syama Prasad Mookerjee as the 'saviour' has far more takers than the facts warrant.

The truth is very different. Barring historians and Kashmir experts, few are aware today that it was not the majority Muslim populace but the Hindu king of the erstwhile princely state,

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Maharaja Hari Singh, who dithered on joining India at the time of Independence and fantasized about running an independent kingdom.

It was only when "raiders" from the newly formed Pakistan entered Kashmir on October 22-23, 1947 and threatened to take over the state that a panicked Maharaja sought Indian help and fled Srinagar. New Delhi agreed to send troops on the condition that he formally accede Kashmir to India. But that formal accession would have had no meaning if the biggest mass leader of Kashmir - the staunchly secular and hugely popular Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference cadres - had not chosen to rebuff Pakistan and the "two-nation theory" that brought about Partition. They fought the raiders on the streets of Srinagar even though, by the logic of Partition, Muslim majority Kashmir (especially after being subjected to onerous Dogra rule for a century) ought to have preferred joining the new nation adjoining their border.

For Nehru and Gandhi, the accession of Kashmir was not just about gaining territory but a reaffirmation of the idea of India, a nation wedded to secularism and diversity as opposed to the idea of Pakistan based on a singular religious identity. Given the complexity of the situation, compounded by the internationalization of the Kashmir issue after Pakistan and India went to war over its territory, the Indian Constitution that came into being in January 1950 recognized the special status of the state. Article 370, conferring autonomy to Kashmir, was a measure of that recognition.

As the elected leader of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah - whose personal friendship with Nehru never frayed even after spending over a decade in free India's jails on charges of "treason" that were never proved - was instrumental in ensuring that Kashmir remained with India in those tension-filled years between 1947 and 1953.

But the Sheikh began having doubts about India's secularism as Hindu communal forces based in Jammu and egged on by the newly formed Jana Sangh started baring their fangs. The Hindu king of Kashmir and the Hindu right-wing elements had done little to secure Kashmir against the Pakistani raiders and army. But once Kashmir's accession was final, they began to assert themselves.

The Jana Sangh leader, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, led the agitation against the special status given to Kashmir, and his death in a Srinagar jail in June 1953, worsened the already fraught situation in the state. Sheikh Abdullah was dislodged from power and it took 22 years for him to return to the helm of the state after the accord with Indira Gandhi in 1975.

By then, most Kashmiris knew that accession to India was irrevocable. But that did not mean giving up the dream for autonomy bestowed on them by a combination of history, geography and geopolitics.

In the last seven decades, the Kashmir situation has undergone innumerable twists and turns; the Kashmiri people have experienced an excess of trauma and torment. Most of us today blame Pakistan and its 'proxy war' for the tragedy in the valley. For Pakistan, acquiring

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Kashmir certainly remains part of the "unfinished agenda of Partition".

India's military strength will likely ensure that that never happens. But India's moral claim on Kashmir - that rests on being robustly secular as a nation and on redeeming the promises given at the time of the state's accession - has for long been tenuous.

On October 24, the Modi government appointed the former Intelligence Bureau chief, Dineshwar Sharma, to carry forward a dialogue with various stakeholders in Kashmir. But Modi's tirade five days later, his equation of autonomy with secession and his party's determination to abrogate Article 370 makes any hope of a Kashmir solution - sans jackboot jingoism - that much more remote.

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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

ECONOMIC TIMES, NOV 13, 2017Finance ministry circular to Union ministries on inspection expenses 

Suppliers and vendors should be "discouraged" from paying for the travel, stay, hospitality and other expenses of inspecting officials whose primary job is to ensure standards are maintained in these firms, says a letter from the finance ministry to all Union ministries. 

The letter, sent on October 24 by the finance ministry to secretaries and financial advisers of all central ministries and departments, says such a provision risks the independence of inspection teams which among other things determine if firms are following standards or not. 

In the letter, the finance ministry says that it has been brought to its notice that contracts signed with suppliers by some ministries and departments have clauses of pre-inspection at the firm's premises, where there is a provision that the suppliers or the vendors will pay for the travel, stay, hospitality and other expenses of the inspecting officials. 

"This is not in keeping with need to safeguard the independence of the inspecting teams. Such provisions in contracts need to be discouraged, so that inspections are not compromised. Necessary steps may be taken to strictly avoid such provisions in the contracts with suppliers and vendors," the letter states. 

The railway ministry, which employs perhaps the country's largest number of suppliers and vendors for its various projects, has issued instruction on November 8 for compliance of the finance ministry's missive.

Inspection teams comprise officials who ensure that the material or goods being procured from the supplier or vendor pass the prescribed quality checks.

These inspections generally include, checking of the premises, process control, product control, internal inspection, source of procurement for raw materials and other details.

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PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

PIONEER, NOV 15, 2017RATION SHOPS IN EVERY GRAM PANCHAYAT SOON: MINISTER

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Food, Civil Supplies, Consumer Protection and Labour Minister Omprakash Dhurve said that ration shops will be opened in every Gram panchayat. Independent sellers will be appointed in those ration shops which do not have them. Timely delivery of ration at the shops and proper distribution will be ensured.

Dhurve gave these instructions at a departmental meeting organised at the Mantralaya. Warehousing Corporation Chairman Rajendra Singh Rajput, Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman Hitesh Bajpai, Principal Secretary, Food Smt. Neelam Shami Rao, Commissioner Food Vivek Porwal and senior officers of the department were present at the meeting.

Dhurve issued directions to speed up process of allotment on the basis of applications invited for opening of government fair price shops in every panchayat. It was informed at the meeting that so far applications of opening 5253 shops have been received and the process of allotment is in process. There are 5334 such shops in rural areas which do not have independent sellers.

Dhurve directed to ensure appointment of independent sellers in all these shops before December 15. He said that the programme to deliver ration to Government fair price shops is fixed. He said that it should be ensured to deliver the ration on this fixed time. All beneficiaries must receive ration mandatorily from the 1st to 21st of every month.

The Food Minister issued instructions to initiate action to release 4 lakh connections every month under the Ujjwala Scheme. He said that the department has so far given gas connections to Rs 28.94 lakh beneficiaries, which is a big achievement. It was informed at the meeting that there are 72 lakh beneficiaries in the state who have to be provided gas connections under Ujjwala Scheme. Dhurve issued instructions to speed up appointment of district president of Consumers Forum.

 

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TAXATION

STATESMAN, NOV 9, 2017GST at home & the world ~IGovind Bhattarcharjee  

On 31 August this year, the CSO released GDP data pertaining to the April-June quarter of the current fiscal which showed GDP growth falling to 5.7 per cent ~ its lowest in three years. The liberal economists joined the political opposition in painting a bleak picture of imminent collapse of the Indian economy, blaming the fall in growth entirely to the disruptions caused by demonetisation and GST. But the decline of growth only confirmed the continuing downward trend since the last quarter of 2015-16, long before Rs 1000 and Rs 500 currency notes were demonetized.

GST was introduced only in July 2017, and its impact would be more visible in the second quarter’s results, which I guess won’t bring much cheer. Behind the declining growth were such factors as a steady deterioration in the export sector, stagnant credit growth and an under-performing banking sector, combined with weakened domestic demand caused by demonetization. The introduction of GST was indeed a bold step fraught with a high political risk. So radical an economic reform can make and unmake governments.

The most striking example is that of Canada, whose GST has many features in common with the Indian GST. In January 1991, the country’s Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, introduced a dual GST like India’s, replacing a highly unpopular 13.5 per cent Manufacturers’ Sales Tax which was hurting its international trade and export competitiveness. The Government thought that a harmonised GST was the remedy.

Its Introduction in Canada was rather messy; inflation soared and growth declined immediately and GST could not raise the tax levels sufficiently in order to contain the rising fiscal deficits. The economic slump led to widespread public resentment, and GST became the object of public wrath. Mr Mulroney and his Progressive Conservative Party (PCP) had to pay a steep price for this. In the parliamentary elections of 1993, PCP’s strength in the 295-seat House of Commons was reduced from 169 to only two seats! PCP could never recover from the shock. It eventually disbanded itself and merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada in 2004.

The opposition Liberal Party under Jean Chrétien won the 1993 elections on the promise to repeal the GST but instead of repealing, it strengthened and streamlined this tax regime. Chrétien later apologised to the electorate for reneging on his election promise. Canada now administers a federal GST together with either a provincial sales tax (PST) or a harmonized sales tax (HST) levied by its provinces. While the federal GST rate has come down from 7 per cent in 1993 to 5

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per cent now, the HST attracts a uniform rate of 15 per cent, while the PST rates vary between 6 and 10 per cent. GST is a disruptive reform and needs to be managed carefully.

Managing disruption is never smooth or easy. There are bound to be hiccups which can be very unsettling, both economically and politically. To be sure, GST is not a miracle cure for everything that ails the economy. Prices take time to adjust in a market economy, and the effect of the GST can be seen only over time and not overnight.

As in India, GST in all countries has followed introduction of VAT. France was the first to introduce VAT way back in 1954. As many as 160 countries today, including all OECD countries except the US, have some form of VAT or GST.

Many countries have introduced GST by harmonising the taxes on goods as well as on services, partially if not wholly, but very few of them have a federal structure, and hence the attendant complexities like ours. Some of the countries which have harmonised the taxes on sales of most goods and services include France and Italy, UK, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Hong Kong, China, Austria, Malaysia, Canada, Germany, Russia and Australia, the last six being federations. In Australia, GST was introduced with effect from 1 July 2000. Although the idea had existed since 1975, it was always treated with considerable scepticism. The proposal was revived in the 1990s by the Liberal Party leader, John Hewson.

But after being asked by journalist Mike Willessee to explain the arithmetic of how the price of a birthday cake would be affected by the proposed GST, it was given up on the assumption of being “too complicated”. In that interview, to Willesee’s question, “You tell us in what you’ve published that the cost of cake goes down, the cost of confectionery goes up, there’s icing and maybe icecream, and then there are candles on top of it”, Hewson could only say, “ To give you an accurate answer, I need to know exactly what type of cake to give a detailed answer”.

This prompted Willesee to retort, “If the answer to a birthday cake is so complex, you do have an overall problem with the GST, don’t you?” In 1996, the Liberals won the federal elections after promising ‘never ever’ to introduce GST.

The ‘never ever’ lasted for only two years, when, under the leadership of John Howard, Liberals fought the 1998 election on the issue of introduction of GST that would replace all existing sales taxes and apply to all goods and services.

Despite a negative vote swing of 4.61 per cent, they formed the next Government and introduced GST in 1999, replacing the federal wholesale sales tax system. Gradually many State and Territorial Government taxes, duties and levies such as banking taxes and stamp duties were abolished. The consequent budget shortfall was compensated by the revenue earned from GST that was shared with the States. Simultaneously, for greater acceptance, rates of federally levied personal income-tax and company tax were reduced to absorb the shocks emanating from GST.

It was understood that this tax would take time to stabilise, and its intended consequences like reduced business costs, which would spur consumer demands, would flow over time, and no miracles could be expected in the short term. In the 2001 federal elections, the opposition Labour

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party made its rollback a centre-piece of its electoral campaign, describing it as a “bastard tax”, but lost the election.

Australian GST has a rate of 10 per cent with a system of input credits, as in India. Like in Canada or France, here also concerns were raised that GST would impact the poor much more than the rich, being a regressive tax, but the likely regressive potential was mitigated by adopting a set of measures like abolition of federal wholesale sales tax as well as some stamp duties and fuel taxes, besides effecting reductions in rates of personal income tax and state banking tax side by side with the launching of GST. But the reactions and counter-reactions were very much like what we are witnessing in India today.

The behaviour of business and consumers was also strikingly similar in the two countries. In the period leading to the introduction of GST, consumption rose sharply as consumers had rushed to buy goods that they perceived would be more expensive in the post-GST period, and traders and businesses de-stocked and cleaned up their inventory by offering lucrative discounts, just like in India. Thus immediately after GST came into effect in July 2000, both consumption and economic growth declined. Inflation soared by as much as 2.8 per cent in the quarter ending September 2000. In the first fiscal quarter of 2001, the Australian economy recorded negative economic growth for the first time in more than 10 years.

The opposition, exactly as in India, cried foul and blamed GST. As in India once more, small businesses complained of cumbersome procedures and glitches faced in online submission of quarterly Business Activity Statements to the Australian Taxation Office as required under law. A particular study estimated that costs of compliance to the new tax system amounted to 3 per cent of the annual turnovers of small businesses.

But consumption soon returned to normal and growth picked up gradually. In each of the countries that had introduced GST, the economy had under-performed in the year of its introduction, something that was anticipated and in fact, is being witnessed in India today. One study mentioned the negative impact of GST on the real estate market, projecting a steep rise in prices of new homes by 8 per cent and a steeper fall in demand by 12 per cent.

But the real estate market boomed between 2002 and 2004 with prices and demand both soaring, especially in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Ten years hence, GST was recognised as a resounding success in Australia that had replaced inefficient taxes that imposed high deadweight costs while raising little revenue. As Professor Sinclair Davidson of RMIT University wrote, “The GST was the last great tax reform that Australia experienced. In the subsequent ten years we have become accustomed to tax cuts, not new taxes.”

(To be concluded)

(The writer is a commentator. Opinions expressed are personal)

STATESMAN, NOV 10, 2017GST at home & the world ~II

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Govind Bhattacharjee  

Short-term inflationary impact has characterised the switchover to GST in almost every country, and governments had intervened appropriately to curb the trend, sometimes by adopting extraordinary measures and policies for limiting price escalation by businesses like freezing prices and profit margins, price monitoring, publicity campaign, enactment of anti-inflation laws and reduction of other taxes.

When VAT was introduced in India with effect from 1 April 2005, no such measure was adopted. As a result, there were either unexplained increases in prices, or businesses refused to reduce the MRPs despite the decline in the tax rates of their products, as pointed out by the CAG in in 2010. We ought to be more proactive this time, having learnt from the past.

One particular concern in Australia, as in India, was to ensure that there was no undue profiteering in the implementation phase and that the benefit of reduced costs was passed on to the consumers to mitigate the immediate impact of GST on prices. The anti-profiteering provisions of our GST Act derived some useful ideas from the GST Acts of Australia and Malaysia which have stringent anti-profiteering provisions in their respective GST Acts.

Social acceptance of any new tax is vital for its success, and public criticism and debates play a significant role in informing and moulding public opinion. The political risks and costs of introducing the GST are always high, but proper management of the transition and follow-up can always act as safeguards against the risks. Nearer home, Indonesia was the first ASEAN country to implement the GST in 1984.

All the eight members now have GST in place, Malaysia being the latest to join the tax regime in 2015. When a GST Bill was introduced for the first time in 2009 in the Malaysian Parliament, it attracted mounting criticism from public and political opposition, and the bill had to be withdrawn. Finally, on 1 April 2015, a uniform 6 per cent GST was introduced, replacing the salesand-service tax regime of indirect taxes.

The effect of replacement of the single-stage sales and service taxes to a multi-stage GST was highly disruptive ~ inflation went up immediately, consumer confidence nosedived and public protests erupted. But the timing of its implementation had coincided with the steep global slump in oil and gas prices between 2014 and 2016, and the successful implementation of the GST had helped the federal treasury to cushion the impact of lower oil revenues.

By that time, the public protests and opposition had also fizzled out. Twelve months later, business confidence was restored and 70 per cent of the businesses reported growth. As the Malaysian Prime Minister had rightly said, “GST has been our saviour”. Like in India, Malaysia also had a problem of black economy, with estimates ranging from 9 to 27 per cent of GDP, and emphasising the need for a more efficient and effective tax enforcement regime.

The World Bank has reported that the “hidden or informal economy” constitutes 31 per cent of the Malaysian economy. As in India during the post-demonetisation period, searches led to the seizure of black money. The procedural changes necessitated by GST were phenomenal and it

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jolted the entire gamut of commercial operations in Malaysia. At the end of June 2016, there were over 7,294 GST appeal cases, indicating the extent of the taxpayers’ grievances. But the Government had created a social safety net in the form of monetary assistance to compensate poor households, along with a package of measures to mitigate the impact of the new tax, benefiting about 4.7 million households and 2.7 million individuals, to address the adverse distributional effect of GST. But the concerns of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were not properly addressed; about one-third of the firms audited by the Malaysian Customs during September 2016 were facing problems very similar to India’s.

GST contributed about 18 per cent to Malaysia’s federal revenue in 2015, a share that is bound to increase substantially with an expanding economy. Share of GST varies widely from country to country depending on the structure of their tax systems and expenditure priorities, and the rates as well as threshold amounts also show wide variations. Thus no horizontal comparison among different countries in respect of GST will be valid. About 160 countries have adopted some form of VAT or GST, but most of these would be vastly different from the dual destination-based system that Canada and India are following.

Among the OECD countries most of which had switched over to VAT/GST during the 1970s and 1980s, Chile raises as much as 55 per cent of its total tax revenue from GST, followed by Turkey (44 per cent), Mexico (36 per cent) while Japan raises only 20 per cent of their total revenue from GST, against the OECD’s average of 33 per cent. The rate varies from 5 per cent in Canada to 6 per cent in Malaysia to 15 per cent in New Zealand to 19 per cent in Germany, 20 per cent in France and 27 per cent in Hungary. Japan had introduced a consumption tax in 1989 the rate of which was increased from 3 per cent to 5 per cent in 1997. The effect was devastating and Japan went into recession. In 2013, the Shinzo Abe government increased the rate to 8 per cent, while postponing the proposed increase to 10 per cent till October 2019.

The experience with GST of these and other countries make one thing clear ~ that GST everywhere has followed more or less the same track and has run the same course, causing similar ripples, disruptions and turbulence, but everywhere these distortions have proved to be temporary. Ultimately the new system has found its own equilibrium in every country wherever it was launched, and there is no instance of any country rolling back the new system after having launched it. Everywhere, there was an initial surge in inflation and economic growth had suffered in the immediate aftermath of the introduction.

Eventually, however, growth attained greater momentum and inflation could be controlled everywhere. The Indian experience is a repeat of this universal trend and there is no particular reason for despondency at the developments that we are witnessing again. These are the undesirable but not unanticipated outcomes, if we are to relate to the experiences of other countries in our connected world because behaviour of the consumer and businesses remains identical everywhere.

The transition phase, that we are passing through, could be longer and more difficult than one might wish, especially in a complex and diverse country like India. It is crucial that this phase be carefully negotiated, by drawing lessons from other countries. GST delivers in the long run,

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specifically a time-frame of 3 to 5 years. In the end, GST has been working well in every country.

Global experience also suggests that our GST may not be as imperfect as it is made out to be by its critics. In many countries, there are multiple rates and a wide variety of exempted goods and services, and essential supplies needed by the poor often attract a reduced rate of taxation. Real estate and petroleum are covered in some countries but excluded in others. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution; different countries have different systems at the national and subnational levels. SMEs have been affected almost everywhere.

Apart from their valid concern about lack of capacity and technological weaknesses, which need to be addressed urgently, problems have also arisen from a certain reluctance to comply with the new tax regime which makes tax evasion difficult.

Awareness and public education are essential for the success of any new system, to make way for its acceptance and voluntary compliance, without which no tax system can ever achieve its objectives. There are many lessons to be learnt from the international experiences and the sooner we learn them, the better.

(Concluded)

(The writer is a commentator. Opinions expressed are personal)

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WOMEN

ASIAN AGE, NOV 13, 2017Women in Britain are 100 yrs behind equal payThe pay gap between men and women in Britain stands at 14.1 percent, unchanged over the past two years.

 In 2016, the UK dropped from the 18th position to the 20th in the World Economic Forum's annual Global Gender Gap Report, due to a slight drop in female representation in politics and business. (Photo: Pixabay/Representational)

London: Working women in Britain face a 100 year wait to be paid the same as men, with progress towards closing the gender pay gap stalling as younger women's wages lag behind, a women's rights group said on Friday.

The pay gap between men and women in Britain stands at 14.1 percent, unchanged over the past two years, but has grown significantly for women in their twenties, to 5.5 percent this year from 1.1 percent in 2011, according to the Fawcett Society.

The data was published on Friday, dubbed Equal Pay Day in Britain, after which women effectively work for free until the end of the year because of the disparity in earnings with their male colleagues.

"We are going backwards and that is extremely worrying," Sam Smethers, Fawcett Society chief executive, said in a statement.

"The pay gap is widest for older women as it grows over our working lives but we are now seeing a widening of the pay gap for younger women too."

Allegations of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's predatory sexual behaviour have moved millions of women to share stories of harassment, often in the workplace, on social media.

Smethers said the same sexist culture revealed in the #MeToo posts suppresses women's earnings.

"We need to wake up to the fact that a culture which tolerates or even fosters sexual harassment isn't going to pay women properly either, and we know that younger women are particularly likely to experience harassment," said Smethers.

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In 2016, the UK dropped from the 18th position to the 20th in the World Economic Forum's annual Global Gender Gap Report, due to a slight drop in female representation in politics and business.

Britain became one of the first countries to require large firms to report pay discrepancies between male and female employees under a law that came into effect this year.

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